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I, naturally, am most anxious to prevent millions of British men, women and children from being obliterated by these ghastly secret weapons. If the two countries make it a fight to the finish there will be nothing worth having left to either side. Hitler has made his great gamble and lost it, but for this one thing. If you and I can prevent his using it peace will come while both nations will be little worse situated than they were in 1918 and a few years should bring full recovery to them both. It is a choice of thator destruction so terrible that those of us who are left will be living like pariah dogs in the ruins for decades to come.’
    â€˜I know it,’ she murmured, ‘but to secure this information you seek would be extremely difficult and entail great risks.’
    â€˜Naturally. But I have considerable experience in such matters; and, as far as risks are concerned, it will be for me to take the major ones. All I ask of you is to give me any lead you can and, if possible, provide a base from which I and the companion I have brought with me, who is posing as my soldier servant, can get to work.’
    Her second brandy arrived at that moment. Taking it eagerly, she again drank half of it, then she said, ‘I should like to help you, but I cannot give you an immediate answer. I must first consult my father.’
    He gave her his friendliest smile. ‘Thank you. How soon can you do that?’
    â€˜Petrol is precious. Having come in here I must not lose the opportunity to make a round of the shops for cigarettes. But if my father agrees, the sooner you leave Grimmen the better; so immediately I get back to Sassen I will speak to him then telephone to you.’
    She finished her second drink and they went in to lunch. Over the meal, he learned that the von Altern estate covered several thousand acres. Before the war it had been farmed by her husband’s cousin. When he had been called up she had taken over and still ran it with the assistance of one of the tenant farmers. It meant a lot of hard work, but had its compensations, as it enabled them to live very much better than people in the towns and cities.
    Gregory tried to draw her out about herself, but she proved very reticent. All he could get out of her was that she had married von Altern during his first year in Turkey as Military Attaché, that to her great regret they had had no children and that her father, who was a doctor, had come to live with her at Sassen soon after the war broke out. For the remainder of the time they talked about the war situation, but exercised care not to express any opinions which, if overheard by anyone at the nearby tables, would draw unwelcome attention to them.
    Shortly after two o’clock Gregory escorted his tall, somewhatuntidy-looking guest to the entrance to the hotel and bowed her away.
    At first he had been at a loss to decide what had attracted a Prussian aristocrat like von Altern, who also must have been a Nazi, to her; for she was both a non-Aryan and, he felt convinced, had had only a middle-class upbringing. But while sitting opposite her at lunch he felt still more certain that when a younger woman she must have been decidedly attractive.
    During the meal she had eaten little but had chain-smoked all through it and, although he had offered her wine, she had stuck to brandy, even drowning her ersatz coffee in it; so he thought it probable that grief for her husband’s death had caused her to take to drink. If so, that would account for the deterioration in her looks and her scruffy appearance. That she had proved intensely serious and had shown not a trace of humour gave him no concern, for he knew it to be safer to work with such a woman than one who was inclined to be light-minded and flirtatious; but he could have wished that she had a more pleasant personality.
    Sending for Kuporovitch, he told him the situation and that he had better not leave the hotel that afternoon; then he