Curtain of Fear (16 page)

Kmoch got out, told the driver to take it round to the garage and continue to stand by, then shepherded his charges into a lofty pillared hall. A number of very smartly turned out State Police were standing about there, and a few civilians most of whom had the appearance of tough plain-clothes men. One of a row of pretty uniformed lift girls smiled ingratiatingly at Kmoch and took them up to the top floor. There an even prettier secretary received them and ushered them into a comfortably-furnished waiting room; but they were not kept waiting long. After speaking over an intercom, she took them along a short passage, and showed them into her boss's office.

It was a fine oblong room, one of its longer sides being entirely formed of glass, which gave it a magnificent view over the rooftops of the ancient city. The floor was uncarpeted but of a slightly yielding synthetic rubber substance that made it pleasant to walk upon. The walls were panelled in light woods, the fittings chromium plate, and the furniture tubular. At one end of the room Comrade Frček sat behind a glass-topped desk that had on it only a writing pad, an intercom and a battery of different-coloured telephones.

He was a biggish man, but bulky rather than tall, and at first glance it struck Nicholas that there was something old-fashioned about him. The impression was probably due to the fact that he was wearing a stiff white collar with a black jacket and pin-stripe trousers, yet he looked more like a well-paid artisan in his Sunday
best than the traditional senior civil servant. His features, too, were the reverse of intellectual. Jet black hair and bushy eyebrows sprouted from his massive head, which was set upon a short thick neck; his nose was pudgy and his mouth gross. Only his round, black, piercing eyes gave any indication of the liveliness of his mind, and they stood out with special vividness because the skin of his moon-like face had the unnatural matt pallor sometimes seen in men who are incapable of growing a beard.

Getting up from his desk, he came round it, and ignoring the others shook Nicholas warmly by the hand, booming meanwhile in a deep bass voice that belied any lack of virility suggested by his beardlessness.

“My congratulations, Professor, on your safe arrival. Your decision to leave the decadent democracies of the West and return to the land of your birth has been warmly applauded by all your fellow-countrymen who have so far been permitted to know of it. As a representative of the People's Government, I speak for the dumb millions whom it is our privilege to serve, in welcoming you back amongst us. I can only add how distressed I was to learn that there had been some sort of … er, trouble about your departure from London.”

Nicholas' bent in life did not lie towards amateur theatricals, but he knew that half the secret of success in the histrionic art lay in throwing oneself heart and soul into a part; so, having decided to play Bilto, he returned the vigorous handshake and replied in the pompous manner that he felt best suited to the circumstances:

“Comrade Frček, I accept your welcome to Prague in the spirit in which it is given. I should never have left it, had not my position as a known Marxist-front-worker meant death if I had stayed on after the city fell into the hands of the Nazi-imperialist-swine. But I have a most serious complaint to lodge against your London headquarters staff. Are you aware that they laid violent hands upon me there, and that at the orders of Comrade Vaněk I was forcibly given an injection?”

Frček's moon-like face showed sympathetic concern. “Comrade
Kmoch reported to me half an hour ago that you had been sent as … er, what we term ‘a parcel'; and I am completely at a loss to understand it. That you no longer appear to be suffering from the effect is some comfort. But come and sit down, and we will go into the matter.”

With a glance at the others, he added, “Comrade Hořovská, Comrade Kmoch; please also be seated.” Then, when they had settled themselves, he went on: “Now, Comrade Professor, perhaps you will give me an account of what occurred?”

Nicholas ran a hand through his rumpled red hair, and said with a frown, “Everything had been fixed up satisfactorily about the date of my departure, and all my own arrangements for leaving went without a hitch, until the last moment. Then an unforeseen crisis arose. I learned by chance that my going might implicate an old friend of mine—a Marxist comrade of long standing whose work is of great value to the Party in London. Both friendship and the interests of our cause decided me that I must postpone my journey for twenty-four hours in order to inform him of the steps that he should take for his protection. In consequence I allowed myself to be taken to Comrade Vaněk's headquarters as arranged, but only with the intention of telling them there what had happened, and that I could not travel that night. Comrade Vaněk then acted in a most arbitrary fashion. He said that in no circumstances could my journey be postponed. When I refused to leave he orderd his people to seize me. I was overpowered and given an injection which made me extremely ill. Comrade Hořovská was present the whole time and will bear out all I have said.”

