Curtain of Fear (7 page)

“Would you mind, sir?” It was the waiter who had come hurrying after Nicholas with his unpaid bill. Flushing with embarrassment, he fished in his pocket, found that he had not enough silver, so had to give the man a note. The waiter was short of change, and with a muttered apology went off to cash it,
leaving Nicholas standing awkwardly in the middle of the great room.

Although he had decided that the chances were against Bilto trying to make contact with the Russians, there remained the possibility that they would get in touch with him. To get him safely out of the country was, for them, obviously a matter of immense importance. As soon as it became known at the Soviet Embassy that the car had come away without him a number of people would be near having heart attacks.

That thought did not come to Nicholas from any belief in the stories that Soviet officials who failed in their undertakings were promptly recalled and sent to Siberia, or, at best, reduced to the status of the lowest manual workers. He regarded such tales as dirty capitalist lies. But he did believe that every member of the Communist Party considered it a sacred duty to carry out any task with which he was entrusted, so he felt certain that everyone concerned with Bilto's journey would move heaven and earth to see that he accomplished it according to plan.

It followed that, unless the reason he gave for sending the car away was a really plausible one, the driver would refuse to accept it, or if he did, return quite shortly with some bigger shot bent on making a personal investigation; or again, someone would ring Bilto up, with the result that the car would once more be sent post-haste to collect him.

By now Nicholas felt himself morally pledged to prevent Bilto from leaving England, but—short of turning him over to the police, which he felt he could not possibly bring himself to do—it seemed that there was small hope of succeeding unless the Russians could be headed off from him. While striving to think of a story likely to have that effect he stared with unseeing eyes across the Palm Court, quite oblivious of the fact that his gaze appeared to be riveted on a pretty girl who, as she was sitting with her fiancé, found his attention far from welcome.

She was spared further embarrassment by the waiter returning with Nicholas' change. As he tipped the man, he gave him a swift glance and thought to himself, ‘I wonder what you would do if you had an old friend upstairs, and knew him to be about
to go over to the Russians with our latest atomic secrets?' From that it was only a step to picturing the scene if suddenly he shouted to the band to stop, seized the microphone of the first violinist and announced his own situation. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, at this very moment there is a car outside the hotel with a Russian secret agent in it. I should like your advice how …'

With an inward shudder he recognised the symptoms of hysteria, and jerked his mind back to the necessity of immediately settling on a plan. Again, he would have given anything for a little time in which to think things out; but he dare not delay. At any moment Bilto might ring down for his bag to be fetched, and learn that the car had already come for him. For that matter, it was quite possible that he was now on his way down in the lift. The thought that Bilto might yet get to the car first and be driven off in it spurred Nicholas to action. Striding forward, he entered the hall.

The page was waiting for him there, and handed him over to a junior hall-porter. After giving the revolving outer door a thrust, the man followed him through it, indicated a car standing about a dozen yards to the left of the entrance, and made to accompany him down the broad steps.

With a murmured, “I am not leaving yet,” Nicholas waved him back. He had no idea what course events were likely to take in the next few moments, but he now had his wits about him sufficiently to realise that it might later prove extremely awkward if a witness had stood by and listened to whatever was said.

As he walked quickly down the steps he was toying with the idea of saying that Bilto had changed his mind and gone back to Harwell; but he suddenly saw that if he made a statement of that kind it would imply that he had been let into this highly-dangerous secret. To establish his
bona fides
and allay fears that he might betray it, he would then have to disclose that he was Bilto's cousin; and he felt most averse to ‘giving hostages to fortune' by letting anyone know that he had been made accessory before the fact to Bilto's intended treachery.

The car was a large, rather old-fashioned, black limousine.
Still fearing that Bilto might emerge from the hotel behind him, Nicholas hurried across the pavement. He had covered more than half the distance, and was still groping for a plausible line to take without involving himself, when inspiration came to him.

He would say that Bilto had been seized with a slight heart attack, and while in no actual danger would certainly not be fit to travel for the next few days. In order to carry conviction, and at the same time provide an adequate cover for himself, he would pose as the hotel doctor. Having implied that Bilto was a complete stranger to him, he would add that when called in to such emergency cases, he often had to see to alterations in his patients' arrangements, then politely enquire if there was any message he could take back.

The bonnet of the limousine was pointing away from him, so he saw its driver only as a broad-shouldered man wearing a flat, chauffeur's cap. But he did not give the man a second glance. His attention at once became concentrated on the figure of a woman seated in the back. The car's interior was unlit; so he could see only that she appeared to be young, was dressed in black and had fair hair. On catching sight of him, she leaned forward and threw the door open. As she did so, the light from the nearest street lamp fell full upon her face.

Its thinness showed up her high cheek-bones, and its pallor was accentuated by the fact that she wore no lipstick; but she had a good chin, broad forehead and well-spaced eyes. They were green, and in the left one there was a slight cast. She was not wearing a hat, and her hair, which hung loosely to her shoulders, was of so pale a gold as to appear almost silver.

For a second he caught a rather startled expression in her eyes; then he blurted out, “I'm sorry to say I have bad news for you. It is not a matter for serious concern, but just one of those sudden things that are quite unforeseen. Had it occurred earlier I would have telephoned to save you the trouble of coming, as the car will not be…”

Her brows drew together in a frown, and suddenly she cut in: “What on earth are you talking about, Mr. Novák?”

At her words Nicholas' plan to pose as the hotel doctor went up in smoke. Breaking off in mid-sentence, he wondered for an instant how she could possibly know who he was, then jumped to the conclusion that Bilto must have told her about him and mentioned having invited him to dinner that evening. Silently but profoundly, he cursed Bilto for having involved him in this unsavoury and dangerous affair. But his wits were working quickly. He saw that the only thing he could do now was to fall back on the story that at the eleventh hour Bilto had decided against leaving England, and fearing trouble, had asked him to break the unwelcome news to his Russian friends.

