Curtain of Fear (19 page)

For a good ten minutes he cudgelled his wits for some way of dealing with such a situation, but in vain, and he was still fruitlessly going round and round the problem like a squirrel in a cage when Fedora, again half-dressed and carrying her frock over her arm, came hurrying in. Sitting down at the dressing-table, she beckoned him over to her and said in a whisper:

“I've got to do something about my hair, and we've so little time left that you must help me. I keep it long because I'm rather vain about it, but it makes me damnably conspicuous. There's always the chance that something may go wrong outside and we'll have to take to our heels. If that happens I don't want my silvery locks to be spottable from half a mile away, so I'm going to do them up in half-a-dozen plaits and stuff them under a beret. You do the back and I'll do the sides.”

It was a novel employment for Nicholas, and in other circumstances he would have been amused at playing barber to a pretty woman. As it was he worked away as quickly as he could
plaiting up her fine silky hair, and tying the ends with some pieces of blue ribbon that she had snipped off from a clean nightdress. When they had finished the plaits, she coiled them into a coronet on the top of her head and secured them rather precariously with half-a-dozen safety-pins. Then, turning her head from side to side, she smiled at her reflection in the mirror and whispered:

“There! How do you like me now?”

Nicholas never had a chance to answer. At that instant without knock or warning, the bedroom door was thrust open and Kmoch walked in. For a moment he stood surveying them with his sad brown spaniel eyes, then he said:

“I have ordered the lunch to be put back for half-an-hour. You are to return with me to Headquarters. Comrade Frček wishes to put to you a few more questions.”

Nicholas' first reaction was not fear, but indignation. Fedora had known that it would be a race against time to get her hair rearranged before they were summoned to the reception, so she had not bothered to unpack her dressing-gown before sitting down to the job, and she was still in her undies. To Nicholas their actual relationship in no way invalidated the fact that events had placed upon him some of the responsibilities of a husband, and his strong sense of decency had been outraged. Turning on Kmoch, he demanded angrily:

“How dare you come barging in like this? It is disgraceful that you should show so little respect for people's privacy.”

Kmoch gave him a faintly surprised look. “Only people who have something to hide desire privacy, so it is against the principles
of the State to permit it. The police have access at all times, everywhere; and unless the lunch is to be further postponed we must hurry. That is why I came up to fetch you myself. Please, Comrade Hořovská, get your clothes on quickly.”

Silently, Fedora slipped on her frock and adjusted her beret to cover the coronet of plaits. Then they went downstairs and followed Kmoch out to his car.

On the short drive Nicholas hardly knew whether to be pleased or sorry about this unexpected intervention, which had temporarily saved him from the ordeal of having to face the beginning of the reception. He was hoping now that some new factor might have arisen which would enable him to manoeuvre Frček into a discussion that could be sufficiently prolonged to result in the function being put off altogether; but the fact that Frček wished to put further questions to him so urgently was extremely disquieting.

At the police headquarters they were taken up in the lift to the top floor, and shown into Frček's long wide-windowed room. Without getting up from his desk, he waved them to chairs and, drawing his black caterpillar eyebrows down into a frown, said to Nicholas:

“An hour ago a cable came in from London. When it had been deciphered and handed to me, I was much disturbed by its contents. Comrade Vaněk reports that in an endeavour to prevent him sending you here you pretended to be your cousin. Explain, please?”

“That's right.” Nicholas rose to the occasion with an apparent confidence that he was far from feeling. “I told you of the importance I attached to putting off my departure for twenty-four hours, and how he refused to listen to me. When he threatened to use force I felt fully entitled to get out of being sent, if I could, by a trick; so I tried to make him believe that I wasn't the man he thought I was.”

Frček nodded his broad head. “I see. But surely that was a stupid thing to do when Comrade Hořovská was at hand to prove conclusively that you were.”

“I suppose it was; but she wasn't in the room at the time and
it was the only line worth trying that I could think of on the spur of the moment.”

“Comrade Vaněk further reports that you then attacked him, and did your utmost to escape by means of violence.”

“Well, what about it? Wouldn't you have done the same if you decided that to remain in England for a day longer was in the best interests of the Party?”

For a moment Frček appeared to ponder this, then he said heavily, “Once you had stated your case, Comrade Vaněk was the best judge of that. His report fully justifies his having used force, and sent you here as ‘a parcel'.”

“There I disagree,” Nicholas replied firmly. “But no doubt he considered that to do so was his duty, and since you seem to feel that way too, I withdraw the complaint I made against him. The whole thing was most unfortunate, but it is all over now and here I am in Prague; so it doesn't seem to me that there is much point in our arguing the matter further.”

“I am not so sure.” The black eyes bored into Nicholas'. “There is another passage in Comrade Vaněk's cable which I regard as most disquieting. He says that when, in face of Comrade Hořovská's positive identification, you admitted that you were Professor Bilto Novák, you then declared that you had changed your mind about coming to Prague, and that if he sent you against your will you would not co-operate with us.”

“That is not true. What I said was that as I had left all my notes behind at the Hotel Russell I should not be much use here without them.”

“To say that was to split straws. The loss of your notes could have proved only a temporary set-back. Your principal value lies in your abilities as a nuclear-scientist of the first rank and the information concerning capitalist-imperialist experiments in that field that you carry in your head.”

Nicholas shrugged. “That may be true; but it was all part of the same business. I was putting up any line that occurred to me, that might have induced Comrade Vaněk to let me remain for another day in London.”

“You definitely maintain that the postponement for which
you wished was only temporary, and that your intention to place your knowledge at the disposal of the Socialist Soviet Republics has never wavered?”

“I do.”

“Then you are ready and willing to set my mind at rest by giving me a sample of that knowledge?”