She nodded her sleek blonde head. “Yes, Comrade Frček, that is exactly what happened.”

Frček continued to look sympathetic. “Of course, Professor,” he said after a moment, “you will appreciate that in the Party an order is an order. Comrade Vaněk had his instructions to send you to Prague on a given date, and he would naturally have been most reluctant to disobey them unless he could afterwards give a fully satisfactory reason for having done so.”

“He could hardly have had a better one,” Nicholas retorted
truculently, “as my decision to put off my journey was in the interests of the Party.”

“Quite, quite. But I wonder if you made that really clear to him?”

“Unless he is a complete fool, he could not possibly have misunderstood what I said.”

Frček's black eyes bored into Nicholas' brown ones, as he asked quietly, “Do you not think it possible that Comrade Vaněk may have got the idea when you said you wished to put off your journey that you really had in mind a longer postponement than twenty-four hours?”

This sudden switch to dangerous ground caused Nicholas' throat to contract, but he returned the stare unwinkingly. “Certainly not. I gave him no reason whatever to suppose so.”

The big man tapped his desk thoughtfully with thick, pudgy fingers. “You see, Professor, you are of great value to us. If Comrade Vaněk formed the impression that you had become troubled by doubts at the last moment—in fact that you had changed your mind and did not mean to come here after all—he would have been fully justified in acting as he did. I suppose you hadn't changed your mind?”

“I regard that as an insult!” Nicholas cried indignantly, jerking himself upright in his chair. “My whole life vouches for my devotion to the workers' cause! There must be scores of Comrades still living in Prague who will remember me as a leader of the Marxist student group.”

The words were hardly out when he wondered anxiously if he had gone too far. If Frček sent for some of the old Comrades he claimed to have led, the game would be up. But his bold stroke had had the desired effect, at least for the moment.

Frček was smiling as he said, “I intended no insult, Professor, and I accept your version of this unfortunate affair. Comrade Vaněk was obviously over-zealous in carrying out his orders. In an experienced and responsible official that is almost as bad a fault as slackness; so I shall at once send a severe reprimand to London. Regarding those old Comrades that you mention, a number of them are greatly looking forward to a reunion with
you at the lunch we have arranged in your honour. But if I may say so, you look remarkably young to be their contemporary.”

At that Nicholas felt a cold chill run down his spine. It had temporarily slipped his memory that he was ten years younger than Bilto, but a second's thought told him that nothing could be behind the remark. Forcing a laugh, he said:

“A youthful appearance runs in the family. My grandfather hadn't a grey hair on his head when he died at the age of seventy.”

Again he could have bitten out his tongue. It was of his English grandfather he had been thinking. One of Bilto's grandfathers had died before Bilto was born, and the other when under sixty. He had given himself away completely if Frček knew anything about the Prague branch of the Novák family. For a moment he held his breath, while realising to the full the awful strain and terror of slipping up which must, afflict a guilty criminal under cross-examination. His sigh of relief was almost audible as the big man gave a casual nod, then stood up and addressed Kmoch:

“Everything is now in order. You will take the Professor to Engelsüv Dúm and see that he has everything he requires to refresh himself before the reception.”

“Certainly, Comrade Minister. Kmoch hesitated a second, then asked, “What about Comrade Hořovská? She told me at the airport that she is the Professor's Comrade-companion.”

Frček smiled. “In that case arrange for her to be accommodated there with him. I remember now that some undertaking was given for one of our women agents to be placed at his disposal when he arrived in Prague, and naturally we wish to do all we can to make him comfortable here.”

For a moment his glance rested on the quietly-dressed girl, taking in her big green eyes, the fine-spun silvery hair that fell to her shoulders, and brazenly stripping the clothes from her slim figure; then he turned to Nicholas with a vulgar leer:

“Congratulations, Professor. Your taste in women does you credit; but when you tire of her let me know, and I will arrange for you to be given an opportunity to pick another. We have in Prague a good selection of Comrade-companions for the recreation
of the privileged few, and the importance of your work will entitle you to be counted among us.”

