He paused for a moment, and Igor said quickly, “Go on; what happened then?”
“I had no idea where she was taking me, and I was afraid that I might find myself in trouble when …”
“Who d’you mean by ‘she’?”
“The girl who was sent in the car to fetch Bilto. She is waiting for me outside. As a matter of fact …” Nicholas was about to add, ‘it seems that she is an acquaintance of yours. Her name is Hořovská’; but his sentence was cut short by the shrilling of the front-door bell.
He had not been in the house more than three minutes, and he had counted on at least ten before Miss Hořovská lost patience to the point of coming to rout him out; but at this hour it seemed unlikely to be anyone else, so there was no time left for him to elaborate his story. Seizing Igor’s arm with one hand and Judith’s with the other, he gave the astonished couple a slight shake and said hurriedly:
“That will be her! I made her bring me here, but she’s expecting me to go on with her. I’m not going. I shall tell her I’ve changed my mind. But she must continue to believe that I am Bilto. Is that clear? I’m going to send her away, but she must go thinking that it’s Bilto she’s left behind. That’s terribly important. For God’s sake don’t let me down.”
“Of course we won’t,” Judith assured him, and Igor gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder before going out into the narrow hall.
A minute later Igor reappeared. Throwing open the sitting-room door, he said in a slightly flustered voice, “Judith! This is an unexpected pleasure. You remember Comrade Hořovská?”
The tall ash-blonde remained standing in the doorway. Nicholas could see her better now. Her lack of lipstick made her thin face so pale that it might have been that of an invalid, but her green eyes were full of life and extraordinarily compelling.
Judith gave her a quick look of surprise, then smiled. “Why, yes. We have met several times at Mr. Kolin’s. Please come in and join us. We were just about to have some coffee.”
The young woman shook her head. “Thank you, Mrs. Sinznick, but I’m afraid I can’t stay now.”
Igor stepped past her and spread his arms wide, as though to usher her into the room. “Oh, come; this is the first time you have been to our house. We shall be quite offended if you will not take some refreshment.”
“Another time, perhaps. My business is with Mr. Novák.”
“Then why not discuss it here? If you wish, Judith and I will leave the two of you together.”
Ignoring him, she turned impatiently to Nicholas. “You were with Mr. Sinznick quite long enough to give him the warning you spoke of. Every moment is now precious. Please come with me at once.”
Nicholas gave a quite passable impression of embarrassment by shifting from one foot to the other and lowering his glance at the floor, before he said in a low voice, “I’m sorry; but I don’t think I can.”
“Why not?” Her brows drew together in a frown.
“Well, the fact of the matter is …” he hesitated artistically. “I’ve changed my mind.”
The Sinznicks glanced in silence from her to him and back, then uneasily at one another, as she snapped, “It is no good telling that to me. You must tell it to the person who sent me to fetch you.”
He shook his head. “You can quite well do that for me. I’m sorry to have taken up your time for nothing, but there it is.” Then, feeling that even at the risk of the Sinznicks’ guessing the truth about Bilto he ought to do his best to detain her as long as possible, he attempted to lure her into an argument by adding, “I have decided that it would be morally wrong to take the step I contemplated.”
“I don’t care what you have decided.” Her voice was harsh. “You are coming with me.”
“I’m not,” he countered firmly. “I am staying here.”
“You are wrong about that.” For the first time she smiled, showing good teeth, but her green eyes remained as hard as pebbles. Taking a pace forward into the room, she half turned and waved a hand towards the doorway. “I had an idea you might try to double-cross us; that’s why I brought Rufus in with me.”
Only then did Nicholas become aware that the chauffeur had been standing behind her in the semi-darkness of the hall. It was the first time he had seen the man face to face. He was a powerfully-built negro, well over six feet two in height. His white teeth flashed in a grin as he held up his right hand for Nicholas to see. Folded back over the knuckles there gleamed the five-inch blade of a cut-throat razor.
