Curtain of Fear (20 page)

“Yes. For the time being, anyway. All nuclear projects are of great complexity. It is certain that they have been working on totally different lines from myself. Without being taken stage by stage they would not understand.…”

“It is you, Professor, who do not understand.”

“In what way?”

“You evidently do not understand the alternative that your refusal to meet these Comrades will force me to adopt. I shall have to detain you here—or rather in another place, which you may not find very comfortable.”

Less than twenty-four hours earlier Nicholas would hotly have denounced as a dirty capitalist lie any suggestion that a high official of the Czech People's Government would use menaces in an attempt to extract information from a scientist unwilling to give it; but the morning's events had played such havoc with his preconceived idea that he now hardly knew what
to believe; so Frček's threat did not take him entirely by surprise, and he stammered, “You … you mean you will send me to prison?”

“Yes. You have now made it quite clear to me that Comrade Vaněk was right in his fears that you had changed your mind. I still hope we may find that change to be only a very temporary one. Should you maintain your refusal to meet our scientists, you will go to prison and remain there until you have proved your willingness to give them all the information and assistance of which you are capable.”

“You can't make a scientist give of his best unless he is treated decently and his heart's in his work,” declared Nicholas truculently, in a forlorn hope that by a display of defiance he might yet gain a respite. “To send me to prison is the one certain way of making me dig my toes in and refuse to talk.”

“About that I don't agree. We have considerable experience in dealing with stubborn people.” Frček took a sheaf of papers from a drawer in his desk, and began to go through them as he went on quietly, “I will give you a few minutes to make up your mind. You can either accept my invitation to lunch and to discuss atomic matters with our experts afterwards, or I will send you downstairs to await conveyance to quarters very different from those you have been allotted at the Engelsův Dům.”

Nicholas stood up and walked over to the side of the long room that formed one huge window. It was a lovely May morning, and the spires and domes of Prague glittered in the sunshine; but he stared out at them with unseeing eyes. He knew that he was really up against it, and it did not take him long to decide that only one course now lay open to him. He must do as he had wanted to do from the beginning—tell the truth about himself.

For a moment he wondered how his doing so would affect Fedora, but it did not seem that whatever he said now could make much difference as far as she was concerned. If he allowed himself to be exposed by the Czech scientists she would be involved in his exposure, and presumably in no worse case than if he anticipated matters by a voluntary confession now.

The memory of the way in which he had allowed her to involve him filled him with rage at his own stupidity. If only he had followed his own instincts in the first place he might have got a sympathetic hearing, whereas now it was a foregone conclusion that Frček would have put him in prison—anyhow for a time. But that was the whole crux of the matter.

If he went to prison as Nicholas there would be no point in keeping him there for very long. At the very worst it seemed unlikely that they would give him more than two or three months for having entered the country under false pretences. On the other hand, if he let them put him in, still believing him to be Bilto, they might keep him there indefinitely. He would certainly never be able to buy his freedom on Frček's terms, and the longer he left it before he declared himself to be Nicholas, the greater would be his difficulty in persuading anyone to believe him.

The more he thought about it the more obvious it became to him that sooner or later he would have to come clean, as the only possible way of getting out of this ghastly tangle; and that the sooner he took the plunge the better his chances would be of escaping a prolonged spell of detention. Having no further doubts on the matter, he turned about, walked over to Frček's desk and said in a firm voice:

“Comrade Frček, I have an admission to make to you. I also wish to apologise for having caused you a certain amount of unnecessary trouble. However, I should first like to assure you that although I am not actually a member of the Communist Party, I have spent most of my life working in close sympathy with its aims. It was here in Prague as a youngster that I first embraced the cause of the workers, and it has been my inspiration ever since. I am a regular contributor to the principal British Left Wing periodicals; I am a member of the Friends of the Russian People and of all the major associations working for the preservation of peace. I know that I have acted wrongly and foolishly; but the fact is that I am not really guilty of anything worse than playing a stupid practical joke, and I feel that on account of my past labours in spreading the doctrines of Karl
Marx I am entitled to ask you to take a lenient view of the matter.”

As he paused for breath Frček asked with a puzzled frown, “What the devil are you talking about?”

Nicholas stared down into the round, moon-like face. “I was on the point of making a solemn declaration, that while I was doing my utmost to prevent Comrade Vaněk from sending me here I told him the truth. I am not Bilto but his cousin, Nicholas Novák.”

Frček's voice came in a snarl. “You didn't fool Vaněk and you can't fool me! Is it likely that we should be taken in by such a barefaced lie?”

“It is the truth,” Nicholas protested.

“It is a lie!” Frček banged on the desk with his clenched fist. “It is a lie, and an absurdly childish one. You have been identified by the woman who Vaněk informs me has slept with you on and off for months, and is still your mistress; so about your identity there can be no shadow of doubt.”

Nicholas turned and shot a quick glance at Fedora. During the whole interview he had not dared to look at her for fear that Frček might jump to some conclusion from their expressions as their eyes met. She was now sitting with her legs crossed, staring down at the floor. Her face showed no emotion and she appeared to be perfectly relaxed, but one little thing revealed the strain she was under. Her hands were clasped in her lap, and clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed white.”

“You will gain nothing by looking at her,” Frček snapped. “Her identification of you was positive. Should she go back on it now I should take that only as evidence that she is in love with you. I should not believe her.”

