Curtain of Fear

by Dennis Wheatley

  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.”

  After a brief silence, she asked. “Where does your friend live?”

  “In Cricklewood.”

  “That is quite a way, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not very far in a car. We are already going more or less in the right direction. If we turn north at Marble Arch it’s only about ten minutes’ run up the Edgware Road.”

  “By the time you have seen your friend and we get back to Hyde Park we shall have lost half an hour.”

  “Well, the people who have fixed my trip must have allowed some margin; and there is always a certain amount of hanging about at an airport. If need be, the person you are taking me to see must forgo any idea of a cosy chat in his house and come to the airport with me; then he can say what he has to say on the way there.”

  “Do you absolutely insist on this?”

  “I do. Otherwise I’m getting out when we have to pull up at Marble Arch; and we’ll be there in about two minutes.”

  “All right, then. What is the address?”

  “Number fifteen, Lister Road, Cricklewood.”

  Leaning forward, she slid open the glass panel and spoke to the chauffeur. Then, as she sat back, she remarked, “Somehow, that address is familiar. I feel sure that I recently wrote to someone there. Ah! I remember now. It is that of Igor Sinznick.”

  He turned to look at her in astonishment. “How very extraordinary that you should happen to know the person living at the one address I gave you, in such a vast place as London.”

  “It isn’t really.” Her voice held a warmer note. “Not when you remember that all three of us are members of a very small political minority. In the case of Mr. Sinznick and myself the circle is still further narrowed, because we are both writers.”

  “May I know your name?” he asked.

  “It is Hořovská. I doubt if you have ever come across it, though. I’m not a novelist. I sell a short story or an article now and again, but most of what I earn comes from translating Czech into English and vice versa.”

  Her name and slight accent told him that she was a Czech herself, which suggested that the Russians were making use of their Czech underlings to handle this affair; but the idea did not strike him as at all surprising seeing that Bilto was a Czech and they had planned to fly him to Prague. Glancing at her again, he enquired:

  “Do you know Igor well?”

  “No. I have met him only a few times at literary parties and more recently at the flat of a mutual friend. I wrote to him because my friend told me that he was about to start a new monthly, and I hoped to interest him in my articles.”

  It was on the tip of Nicholas’ tongue to say that one of his objects in coming to London was to discuss the new monthly with Igor. Just in time he remembered that he was supposed to be Bilto; so instead, he asked to which periodicals Miss Hořovská contributed; but he listened only perfunctorily to her answers. The car had now turned up the Edgware Road, and with secret satisfaction he was contemplating the fu
rther development of his plan.

  He felt that once he had persuaded his companion to drive him to the Sinznicks’ he had got over the worst hurdle; for instead of having to leave the car prematurely as the only alternative to getting himself into a packet of trouble, he now stood a good chance of detaining it for quite a long time. His intention was to leave Miss Hořovská sitting in it outside number fifteen Lister Road, until her patience was exhausted and she came in to fetch him. Still posing as Bilto, he would then say that he had suddenly been struck with qualms of conscience at the thought of betraying the country that had given him asylum from the Nazis. That would provoke an argument in which she would use every line she could think of before resigning herself to leaving him, and facing the anger her report would arouse in her boss. Nicholas reckoned that by the time she reported, he would in any case have thrown Bilto’s programme out by an hour, and, with one proviso, for very much longer. The proviso was that he could get the Sinznicks to abet the continuance of his imposture, as the Russians would then continue to believe that Bilto had left the Hotel Russell and, having gone sour on them, was spending the night at Cricklewood; and he felt sure that the Sinznicks would do anything within reason that he asked.

  As the car entered Kilburn High Street his sense of humour was suddenly tickled by the thought that, although he would have to borrow things for the night from Igor, he had got himself a free ride all the way from Russell Square to Cricklewood, which would have cost him at least six shillings in a taxi. But next moment a new thought struck him, which made it look much more likely that he would be an extra six shillings down before the night was out.

  The appalling responsibility which had been thrust upon him that evening would not be lifted simply by having kept Bilto out of the Russians’ hands for a few hours. His knowledge and abilities would be just as valuable to them to-morrow or next week, and within a day or two, at most, they would know how they had been fooled, have got in touch with him again and be making fresh plans for getting him away to Prague. Somehow he must be persuaded to give up his idea of leaving Britain. Nicholas saw that as soon as Miss Hořovská had left him to report, he must return to the Hotel Russell and have it out with Bilto. If arguments failed threats must be used; but by hook or by crook, as a first step, he must be got back to Harwell.

  Nicholas had gone only so far with his intensely-worrying preoccupations, when on reaching Brondesbury Park Station the chauffeur slowed down and asked to be directed. A few minutes later they entered Lister Road and pulled up in front of number fifteen. It was a rather dingy, but solidly-built, semi-detached house in a row typical of the houses that, during the reign of Edward VII, had spread like a rash over the old-world gardens and small estates which had previously been the principal feature of London’s inner suburbs. The conflicting sounds of two radios tuned in to different stations shattered the twilight peace; but otherwise a respectable quiet reigned in the short street. Murmuring “I’ll be as quick as I can”—which was a flat lie—to Miss Hořovská, Nicholas got out, walked up the short gravel path and rang the bell.

