Curtain Of Fear Part 10

"To you, perhaps. But it has not been properly proved. I insist that we should both be formally tried in one of the People's Courts, and ..."

"You will be in due course; but not until I have got the truth out of you."

"To extract statements from the accused under threats is the negation of the basic principles of jurisprudence. Whatever you may think we have done, we have the right to demand that we should not be subjected to further examination before we have received legal aid, that specific charges against us should be formulated, and that our case should be heard before a court which is properly qualified to administer justice."

Frek shrugged. "Within a few minutes of your first being brought before me I realised that you were one of those halfwitted socialists who believe that it is possible to run a country by State planning and at the same time preserve individual freedoms. In the Socialist Soviet States n.o.body has any personal 'rights'. As for justice, that is my affair. If I conclude that anyone has been falsely accused I order their release; if not I inform the court of the sentence that I wish to be inflicted on them."

Horrified beyond measure by these brutal revelations, Nicholas found himself temporarily bereft of words. Frek muttered disdainfully, "I have given time enough to answering your childish quibbles." Then, turning to the group about Fedora, he called, "Get on with it, now!"

The two men thrust her wrists up as high as they would go while the woman peeled her frock upwards until it covered her face. They had got no further before Nicholas attempted to intervene again. Starting forward, he cried: "I won't stand by and see this!"

"Stay where you are!" snapped Kmoch. "Stay where you are, or I'll put a bullet into you!"

Frek swung round on his subordinate. "No! Be careful with that gun! I don't want him shot-yet." Then he shouted at the nearest police thug. "Here, you! Take care of the man; two people are quite enough to get the clothes off a woman."

The blue-jowled policeman threw himself in the advancing Nicholas' path and hit him hard beneath the jaw. The impact sent him staggering back and left him momentarily dazed. Kmoch pocketed the pistol and seized one of his arms; the policeman grabbed the other. Before he had time to recover, they had put a double half-Nelson on him. Kmoch then left matters to the brawny uniformed man, who took a firm grip of both Nicholas' arms and held them behind his back as tightly as if they had been pinioned.

Fedora offered no resistance. She had the sense and self-control to realise how futile it would be. Without any aid from the man the gorilla-like wardress could easily have over-powdered her. As it was she neither helped nor hindered, but the wardress was well experienced in such tasks and had her naked except for her shoes and stockings within two minutes.

When they had pulled her suspender belt off they let go of her and stepped aside. She stood there motionless looking down at the floor.

Frek walked over to her, took her chin in his hand, tilted up her face and looked down into it. One cheek was sadly disfigured, having turned a bright scarlet from the slap he had given her; but he now favoured her with a smile of approval, and said: "You and I must have a little private session later on. If you behave yourself I might make things much easier for you. But we mustn't let such ideas interfere with our present business, must we? Since your boy-friend doesn't care enough about you to talk, perhaps you would like to start the ball rolling by telling me what you know about him? If you give me some good hard facts I may decide to go no further for the moment, and twist his tail instead of yours until he gives me the rest of the story."

Again, in a low expressionless voice, she said, "I have nothing to say."

He shrugged and said to the underlings who had stripped her, "Turn her round and put her up against the wall."

Swinging her about, they gripped her wrists again, marched her over to the panelling and held her flat against it with her arms spread wide above her head, so that with her body they formed a 'Y'.

She was tall and slender, with good shoulders and boyish hips. Nicholas gazed at the triangle of her back, thinking how beautifully proportioned it was. The muscles in it rippled slightly when the man and woman who held her jerked her arms slightly, and having been stretched taut they became still.

Frek had stooped down behind his desk and opened one of the bottom drawers in it. As he straightened up Nicholas saw that from it he had taken a whip. It had a thick handle ending in a round k.n.o.b, so if reversed it could have been used as a formidable cosh; its lash was of thin plaited leather and about two feet along.

"You can't do that," Nicholas shouted. "You can't do that."

