Curtain of Fear (40 page)

“I won't let you.”

“I'm sorry, but I must. And if you were in a normal state I'm sure you'd agree that I've no choice. Your plans for getting us to London by this evening are completely wild and unreliable. We can't possibly allow any personal interests to count against the imperative necessity of stopping Bilto. To telephone Scotland Yard is the only way to stop him for certain, and that's what I am going to do.”

“I won't let you!” she repeated hoarsely.

“You can't stop me,” his voice was firm as he turned away. “Come on, now. Let's go.”

“Oh, yes, I can,” she cried. “Remain where you are! Don't move a step.”

Swinging round, he was aghast to see that she had whipped Kmoch's little automatic out of her open bag and was pointing it at him.

“Fedora!” he exclaimed. “For God's sake be careful! Put that thing away!”

“Thanks for the warning, but I've had plenty of practice in handling a gun.” Her green eyes blazed at him, and for the first time in several hours he noticed the cast in the left one.

“I … I know you have,” he stammered. “But … it might go off. You're overwrought. If you weren't half crazy with fever and anxiety you would never behave like this.”

“Oh, yes, I would.”

“Listen!” He tried desperately to coax her. “It can't be more than a quarter of an hour's walk to Lutonský's place. When we get there you can lie down and we will talk over all this quietly.”

“We are not going to Lutonský's place. At least you are not.”

Fear suddenly gripped at his heart. His mouth went dry as he stared into her wild eyes, but he managed to gasp:

“Fedora! What do you mean? For God's sake …”

She cut him short. “I'm sorry, Nicky. If you believed in God I'd ask you to give me your oath to do as I wish, and I'd take it. But you don't. There is no way in which I can be certain that you won't double-cross me. You've got to die.”

Perspiration had broken out on his forehead. His hands felt clammy. His heart was thudding like a steam hammer. She was a little above him on the bank and a good five feet away from him. He knew that he had no chance of rushing her. He could see from her face that she was not bluffing. In the hope of yet being able to save Bilto from prison, she meant to kill him.

Suddenly a forlorn hope by which he might perhaps save himself came to him. He shrugged, turned on his heel and began to walk away, praying desperately that she would not shoot him in the back.

It worked. Instead of firing, she cried, “Stop! Halt or I shoot!” but still she did not fire. Then he heard her running
after him. A few paces brought her to within a yard of his back. Side-stepping, he swung round upon her, shot out a hand and grasped her wrist above the gun. She staggered and he was already off balance. They fell in a heap together with her underneath. The pistol exploded.

Wrenching the gun from her hand, he stumbled to his feet. She gave a groan and remained lying there. For a moment he stood staring down at her, then he cried:

“You're hit! Where? Oh, God, how awful!”

She moaned and put a hand to her side. Her voice had suddenly lost all its grimness and anger, as she murmured, “Here. The bullet … went in … under my ribs, I think.”

Desperately he gazed round. “We … I must get a doctor.” “You … you must not risk yourself.”

“I can't let you …”

“Die here,” she finished for him. “Yes, you can. And I'm going to. I really am a … a dead duck this time … Nicky.”

“There must be a farm nearby somewhere. I'll run for help.”

“No!” Her voice was suddenly firm. “I haven't got long. Please stay with me.”

He knelt down beside her. “Oh, Fedora! What can I say! It was an accident. I swear it was.”

“Of course.” She smiled faintly. “I know that.”

With a shudder of pain she wriggled over a little, and he caught sight of the place where the bullet had entered her side. It was seeping blood only very slightly. Obviously the bleeding was internal, so there were no means of checking it. All the same, he asked:

“Is there nothing I can do?”

She shook her head. “Only see Bilto for me … whatever happens. Give him back my ring. Tell him … tell him that I've always loved him. Ever since we met. Even … even when I was still married to my first husband.”