  The door was opened to him by Igor, a short, fat, cheerful Jew wearing thick-lensed glasses. Shaking Nicholas warmly by the hand, he pulled him inside and called to his wife. “Judith! I think you have won your bet; he has had his hair cut.”

  Nicholas was too deeply absorbed in his own affairs to take much notice of this somewhat strange greeting; and shutting the front door quickly behind him, he followed his host into the sitting-room. The two were about the same age, and their histories had a certain similarity, as their fathers had come to England in the same year and both had married London-born girls.

  Igor’s father had been one of the original Russian-Jew associates of Trotsky, and later had been made a member of Arcos, the Bolshevik trade mission which, early in the 1920’s, had taken offices in the Strand and reopened Anglo-Russian relations after the breach caused by the revolution. An ardent Marxist in his early years, the excesses of the revolution had shocked his sensitive nature, and he had abandoned the ‘Comrades’ in favour of making permanent his association with a pretty Whitechapel Jewess. Yet, like so many of his kind, he could not see that the rapings, burnings, and butcherings by the mobs were the inevitable outcome of his gospel, and he had continued in the belief that had not power corrupted men like his old leader, Communism would have turned Russia into a Utopia. Igor had inherited his father’s ideas and, like Nicholas, believed that whenever possible Russia should be aided in her efforts to spread Communism through the world. They had met during the war as inmates of the same labour camp for conscientious objectors.

  The sitting-room was in its usual state of chaos. It was also used as a work-room by Igor, for dressmaking by Judith, and as an extra spare bedroom when, with their boundless generosity, they had taken in more lame ducks than they could otherwise accommodate. As Nicholas entered it he saw with relief that there was no man or woman with a pathetic, half-apologetic face, preparing to make up a shakedown on the divan, there to-night. But before he could get out a word of what was on his mind, Igor had swept a pile of books from a chair, pushed him down into it, peered into his face, then exclaimed with a happy laugh:

  “I am sure Judith was right. The reason for your having neglected to answer so many of the questions in my letters for this past month is that you have fallen in love. You have begun to take trouble with your hair, and never before have I seen you sporting an expensive silk handkerchief.”

  It was true that for Wendy’s sake Nicholas had recently begun to take a little more thought for his appearance, and the handkerchief in his breast pocket was a present from her. As he glanced down a little self-consciously at its quietly-patterned silk, he realised how for the first time in weeks her image had been blotted from his mind for one whole waking hour. It now returned with redoubled vividness; and as he acknowledged Igor’s innuendo by a half smile and a nod, he again cursed Bilto, this time for having been the cause of his leaving Birmingham and so quarrelling with his beloved fiancée.

  At that moment Judith came in from the kitchen, carrying a tray with coffee and a cake upon it. She was the thin type of Jewess, with a high-bridged nose and large intelligent eyes. Like her husband, she wrote articles and made speeches; in addition she spent several hours every week handing peace propaganda, and other Communist-inspired literature, to women and girls as they left their factories. This accounted for the untidiness of the Sinznicks’ home, the unpunctual and indifferent meals, and the usually grubby condition of their three children, who, although healthy, were shockingly neglected. But her husband would not have had things otherwise; and being much the more fanatical of the two, it was she who carried them over the bad patches when he grew despondent and was tempted to soft-pedal his Marxism, in order to sell some of his articles to the Pink press because it paid better than the Red.

  Setting down the tray, Judith gave Nicholas a quiet smile, and said: “I am so glad for you, Nicky. For a man of your age to be without a woman is not right; and for a long time now I had been hoping that you would find a nice girl to take care of you. Do tell us all about her?”

  “I will,” he replied quickly, “but later on. There’s something much more pressing I’ve got to talk to you about. It is typical of Igor that he should have noticed my new tie, but not that I arrived here without a hat, coat, or suit-case. The fact is I am in a bit of a difficulty and I want your help.”

  Igor’s eyes grew round behind his thick-lensed glasses, and he breathed apprehensively. “Is it that the police are after you?”

  His reaction was due to the fact that although he and his wife were both British born, neither of them was of British blood and more than half their friends were aliens; so they had never come to accept the average British citizen’s view of the police, as the unbiased and unbribable guardians of law and order. Instead, the continental belief that all policemen were spies and bullies was still held by them, and as they spent a good part of their lives frothily denouncing
the British Government, they were never quite free from an uneasy feeling that sooner or later the police would pounce upon them.

  “No,” said Nicholas. “It’s not the police; and I don’t quite know how to explain, really. Will you forgive me if I don’t attempt to for the moment? You see, this mess concerns a cousin of mine named Bilto more than it does myself, so I am not altogether free to talk about it.”

  “That is your cousin the scientist, isn’t it?” remarked Judith. “The one you told us about two or three years ago, when he returned from the United States to take up an appointment at Harwell?”

  Nicholas had hoped that they had forgotten about Bilto and his connection with atom bombs, as for the sake of everyone concerned he felt that the less near the truth their speculations led them the better; but he nodded and continued.

  “That’s right. Well, certain people are very anxious to talk to him; but he doesn’t want to talk to them. He is a bit older than I am, but we are very much alike and might easily be mistaken for one another by anyone who had only a description of one of us to go on. To-night he asked me to impersonate him for a few hours while he … Nicholas hesitated then continued rather lamely, “… er, while he got away quietly to the country. I agreed, and let myself be driven off in a car that had been sent to fetch him.”