Curtain of Fear

by Dennis Wheatley

  Suddenly his decision was taken. These people must be given the best chance to escape such an appalling fate. It was more likely to overtake them if Russia launched another war than if it was started by the United States. He must stop Bilto leaving England. But how?

  Further argument was obviously futile. To call in the police and have him arrested was unthinkable; for Bilto had trusted him, and to do so would be the worst possible form of betrayal. He could be leapt upon as he emerged from the bathroom and taken by surprise, overcome; but what then? To tie him up, then stand on guard over him indefinitely, was out of the question. To leave him there locked in his room would be only to postpone the issue.

  In his agitated quest for a solution to this new and urgent problem, Nicholas had risen to his feet. His glance fell upon the dressing-table and remained fixed there. Among the papers Bilto had taken from his brief-case, several of which were still lying on it, was his passport. At the sight of it the thought flashed into Nicholas’ mind that Bilto would not be able to leave England without it. In two strides he reached the dressing-table, snatched the passport up and thrust it in his pocket.

  Had he delayed a minute longer he would have been caught in the act, for barely thirty seconds later Bilto emerged from the bathroom. He was carrying his sponge-bag and brushes, and with no more than a casual glance at Nicholas, he put them into his suit-case, then shut down the lid.

  Nicholas’ one anxiety now was to get away before Bilto discovered that his passport had been stolen. His hands felt clammy and his throat was as dry as if he had chain-smoked a hundred cigarettes. He hardly recognised his own voice as it rasped abruptly:

  “Well, you’re all packed up now, and I really must be going.”

  Bilto did not appear to notice the sudden hoarseness of his cousin’s voice, or the fact that his glance had become nervous and wavering. The last whisky had proved just one over the odds, so his perceptions were now dulled, his eyes a little bleary, and his movements beyond complete control.

  “Good-bye, then,” he said a shade thickly. “If what I am about to do fails to prevent a show-down, I don’t suppose anyone will get much warning that … that things are about to happen. Still, there is always a chance that you may just have time to see the red light. If … if you do, chuck everything, skip to the continent and slip behind the Iron Curtain. We’ll take good care of you if you manage to get through. But there … there is always the hope that America will stop sending dollar aid to Europe, and that these damn countries will go bust. Should that happen you’ll be seeing me back again, and … and I’ll get you made a Minister.”

  “Thanks,” Nicholas managed to mutter. “Thanks very much.” And he found himself adding instinctively as they shook hands, “I hope everything will go all right for you.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Bilto grinned, with the casual confidence inspired by the whisky he had drunk. “Take care of yourself, Nicky. And don’t let that girl of yours pull the wool over your eyes about the rights and wrongs of things. We can’t afford to lose a good man like you.”

  “No, I won’t let her do that,” Nicholas promised with a sickly smile as he turned away. He actually had his hand on the door-knob when, to his consternation, Bilto called him back.

  “Hi! Half a minute. I’d forgotten.” As he spoke he swung about and walked quickly towards the dressing-table.

  In an agony of apprehension, Nicholas remained by the door, his muscles tensed, his eyes riveted on his cousin’s back. Every second he expected Bilto to notice that his passport had disappeared, but apparently he had forgotten that he had taken it from his brief-case. After fumbling in the case for a minute, he pulled out a thick wallet, opened it and thumbed five crisp five-pound notes off a hundred-pound wad. Turning, he strode back to Nicholas and held them out to him.

  “Here. Take this! Little present! Buy yourself something when you get married.”

  Flushing with shame, Nicholas shook his head and stammered,“No, really. It’s too much—and you may need it.”

  “Nonsense! It won’t be much good to me this time tomorrow. On the rouble exchange one doesn’t get much for pounds.” Bilto thrust the notes into Nicholas’ unwilling hand.

  “Thanks!” he blurted. “It’s awfully good of you! So long, old chap!” Then, with crimson face, he pulled open the door, stepped through it, and suppressing a gasp of relief, closed it behind him.

  His mind still in a turmoil, he walked down the corridor. Bilto’s last generous gesture had almost made him repent, but he told himself that it was absurd to allow the spontaneous act of a half-drunken man to weigh so much as a hair in the major issue. All the same, he was still by no means fully convinced that he had acted for the best.

