Famous Last Words (26 page)

gowns, the ropes of pearls, the medals and the decorations had all been laid away in whatever vaults and drawers and cupboards kept them safe. The diplomatic corps returned to its desks and its intrigues; the secret police went about their business, screening and interrogating refugees from France. The heat was more oppressive than ever. Out in the streets whatever leaves were left—on whatever trees remained after all the years of siege Madrid had endured—

turned brown and fell into the gutters. There were even

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clouds—but never rain. It was like a perverted autumn. Only it was still July.

Isabella and I remained at the Ritz for roughly three more weeks. There was “business” to conclude, she said. But all the business excluded me—which only gave me time to

worry by the minute, instead of by the hour, about Wallis and the Duke. One day I asked Isabella point blank what the business was. Of course, it was none of my affair what she did; but her more or less constant absence had begun to wear on my nerves. Who, for instance, was she always leaving the hotel to see?

“It wouldn’t interest you,” she said.

“But I’m telling you, Isabella, it does interest me. That’s why I’m asking.”

“But you don’t even know the man.”

“Well, damn it all, the way you hot-foot it out of here every morning… .What is he? Some kind of Latin lover?”

“Hot-foot?” she said.

“It’s just an expression and don’t change the subject.”

“If you will tell me what hot-foot is, I will tell you where I go.”

“Hot-foot means to exit with undue haste,” I said rather testily. “In other words, you cannot wait to get where you are going.”

She shrugged. “I could wait,” she said. “But he can’t.”

“Who can’t?”

“The Marques de Estella.” She turned away and looked

from the window.

“But he’s a toad!” I said. “You can’t be having an affair with a toad. I…” (I was going to say ‘I won’t allow it’ but I caught myself in time.) “Well: at least now I know whose Mercedes that is you get into every morning. Dear. dear. The Marques de Estella. Of all the men in Madrid…”

Isabella was still looking down into the Gran Via at the dying trees and the soldiers sitting in the candnas drinking their wine and the rows of dusty French cars disgorging suntanned refugees from Biarritz in front of the hotel. “Of all the men in Madrid,” she said without turning around, “he is the one who can help me most.”

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“Thank you,” I said. “What a piece of news. Delightful.”

“Oh…” she said. And then she turned. With a smile.

“You mustn’t think for a moment I’m talking about romance.

How ridiculous. Though, I must admit I think you’ve gone a bit too far in calling him a toad….”

I waited. “Is it political, then?” I asked. “The cabal?”

Isabella crossed the room and picked up a pair of long

white gloves. She was on her way to meet him again. “I shall not be long,” she said. “And, if it will set your mind at ease—I suspect I shall not be seeing him after this.”

She was making for the door.

“You haven’t answered my question,” I said. “Is there not something I should know—I mean if he has to do with the cabal?”

Isabella pulled the open work veil from the rim of her hat down over her face. “I assure you.” she said. “The Marques de Estella is not one of us… .”

“Then why?” 1 said.

“Because he can help me,” she said. “And you will have

to make do with that as your answer. And now if you will forgive me, my dear friend, I must make a hot-foot to the car.” And she was gone.

The subject of the Marques de Estella was closed. She

never mentioned him again. When she returned that afternoon, her whole conversation had to do with the fact that

in a few more days we could at last return for an extended stay and rest at the Palazxo d’Aquila. Venice beckoned. We would be there the whole of August.

With the Windsors gone into Portugal, I never ceased to wonder what von Ribbentrop’s plans for them might be. 1

could not forget the excitement he had engendered, both in Wallis and myself, before he’d left. But apparently von Ribbentrop had engendered something else besides excitement

in Isabella and she told me of this one evening over plates of clams and squid brought over from the coast especially for the patrons of the Ritx. She said she had spent some time alone with von Ribbentrop the day before he returned to

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Berlin, and I had not been aware of this. I don’t know why, but it disturbed me. It had also disturbed Isabella.

“Did his Excellency speak of the immediate?” I enquired.