At her whispered words something clicked in Nicholas' brain. His conversation with Bilto over dinner at the Russell flashed back into his mind. Bilto had said ‘My girl—or woman,
I suppose I should say, as she has already been married twice.' He had gone on about her being a Czech who had been forced into doing secret work, but who he believed had since become a willing agent of her employers. Then he had said that he had first known her several years before when she had been married to her first husband. And several years before both Bilto and Fedora had been living in the United States.

“I hadn't realised that you had been married twice,” he said, staring down at her.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Terrance and I parted after … after we'd been back in Prague a year. It was fifty-fifty. But Bilto was out of reach. And … and I'd fallen for Honza … by then. It was him the Coms took apart. Terrance went back to … to the U.S.”

She stopped speaking for a moment. Perspiration had broken out on her forehead, and flecks of blood stained her pale lips. With an effort she went on:

“It was after Honza was caught the Coms found out that … that I'd known Bilto in the States. That's why … why they sent me to England to act as his contact.” Wearily she closed her eyes.

Nicholas bent lower. His voice was urgent and miserable with remorse. “Fedora! Fedora! I've made a terrible mistake. Bilto's woman! It was you he was talking about. You are the widow who had been married twice. It was you he wanted to free from having to work for Vaněk. He had no idea you were on the other side. It was you they promised to have in Prague to meet him; but of course they never meant to keep their word. Oh, Fedora, my dear, I see it all now. It was you with whom Bilto has been in love for all these years.”

She opened her eyes. They were misted over, but he could see that she understood. Her lips drew back in a tremulous smile, and she gasped.

“Thank you … Nicky! Give him … my love.”

Suddenly a spasm shook her. She half sat up, her face contorted, and she vomited blood. Swiftly she seemed to recover. Her voice came strong and clear.

“The spirit of John Huss lives on! God bless Czechoslovakia!”

Fedora's eyes started from her head. Her mouth fell open, and she dropped back dead.

For a few moments Nicholas continued to kneel beside her, trying to take in the fact that she was really gone. Then he straightened her limbs and closed her eyes. All the fever, the tiredness and the pain had vanished from her face. It was serene and once more beautiful.

He had no option but to leave her there. Lutonský, he felt sure, would arrange with a pastor that she should receive proper burial. From her satchel-bag he took the diamond ring. Then he untied his silk handkerchief from over her silver-blonde hair. He had intended to use it to cover her face, but suddenly it seemed to him a pointless thing to do; because without it she retained the appearance of having just fallen asleep.

Instead, he put the handkerchief up to his eyes, and walked away weeping.

On the Monday morning Professor Nicholas Novák took his class in Political Economics at Birmingham University as usual. He had given the same lecture on several occasions to other classes; so, without having to think very much about what he was saying, he delivered it with his usual ease and fluency. He had gone to bed in his lodgings at his usual hour the night before, slept soundly, and eaten a good breakfast. In consequence, he looked quite well, and none of his students—even Wendy Stevenson—noticed the least thing unusual about him.

When he finished his discourse he did not look at Wendy, but made a pretence of jotting down some notes, in order to
give the rest of the class time to pack up their books and leave the room.

As he doodled with his pencil he was thinking, ‘If it were not for the bruises on my arm the whole thing might have been an appalling dream.'

Except for his fare to London, the weekend had cost him nothing. His suit-case would still be in the cloakroom at the Russell, and he had only to write a line for it to be sent back to him. He still had his wallet and all his clothes—even to the silk handkerchief that Wendy had given him, with which he had covered his eyes in the X-cell, tied Fedora's wrists, and had lastly removed from her silvery-gold hair.

Again he went over in his mind all that had happened after he had left her. He had found Lutonský's without difficulty, and the Legionnaires there had been expecting him. They had asked for his solemn promise that in no circumstances would he ever reveal how the secret method of smuggling people out by air, known as the ‘funnel', was operated. Naturally, he meant to keep that promise, and the journey had not even proved particularly uncomfortable.