“Certainly.” Nicholas covered his uneasiness with a smile, while praying that he would be able to fake up enough scientific jargon temporarily to fool this gimlet-eyed, but probably not very educated, police chief. A question followed instantly:

“Tell me the gross weight of the Dr. Penney bomb that was exploded by the British off Montebello Island?”

To attempt evasion would have been fatal; in fact the only hope of averting suspicion lay in a quick, direct answer. Nicholas had nothing to go on other than the statement made in the press at the time, that the bomb was a comparatively small one; so he gambled on that and replied: “A little over nine hundredweight.”

Frček's round pasty face showed no emotion, but suddenly he shot out, “It was heavier—very much heavier. We had a report from a man who had excellent opportunities for observation.”

There was no other course open to Nicholas now but a determined bluff. With a contemptuous gesture he exclaimed, “How could anyone judge weight merely by observation! The construction of fission bombs is entirely different to that of the H.E. variety. The old types were packed solid with explosives, whereas the interior of the new ones is mainly hollow to allow for the plunger mechanism.”

“Our source would make allowances for that.”

“Perhaps. But would he have done for the new alloy the British are using in the manufacture of these bombs to improve their weight-distance ratio? That has been kept a very close secret.”

“His grading is very high. I cannot believe that he would be so far out in the estimate he gave us.”

Again Nicholas shrugged. “If you prefer to accept the guess of a secret agent to the statement of a scientist who assisted in
designing the bomb, you must do so. But what object could I possibly have in attempting to deceive you?”

“I don't know.” Frček continued to stare at him. “If you are, in time we shall find out. We always do. But at the moment I am not satisfied.” For over half a minute he said nothing, then he went on:

“I may be wrong—quite wrong; but I cannot afford to take any chances. I will speak frankly to you. The situation here is not altogether as we should like to see it. As a Czech yourself, you will know what a stubborn race we Czechs are. It has proved very difficult to convince a great part of our better-educated citizens that they should give up thinking for themselves and allow the Government to think for them. In quite a different way the rural populations of Moravia, Slovakia and Ruthenia have proved equally non co-operative. It can, of course, be only a matter of time before all sections of the population recognise the benefits of living under a People's Government, but that time has not yet come. The country is riddled with anti-social movements, and one of my major tasks is to prevent them from receiving any encouragement.”

Again he paused for a moment, before continuing: “It would be contrary to established policy to inform the capitalist-imperialists governments of your arrival here by a public announcement, so from the beginning we had to deny ourselves any prospect of a broadcast by you to the Czechoslovakian nation; but we had hoped to make use of the considerable kudos that your return brings to the Party, through a small but influential circle. The gathering which is now assembling at the Engelsův Dům consists not only of old Comrades and physicists, but also the senior faculty of the University and numerous other leaders of thought in our communal life. The majority of them are undoubtedly heart and soul behind the People's Government, but others—well, I regard their loyalty as at least questionable. The sort of greeting speech we expected you to make—one in which you would have affirmed your relief and joy at having escaped from the slavery imposed upon you by the capitalist-warmonger English—might have done considerable good with these
waverers; but even a hint that you had not come here willingly, given in private conversation to one of them, would far outweigh any good your speech would do. In no time the grapevine would have spread it all over Prague, and it would provide fresh ammunition for the people's enemies.”

“Your doubts of me are entirely unjustified,” Nicholas protested. “But since you have them, why don't you call off this lunch?”

“That is what I intend to do. I was explaining only why it is that I cannot afford to take any chances. I felt I owed you that because I still hope that we shall find you to be entirely loyal to us, and I should not like you to think later that I am taking this step without good reasons.”

Leaning forward, Frček pressed down the little lever on his intercom and said in to it. “Telephone the Engelsův Dům. Tell them that the guests are to be given drinks and light refreshments, but there will be no lunch. Professor Novák was taken ill on his journey here and is not yet sufficiently recovered to attend. It is hoped that he will soon be fully recovered, and that a lunch to welcome him will be given in a few days' time.”

Nicholas had been so dreading the possibility of something going wrong at the reception that he had deliberately made his bid to get out of it, and he was now greatly relieved. He reasoned that if Fedora's desperadoes were capable of undertaking such an elaborate escape plan as the bomb plot, they would easily be able to arrange a less spectacular and less dangerous method of getting her and himself out of the hotel that night. But he was counting his chickens before they were hatched. Frček turned to him and said:

“In these new circumstances, Professor, I shall be glad if you and Comrade Hořovská will be my guests at lunch to-day here. In the meantime I will issue instructions for a few of the men whom you were to meet at the Engelsův Dům to report here at three o'clock. They will be our leading men in your own field of research. After lunch you shall have a short discussion with them, and that will remove from our minds any doubt at all about your willingness to give us your complete collaboration.”

Nicholas only just prevented himself from giving a gasp of dismay. It was as though he had been hit hard in the pit of the stomach. The saliva ran hot in his mouth, and he felt the palms of his hands becoming moist. He knew that within five minutes of such a meeting he must be revealed as a fake; and as he was to be detained there until the Czech scientists arrived to question him, there seemed no possible means of escaping it. Desperately he sought a way, but all he could think of was to blurt out:

“I'm afraid that's no good. As I've told you, I left my notes behind.”

“You will not need any notes,” replied Frček smoothly. “All I have in mind is that you should meet the men with whom you will be working in future, and exchange with them ideas on a few general principles.”

“It's no good, I tell you,” Nicholas' voice was slightly hoarse. “It would not be at all satisfactory. I must have time to prepare a proper paper, then read it to them and answer their questions afterwards.”

Frček's black eyebrows drew together. “Am I to understand that you refuse to hold any preliminary discussion with our scientists?”