  As he went down in the lift, new qualms beset him. Had he really been right to allow his personal feelings for a small circle of people to govern his decision? Should he not have been prepared to sacrifice them as well as himself? After all, the Russians were the champions of everything that he believed in, and the Anglo-American capitalists were the enemy. Yet he had taken a step which would result in allowing the wrong side to retain an advantage that might tempt them to launch a war. And if war really was inevitable, whatever the cost, his creed dictated that he ought to aid Russia to win it. He suddenly felt that he must have been temporarily seized with a fit of madness. Still, he could go back to Bilto’s room, confess what he had done, and restore the passport.

  Although he had refused a drink from Bilto, on entering the Palm Court and seeing a number of people sitting there drinking he was seized with the thought that he wanted one desperately badly. Plumping himself down at a table near the orchestra, he told a passing waiter to bring him a double brandy, and soda. When it came he wondered why he had ordered brandy, as he ordinarily never drank it, but after a couple of gulps he felt a little steadier, and began to wrestle with the question of whether he should go up and return Bilto’s passport, or stick to it.

  After a few minutes, now that he was well away from Bilto, his ideas began to clarify. He decided that, as far as he was able to judge personally, Bilto had been wrong about the United States. Unquestionably there were quite a number of millionaire businessmen there who would welcome a war to destroy Communism; but the great majority of Americans must have had a bellyfull last time, so were most averse to having to leave their homes again. It seemed very unlikely, too, that America would start a war without first having made certain that she could count on the active support of the British Commonwealth, and as Britain’s geographical situation made her so vulnerable to an atomic war, she would never willingly agree to America launching one. Therefore, the only real menace to peace lay in Russia being driven to make a gambler’s throw as the last hope of saving herself from economic disruption.

  As he reached this conclusion he heaved a heavy sigh and took another drink. The decision he had taken had been the right one after all. He now felt really positive about that. He need no longer feel any qualms of conscience about having prevented Bilto going abroad by stealing his passport.

  A minute later a thought came to him that, in view of his final conclusion, threw him into sudden panic. Had he really succeeded in preventing Bilto from going abroad? Bilto had said that he was soon to be picked up by a car, but he had not known from what airfield he was leaving, and earlier he had said he was ‘being flown to Prague’. Did that mean that he was not going by any orthodox route but from some small secret airfield that the Russians owned near the coast? If so, he would not need a passport. In a new fit of perturbation Nicholas realised that by stealing his cousin’s passport he had not done enough. The ghastly responsibility for the future now once more rested with him. If he was to make certain that Bilto did not leave the country he must take some further step.

  At that moment a page-boy passed through the lounge chanting shrilly, “Mister Nov-ák. Mister Nov-ák.”

  On hearing his name Nicholas looked round automatically, beckoned the boy over to him and said, “Yes, I’m M
r. Novák.”

  “Thank you, sir,” replied the boy. “The car you are expecting has called to pick you up.”

  CHAPTER IV

  THE BLACK LIMOUSINE

  Nicholas was not expecting any car. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the boy that there must be some mistake. He had actually opened his mouth to do so, but he closed it again. Suddenly his brain had ceased its panic groping among a maze of possible courses to pursue, and clicked. The page supposed him to be Bilto, and the car was the one that had been sent to collect his cousin.

  As the boy turned to recross the Palm Court, Nicholas followed, his mind once more down to earth. If he could get rid of the car, that might upset all the arrangements for Bilto’s journey. Swiftly he began to assess the possible results of such a stroke.

  Since Bilto had no idea of the place at which he was to board the aircraft he could not have himself driven to it in a hired car; and he had made it clear that he maintained only the most tenuous contact with the Russians. It was possible that he had been given a telephone number for use in an emergency, and might ring up when he got really worried by their failure to collect him. If so the check to his leaving would be only a temporary one. But it seemed more probable he would assume that the Russians had postponed the hour of his departure for good reasons of their own, and do nothing. He might even think that they had refrained from picking him up because they had discovered that he was being watched; in which case the odds were on his abandoning all thought of his journey and endeavouring to save his bacon by a swift return to Harwell.

  “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 hote
l 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.…