A s.a.d.i.s.tic smile spread slowly over Frek's round pasty face. "I can, and I am going to," he said softly. "Even if you decide to talk, as you have kept me waiting I mean to keep you waiting until I have made a pretty pattern on your mistress's skin. To watch me will give you only a mild idea of the much more painful treatment that I may order her to be given later, should you not talk fast and to the point when I am ready to listen to you."

Raising the whip, he gave it a preliminary crack. Fedora, her nerves strung to the highest pitch, jerked spasmodically as though she had already been struck. Nicholas swore.

Like most social revolutionaries he was an agnostic, so it did not occur to him to pray for divine intervention. Nevertheless he shut his eyes. By doing so he hoped to blot out the harrowing scene, but the attempt was futile. In his mind he could still see the big room, with its long stretch of window, through which the afternoon sunlight was coming at an angle. He knew the position of each person in it, and saw them as though they were wax-work dummies posed in a grim tableau. Above all, the central figure remained clear. Fedora's body spread-eagled against the dark panel was vividly etched upon his closed eyelids.

Although he had not heard the whip come down he heard her give a sudden gasp. Automatically his eyes flickered open. Frek had not struck her. He was standing there grinning. All he had done was to administer an unexpected shock by using the end of the whip to tickle the base of her spine.

But next moment he stepped back, raised the whip and brought it down smartly just below the spot he had tickled. She gave a sharp cry and jerked herself erect. One of her stockings slithered down into a ruff round her ankle. Frek raised his whip again and gave her a quick cut on the calf of the exposed leg. She had set her teeth and did not cry out this time but automatically drew up the hurt leg. At her movement the stocking on the other floated down, and with a swift flick Frek gave its calf similar treatment. Then, crossing to her other side, he gave her another vicious cut. She twitched violently and let out a low moan.

"You brute!" Nicholas shouted, and began to struggle with the man who held him; but his arms were gripped behind his back as though in a vice.

Frek only smiled at him and said, "I've hardly started yet." Turning again to Fedora, he began to strike at her back and shoulders. Once, twice, thrice, the lash descended. Still with clenched teeth she choked back all sound other than a low, quivering moan. But at the fourth stroke, she burst into tears and sobbed out: "Oh, G.o.d! Oh, G.o.d! Help me, I beg. Help me! Help me!"

Nicholas had closed his eyes and opened them again. Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. The sound of Fedora's sobbing drove him into a frenzy of fury, but he knew that he was powerless to help her. Each time he made the least move, the police thug gave an upward jerk to one of his arms that caused him acute pain and threatened to wrench it from its socket. He could only mutter useless curses.

Standing back, Frek admired his handiwork. He had not lashed Fedora hard enough to draw blood, but red weals now stood out where the whip had cracked down on smooth flesh. With an amused glance at Nicholas he said: "Now, I think, we must give her a pretty girdle round that slender waist." Once more he drew back the whip, this time sideways on, and the vicious stroke curled round her body so that the end of the lash cut into her stomach.

At that, she let out a scream and began to struggle, but the man and woman who held her by the wrists had little difficulty in keeping her in position. Frek lifted the whip again, but Nicholas could bear no more.

"Stop!" he yelled. "Stop! I'll tell you everything you want to know."

Frek lowered the whip, laid it on his desk, and said, "All right, I'm glad you have come to your senses." Turning to his underlings, he added: "That will be enough for now. Let her sit down."

They led Fedora to a chair, and she collapsed into it, still sobbing. But after a moment she leaned forward, picked up her dress from the floor, pulled it in a bundle across her middle and hunched her smarting body over it. As her sobs eased Frek sat down behind his desk, and said to Nicholas: "Now, let's have the truth! If you attempt to tell me any further c.o.c.k-and-bull stories, I'll have her straddled over the back of that chair so that I can use my whip on her in a way that will be really painful."

