They Used Dark Forces by Dennis Wheatley Page A

There is no basis whatever for your imputation, and you have abused your position as a guest by making it. Your faulty knowledge of German has misled you, too. The
Herr Doktor
did not imply that you would betray me; only that a certain combination of our stars might bring me into danger. I insist that you apologise at once.’
    As he spoke he held the Russian with his eyes, endeavouring to convey to him that, although he had made a most regrettable gaffe, Malacou might not take its implications seriously if he were offered a complete withdrawal.
    But before Kuporovitch could reply Malacou held up his hand. His thick lips parted in a smile and he said, ‘I might have known that a Russian would smell out a Jew, since theywere for centuries the most pitiless enemies of my race. Of course Khurrem and I are Jews by blood; but for obvious reasons we take advantage, she of the fact that she is a German by marriage and I that I am a naturalised Turk, to conceal it. However, that makes no difference to the fact that we and you have a common interest in destroying the Nazis.
    â€˜When I considered whether I should allow you to use Sassen as a base for your mission I realised that if one or both of you were caught my daughter and I would pay the penalty for having given you a roof over your heads and that even if we swore that we had no knowledge of your activities that would not save us. So if now you gave it away under torture that we are Jews our case would be no worse. That being so, I see no reason why I should not admit that my name was Malacchi and tell you why I changed it.’
    â€˜I assure you that I intended no slight upon your race,’ Kuporovitch put in hastily.
    â€˜Possibly.’ Malacou’s smile gave place to a frown. ‘But you are old enough to recall the treatment meted out by your race to mine when Poland formed part of the dominions of the Czars. That Hitler has since sought to destroy my people utterly does not cause Jews of my generation to forget the pogroms. I have only to close my eyes to see again the Polish village in which I was born, a
sotnia
of Cossacks charging down its narrow street using their knouts like flails on corn as they drove the terrified people before them. Men, women and children fell screaming beneath the hooves of the horses. Then the houses were broken into, their poor furniture thrown out into the street to make a bonfire, the men unmercifully flogged, the women shorn of their hair and raped, the children forced to defile themselves by being made to eat pigs’ offal.’
    It was a terrible picture that he drew, but Gregory remembered reading accounts of such purges in his youth; and Kuporovitch knew it to be a true one. The latter said:
    â€˜I know it,
Herr Doktor
. But Russia has since endeavoured to make amends for the old Imperial Government’s persecution of the Jews. They now enjoy equal status with all other Soviet citizens. In the past twenty years I have known a number of Jews whom I respected and counted among my friends.’
    Malacou shrugged. ‘Oh, I do not hold you personally to blame. I recall those years only to explain why I left Poland in 1903.’
    After pausing a moment, he added, ‘If we are to work together we must trust one another. Sit down now, and I will tell you about myself.
    â€˜With the little money I could scrape together, I succeeded in joining an uncle of mine who had already established himself as a merchant in Turkey. During the First World War our business prospered and by 1919 I had amassed a small fortune. I had gone into commerce only as a matter of necessity; so I sold my business and as a man of independent means I was then able to give all my time to my real interests.
    â€˜Those were the study of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm, as occultists term the relation of the little world existing in each human being to the vast structure of the universe. I am not, in fact, a doctor of medicine, but my