Although his name was hardly known to the general public, it had long been respected in Government circles. To his great mansion in Carlton House Terrace, Diplomats, Generals, Colonial Governors and Cabinet Ministers often came to consult him privately on their problems and they rarely left without having drawn new strength from his boundless vitality and shrewd common sense.
He was well over seventy, but the only indication of his age was the snowy whiteness of his hair, his bushy eyebrows and luxuriant cavalry moustache. His startlingly blue eyes were as bright as ever, he stood six feet four in his socks and could still have thrown most men of forty down his staircase.
When Gregory arrived at Carlton House Terrace he was told that Sir Pellinore was at a meeting in the City; but, knowing that he would be expected to stay the night, he had his bag carried up to the room he usually occupied, then went into the library to await his host's return.
It was a fine lofty room at the back of the house with a splendid view across St. James's Park to the Admiralty, the Horse Guards and the other massive buildings in which throbbed the heart of Britain's war machine. For a few minutes he stood looking out at the tender green of the young leaves now breaking on the trees of the park, then he took from one of the shelves a copy of James Hilton's Lost Horizon and became immersed once more in that wonderful story until heavy footfalls sounded on the landing and Sir Pellinore came marching in.
'Hello, young feller! Glad to see you!' he boomed, grasping Gregory's hand in his leg of mutton fist. 'So you're fed up already with kickin' your heels in the country, eh? Well, I'd hoped you'd continue to take it easy for a bit, but we're a long way from having won the damn war yet; so if you're spoilin' to have another crack at the Nazis it's not for me to stop you.'
Gregory gave a wry grin. 'You're off the mark for once. I didn't come here to ask about another mission and I do want another few months of idleness. But, unless you can pull a fast one for me, I'm not going to get them. I've been called up.'
'Well, I'll be jiggered!' Sir Pellinore slapped a mighty thigh encased in pinstriped trousers. 'What a lark! Strap me, but this is the funniest thing I've heard for years.'
'It struck me as funny too, to begin with. But it is no laughing matter. D'you realize that they would bung me in the ranks and perhaps make me a mess waiter?'
'Not to start with! That's promotion!' The elderly Baronet's bright blue eyes glinted merrily, and he gave a great guffaw of laughter. 'At least it was in my day. Job given to steady chaps who could be trusted not to pinch the sherry or pour the soup down one's neck. After one glance at that truculent jaw of yours, any Sergeant Major who knows his business would put you on to cleaning out the latrines. That's about what you can expect!'
'But seriously, you must get me out of this.'
The under butler had followed Sir Pellinore into the room with a tray of drinks. Turning, his master waved a hand towards them. 'What'll you have? I keep most of this muck for visitors who haven't the sense to respect their guts. Stick to good wine topped off with a spot of old brandy and you'll still be chasin' the gels round the gooseberry bush when you're near as old as I am.' As he spoke he poured himself out a tumbler full of Manzanilla, then drank half of it off in a couple of gulps.
Having annexed a slightly more modest ration, Gregory asked, 'Now, what about it?'
Sir Pellinore carried his glass over to an armchair, sat down, stretched out his long legs and muttered: 'Damned if I know.
If you were a Colonel and wanted to be a Brigadier, I don't doubt I could get you transferred to a job that carries that rank. If you wanted to shift a quarter of a million in gold from Arabia to Peru, I could fix it for you. If you had a yen for an O.B.E. I'd have your name pushed in well up in the next Honours List. But this is a very different kettle of fish. You have received a summons under an order decreed by Parliament, and even Cabinet Ministers can't monkey with the law.'
'Oh come! Miners, factory workers, agricultural labourers, and all sorts of other people get exemption; but their bosses have to make the application for them, and you are mine.'
'What would you have me put you down as? Olga Petrovsky, my beautiful spy? Be your age, boy! We couldn't let the little office wallahs who handle these sort of things get even an inkling of the truth.'
'You could say that I was your confidential secretary.'
'No damn fear. Too many people are aware that you are not.'
'Well; what's to be done, then?'
'The obvious thing is for me to get you put on the strength of one of the cloak and dagger outfits; then a chit would be sent from the War House putting you in the clear. Of course, these shows are under bureaucratic control just like all the rest, as far as their establishments are concerned; so you'd be graded, paid accordingly and expected to earn the money.'
'Then I'd probably have to work in an office sifting other people's reports for hours on end every day, or find myself bundled off abroad to some place that I have already made too hot to hold me. No, thank you.'
Sir Pellinore took another gulp of sherry. 'Does that mean you've had your fill of spying? Be a thunderin' pity seeing you're so good at it. Still, after all the coups you've pulled off no one could blame you if you decided to swallow your vest pocket camera or whatever is a spy's equivalent for a sailor's anchor.'
'No. It's the most exciting game in the world; and any time that you want me to undertake another mission I'll go back into Germany for you. But I've got some common sense, and I'd like still to be alive at the end of the war. If I let myself be made into a small time operator and make a regular job of sticking my neck in the noose, all the odds are that I shan't be.'
'That's fair enough. Trouble is though that you're now in an age group in which every man jack has to have a regular job of some kind. No evading that unless you want to end up in a police court. It really would be best for you to go into one of the Services. I'd have no trouble about hoiking you out then, when required.'
'Most convenient for you, dear master. Just drop me a postcard whenever you next wish me to risk being castrated by Grauber and Co. In the meantime, I'll be in the seventh heaven alternately swabbing dishes and lavatory seats.'
'Insolent young devil,' rumbled Sir Pellinore, brushing up his white moustache. 'It won't be as bad as all that, though. I'd get you fixed up in some white-collar occupation. Pay Corps perhaps, or interviewing cooks for the Army Caterin' Service.'
'Either would drive me off my rocker within a month; and I've already told you that I flatly refuse to serve in the ranks.'
"Very understandable in a man of your attainments. I'd feel the same myself. Glad I did my service while old Vickie was on the Throne. When I joined I took my own chargers, valet and groom, and they gave me a trumpeter to ride behind me. Now if the trumpeter has been in longer it's you who have to ride behind him even if he couldn't get ten per cent marks in an average general knowledge paper. That's democracy; but there's another name for it race suicide. Mark my words, Gregory; Hitler will never smash the British Empire, but our socialist minded bureaucracy will.'