Nicholas knew that it was no longer the least use to beat about the bush, or even to give the true account of how the whole thing had started by his deciding to impersonate Bilto on a sudden impulse. He would not be believed. Unless this brutal scene was to continue, and mount to a revolting barbarity the thought of which made him feel sick, he must now lie, and lie to the limit. He had got to tell Frek the sort of thing he expected to hear, and pin his hopes on some fresh turn of events enabling him later to escape the consequences.

Drawing a deep breath, he said, "The facts are these. You are right about my being a British secret agent, although I became one only a few weeks ago. It was after my cousin Bilto told me of his intention to come here. I went and reported that to the police. They took me to see a man at the War Office. I had several interviews with him, and eventually he persuaded me to impersonate my cousin. As you guessed, the idea was that I should let myself be brought to Czechoslovakia in his place and disappear as soon as possible after landing. My task was to find out all I could about the resistance movement here, and how it could best be a.s.sisted."

Frek nodded. "So far, so good. At what point did your woman accomplice enter the scene?"

"Only a few days ago. Naturally, from the moment I had given Bilto away they put him under constant observation. That's how they got on to her. They pulled her in, told her they knew everything, and that they would get her a ten-year prison sentence unless she would agree to play. It was just the one job of getting me put on the plane for Prague, or ten years; and, of course, she had no idea then that your people would send her with me. She decided that to keep her freedom was worth the risk of Vank's finding her out, and who can blame her?"

"I do. She wilfully betrayed the interests of the Party. There is no worse crime than that."

Nicholas heaved a mental sigh. He had done his best for Fedora all along. He was putting himself in it up to the neck to save her from acute physical suffering now; but he had seen no possible way in which, if he was to be believed, he could do more than attempt to palliate her offence. With a little gesture of helplessness, he went on: "A meeting was arranged between us, and we fixed everything up. She let me know the date planned for Bilto's departure, and on that day I came up to London again. Bilto and I both used the Russell Hotel on our occasional visits to Town, so he didn't think it particularly strange when he ran into me there. The police knew that he had left Harwell, of course, and were at the Hotel waiting to arrest him. We agreed to dine together and afterwards went up to his room. A few minutes later the plain-clothes men came in and took him into custody. I simply collected his pa.s.sport, went downstairs, and waited there until Comrade Hoovsk picked me up in the car. There you are. Now you know everything."

For a full minute Frek's round, pasty face remained expressionless; then he said, "I think we are now getting a little nearer to the truth. But there are several points that you have so far failed to explain. Unless a man is a professional agent, and earns his living by betraying people, it is usual to feel shame in the presence of the person about to be betrayed. Why, if the police were in any case going to arrest Professor Bilto so that you could obtain his pa.s.sport, did you go out of your way to dine with him? There was no necessity for you to see him at all, or even for him to know that it was you who had betrayed him. In Comrade Vank's report, too, he stated that a Power of Attorney made out by Professor Bilto in your favour was found upon you. If you put yourself in his way at the hotel, giving him the impression that you were there only by chance, how does it come about that he had had the doc.u.ment prepared and was still carrying it on him when he did not expect to see you again before his departure? Another point: If you had planned to impersonate him for the purpose of coming to Czechoslovakia, why, when everything was going well, did you risk missing the plane in order to visit a house in North London? Why, too, above all, did you later resort to violence in an attempt to escape from Comrade Vank, and make it necessary for him to send you here as 'a parcel'?"

Nicholas' brain was reeling. The whole awful business had become such a frightful tangle that his mind no longer registered the innumerable lies he had told about it, or to whom he had told them.

"I ... I tried to get away from Vank because ... well, because I got cold feet about coming at the last moment," he stammered.

"Then why did this Hoovsk woman get you sent here against your will, by her positive identification of you as Professor Bilto?"

That was one which Nicholas himself could not answer truthfully, for he still had not the faintest idea. As he floundered for a reply, Frek went on. "She had done all that could be expected of her, so could not have been blamed by your Secret Service friends if fear led you to back out. She must have known, too, that the British would publish the fact of Professor Bilto's arrest in their papers, so that Comrade Vank would soon learn of it. If she had held her tongue no-one could have proved afterwards that it had not been her intention to double-cross you and give you away to Comrade Vank at the first opportunity, but by insisting to him that you were Professor Bilto she d.a.m.ned herself quite unnecessarily. Another thing occurs to me. If you had planned to impersonate the Professor in advance, why did you not either take his luggage or set out with some of your own?"