His reference to ‘the privileged few' left no doubt in Nicholas' mind that a joke was intended, and while he regarded such humour as in the worse of taste, he thought it advisable to play up to it; so he laughed and said, ‘Thanks for the offer, Comrade. It is nice to know that you retain the good old customs of the Austrian nobility.”

The big man gave him a queer look and remarked rather sharply, “They were decadent parasites battening on the life-blood of the people; we work tirelessly for the welfare of the people and give expression to their will; so I fail to see the point of your analogy.”

Nicholas was greatly puzzled, and now quite out of his depth, as it seemed to him that this must be another joke, but he could not be certain; so he said hastily, “I … er, I'm afraid my Czech is not very good. It's so long since I spoke it that you must have misunderstood me.”

“Perhaps I did.” The black eyes in the big white face, which looked like currants in an uncooked bun, became guardedly affable. “In any case, I will not detain you longer now, Comrade Professor. It is no part of my functions to attend the type of luncheon at which you are to be the guest of honour to-day, but I shall hear all about it. I am sure we can rely on you when making your remarks to raise no controversial questions, and to impress everyone present with the relief you must feel at having thrown off the shackles of slavery under the British oligarchical-plutocracy.”

Although Nicholas had often referred in his articles to the wage-slavery of dock-labourers, cotton-operatives, ship-stokers, and others who were still ‘exploited' under private enterprise he had never really thought of them as slaves, much less himself. But he felt that due allowance must be made for hyperbole and Comrade Frček's probable lack of knowledge of actual conditions in Britain; so he said that he would do his best, and with heartfelt relief at having got safely through this dangerous interview, accepted his dismissal.

Little fat Kmoch shepherded Nicholas and his blonde ‘Comrade-companion' down to the ground floor, summoned his car and told its driver to take them to the Engelsův Dům. The way to it lay through the so-called ‘New Town', which in the old days was the fashionable heart of Prague, and Nicholas could not help being struck by its deterioration.

He was neither surprised nor sorry to see that all the jewellers, milliners, modistes, antiquaries, and other de luxe shops which pandered to the foibles of the rich, had disappeared, and that their places had been taken by others showing only cheap clothes or utility goods. But his expectations were sadly disappointed when it was borne in on him that many of the shop windows were half empty and that none of them seemed to have had a coat of paint for a generation. He noticed, too, that while every tram they passed was packed to overflowing, there were very few private cars about, and that the people in the streets, although reasonably well clad, had a generally despondent and down-at-heel appearance.

As the car turned into the broad Wenzeslas Square, Kmoch said quietly, “I should tell you that as neither of you have yet been given official papers it would not be a good thing for you to go out into the town. Not that you will have much time to do so before the reception, but I mention this to save you the unpleasantness of being turned back by the door porters should it have occurred to you to take a short walk. They have orders that no one unable to produce an identity card should be allowed to leave the hotel.”

Nicholas quickly suppressed the impulse to give a worried glance at his Comrade-companion. He wondered anxiously if she would be able to find a way for them to evade this formidable obstacle to getting out. He needed no telling that he had burnt his boats with Frček; so if she could not he was in it up to the neck.

Two minutes later his mind was temporarily taken off this new anxiety by being diverted to memories of his youth. The car pulled up before the Engelsův Dům, and it turned out to be the old Hotel Ambassador now renamed in honour of Karl Marx's collaborator. As he followed the others into it he smiled a little grimly to himself. Long ago Bilto had pointed it out to him as a sink of iniquity, at which millionaire industrialists squandered the wealth wrung from sweated labour in such pastimes as bathing French chorus girls in champagne and drinking it out of their slippers. As a youngster he had often afterwards stared at it in passing with a mixture of curiosity, awe and secret envy; but he had never expected to enter it, let alone with the prospect of being given a room with a young woman who, if more suitably dressed, or undressed, would have qualified for a place in the Folies Bergère.