At Frankfurt, as it was a Sunday afternoon, he had had some difficulty in getting himself taken to a senior officer of the American Military Intelligence; but the Colonel before whom he was eventually brought had proved to be a very live-wire indeed. By four o'clock they had been on the telephone to the Special Branch at Scotland Yard, and they had agreed to take Bilto into custody pending Nicholas' arrival in England to furnish full details.

By five o'clock the Americans had put him on one of their military aircraft that was leaving for Mildenhall, in Suffolk. There he had been met by officers of the Special Branch. They had informed him that, at a little before five, when on the point of being arrested, his cousin had pulled a gun from his pocket and committed suicide. Afterwards they had taken a full statement from Nicholas; then the ever-hospitable Americans had given him dinner in their mess and placed a car at his disposal to take him back to Birmingham. By a quarter-past eleven he
had been in his bed-sitting-room with his own familiar things about him.

It had not dawned upon him until he woke up in the morning that fate had decreed that he should receive very handsome compensation for the trials he had sustained during the weekend. But he was Bilto's only living relative in England and next of kin, so automatically his heir. From what Bilto had said when giving him the Power of Attorney, he knew more or less what he might expect. Even after death duties were paid and everything settled up, there should be about two thousand pounds to come to him. That was a comfortable thought for a needy young Professor who had never been able to put by more than forty pounds in a Post Office savings account. It was enough to furnish a small house with nice things and leave a nest-egg of a few hundreds over. In addition to that there was Fedora's ring, to which, as Bilto's heir, he was also fully entitled.

The students had gone, except for Wendy. Her face was grave as she left her desk, and came towards him. With her usual directness she said:

“Well, Nicky. Have you made up your mind? I haven't changed mine, and I want to know how I stand. Must this be good-bye or … or can we go on together?”

He smiled, and produced Fedora's ring.

“Oh, Nicky!” she exclaimed, her face transformed with delight. “Does this mean …”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I'll come with you to your aunt's next weekend, and anywhere else you wish. I was terribly near to losing you; but I've done a lot of thinking during Saturday and Sunday, and I know now that I can live the sort of life that will make you happy.”

“Oh, Nicky, my own!” Tears started to her eyes, and she flung her arms round his neck.

It was several minutes later before he could put the ring on her finger. As she held it up and the splendid stone caught the light she said in an astonished whisper:

“Darling, it's marvellous! But how could you possibly afford to buy such a lovely ring as this?”

“I didn't,” he confessed. “I inherited it. And I've come into a little money too. About a couple of thousand. The ring belonged to a very brave woman. That's why I'd like you to have it, rather than sell it and buy another with what it fetches; unless you'd rather we did that.”

“No; of course I'll keep it. We couldn't find anything lovelier. You must tell me all about her.”

“I will, some quiet evening when we've got lots of time.”

“Nicky. About politics. I want to say this now and we won't refer to it again. I know how you feel, and I promise I won't be difficult. We both want the same thing really; to make life happier for people who get a poor deal. Somehow, I'm sure we'll manage to get nearer in our points of view.”

He smiled. “Thank you, my sweet; I'm sure we shall. As I told you, I've done a lot of thinking this weekend, and I'm quite certain now that politics won't come between us.”

She squeezed his hand. “Oh, I'm so glad! I've suffered agonies these last two days at the thought that I might lose you! Our being really engaged now makes me terribly, terribly happy. Did everything go well for you during the weekend?”

“I … I suppose so,” he hesitated. “As a matter of fact it turned out very differently from anything I had expected. During it I went through some … some rather shattering experiences.”

“You poor darling!” she exclaimed with concern.

“It's all over now, so you've no need to worry about me,” he reassured her quickly. “I'll tell you the whole story later on; but I don't feel up to talking about it yet. On Saturday afternoon, though, I … I got stuck for about two hours in a place where there was nothing to do but think. I recalled that conversation we had one evening about our beliefs. It struck me that mine had been based on a rather lop-sided view of things, and I wanted to ask you again about yours.”