“I think we can leave her out of this,” Nicholas retorted. He had no obligation whatever to champion Fedora—far from it—but ordinary decency impelled him to do his best for her, and he had thought of a line which he hoped might save her with himself from prosecution on any charge worse than having committed a misdemeanour. Quickly he went on:

“These are the facts. Bilto did need another night in London
to advise a valuable Comrade on the story he had better tell if he found himself implicated. But my cousin foresaw that Comrade Vaněk might not agree to his postponing his journey, so he asked me to do the explaining for him. When I joined Comrade Hoěovská in the car she knew perfectly well that I was not Bilto, but I made her have us driven off and explained to her. Then I was suddenly seized with a silly notion. I have so often been mistaken for Bilto that I thought it would be rather fun to see how far I could carry the deception.”

“This whole story is a tissue of lies,” Frček interrupted grimly.

“It is not,” Nicholas insisted. “As a boy, I loved Prague, so I thought it would be intensely interesting to visit it again and see for myself the great improvement in the workers' status that has taken place here. Counting on my resemblance to Bilto to get me past Comrade Vaněk, I persuaded Comrade Hořovská to let me try out an impersonation of my cousin. We intended no harm, because we believed that Bilto would be following me to Prague to-day, and that when he arrived we would both have a good laugh with people here about my having fooled everyone. Then when I came face to face with Comrade Vaněk, I realised that what I was doing was both liable to be misunderstood and dishonourable. I tried to back out by confessing that I was Nicholas. Comrade Hořovská was not in the room at that time. When she was called in she had no idea that I had abandoned our little plot to get me a free trip to Prague, so of course she swore that I was Bilto. After that no one would listen to me. I tried to get away, but I was overpowered and sent here as ‘a parcel'. It had not been intended that Comrade Hořovská should travel with Bilto; but Comrade Vanék sent her to look after me. When we woke up side by side in the aircraft early this morning, we talked over the awkward situation in which my silly prank had landed us. Then I'm afraid we both became irresponsible again. We could not help seeing the funny side of it. I mean, that even against my will my impersonation had actually got me to Czechoslovakia. So we decided to see just how long I could manage to keep it up after landing. From
start to finish the whole of this business has been nothing more than a series of misunderstandings arising out of my original impulse to play a joke on Comrade Vaněk and get sent to Prague without paying for a ticket.”

As an explanation made up on the spur of the moment it was not a bad one; but it did not get past Frček. Without hesitation he picked on its weak spot, and sneered:

“I do not believe one word of this. Where the work of the Party is concerned its members have no sense of humour. To do so would be anti-social; so it is forbidden. Your assertion that Comrade Hořovská consented to collaborate with you in a joke, which had as its object making a fool of the Comrade from whom she received her instructions, is enough to qualify you for an asylum. I am quite used to people lying to me. I do not mind it. But to expect me to believe that sort of lie is to insult me.”

Nicholas saw then that in trying to extricate Fedora he had strained the plausibility of his explanation too far; but no story could hold water that did not somehow or other account for her identification of him as Bilto; so he felt that even had he been thinking only of his own interests, he could not have cooked up anything more likely of acceptance. All he could do now was to stick to his guns, and he cried angrily:

“If you don't believe it I can't make you. But that's how it was; and neither you nor anyone else in the world will ever be able to alter the fact that I am Nicholas Novák.”

“Your mulish persistence with these stupid lies makes no impression on me whatever,” Frček bellowed back. “All you have succeeded in doing is to convince me that since you decided of your own free will to come to Prague something has happened to change your outlook. Therefore, having got you here in order to exploit your brain, it will now be necessary for us to exert severe pressure on you.”

“If I were Bilto, to do so would be to dishonour the People's Government that you represent,” Nicholas stormed. “But I am not; so however long you may keep me in prison you will never succeed in extracting from me one single item of useful information.”

Frček sighed. “Really, you tire me. All this is too absurd. Why not admit that you are Bilto, have lunch with me, and meet the Comrades with whom you will sooner or later find yourself compelled to collaborate? That would save you much unpleasantness and me some trouble.”

“Damn it, can't you see that to do that would simply be a waste of time? I'm Nicholas, I tell you, and … and …” A sudden inspiration had come to him, and he ended triumphantly, “… what is more, I can prove it!”

“How do you propose to do that?” asked Frček sceptically.

“Quite simply. Apparently you are Lord and Master here. All you have to do is to send for my relatives. Some of them may have died since I last heard of them, but Bilto and I must have several mutual uncles and aunts and cousins still living here in Prague. At the time of my last visit I was only fourteen, but all the same they couldn't possibly mistake me for Bilto. If you really want the truth, send for them and you will get it.”

For the first time Frček looked a little shaken, and his voice held just a trace of doubt. “You are again trying to make a fool of me. What you suggest could result only in a farce.”

“It will prove that no amount of wishful thinking can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse,” retorted Nicholas. “Or myself into my brilliant cousin the atomic-scientist. I challenge you to confront me with all the members of the Novák family that you can get together.”

Frček shrugged his broad shoulders. “All right. It shall be as you wish. I will have these people hunted out and brought here this afternoon.” Turning to Kmoch, he added, “Take them both downstairs and have them put in the cells until I send for them again.”

Nicholas was already standing. Kmoch came to his feet like a jack-in-the-box, and Fedora stood up more slowly. Frček had apparently again become absorbed in his papers and did not give them another glance as they left the room.

Outside on the landing one of the pretty lift-girls turned her automatic smile on them as they stepped past her, swiftly closed the gates, and at a word from Kmoch pressed the lowest button
on the indicator. Taking advantage of the whirring noise as the lift shot down, Fedora said softly to Nicholas in English:

“I'm afraid we're finished now you've thrown your hand in. There was always a chance that you might have bluffed your way through the meeting with the scientists; but once your relatives have identified you Frček will charge us with having conspired to enter the country in order to spy for the British.”

Kmoch was facing the lift gates, so had his back turned; but he caught Fedora's murmur before Nicholas could reply, and, swinging round, ordered her to be silent.