Leaning forward, the bulky, black-haired Minister tapped the gla.s.s top of his desk with a pudgy forefinger. "Broadly speaking the admissions you have made are satisfactory, but I am picking holes in your story because there is one part of it that does not ring true. It is of what took place on the night of your departure. Why had the Professor got the Power of Attorney on him? Why did the Hoovsk continue to insist that you were him when she need not have done so? Why had you no luggage? Why did you go out of your way to dine with your cousin? Why did you make a visit to your friends in North London? I require answers to all ..."

Suddenly breaking off, he got quickly to his feet. For Nicholas, the prospect of a respite of even a few moments came as a most blessed relief. Hearing swift footsteps behind him, he looked round to find out the cause of this most welcome interruption.

Unannounced by any knock, a small man with a close-clipped moustache and dark hair, neatly parted on one side, had entered the room. His features were slightly Mongolian, and when he spoke his p.r.o.nunciation of Czech proclaimed him to be a Russian. From his undistinguished appearance anyone would have put him down as a very minor official; but after a single glance at Nicholas, he snapped at Frek: "Get rid of your uniformed people."

At once Frek made a sign to the two police thugs and the wardress, telling them to wait outside. Kmoch remained, and once more producing the pistol murmured to Nicholas, "If you start anything, I shall not hesitate to put a bullet through your foot."

As soon as the door had closed behind the underlings, the mild-looking little Russian said to Frek in a cold, contemptuous voice: "So you and your friends in London have bungled this most important matter."

"Yes. London has slipped up badly, I'm afraid," Frek admitted hastily. "Here, though, we are now getting to the bottom of the affair. But how did you know already that our Novak has turned out to be a fake?"

The reply was acid. "Realising that failure to get a full report to Moscow at the earliest possible moment might land us both in a Labour Camp, I took the quickest means of finding out."

Frek gave the Russian a reproachful look. "I a.s.sure you, Comrade Gorkov, that I have lost no time; and I am surprised to learn there were any quicker means than those I have adopted."

"You could have done as I did, and put an 'immediate' enquiry through to London. As it was, when you informed me soon after midday of your reason for cancelling the Novk lunch, you were so over-confident that this was the atom-scientist that you did not treat the matter with any urgency at all. You were quite content to wait about all this afternoon until your police could rake up some members of the Novk family to say whether or not he was the right man."

In a low, rather nervous voice, Frek made a respectful protest. "Permit me to point out, Comrade Gorkov, that unless you have known the facts for some time, your method of finding them out has proved no quicker than mine."

"And what have you found out?" sneered the Russian. "Simply that the man is a fake and the woman a traitor. Who cares about them? Or what they are, or what they've done? In this affair-and it is one in which the Kremlin has stressed that our vital interests are at stake-the only thing that matters is, what has happened to the real Professor Novk?"

"Ah! That I can tell you," cried Frek. "Although I greatly regret to report such a misfortune. He was betrayed by his cousin here, and arrested in his presence by the British police."

"You incompetent fool!" The Russian's eyes glinted angrily. "You can have nothing but this man's word for that and it is not the truth. With their usual speed in high-priority cases, my Emba.s.sy in London has found out the facts and cabled a full reply to my enquiry. It was deciphered ten minutes ago. Professor Bilto Novk is still at the Hotel Russell, and there is no reason to suppose that he is being kept under observation. One of our agents contacted him, and fresh arrangements are now being made for him to fly here via Paris to-morrow night. He had no idea at all why your people had failed to collect him, and was waiting to receive some explanation. Had no one got in touch with him over the weekend, he intended to return to Harwell first thing on Monday morning; but if he had had to do that it might have been a considerable time before he could have left again without arousing suspicion. Had such a serious delay resulted from your failure to find out if the real Professor Novk had left London, you would be making a trip to the Urals from which you would never come back. Unless you wish me to send in an adverse report on you to Moscow, in future you will give less time to self-indulgence and more to thinking about your work."