I was thinking of Wallis and the Duke. “Did he say what would happen next?”

Isabella appeared about to answer “yes” to this question.

And then she said, “No.” And waved her hand and allowed me to pour her another glass of wine. “Our talk was mostly of your friend, the Duchess, and of her ambition. “Without the element of personal ambition,’ von Ribbentrop said; ‘there can be no daring. And what we need now is all the daring we can muster’.”

Then Isabella said; “daring I can understand. But ambition is a sickness, is it not?”

When I thought of my mother, whose ambition had been

her downfall, I knew the answer to this was yes. But I could not say so to Isabella. I wanted her, for once, to feel there was safety in the world we moved in, that she need not

always be afraid. So I said; “sometimes ambition is the only thing that keeps us alive.”

But Isabella was ready for this, and she said. “The only kind of ambition that keeps one alive, my friend, is the kind that kills.” Then she smiled and said, “You come from America and do not know this?”

I laughed—but as much with relief at the fact she had

smiled as at what she had said.

We began to talk of Venice then, and of the month ahead of us.

But it was not to be.

In the morning when 1 went along the corridor to collect her for our journey, she was gone. And there was not a trace of her having been there. The hotel staff were genuinely confused. They had no idea where she had gone—or when—

though it must have been after midnight, which is when we parted.

I never saw her again.

But I did find something. On her bureau, neatly folded

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and weighted down with an empty bottle of Calvados, there was a fine lace handkerchief. And in the waste paper basket, traces of a fire.

This was the 20th of July. I would be unable to fathom

the meaning of her disappearance until the following October.

Berlin: July, 1940

On Wednesday, July 10th Major Walter Schellenberg left the offices of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (more conveniently known as R.S.H.A.) on the Prinz Albrechtstrasse in

Berlin and was driven to a military aerodrome on the outskirts of the city. He was dressed very much like a man going

on holiday. He carried the most mundane of luggage—a

suitcase and a Gladstone bag—and his clothes were carefully chosen: an ill-fitting cotton suit and a Panama hat that needed cleaning. He was on his way to Madrid. As he nodded goodbye to the S.S. sergeant who had driven him from the Albrechtstrasse, he flashed a handsome and even beguiling

smile and said; “when I come back you had best be prepared for a trip to the tailors, Keppel. This Major that you see departing will unquestionably come back a Colonel.” Keppel saluted and Schellenberg climbed inside the Junkers-88 that would deliver him to Madrid.

All the way west over France and all the way south over the Pyrenees and into Spain, Major Schellenberg hummed

along with the engines of the plane. He was on his way to fulfill a commission handed down from the Fuhrer himself—

and there was not the slightest doubt it would be the coup of the decade if Schellenberg could pull it off.

Schellenberg thought of the ramifications—best of all for his own career. Himmler, who undoubtedly prized him,

must be quaking in his boots at how quickly Major Schellenberg was shooting up through the ranks. He was the local

Wunderkind, and every exploit had brought him rank and

decorations. To say nothing of his share of being feared.

FR1;187

Next, he thought of what this current exploit would do

for the reputation of the Albrechtstrasse and of how furious von Ribbentrop and all his gang on the Wilhelmstrasse would be. The “war” between the Central Security Office under Himmler and the Foreign Office under von Ribbentrop was being waged for the highest stakes. Whichever office could score the greatest number of coups in this war. would achieve the greatest number of merits in Hitler’s eyes. And the “winning” chief would rise to sit at the Fuhrer’s right hand.

Schellenberg wanted that power for Himmler, mostly because one day S.S. Fuhrer Himmler’s job would be his.

Lastly perhaps the greatest pleasure of all would come

from the acting out of the commission itself. Schellenberg not only had a talent for his work—he lived for it.

Taking out his checklists, he approved the final details.

He would remain for three days in Spain, making certain of all his contacts and especially the Marques, and then would be flown into Lisbon where he would set the necessary machinery in motion.

