the porters called to him from behind the desk, ‘Excuse me, sir!’
When he crossed to the desk the man handed him back his passport and with it a cheap looking envelope addressed to M. le Commandant Tavenier. Tearing the envelope open, he gave a swift glance at the single sheet of paper that it contained. It was a typed note from the French Consul General to the effectthat information having been received from the police of M. le Commandant Tavenier’s arrival in Budapest, it was requested that within twenty-four hours he would attend at 17. Fö Utca in order that his stay in the Hungarian capital might be regularised.
This was something for which Gregory had not bargained. No doubt it was only a routine matter; but all the same he had an uneasy feeling that having to make his number with the Vichy authorities might, sooner or later, land him in just the sort of tricky situation he was very anxious to avoid.
6
A Sinister Figure
On the following morning Gregory took a cab across the river to 17. Fö Utca and handed the porter at the door the summons he had received. The porter was a Hungarian and after a glance at the letter announced its bearer in bad French over a house telephone to some invisible person. He then showed Gregory into a small sunless room. It was furnished with the sparse economy typical of French officialdom, and occupied only by a dark-haired middle-aged woman. With a cigarette dangling from her lower lip she was thumbing through some dog-eared papers on the narrow desk before her. As he came into the room she gestured towards a wooden bench against one wall, then took no further notice of him.
After sitting there for ten minutes his patience began to wear thin, and he was just about to demand that she did something about him, when a door behind her opened and over her head a tall man gave him a swift scrutiny.
Returning the glance, Gregory was far from favourably impressed by the man’s appearance. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a stiff white collar, out of which arose a scrawny neck, surmounted by a hollow-cheeked face, a long narrow nose, eyes with liverish pouches beneath them and an almost bald head, that together gave him some resemblance to a vulture. With a slight inclination of his bony skull, this sinister looking individual said:
‘Monsieur le Commandant, my name is Cochefert. I regret to have had to trouble you to come here, but there are just a few formalities.… Please to come in.’
Gregory followed him into a somewhat larger but equally bleak room. Monsieur Cochefert gave him a hard chair and sat down in another behind a bare table piled high with bundles of documents. Drawing a printed form towards him and picking up an old fashioned steel-nibbed pen, he asked:
‘May I have the object of your visit to Budapest?’
Had Gregory been less experienced in such matters he would have been tempted to reply, ‘We are not on French soil, so you have no authority here. My business has nothing to do with you, and you can go to the devil.’ But he was much too old a hand needlessly to antagonise any official; so, with pleasant memories of the charming and helpful Diana, he said quite amiably:
‘I own a truffle farm in Périgord and I have come here to investigate the possibility of supplying Hungarian foie-gras makers with truffles after the war.’
‘Indeed!’ Cochefert raised eyebrows having so few hairs in them that they were only just perceptible. ‘That sounds a good idea. The paté made here is excellent, but could be much improved by the introduction of truffles.’ As he made a note on the form, Gregory saw that it already had on it Tavenier’s home address and other particulars; so the Hungarian police must have given the French Consulate a sight of his passport. To give substance to his cover story he said:
‘As a matter of fact, even if I had not had the note asking me to call here I should have done so to ask if I could be supplied with a list of the names
When he crossed to the desk the man handed him back his passport and with it a cheap looking envelope addressed to M. le Commandant Tavenier. Tearing the envelope open, he gave a swift glance at the single sheet of paper that it contained. It was a typed note from the French Consul General to the effectthat information having been received from the police of M. le Commandant Tavenier’s arrival in Budapest, it was requested that within twenty-four hours he would attend at 17. Fö Utca in order that his stay in the Hungarian capital might be regularised.
This was something for which Gregory had not bargained. No doubt it was only a routine matter; but all the same he had an uneasy feeling that having to make his number with the Vichy authorities might, sooner or later, land him in just the sort of tricky situation he was very anxious to avoid.
6
A Sinister Figure
On the following morning Gregory took a cab across the river to 17. Fö Utca and handed the porter at the door the summons he had received. The porter was a Hungarian and after a glance at the letter announced its bearer in bad French over a house telephone to some invisible person. He then showed Gregory into a small sunless room. It was furnished with the sparse economy typical of French officialdom, and occupied only by a dark-haired middle-aged woman. With a cigarette dangling from her lower lip she was thumbing through some dog-eared papers on the narrow desk before her. As he came into the room she gestured towards a wooden bench against one wall, then took no further notice of him.
After sitting there for ten minutes his patience began to wear thin, and he was just about to demand that she did something about him, when a door behind her opened and over her head a tall man gave him a swift scrutiny.
Returning the glance, Gregory was far from favourably impressed by the man’s appearance. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a stiff white collar, out of which arose a scrawny neck, surmounted by a hollow-cheeked face, a long narrow nose, eyes with liverish pouches beneath them and an almost bald head, that together gave him some resemblance to a vulture. With a slight inclination of his bony skull, this sinister looking individual said:
‘Monsieur le Commandant, my name is Cochefert. I regret to have had to trouble you to come here, but there are just a few formalities.… Please to come in.’
Gregory followed him into a somewhat larger but equally bleak room. Monsieur Cochefert gave him a hard chair and sat down in another behind a bare table piled high with bundles of documents. Drawing a printed form towards him and picking up an old fashioned steel-nibbed pen, he asked:
‘May I have the object of your visit to Budapest?’
Had Gregory been less experienced in such matters he would have been tempted to reply, ‘We are not on French soil, so you have no authority here. My business has nothing to do with you, and you can go to the devil.’ But he was much too old a hand needlessly to antagonise any official; so, with pleasant memories of the charming and helpful Diana, he said quite amiably:
‘I own a truffle farm in Périgord and I have come here to investigate the possibility of supplying Hungarian foie-gras makers with truffles after the war.’
‘Indeed!’ Cochefert raised eyebrows having so few hairs in them that they were only just perceptible. ‘That sounds a good idea. The paté made here is excellent, but could be much improved by the introduction of truffles.’ As he made a note on the form, Gregory saw that it already had on it Tavenier’s home address and other particulars; so the Hungarian police must have given the French Consulate a sight of his passport. To give substance to his cover story he said:
‘As a matter of fact, even if I had not had the note asking me to call here I should have done so to ask if I could be supplied with a list of the names
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