Nicholas was savouring the first unalloyed pleasure he had experienced for many hours. It was clear that although Frek might be Minister of Police in the Czechoslovak People's Government, Comrade Gorkov was his master; and it was a most enjoyable sight to see the bulky pasty-faced brute cringe under the lash of the little Russian's tongue. But Nicholas was soon given something far less pleasant to think about. In a servile effort to escape further censure, Frek said: "Comrade Gorkov, you are much cleverer than myself; so please do not be too hard on me. I a.s.sure you I have been far from idle, and between us we shall have the best of both worlds. While you have ensured the arrival after all of the real atomic scientist, I shall be able to offer a fine propaganda trial of the false one. He has already begun his confession, and from the witness-box he will testify to the world how he was sent here by the warmongering English as a spy."

While forced to witness Fedora being stripped and whipped, Nicholas' emotions had been harrowed as never before. His final intervention had sprung from a desperate urge to prevent her being tortured further, and he had had no time to give proper consideration to its possible consequences. Now, the repugnant and humiliating price he might be forced to pay was brought home to him with brutal suddenness; and next moment an even blacker chapter of the nightmare serial, in which he had become a helpless actor, was opened to him.

The Russian gave Frek a bleak smile of approval. "Such trials are always of considerable value, so at the Kremlin they will be glad to learn that you have secured the basis for one. But here you have no experts in training the accused in what they are to say. Have the woman looked to, so that she is fit to travel, then send them both on the evening train to Moscow."

CHAPTER XIII.

A MIND IN TORMENT.

"I will give orders to that effect at once, Comrade Gorkov."

Frek's reply came promptly enough, but he looked a little crestfallen. After a slight hesitation, he added, "However, I hope you will not take it amiss if I remark that as this is a Czech affair it might be more suitable to hold the trial in Prague."

"Propaganda trials need careful preparation," answered the Russian testily. "Your crude methods of beatings and threats are good enough to extract first confessions, but they are never any guarantee that a prisoner will not retract afterwards; and to produce a physical wreck in open court invalidates the whole object of such operations."

"Of course, Comrade; of course!" Frek immediately became submissive and fawning. "I am well aware that the M.V.D. are more skilled in these matters than my people. The results achieved by their psychologists with the aid of the new drugs, and physical treatments that leave no trace, were wonderfully successful in the trial of Slnsk and his thirteen fellow traitors last year. It is only that as a young Soviet Republic, we are in much greater need of further demonstrations of that kind than they are in the U.S.S.R.; so I was hoping ..."

With an impatient gesture, Gorkov interrupted, "Had you allowed me to continue, I was about to say that to ensure the success of such trials it is necessary first to destroy the prisoner's mind, then build him up as a new, docile personality. That can be done only in Moscow, and it may take two or three months; but the sooner you send them off the sooner they will be mentally conditioned, and in a fit state to be returned here for trial."

"Ah!" Frek beamed. "Forgive me if I jumped to a wrong conclusion; but it was in my eagerness to take advantage of any event which may help to enlighten the people of Prague."

Gorkov said sourly, "That I understand. From the beginning the whole country has shown a most stubborn resistance. Our task is like beating upon a rubber sponge. It is not enough to crush it; no means should be neglected which will help to lessen the qualities of recoil that are inherent in its nature."

After a glance at his watch, he added, "We are due at that meeting at the Hradany at six o'clock, and it is nearly ten minutes to now. You had better get rid of these people quickly, or you will be late for it." Turning on his heel, he walked out of the room.