Schellenberg began to eat the onionpaper on which the

checklist had been written. What a great shock it would be to von Ribbentrop and the Wilhelmstrasse when they realized the Albrechtstrasse had done it again. Courtesy of Major Walter—no Colonel Walter—Schellenberg, whose job it now was to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and bring them back into Spain.

Portugal: July, 1940

It was already evening when Major Schellenberg’s flowers arrived. The sun had not set; the stars had not risen; but the sea beyond the Estoril was dark and the western windows of the town appeared to be on fire. At the top of the hill music from a wind-up gramophone floated out across a terrace:

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…Though my world may go awry

In my heart will ever lie fust (he echo of a sigh,

Goodbye…

It was the cocktail hour and the sound of glasses filled with ice proclaimed the presence of at least one American at the Villa Cascais.

In the courtyard there were several motorcars, including an armour-plated Mercedes, a much travelled Buick and a low-slung Renault. The Mercedes, even now in the gathering dusk, was being polished by a Spanish chauffeur in his

shirtsleeves. The fact that he wore a revolver at his waist was in no way surprising. Everyone at the Villa Cascais went armed. It was a precaution against the treason of the times as much as against the intrigues of the house. This was )uly the 27th—a Saturday—and the Villa Cascais, though situated in neutral Portugal, had become a fortress due to the presence of the Duke of Windsor and his duchess from Baltimore.

So far as the flowers were concerned: the bouquet in a box was brought up the hill by a child whose name was Maria da Gama. The girl had been carefully chosen. Maria was ten and a peasant who could neither read nor write. Unlike

everyone else, she had no trouble getting past the guard at the gate. Her sister Alida happened to be the guard-onduty’s noiva, or betrothed, and Maria often carried messages between the two.

The girl knew nothing of what she was doing. A box containing flowers must be taken up the hill and delivered at

the door. Nothing could be less sinister. So far as Maria was concerned, if she was lucky she might receive the bonus of a glimpse of the ex-King of England. She might even see the famous American harlot, whom everyone said had snared

the King by making love in ways unheard of by the common folk of the town. Had the Lady Simpson not resided many years in the Orient? Had she not returned with a secret potion which, when applied to the thighs, made centaurs out of men? And was it not a fact the King wore a dress called a kilt in order to accommodate the transformation of his lower self…?

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The guard and Maria exchanged their usual pleasantries

and she was allowed to pass beyond the gates and enter the courtyard.

Passing the Spanish chauffeur, Maria was not in the least intrigued by the gun nor even by the motorcar being polished.

She was looking in the flowerbeds for hoofprints

and listening for the cries of centaurs. All she saw was dahlias. All she heard was Noel Coward. “Just the echo of a sigh…”

She made her way across the stones and stood before the door. For a moment she looked from side to side in an effort to see through the windows. Nothing presented itself but a human hand that pressed its fingers on the glass. Not a sign of prancing horsemen. Finally, she pulled the chain that rang the bell. From far away she heard approaching steps—

all too human and brisk, as if the poiicia were answering her call.

The door was opened. Maria saw a wide, bright foyer hung with paintings and a tall grand staircase. The foyer was so large the whole of her father’s house could be fitted inside.

“Sim?” a masculine voice enquired.

Now came the moment of her speech. Maria gulped and

spoke: “Fiores. Para a duquesa.faz favor,” she said, exactly as she’d been told to say. Then, again precisely as rehearsed, she thrust the box of flowers in the direction of the nameless figure before her and fled. She must not be questioned once the box was delivered. That was the final rule. No one was ever to know who had placed it in her hands. Many escudos had guaranteed this procedure. Some had already been given; others awaited her return to the foot of the hill. So in spite of her great disappointment not to have seen the King in his kilt and centaur’s haunches nor the Lady Simpson with her Oriental potion in its jar, Maria ran like a whirlwind across the stones and through the gates.

The Villa Cascais was the summer home of Doctor Ricardo de Espirito Santo e Silva, one of Portugal’s richest and most influential bankers. Due to “considerations”, about which he shrugged and refused to commend Doctor Kicardo had