'That's a possibility,' he agreed. 'I've had no chance yet to make a detailed study of the place. We mustn't rush our fences, and I mean to pay you several visits so as to acquire a thorough knowledge of the setup before deciding on a plan. That is why I want you to answer some questions about the Moldavians. I was specifically instructed to get out of you all I could about them, and if I go back empty-handed I may not be allowed to see you again.'
'In that case I'll try not to be too cagey. What exactly do they wish to know?'
He took out the list and handed it to her. Several of the questions were about members of the Embassy staff what views they expressed on the course of the war, whether they appeared to be short of money, etc.; others were about frequent visitors to the Embassy; and others again about people not connected with it but with whom Sabine had been seen while she was being watched.
'These are the sort of things they have been asking me for the past three days,' Sabine commented. 'Some of the answers I don't know, but I could have answered most of them and only refrained because I thought it wiser to refuse to talk at all. As it is going to help I'll tell you all I can.'
For some minutes he took notes of the information with which she furnished him; then he asked, 'Was it to Colonel Kasdar that you actually gave your stuff?'
'None of the questions on the paper ask me definitely to incriminate anyone,' she protested, 'so why should you ask me to?'
'That last question was off the record, and I should have told you so. I have a very good reason for wanting to know which of the Moldavians it is who is acting as a Nazi agent, and you must trust me. I suggested Kasdar because he is the M.A. and I chanced to see you dining out with him. Am I right?'
'Yes, it was Vladan Kasdar. But he is a nice person; and I should hate to get him into trouble.'
'As he is sheltering behind diplomatic privilege the worst that could happen to him is that our F.O. should declare him non persona grata, and ask for him to be sent home. Anyway, you need lose no sleep about him, because now I know that he was your contact I mean to keep him in the clear. I shall cast suspicion on someone else: probably that nasty piece of work the Second Secretary, Nichoulic. Now, I want you to write a line for me to Kasdar.'
'Must I?'
'Yes. After I have got you out of here that is, if I can without his aid there would be very little chance of your avoiding recapture.' As Gregory spoke he pushed along the table his fountain pen and a sheet of the paper he had been using to make notes. Then he told her that all he needed was a few lines addressed to Kasdar, saying that she had seen him that day and he was completely to be trusted.
When she had written them and passed the paper back, she remarked, 'How nice you look in uniform. I thought so that night I saw you in the Cafe Royal. What rank do those three rings on your arm give you?'
'Wing Commander.'
'That is Colonel de I'Air, isn't it?'
'Yes; though I'm a very phoney one, and have nothing to do with aircraft. It is simply that the system here, generally speaking, is that the rank one holds goes with the job one does. Mine is a Wing Commander's post; so, although I was temporarily seconded for special duty abroad, they kept on putting me up a rank a month until I reached it.'
Gregory asked her then how she was being treated.
She replied that the food was awful, and that she would give anything for some good warming wine to drink in the evenings as the fog which rose from the river most afternoons seemed to penetrate everywhere, and made her cold and miserable. But she had no legitimate complaints, and preferred being there to the one night she had spent in Brixton with its awful smell of cooked cabbage and disinfectant.
From his pocket he produced a box of pills, and said as he gave them to her. 'Hoping that I'd be allowed to see you, I had these made up yesterday. They'll do you no permanent harm, but if you take them according to the instructions on the box they will cause you to run a temperature. Take care that neither of the wardresses sees them and make a start tonight.'
'Of course, if you wish me to.' She raised her dark eyebrows. 'But what is the idea?'
'I want you to appear too ill to stand up to further interrogation for a few days. You see, even if I succeed in getting you out of the Tower that alone won't save you. The police would catch you and pop you back in again unless I can first arrange for you to go to some really safe hideout, or get you shipped off abroad. To make those sort of arrangements takes time. I am confident that M.I.5 won't send you to trial until they think they have got all they can out of you, but there is a limit to the spread over that I can manage with the information you can give me. So this is a device for postponing our next talk till, say, Thursday. We had better not risk a longer interval than that in case a specialist is called in and tumbles to it that you have been doping yourself.'
A few minutes later, he congratulated her on the courage she had shown so far, urged her to keep it up, and rang the bell for Mrs. Sutton to let him out. When the wardress had done so he said to her:
'Now that I have been put on this case I'd like to get a full picture of the prisoner's surroundings and the routine she follows. I've no wish at all to interfere materially with your arrangements, but sometimes quite slight changes make them much more amenable to reason.'
Mrs. Sutton obliged at once. She reeled off the schedule for Sabine's day, then took him up the short flight of stairs leading up from the hall. Above was a servant's bedroom from which the furniture had not been removed and in it Sabine was locked up at nights. When they came down she conducted him over what must in normal times have been a spacious and charming flat. Now, most of its rooms were half empty, with soot in the fireplaces and on the floors plaster brought down by the bomb blast. They then looked in on the room which was being used by the two wardresses as a bedroom; and lastly visited the kitchen in which the other wardress, a Mrs. Wright, had just started to prepare the evening meal.
Mrs. Wright had carroty hair and a freckled face. She was somewhat younger and a little taller than Mrs. Sutton but looked just as formidable. Gregory shook hands with her. He did not suggest any changes, said that he expected to be there again the following day, and took his departure.
Outside, there were no taxis to be had, so he took the Underground to St. James's Park, picked up one there and had himself driven to Boodle's. After an hour spent drinking with friends in his Club, he walked across the road to the M.I.5 building. Five minutes later he was making his report to 'Himmler.'
Having greatly intrigued the purposeful looking Colonel by giving him Sabine's version of Ribbentrop's plot for planting her on Sir Pellinore, Gregory doled out some of the information she had supplied about the Moldavians. After the past failures of his regular interrogators this was quite enough to encourage the Colonel to leave the interrogation in Gregory's hands, and even to press him to push on with it.
Gregory said that as he was due to go on night duty after dinner and would need a few hours' sleep in the morning, he would prefer not to go to the Tower again until the following afternoon. He added that he thought it would ease the wheels a bit further if he might provide the prisoner with some drink and, when he had a chance, collect for her some of her warmer clothes that she had left at Carlton House Terrace.