Frek wasted no time in obeying the orders he had been given. At his shout the three underlings returned. As they resumed their places by the prisoners, he said to Kmoch: "Have them both taken to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Get the doctor to put some stuff on her weals, then let her lie down until it is time to take them to the train. It's clear now that, as I supposed, he was telling us a tissue of lies about what happened between him and his cousin at the hotel; so teach him a little lesson by putting him in an X-cell. That will give him a taste of Moscow in advance. Telephone the station for a coach with a barred compartment to be added to the train, then make their dossiers up to date. You will accompany them yourself, taking any escort you think fit. As soon as you have delivered them send me a telegram; then report back here."

Fedora had been crouching, still half stupefied by pain, in her chair. The mark on her left cheek and jaw, where she had been slapped, stood out more vividly than ever, but her whole face now looked hot and feverish. At the urging of the wardress she stood up, and, turning her back, began to dress. As anything tight would have aggravated her whip-sores, she made no attempt to put on her belt or bra.s.siere; but with the wardress' help she wriggled into her slip and frock, then tucked the other things and her long-strapped satchel bag under her arm.

As she moved a little unsteadily towards the door Nicholas stepped forward and said, "Do lean on my shoulder."

She laid her hand only lightly on his forearm, and gave him a faint smile. "Thanks; but I'm not all that bad. No bones broken, anyway."

Frek was already collecting the papers that he would require for his meeting, but he looked up to snarl with sudden venom, "If the Russians don't break them, I'll break them for both of you after your trial. This pretty plot of yours very nearly resulted in my having to make an explanation to the Kremlin, and I'll not forget that in a hurry."

Both of them half turned and caught a glimpse of the implacable hatred in the pasty moon-like face, then they were hurried from the room. But it was neither of broken bones nor devilish ingenuities practised by unscrupulous psychologists in Moscow that Nicholas was thinking as they were taken down in the lift; he was wondering what an X-cell was like. Five minutes later he knew.

It was virtually an upright box three feet square and five feet high. He could neither sit, lie nor stand upright in it, and it had eight glaring electric lights covered with unbreakable gla.s.s-one in each corner of the ceiling and one in each corner of the floor.

For a few minutes he stood with bent neck, his rumpled red hair pressed against the ceiling; then he managed to get himself into a slightly less uncomfortable position by sliding his feet forward to the door and leaning his back against the wall. In that way he could just keep his head clear, but he soon found the relentless glare of the lights almost unbearable. Even when he shut his eyes it came through their lids as a steady pink glow. Only by keeping his hands over them could he get relief; and with his palms pressed to his face, he tried to think.

That morning he had been in the position of a man convinced against his will, and so 'of the same opinion still'. Fedora's talk with Jirka the barman, their confinement to the hotel, the microphone in the bedroom, the things that Fedora had said there, her bold arrangements with the Chef for their escape, and their interview with Frek, had all proclaimed a state of things which it seemed impossible to explain away. Yet the convictions of a life-time had died hard in him.

He had argued to himself that, although forced upon him by circ.u.mstances as a temporary ally, Fedora was in fact the enemy of all he stood for. He had discounted her att.i.tude as inspired by bitter, unreasoning hatred of the regime, and decided that nine-tenths of the things she said about it were baseless accusations concocted by a wild imagination and neurotic urge to dramatise every situation in which they found themselves. For the rest, he had reasoned that the police in any country were justified in taking strong measures to check the type of movement in which Fedora obviously played an active part; and that Frek's att.i.tude could not be taken as evidence that the People's Government was a mockery controlled by evil men who were exploiting the ma.s.ses, and ruling by tyranny, injustice and torture.

But his experiences in the past hour had stripped from him every vestige of belief he had had in the splendid fellows.h.i.+p of Communism. Its vaunted 'Welfare State', in which all men were free, equal and cared for by a paternal government truly representative of the workers, had proved a ghastly myth. Frek's threats of the morning had not been a justified bluff to extract information from prisoners suspected of criminal activities; they had turned out to be a terrible reality. Moreover, it had emerged that he was not just a police chief, but a Minister; and to suppose that the government was ignorant of the horrors that went on at his headquarters was unthinkable. Still worse, it was not the People's Government of Czechoslovakia alone that had fallen into evil hands. Comrade Gorkov had made it clear beyond all doubt that Frek and his colleagues were only puppets controlled by Moscow; and the cold little Russian's terrible intentions towards the prisoners made even Frek's physical brutalities pale.