The girl with the ash-blonde hair said in a matter-of-fact tone, “You are quite a good-looking man, Mr. Novák. It would be a pity if I had to tell Rufus to spoil your face for life. I think you had better come quietly.”
CHAPTER V
THE PERSISTENT NEGRO
Nicholas was not a coward, but the idea of fighting a big negro armed with a naked razor made his flesh creep. His vivid imagination instantly conjured up pictures of fingers being half severed from his hands as he strove to protect his face, then of his cheeks, lips and nose gashed to the bone and pouring with blood. Yet the alternative had suddenly assumed a very frightening aspect.
From the moment he had stepped into the limousine he had realised that if he did not get out of it before it reached its journey’s end he might find himself temporarily a prisoner. The idea of having to spend the weekend in a coal-cellar while they got the real Bilto away had been bad enough, but now he was seized with a foreboding that if he got into the car again he would be letting himself in for something very much worse.
This threat to slash his face to ribbons was a terrifyingly-clear indication of the lengths to which they were prepared to go, rather than be disappointed in their hopes of getting Bilto behind the Iron Curtain. It could therefore also be taken as fair warning of the danger to which he would be exposed once they became aware that he was not Bilto. If they were prepared to disfigure and abduct a scientist from whom they expected so much, rather than allow him to go back on his word, what might not their rage lead them into doing to someone who had deliberately jeopardised their chances of getting him abroad at all?
In a matter of seconds Nicholas decided that here—in the Sinznicks’ house, with them to aid him and neighbours who could be brought swiftly on the scene by cries for help—he would stand a much better chance of getting away uninjured than if he allowed himself to be taken to some place where circumstances might render escape impossible.
The door of the room opened inwards and at the moment stood wide. Nicholas was near its edge, the negro was still in the hall, and the pale-faced girl just inside the room. Both Igor and Judith were further back, behind a small table on which the latter had set down the coffee tray.
In one swift movement Nicholas seized the door-knob with his left hand, thrust out his right fist, and flung himself forward. His fist caught the Hořovská girl in the chest. With a gasp she went over backwards. The door crashed to, shutting Rufus outside.
The key was on the hall side of the lock. Nicholas had had no chance to transfer it. With his shoulder pressed firmly against the door panel, he kept a tight grip on the knob with one hand, while with the fingers of the other he sought frantically below it for a bolt. There was none. He knew then that once the negro threw his weight against the door it would be impossible to keep it shut for more than a few moments. Desperately he called to his friends.
“Quick, Igor! Help me to hold this door. Judith! Open the window as wide as it will go, so that I can get out that way!”
He was still shouting when the door shuddered under the first impact of Rufus’ heavy body. At the second, Nicholas’ feet slithered and the door was forced open a few inches. By straining every muscle he managed to get it shut again. Igor had answered his appeal by grasping a four-foot square, open bookcase that stood near the door. He was clumsily slewing it round so that it would block the entrance.
With a loud thump Rufus’ shoulder hit the door again. The shock temporarily threw Nicholas off his balance. The door gaped
open, but he flung himself at it and was in time to prevent Rufus getting more than a foot in.
Igor was still struggling with the bookcase. Over his shoulder Nicholas caught a glimpse of Judith. She had not moved. “Judith!” he gasped. “For God’s sake get the window open!”
Still she did not move. She did not even seem to hear him. Her features expressed distress, but her big eyes held a look of resignation, and they were riveted upon her uninvited visitor.
The girl had staggered to her feet. Two bright spots of colour flamed in her thin, pale cheeks; her green eyes were blazing. For a moment she stood there panting, then she sprang forward and seized Igor by the shoulder. Pulling him back, she cried:
“This is none of your business! Keep out of it, or I will see to it that you have cause to regret your interference.”
The door strained and creaked. Suddenly Rufus withdrew his foot and it slammed to. Nicholas guessed that the negro was about to make another charge. Swinging round, he put his back against the door and planted his feet firmly against the plinth of the heavy little bookcase that Igor had dragged from the wall. He could now see the whole room. Judith had still not moved, but stood with drooping shoulders on the far side of the table. The Hořovská girl was glaring at Igor, and he was staring at her uncertainly with his full-lipped mouth hanging a little open.
