They Used Dark Forces by Dennis Wheatley

strangely with the apple cheeks, blue eyes and corn-coloured hair of the other women. Had she had black hair the contrast would have been even more strongly marked. That it was red Gregory put down to her having had a Circassian mother, but that in no way disguised the fact that she was an Asiatic.
    When they had finished eating, Willi bade them an abrupt ‘Good night’ and went up to bed. Khurrem apologised to Gregory that time had not allowed her to suggest that he mightlike a wash before the meal, then took him upstairs and showed him first an eighteen-foot-square bathroom which had an ancient bath in one corner, in another an unlit wood stove and in a third a small basin; then, some way down a gloomy corridor, the room he was to sleep in. There she left him.
    The furniture was in keeping with that downstairs, the principal item being a big, brass-headed double bed having only one blanket but two huge, square, down-filled cushions—such as were commonly seen in German houses in the last century—taking the place of an eiderdown. Dubiously he explored it to find, as he had expected, that instead of a spring mattress it had only a thin one of horsehair and below that a criss-cross of thin iron bands.
    Kuporovitch had already unpacked for him, so, having made certain that the suitcase containing the wireless was still locked, he collected his sponge bag and walked along to the bathroom for a cold wash. Twenty minutes later he went downstairs and joined Khurrem in the long, low sitting room.
    She had started a gramophone and was listening to a Beethoven symphony; so without remark he sat down opposite her. Once again she had a glass in her hand and by this time any normal woman must have shown signs of the amount of brandy she had drunk. That she did not he put down to the probability that she was an habitual ‘soak’.
    He thought it a little strange that, having consulted her father before agreeing to receive himself and Kuporovitch at Sassen, she had not yet presented them to him. But as she had said that the doctor was something of a recluse that would account for his taking his meals in solitude rather than in the communal dining hall; and it might be that he spent his evenings in study, so was averse to being disturbed.
    For the moment Gregory was amply satisfied with the progress he had made. To have spent a night at the
Königin Augusta
in Grimmen without arousing the least suspicion that they had entered Germany clandestinely, to have successfully made the most promising contact in the area that S.O.E. could suggest and found her willing to co-operate, to be established already as a welcome guest in the home of a deceased Prussian aristocrat and have a lead to a Nazi official who must knowquite a bit about what was going on at Peenemünde, was considerably more than he could have reasonably hoped for in so short a time; so, as the shadows fell, he settled down to listen to the records Khurrem put on until it should be time to go to bed.
    But his experiences for that day were not yet over. Soon after darkness had fallen Khurrem suddenly got up, switched off the gramophone, stood as though listening for a moment, then said, ‘My father now wishes to see you and your companion.’
    Without waiting for him to reply she went out into the hall, rang the hand bell for the old houseman and sent him to fetch Kuporovitch. Immediately the Russian joined them she threw open the front door and beckoned them to follow her. As they crossed the courtyard she satisfied their curiosity at her having left the house by saying:
    â€˜We have not far to go; only a few hundred yards up the road to the old Castle in which the von Alterns lived before they built the Manor. The greater part of it is now a ruin. But my father likes solitude so we made a few rooms in it habitable for him and he is looked after there by his own servant.’
    The moon had not yet risen, but, as they advanced, they saw a little