Nicholas groaned aloud as he thought how often he had argued that the Soviet trials of saboteurs were not ingeniously stage-managed affairs, and that the confessions made at them were in fact the outcome of prisoners having, after long free discussions, at last been brought to 'see the Light', so that they willingly testified their past errors to the world. Now, he knew the awful truth.

He recalled a book that he had read by Paul Galico called Trial by Terror. He had thought the scenes in the Paris newspaper office a brilliant piece of work, but had been both indignant and amused by those describing the treatment of the central character when, through his own fault, he had found himself in a Soviet prison. The idea of putting a tin pail over a man's head, and beating on it with a broom-stick until the drumming drove him to the verge of madness, had seemed a wickedly skilful piece of imagination. Now, with fear gripping at his heart, he wondered if that was one of the 'physical treatments that leave no trace' that would be inflicted on him in Moscow. Gorkov had spoken of destroying the prisoner's mind, then building him up as a new, docile personality. That was exactly the theme of Paul Galico's book. It couldn't be true. It was too terrible; and yet ...

His arms were aching from holding his hands up over his face. For a few moments he removed them, but the glare was so blinding that he could not stand it for long. Taking out his big silk handkerchief, he folded it into a bandage and tied it over his eyes. That helped a little, but the light still penetrated through the fabric; so to give each arm a rest in turn he pressed the bandage over his eyes first with one hand for a while, then with the other.

It was stiflingly hot in the coffin-like cell, and his mind began to wander. The more he thought of his situation, the more fantastic and improbable it seemed. How could it possibly have come about that he-Nicholas Novk, a quiet-living, unadventurous professor of Political Economics at Birmingham University, an ardent supporter of the Peace Council, and a champion of Socialism in its most advanced form-should find himself imprisoned under a People's Government on a charge of being a British secret agent?

The term switched his mind to another book, and one he had read quite recently. It was about a thoroughly unscrupulous character who, between nights of love-making with a beautiful Countess, went about the continent murdering innocent policemen and others, because it chanced that their duties caused them to stand in the way of British objectives during the last war. He was instructed and abetted by a ferocious and evil old millionaire whose object in life seemed to be to force the domination of British imperialism upon as many countries as possible. The two of them drank champagne out of tankards while they glorified the sort of reactionary sentiments that had been current in Disraeli's day. They were absurd and unreal, and wickedly calculated to inspire anti-social ideas in the young. There had been a scene in which the central character, who rejoiced in the unlikely name of Gregory Sall.u.s.t, had been present, although a civilian, at Dunkirk. He had refused to be taken off with the army because his old crony had charged him with some private murder a.s.signment, and he had ranted to himself that he could not go home because it was his job to 'seek out and destroy the enemy'. That was just the sort of claptrap to inflame youngsters with the narrow nationalism and hide-bound patriotism that begot future wars.

As a picture of a British secret agent, Nicholas thought it might easily bear some resemblance to the truth; and here was he, charged with being that sort of revolting buffoon. Incredulity piled on incredulity; he was at that very moment in just the kind of situation in which that licensed thug had landed himself again and again in his unrelenting war against the n.a.z.is. But he always argued, bluffed, laughed or killed his way out, and Nicholas saw no possible prospect of doing any of these things.

