Come into my Parlour by Dennis Wheatley Page B

but at least that house-painter feller can’t stop us getting lobsters off our shores, and some of those nectarines you brought up won’t go down too badly with a bottle of Yquem.”
    Having partaken of Sir Pellinore’s Lucullan hospitality, Gregory made a few purchases in the West End, spent an hour at his club and caught the six-ten back to Shrewsbury, where a car met him and carried him to Gwaine Meads in time for a late supper.
    The major part of Sir Pellinore’s stately home was now an R.A.F. hospital. Before the war was twenty-four hours old he had said to one of his friends in the Air Ministry: “Have the place fitted up for as many convalescents as it will hold and send the bill to me. No commandeering, mind. Everyone who stays, patients, nurses, doctors, gillies, cooks—are all my guests, and each one is to be told so individually. It’s not that I want any thanks, but if they know that they’ll have the decency to refrain from burning the Jacobean staircase and makingbawdy additions to my Angelica Kaufmann frescoes. Send me a monthly account of what it costs to run and I’ll pay the whole shooting match, but the west wing is to remain untouched and at my disposal. I may want to send friends there to recuperate if they’ve been through a rough time. Understand?”
    The Air Marshal, being a man of sense, had “understood” and, at the price of considerable inroads into even his enormous fortune, the elderly Baronet still enjoyed the amenities of a dozen rooms in his beautiful country home, although he was much too occupied with the war ever to go there himself.
    Since Erika had been evacuated from Dunkirk he had insisted on her making her home there, so Gregory also spent nearly all his time at Gwaine Meads whenever he was in England. At the moment, Sir Pellinore’s other private guests consisted of Stefan Kuporovitch and Madeleine; an elderly scientist who was recovering from a breakdown due to overwork and a young Guards officer who had recently been cashiered. The others did not know it, but he had acquiesced in fake charges being laid against him for highly secret reasons. None of Sir Pellinore’s guests ever enquired into one another’s business. It was quite sufficient for them that they had all been sponsored by him, and they got on excellently.
    Although Erika lived in the private wing she had long since taken on voluntary duties in the hospital, and Madeleine, being a fully trained nurse had, after a brief holiday, also joined the staff. In consequence, the two girls were busy most of the day, so on the Friday morning Gregory had no difficulty in getting Kuporovitch to himself.
    In this second summer of the war the gardens had lost some of their former splendour, but a few old gardeners managed to keep them tidy and a number of the convalescents often amused themselves by running the motor mower over the lawns, so the turf on to which Gregory led his friend, in order to be out of earshot of everybody, was still smooth and springy.
    â€œI saw Sir Pellinore yesterday,” Gregory opened up in French, which they still used as a common language. “And he wants me to do a job for him in Russia.”
    â€œ
Mais, mon vieux!
” The Russian’s black eyebrows, that contrasted so strangely with his grey hair, lifted, wrinkling his smooth forehead. “You would be crazy to attempt under-cover work there, seeing that you can hardly speak a word of Russian.”
    â€œThat’s exactly what I said, and he suggested that I should take you as my interpreter.”
    Kuporovitch’s lazy blue eyes remained quite expressionless for a moment, then he said: “You know as well as I do that for me to returnto Russia is to court death. Yet I am not afraid to die, and would risk my life willingly if by so doing I can serve my country.”
    â€œSir Pellinore proposes that, if you agree to go, he should take out naturalisation papers