To Catch a King [antikvár]

PROLOGUE In July 1940 Walter Schellenberg, SS Brigadefuhrer and major-general of police, was ordered by Hitler to proceed to Lisbon to kidnap the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, then staying in a villa at Estoril after fleeing the German occupation of France. This story is an attempt to recreate the events surrounding that astonishing episode. Most of it is documented historical fact although certain sections must obviously be fictional. The person who emerges from the whole bizarre affair with most credit is the Duke of Windsor himself. For that reason I offer this book as a tribute to a gallant and honourable gentleman. Just after midnight it started to rain, and the Portuguese policeman brought a cape from his sentry box and placed it around her shoulders without a word. It was quite cold now and she walked a few paces along the road to keep warm, pausing to look back across the mouth of the Tagus to where the lights of Lisbon gleamed in the distance. A long way; not as far as Berlin or Paris or Madrid, but she was here now, finally, outside the pink stucco villa at Estoril. The final end of things, more tired than she had ever been in her life before and, suddenly, she wanted it to be over. She walked back to the policeman at the gate. 'Please,' she said in English, 'how much longer? I've been here almost an hour.' Which was foolish because he didn't understand her. There was the sound of a car coming up the hill, head-Ughts flashed across the mimosa bushes, and a black Mercedes braked to a halt a few yards away. The man who got out of the rear was large and powerfully built. He was bare-headed and wore glasses and his hands were pushed into the pockets of a dark mackintosh. He said something briefly in Portuguese to the policeman, then turned to the girl. His English was quite excellent.