Sweating and panting from the strain of holding back the door, Nicholas no longer had breath enough to shout, but he gasped:
“Igor! Igor! What’s come over you? Don’t you see what they mean to do to me? Dial 999! Ring up the police!”
“No! No!” Igor exclaimed, a look of consternation coming over his fat face. “Not the police!” Then he waved both his arms in a helpless gesture, as though he was experiencing a nightmare and realised the futility of attempting anything except; to shake himself awake.
When Nicholas had slammed the door in the negro’s face he had counted on his friends taking his place at it and blocking it for the few minutes which were all he needed to reach the street by way of the window. Their failure to give him the help he had expected now rendered his situation desperate. Between him and the window stood the girl. He could not possibly hope to reach it without her either tripping or clinging on to him, and the second he took his weight from the door Rufus would come charging through it. The negro, whirling that terrifying razor, would be upon him before he could even free himself from her, let alone get the window open and scramble out of it. At the thought of the razor he instinctively flattened his back against the door still more firmly, and strained every limb to the utmost, expecting at any moment to have to resist the shock of the two hundred pound human battering ram on its other side.
For the past half minute there had been no sound outside in the hall. Nicholas took the brief silence for the lull before storm, and tensed his muscles. Suddenly they went slack, his mouth fell open, and his eyes started out of his head. The other door of the sitting-room had been jerked open. The negro had come round through the kitchen, and now stood there grinning at him. Taking the razor from the pocket of his chauffeur’s coat, he folded it back over his hand.
Igor took a faltering step forward and cried, “No, no! Please! He is my friend.”
The girl swung upon him sharply. “I warned you to keep out of this. It is a Party matter.” Then she turned to Nicholas and asked, “Are you now prepared to leave without making any further trouble?”
He nodded, and stepped away from the door. “It doesn’t seem that I have much option.”
Rufus put away his razor, walked up to Nicholas, patted him on the shoulder and said, “Sorry I had to scare you, Comrade. I wouldn’t have used that razor on you; honest I wouldn’t. Worst I’d do is jus’ to give you a lit’l tap on the head. But you be good now, an’ nothin’ unpleasant won’t happen to you at all.”
He spoke in quite an educated voice, and Nicholas accepted his assurance with considerable relief. All the same he could not help wondering uneasily how far it would hold good once the cat was out of the bag about his not being Bilto.
His one hope now of escaping that issue lay in the chance that the Sinznicks’ neighbours might have been aroused by the shindy. If they had and were on the point of coming to enquire if all was well, or were even looking out of their windows, he could make a bolt for it when going down the garden path, as it seemed unlikely that the negro would dare to set upon him in front of witnesses. But he was quick to recognise that the prospects of his being given such a chance were far from good. The rumpus could not have lasted for more than three minutes from start to finish. The only really loud noise had been from the series of thumps as Rufus had thrown himself against the door. Nicholas alone had raised his voice above normal, and then only in half a dozen brief sentences. Fervently but uselessly he wished now that instead of dissipating his strength in keeping the door shut he had used it to yell for help with all the power of his lungs. Momentarily he had forgotten the menace of the razor, and he was still berating himself for having bungled the best opportunity of regaining his freedom that he was likely to get when the platinum-blonde administered the coup de grâce to his lingering hope that he might be saved through outside intervention.
Looking across at Igor, she said, “It is possible that the people next door may have heard the noise and be wondering what is going on here. Go outside and see if there are any signs of them. If so, apologise. Say that you were getting a heavy trunk downstairs, and that you are sorry if the bumps it made disturbed them. Then see that the street is clear. When all is quiet, come back and let me know.”
“Comrade Hořovská …” he began in a voice that was near to tears; but she cut him short.
“Do as I tell you! If you refuse I shall report you for showing bourgeois-individualist sympathies.”
