The Black Baroness

It's up to me to put the Black Baroness out of action, somehow.'

'Do you mean murder?' Erika said softly.

'An ugly word to apply to the execution of a traitor.'

'I shouldn't have used it. Killing is not murder, in any case, when two countries are at war; and that is not altered in the least by the fact that you and I don't wear uniforms and that our war lies behind the battle-front. Of course you must kill her, Gregory, if there is no other way; and you must have no more scruple about it than you would have had about shooting down that Nazi airman who machine-gunned your ambulance in Norway.'

'You're right, angel—absolutely right. All the same, I must confess that the idea of killing anyone in cold blood makes me feel horribly squeamish and my allotted enemy on this occasion being a woman makes it ten times more repulsive to me.'

Erika stood there, her face very white and her blue eyes wide. 'Why? You're not an ordinary man, Gregory; you're far too good a psychologist still to believe the childish myth that women are really God's little angels and on an altogether higher spiritual level than men. You know as well as I do that the two sexes don't really differ except in outward form. Women have the same appetites as men, the same instinct of self-preservation; they can be as courageous and generous or as cowardly and mean; and since the female of the species has been theoretically the under-dog until very recent times, she has had to get what she wants by cunning and trickery, so her instincts for lying and every form of deception are much more highly developed than those of the male. What is more. All she lacks in strength she makes up for in cruelty, so when one comes down to stark reality there are no grounds whatsoever for refraining from killing an evil woman with as little scruple as one would kill an evil man, when either is one's enemy in wartime. Grauber and his friends made up their minds about that long ago; and I don't blame them. I don't think that I'm a really evil woman, but you know quite well that they would kill me without the slightest hesitation if they could catch me.'

Gregory sighed. 'Your reasoning is unanswerable, but we have no proof of any kind that she has actually instigated murder, and I'm hoping that I may not have to go to extreme measures. Perhaps, if my luck is in, I'll be able to trap her somehow and get her locked up in a fortress for the duration of the war.'

It was agreed that Erika should remain in Brussels unless she heard from Gregory that he wished her to leave and that in any case he would rejoin her as soon as possible. After a lingering farewell they tore themselves away from each other and Gregory took a taxi to the station. He was in Rotterdam by four o'clock.

Before leaving the station he went to a telephone kiosk and rang up the desk at the Weimar Hotel.

Speaking in a rather high-pitched voice he said that he was an official of the French Embassy and that a parcel had arrived which should be posted to Madame de Swarle, and would they please give him her room number so that he could address the package fully.

The desk clerk replied that Madame was occupying Number 141, a suite on the first floor; upon which Gregory thanked him and hung up.

He then drove to the hotel and, going up to the desk, said that he wished to book either a suite or a comfortable room; but the desk clerk found him a rather pernickety customer. He didn't want a room facing on to the street, because of the noise from the traffic; he didn't want a room that was too high up because Hitler might let loose his Blitzkrieg at any time and the higher up one was the more danger from bombs. On the other hand, he didn't want a room down on the first floor because that consisted almost entirely of luxury suites, which were too expensive. Having rejected half a dozen suggestions with the plan of the hotel before him he finally settled on Number 242, which was the nearest he could get to being immediately above the Baroness.

When a page had shown him to his room he took a quick look out of the window, then went to bed, on his old theory that there was nothing like getting all the sleep that one could during the daytime if there was any likelihood at all that one might not get any the following night.

At a quarter to eleven he awoke, bathed, shaved and dressed; then, going down to the restaurant, where dancing was in progress, he ordered himself a substantial supper and a bottle of champagne.

By two o'clock in the morning he was back upstairs in his bedroom leaning out of the window, further to investigate the possibilities of the fire-escapes, of which he had already made a cursory examination on his arrival. There was no fire-ladder that could be reached from the window out of which he was looking, but one ran down the wall alongside the window of his private bathroom next door; and as in hotels bathrooms are nearly always built in tiers, to facilitate hot water and drainage systems, it seemed reasonable to suppose that the bathroom of the Baroness's suite lay below his bathroom.

Having examined his gun to make certain that the mechanism was working smoothly he put a small black whalebone truncheon into his breast-pocket, tied a silk handkerchief over the lower part of his face and pulled a soft hat well down over his eyes. He then put out the lights, went into the bathroom, swung himself out on to the fire-ladder and, treading softly but firmly, descended to the level of the window below.

It was in darkness but a chink of light came from between the curtains of the window to his right, which he assumed to be the Baroness's bedroom. She was still up, apparently. He had hoped that by waiting until nearly half-past two in the morning he would catch her in bed and asleep; but he had the facility of moving with almost cat-like stealth when he wished, and it did not matter materially whether he caught her awake or asleep, providing that she was alone and that he was able to take her by surprise; so he decided to go forward.

The bathroom window was about a quarter open so he eased it down to its full extent and, wriggling in over its top, lowered himself gently to the floor. The room was not in total darkness as, although there was no moon, Rotterdam was not yet blacked out and some light was given by uncurtained windows on the other side of the big square well upon which the rooms faced. He could just make out the line of the bath, the wash-basin and the shelves; but as he turned towards the door he moved with great caution, since a bathroom with its bottles and glasses is a tricky place for an uninvited visitor at night-time when with his elbow he might so easily brush something which would crash to the floor and give away his presence.

Reaching the door he turned the handle right back and pressing the door open a fraction stood there with his ear to the crack, listening intently. He could hear faint sounds of movement but no voices, so it seemed that the Baroness was alone. Opening the door further he slipped out into the passage and softly drew it to behind him. There was a light in the corridor and what he presumed to be the bedroom door was open about a foot. He could hear the movements more plainly now. After another pause of a full minute he tiptoed forward. As he came level with the partially-open door he drew his gun; then giving the door a sudden shove he flung it wide open.

The movement was so swift that the woman who was in the room had not a second to grab any weapon she might have had, or even open her mouth to shout, before she found herself covered from the wide-open doorway.

The room was a bedroom with three entrances; the doorway in which he stood and two other doors, one on his right which led to the bathroom and was shut and a second, just ajar, which evidently led to the sitting-room. A big wardrobe and most of the drawers in the room were open, and they were all empty. Two suitcases stood near the bed and the woman was bending over a white rawhide dressing-case; he had caught her just as she was completing her packing. The fact that she had packed for herself indicated that she had no maid with her, so evidently her visit to Rotterdam under the nom-de-plume of Madame de Swarle was highly secret.