'I can fix that. It is only half past three so there's plenty of time and I'll go with you to the Passport Office.'
'They'll take twenty-four hours at least to get a visa from the Germans.'
She shook her head. 'Not if I go with you. There are advantages, you know, in being Ribb's special friend. There are very few things that I couldn't get done in any of the Ministries. We'll have it back in a couple of hours.'
He grinned. 'It's nice to have a pull like that; but I'd very much rather not go to Vienna. The Gestapo are a pretty bright lot, and heaven help me if I slipped up while in their home territory. I would much rather go out through Yugoslavia, as I came in that way. Surely you've no objection to my leaving via Zagreb?'
'Yes, there is a snag to that. The Vienna express stops only at the frontier. I intend to get the Passport Control people to telephone and have you met there, and seen across it. I don't mean as an undesirable, but with special courtesies as a V.I.P. That will ensure you really leave Hungary. The train down to Zagreb makes several stops on the way; so you might get out at one of them and come back.'
'Why should I? As I have already satisfied myself that I can do no good here, there would be no point in my returning.'
She smiled at him quizzically. 'I have only your word for that. Apart from the mission you told me of you may be collecting all sorts of valuable information.'
I promise you, I'm not. And even if I were, as I have already been here a fortnight, what could another night or two matter?'
It wouldn't,' she said slowly. 'That is, if I could keep an eye on you.'
'Darling, that is the very thing I am asking you to do.' At that sign of her weakening his response had been immediate; although in making it he set a course that if followed up would put an end to his hope of being able to remain faithful to Erika. Somehow he had got to remain in Budapest overnight so as to see Count Laszlo before leaving and he could think of only two ways in which he might manage to do that.
One was to get tough with Sabine. He had few scruples, but his sense of what one could or could not do with a clear conscience forbade him luring her into the woods then binding and gagging her, and leaving her there until he put through an anonymous call to the police next morning telling them where they could find her. Gags had an annoying way of being either too loose or too tight. If the former, after a quarter of an hour's hard jaw working the victim could shout for help; if the latter, within an hour or two the victim died a most painful death from slow suffocation and he certainly was not prepared to gag Sabine in a way which would cause her more than temporary discomfort. But he could either leave her sitting here while he drove off in her car, or put her out of it on the way back. The snag was that if he used any of these ways of freeing himself from her, within an hour she would have every policemen in Budapest hunting for him, and several hours must elapse before it was any good going to see Count Laszlo; so he would have to run a high risk of arrest in order to do that and a still greater one before he could get out of the city and across the frontier.
The other possibility of pulling his chestnuts out of the fire was to persuade Sabine that he was in earnest about wanting to remain in Budapest solely on her account. If he could do that, he felt confident that a chance would occur for him to slip away from her for an hour or two and get his business settled. It was unquestionably the sounder plan and now that he was launched upon it he went on quickly:
'Listen! There is an alternative route to Zagreb which runs along the south shore of Lake Balaton. Why not let's go down for the weekend to that little hotel where we stayed before. That is two thirds of the way to the frontier; so after we've had a lovely reunion it would mean only an hour in the train for you to come down and see me over it yourself.'
'You have forgotten about Ribb.'
'But I thought you said that he was going back to Berlin tomorrow afternoon. We could still get down to that little hotel in time for dinner; and we'd have all Sunday or a whole week there together if you liked.'
"That is out of the question. I must leave for Berlin on Wednesday in any case; but it is really tonight that I was thinking of.'
It was 'tonight' that he was thinking of too; but the fact that she was now giving serious consideration to his proposal made his heart beat a little faster, as he said: 'You told me that you expected Ribb to be tied up with Admiral Horthy this evening, and you as good as promised to dine with me; so why shouldn't you?'
'He will be, and I could.' She pulled hard on a newly lit cigarette. 'But I won't be entirely free to do as I like until he is on the train for Berlin. He is staying with the Regent at the Palace, of course; and all these top men work themselves so desperately hard that it is unlikely that he will come to my house in the Szinhay Utcza to say goodbye to me until lunchtime tomorrow. But one never knows.'
'Damn him!' Gregory muttered, with a scowl. But actually he was thinking 'This could not suit my book better. If I can get the hours between midnight and dawn to work in there will be no excuse for me to stay on and go down with Sabine to Balaton.' At the same time a small devil was telling him insistently that he would be behaving like a lunatic and always regret it if he left her in the lurch and ran away from this lovely gift the gods were now offering him. Quickly he quieted the devil with the thought that he was not forced to decide either way as yet, then he said:
'Anyhow, there is nothing to stop us dining and dancing together, and meeting again tomorrow afternoon after Ribb has gone.'
'Oh, but there is!' came her quick rejoinder. 'I had made up my mind not to lose sight of you until I saw you on to the train for Vienna. After all, I can't ignore the possibility that you have made useful contacts during your fortnight here, and that a last talk with them before you go might enable you to take valuable information back to London.'
She had now come so perilously near the truth that he could only look innocent, shrug and say, 'If you think that, I'll agree to any precautions that you like to suggest against my meeting people.'
After a moment's thought, she said, 'I'll have to make you my prisoner. We will collect your things from the Vadaszkürt and you must come to my house. My servants are fully trustworthy as far as not letting on to Ribb is concerned; and they will see to it that you don't go out at any time that I am otherwise occupied.'
He laughed then. 'What an amazing situation. There can never have been another like it. Think of it as a headline "From patriotic motives famous beauty keeps her lover prisoner." But, joking apart, I surrender willingly. Bless you, my sweet, for giving us this chance to recapture past joys.'
Sabine gave herself a little shake, then laughed back at him. 'After all the good resolutions I made this morning I must be crazy to do this. But the moment I set eyes on you last night I felt certain something of the kind was bound to happen.'
Laying his hand gently on hers he murmured, 'It won't be my fault if you regret it.' And at the time he meant what he said; although at the same moment he was thinking that, in spite of her servants, short of her locking him up in a cellar he would have lost his cunning if he could not find some way of leaving her house undetected in the early hours of the morning.
Now that their long battle of wits was over and a decision had been taken, they made no further reference to the subject, to the war, to Ribbentrop or to anything which had a bearing on the strangeness of their situation. Like two knights of the same companionship who have thrown off their armour after having had to joust against one another, they suddenly became completely relaxed, free of all strain and able to talk and laugh together without further thought of the hidden implications of what they might be saying.