The term bourgeois typified for Nicholas the smug middle-class that he had taught himself to hate, and even in his present straits her application of it riled him. Rounding on her angrily, he cried:
“If you are referring to Igor’s sympathy for me, I resent being called a bourgeois. I consider it an insult.”
“Is that so!” she replied quietly, as the shamefaced Igor slunk out between them. “Yet only a few minutes ago you were talking about having changed your mind owing to moral scruples. No lapse could better show the cloven hoof of the religio-bourgeois.”
He saw the trap he had dug for himself and hastily protested. “I said nothing of scruples. I was referring to the fact that I had made a reassessment of my obligations.”
She shrugged. “What is the difference? It was clear to me within a few minutes of picking you up that you were a waverer, and that I might have difficulty in getting you to our destination. But in front of the traffic lights at Oxford Circus is not a good place to have a show-down. I should have had to get Rufus to drive us to some dark cul-de-sac, had you not asked me to bring you here.”
Judith gave her a bitter look and suddenly put in, “You showed little consideration for us, Comrade Hořovská, in choosing our home as the place in which to … to arrest one of our friends.”
“You should be honoured that the use of your home chanced to coincide with the Party’s interests,” came the retort. “It was further than I would have come from choice; but at least I knew that if I allowed Professor Novák to come in here I should have no difficulty in getting him out again; so to take him where he wished to go was the obvious thing to do. Now that we have had the opportunity of making his situation plain to him, I do not think he will give us any further trouble.”
At that moment Igor returned and, avoiding Nicholas’ glance, said dully, “There is no-one looking from our neighbours’ windows and no-one is about.”
“Good!” The girl nodded, then gave a sharp warning to Nicholas. “No nonsense, mind; or Rufus will give you a headache that you won’t forget in a hurry.”
As she turned to lead the way from the room Judith called after her in a voice which betrayed a touch of anxiety, “I take it, Comrade Ho
řovská, that this having happened here won’t be held against us in any way? I mean, no difficulty will be made about letting us have the money to start the periodical?”
The girl cast a slightly contemptuous glance over her shoulder and replied, “No. I have no reason to complain that you or your husband have hindered me, Mrs. Sinznick, so you need not worry about the money.”
Nicholas laid a hand on Igor’s arm, gave a wry smile and said, “So you and Judith are members of the Party. I wasn’t aware of that.”
“No.” Igor shook his massive head. “We have never been members. But one must go along with them, otherwise what hope is there of making any progress?” Through his thicklensed glasses he peered into Nicholas’ face and added, “Please do not think too badly of us. I am most distressed by all this; more distressed than I can say. I do hope things will work out all right for you … Bilto.”
This belated use of his cousin’s name filled Nicholas with sudden consternation. He guessed at once that Igor had called him it as the only means he had of showing that, in spite of the weakness he had displayed, he still wished to help in any way he could. By doing so he had taken the risk that he might later be accused of having deliberately misled his paymasters: but unfortunately he had ignored the fact that Nicholas’ situation was now very different from what it had been when he had asked to be supported in his imposture. Then, he had expected to be able to send the people who had brought him there away still believing he was Bilto. Now, they were on the point of forcibly removing him with them, and he had just decided that the only means of preventing them from doing so was to disclose his real identity. In fact, he had at that very moment been about to throw his hand in, and call upon the Sinznicks to confirm that he was Professor Nicholas Novák.
For a few seconds he still considered declaring himself; but it now seemed unlikely that he would be believed. How could Igor possibly explain away just having called him Bilto? No doubt he intended, if questioned later, to deny ever having done so, but he could not possibly get away with such a denial in the next few moments. Neither, in view of his evident dependence on the goodwill of Comrade Hořovská, would he dare admit to having attempted to help Nicholas deceive her. To make an immediate issue of the matter would place him in a frightful predicament, and probably lead only to his continuing to maintain that Nicholas was Bilto.
Curtain of Fear Page 7