“The fact is …” he began a trifle hoarsely. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a man who had just halted under the near-by street lamp to read something in an evening paper. A cold shudder went down his spine at the sudden thought that the loiterer might be a detective who was keeping the Russians under observation. While seeking a way to put matters so that his words should convey nothing incriminating if overheard, he muttered:

“I'm sorry to upset your arrangements, but there's been a bit of a hitch.”

She gave him a long, queer look; then, just as he was on the point of continuing, exclaimed, “So that is why you have no hat or coat! No matter; all that concerns me is that you are here! I had expected you to be ready to leave at once, and if some hitch has delayed you in getting your bags packed, that is unfortunate. But it cannot be allowed to alter our arrangements. Everything you need can be provided for you. Please get in.”

Subconsciously he noticed that the slight foreign lilt in her voice was overlaid by an American accent. But once more his brain was whirling. She did not know who he was, after all. Like the page, although for a different reason, she believed him to be Bilto. Evidently she had never met Bilto but had been given a description of him, and it was his likeness to his cousin which had misled her. Dare he revert to his plan of posing as the doctor? No; since she believed him to be Bilto, she would not
swallow that. She would think that Bilto had got cold feet at the last moment and was himself acting a part in order to provide a reason for wriggling out of his engagement. Believing she had seen through his imposture, she would challenge him, then do her utmost to persuade him to change his mind again. Protests and an argument would ensue. She might use threats. The loiterer would overhear it all, and if he was a detective.…

Evidently she, too, had noticed the man, as after a quick glance in his direction she again cut into Nicholas' racing thoughts. Leaning towards him, she said in a low, urgent voice:

“Whatever has happened this is no place to discuss it. Get in; we can talk on the way.”

With the suddenness of lightning illuminating a dark landscape, her words clarified his mind. For him to let her drive him off was a certain means of depriving Bilto of the car. Better still, instead of her returning to the Soviet Embassy at once to cause consternation by reporting that Bilto had failed them, as long as she continued to believe that he was his cousin no endeavour would be made to get in touch with the real Bilto.

Scrambling into the car, he took the seat beside her. She tapped on the front window with the end of a fat little umbrella, the chauffeur started up the engine, and they drove off.

Nicholas' exhilaration at this sudden solution to the problem of how to upset Bilto's departure was short-lived. He had hardly sunk into the well-sprung cushions of the elderly limousine before he became uncomfortably aware that he was now faced with several others. When she asked him about the hitch he had mentioned, what story was he to tell? Sooner or later he would have to disclose his real identity; what explanation was he to give for having fooled her like this? At latest, when they reached the airfield the game would be up; how could he delay their arrival, and thus increase the probability of having sabotaged all chances of Bilto's being flown abroad that night?

To his relief while the car rolled down Southampton Row the girl did not ask him any questions; so he assumed that the only thing that really mattered to her was doing her job of picking him up. Whatever the cause of her silence, he was
grateful for it, as it gave him a few minutes in which to think.

On reaching High Holborn the car turned west along it, and by the time it entered Oxford Street he had decided on a plan. It was governed by the thought that when the Russians found out how they had been tricked they were going to be very angry people; so it would be asking for trouble to let her take him either to a private airfield, or to some house at which her boss might be waiting to have a talk with Bilto before his departure. Whatever happened, he considered it unlikely that they would do him serious injury; but with such a prize as a leading atomic scientist in view, he felt certain that they would not hesitate forcibly to detain him, so as to prevent his further interference, until they had managed to get the real Bilto away.

The only sure way of evading such an unpleasant possibility was to leave the car before it reached its destination. As a first move to ensure his being able to do so, Nicholas turned to the young woman at his side, and asked:

“Are you taking me direct to the airfield?”

She shook her platinum-blonde head. “No. My part in this ends when I have delivered you at a certain address.”

“Where abouts?”

“That, it is not necessary for you to know. But as you had to leave your hotel without your baggage, it is fortunate that you have to go to this place before catching your plane. They will be able to provide you there with a suit-case and things for your journey.”

Nicholas considered this for a moment. The phrase ‘catching your plane' implied there was no aircraft waiting specially to fly Bilto out from some secret airfield, but that a place had been taken for him on one of the regular night services to the continent. That cheered Nicholas a lot. If his delaying tactics worked, by the time circumstances made it necessary for him to confess to his imposture it would be too late to collect Bilto with any hope of getting him on his plane. Feigning annoyance and anxiety, he said:

“There is more to it than having had to leave my things behind.
As I told you, something quite unforeseen has happened, and if I could have got your Chief on the telephone I should have asked him to put all arrangements for my journey off until to-morrow. In any case I cannot possibly leave London without seeing a friend of mine.”

“My orders about you do not permit of any deviation.”

“I can't help that. I learned by chance that my going may bring this friend into danger; but that can be avoided provided I tell him what to say should he be questioned. I have been trying to get hold of him for the past four hours without success, but he was expected home by half-past eight, and it must be well after that now.”

“You can write him a letter before leaving. I will undertake to see that it reaches him within an hour or so.”

“It is not the sort of thing one can explain in a letter. I must see him personally.”

“I am sorry, but to get you away safely is a matter of great importance. We cannot afford any delay which might cause you to miss your plane.”

“What time does it leave; and from where?”

She shrugged. “I wouldn't know. Anyway it's not my business.”

Nicholas took a firmer tone. “Mine is to do my utmost to see that my friend does not get into trouble on my account. If you refuse to take me to his house, when we stop at the next traffic lights I shall get out.”