The Black Baroness

'That's it,' Gregory grinned. 'I had good sport, too; only, instead of salmon, I was after water-rats.'

'So I gathered. And if only the Government had acted on your information we wouldn't be in our present ghastly mess. But what have you been up to since the invasion?'

'Oh, I saved King Haakon's life several times and pottered round a bit, generally.'

'Ha, that sounds interesting. Tell me about it.'

'I will later on, but first of all what about Erika? I've been worrying myself silly as to whether she succeeded in reaching Holland and managed to get in touch with you.'

Sir Pellinore's bright-blue eyes twinkled. 'She's safe enough. I think I ought to break it to you gently, though. You've got a rival, Gregory, my boy.'

'Eh? Say that again,' said Gregory.

'Yes. After all, you can't expect to leave a lovely woman like that trailing about Europe all on her own without anyone to hold her hand or tuck her up at nights. I will say you're a good picker, though, and she's worth six of that Hungarian witch that you produced some years ago; although Sabine was admittedly an eyeful.'

A slow smile broke over Gregory's face. 'You old rogue! You've seen her, then?'

'Yes. Where d'you think I've been these last three days while you've been sleeping your head off in London? That young woman of yours has a pretty taste in food, too. We dined last night at the Fillet de Sole in Brussels.'

'How was she?'

'As pink as a peach and as plump as a partridge. And we were getting on famously. Great pity I had to fly home this morning—great pity. Another few days and we'd have got to the tucking-up stage.'

Gregory helped himself to another glass of the bone-dry sherry as he laughed: 'At your age? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!'

'What's age got to do with it?' Sir Pellinore ran a large hand over his fine head of white hair. 'A woman's as old as she looks and a man's as old as he feels. Don't be deceived by that rot in Debrett that says I'll never see seventy again. I'm somewhere in the early thirties.'

'My arithmetic must be at fault, then. I had an idea that way back in the 'eighties you had already acquired a reputation for having an eye for a horse or a pretty woman and an infinite capacity for vintage port.'

'Ha, you're jealous, eh? That's what makes you dig up that old story. Not a word of truth in it, either.

Everyone knows that I've lived a life of simple rectitude within my modest means.'

'I might be able to manage a life of simple rectitude myself if I had your income,' murmured Gregory.

'What is it now— eighty-thousand a year?—or have you touched the hundred-thousand mark?'

"There you are! Jealous again of my little successes in the city. But jealousy won't get you anywhere.

You know you won't be able to keep that young woman of yours for a week if only we can manage to get her over here.'

'I wish to God you could,' said Gregory seriously.

'So do I.' Sir Pellinore stopped his chaffing. 'She's being very useful to us, but I've always held that it's wrong to flog a willing mare. After the many services she has rendered she ought to be brought out of danger for a few months at least, but she's got a bee in her bonnet about its not being right to accept the hospitality of Britain while we're at war with her country. I did my damnedest to persuade her to take a rest but I couldn't budge her an inch.'

At that moment the elderly butler announced dinner, so they went downstairs, where Gregory found that the war did not, so far, appear to have in the least affected the magnificent kitchen maintained by his plutocratic host. Over the rich, well-chosen meal he told Sir Pellinore of his adventures in Norway and gave him a much more detailed account of the time that he had spent in Germany, Finland and Russia than he had been able to send from Leningrad in the long letter that he had despatched via the Consul there and the Moscow Embassy Bag. The magnum of Louis Roederer 1920 that they drank had lost the exuberance of its youth, but mellowed to the flavour that only age can give, and was perfection from never having been moved out of Sir Pellinore's cellar since the day it had been laid down. They had finished it and were already on the old brandy by the time Gregory came to the end of his recital and, after a short pause, remarked: 'Well, how goes the war?'

'It doesn't go,' replied Sir Pellinore glumly. 'The Government is dying on its feet and for months past it's been dead from the neck up.'

Gregory swivelled the old brandy thoughtfully round the very thin, medium-sized, balloon-shaped glass and smelt its rich ethers appreciatively. 'So I rather gathered from the people I've met in the last few days. It seems that the Socialists and the more energetic Conservative back-benchers are getting a bit fed up with Chamberlain.'

'Chamberlain,' boomed the baronet, 'was right about Munich—right every time. We wouldn't have stood a dog's chance against Hitler if we'd gone to war with him then. Chamberlain was clever enough to trick him into giving us a year to rearm, and in spite of the innumerable things that should have been done and yet were not done, at least the groundwork was laid which saved Britain from immediate and probably irremediable defeat. Whatever may happen to Chamberlain now, when history comes to be written he will assume his rightful place as a great and far-seeing Prime Minister who had the courage to accept the odium for having made Britain eat humble pie over the surrender of Czechoslovakia so that she might have a chance to save herself.'

'What's the trouble now, then? Is he a tired man, or is it that his heart isn't really in the war?'

'He's getting on in life and he hasn't been too well, so probably he's feeling the strain; but it's not that, entirely, and I'm convinced that, although he did his absolute utmost to avert this terrible calamity which has overtaken the world, once the war was on he became as determined as any man in this country to do his damnedest to defeat Hitler. He is very shrewd and extraordinarily far-sighted. He only came into politics comparatively late in life and his long experience of business is an enormous asset to him in many ways, but he was raised in the tradition of Birmingham, where for a century past it has been the habit of the great manufacturers to deal honestly with their customers all over the world, but slowly and methodically, on the theory that there's always plenty of time and that it is better to reject an order from a doubtful source than to risk a bad debt by snatching it from under the nose of a competitor.

'Such methods are of little use when you're up against a gangster. In dealing with Hitler honesty is not the best policy and there is not plenty of time thoroughly to investigate possibilities before every fresh liability is entered into. Risks must be taken, and not a moment of a single day should be lost in reaching definite decisions which may help to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. That is why, although Chamberlain served us well in peace, he is not a good war leader.'

'But surely,' Gregory interjected, 'there must be many energetic men who are pressing him all the time and stressing the necessity of his developing a more vigorous policy?'

'There are; but Chamberlain does not trust them. He has a deep-rooted suspicion as to the motives of anyone who even faintly smacks of the "go-getter" mentality and he refuses to recognise that it is the

"go-getters" who win wars. The trouble is that he's a very unapproachable man; he doesn't make friends easily, but when he does he's very loyal to them and relies upon their opinions which are definitely not the opinions of the nation. He listens only to this little group of life-long friends, and the tragedy of it is that nearly all these people who hold high office under him are the proved incompetents who served under Baldwin; the men who lowered the prestige of the British Empire to such a parlous state that we dared not even face up to the Italians over the Abyssinian business—let alone tackle the reborn German nation at the time of Munich.'