The book had been given to him by Wendy, otherwise he would never have read it. He remembered the name of the man who had written it now; it had been by a blood-l.u.s.ting blimp named Dennis Wheatley. Wendy had said that he was the family's favourite author. Of course it was just the sort of dangerous tripe that would appeal to a man like John Stevenson. He and his friend Benjamin Salting-Sala flatly refused to accept the term 'Commonwealth of Nations' as a subst.i.tute for 'The Empire'. They opposed equality of status and self-government for native races, because they believed that British governors, residents and judges administered the territories in which they functioned without any thought of lining their own pockets, whereas the native politicians who would have replaced them were mostly self-seeking crooks. Having stolen the poor Persians' oil for half a century, they would have continued to take it by force if they had had their way. They still believed in sending battles.h.i.+ps to 'see things done'. They even refused to kow-tow to their friends the Americans, and wanted the Mediterranean to remain forever a lake under the White Ensign. If they could, they would have painted every land on the map bright red. No wonder they liked the drum-banging Wheatley with his aged flag-waving V.C. millionaire, and the trigger-happy, stick-at-nothing Gregory Sall.u.s.t.

And Wendy, his adorable Wendy, was as bad as the rest. One evening he had asked her what her most cherished beliefs were, and she replied quite simply: "I believe in G.o.d, the Queen and England."

He had been so taken aback that he had not known what to say. It seemed incredible to him that any intelligent person could hold such outworn tenets in this modern age, much less unashamedly proclaim them. G.o.d did not exist, the Monarchy was an anachronism, and England a greater bar even than the United States to World Federation. He had not expected her to say anything about Social Justice, Equality, or the Welfare State, but she had not even included Freedom, Liberty, Democracy. Perhaps, he thought, she had the hopelessly erroneous idea that all those were embodied in her three h.o.a.ry old images. He could only hope so, and had quickly turned the conversation to tennis.

Now, in acute discomfort, sweating from the heat, and panting heavily to absorb enough oxygen, his bemused mind continued to revolve round Wendy. He wondered what she was doing at that moment. Guessing the time to be about half past six, it seemed pretty certain that she would be drinking a c.o.c.ktail, either at home or with friends. Knowing all her arrangements, he sought to get nearer the probability by working out what day of the week it was. The result seemed unbelievable. Not until he had checked through what had been happening to him three times could he fully convince himself that it was still only Sat.u.r.day.

It seemed days ago since he had landed at the airport that morning, and weeks since he had left England. Yet barely thirty hours had elapsed since he had had that miserable quarrel with Wendy after his morning cla.s.s in Birmingham. The small hands of the world's clocks had not even travelled twice round their dials since he had arrived at the Russell to keep his appointment with Bilto. Less than twenty-two hours ago he had not had so much as an inkling of this frightful nightmare into which he had been drawn. He had not yet been made the confidant of Bilto's awful secret; he had never seen Fedora, or known that such people as Vank, Kmoch, Frek and Gorkov existed.

That his circ.u.mstances, his beliefs, and his future prospects could all have been so unthinkably altered in so short a time seemed yet one more incredulity on top of all the others; but that was just as incontestable as the fact that without trial he had been condemned to occupy a cell which meant torture of a kind that no medieval tyrant had thought of.

With swimming senses his mind groped round Bilto. From what Gorkov had said it was clear that Bilto had not panicked; but, as he had at first supposed might prove the case, had a.s.sumed that the Russians had refrained from picking him up for good reasons of their own. He had simply lain doggo. And now they had got in touch with him again. Short of another intervention by fate, he and the atomic secrets that he carried were to be flown into Prague to-morrow, Sunday, night.

Nicholas pa.s.sed a damp hand over his sweating forehead. From that moment in the Palm Court of the Russell, when he had dismissed his last scruples about attempting to prevent Bilto from leaving England, he had had few doubts about the rightness of his action. During the morning his conviction in that rightness had subconsciously strengthened. Now, he felt that not to have made the attempt would have been positively criminal.

He needed no telling that the world and nearly all its peoples were in a most hideous mess, and that the majority of them were further from enjoying a stable government, under which they could hope to live out their lives in peace and security, than they had been for many decades past. He had cherished the belief that a new era of enlightenment was dawning in those countries where the workers had thrown off the shackles imposed upon them for centuries by the triple tyrannies of birth, money and superst.i.tion. Now he knew that was not true.