demand a statement from you, you must realise that.”
“No one is demanding it,” she said. “I want to make it. I told Lieutenant Ondrejov some things that weren’t true, last night. I want to put them right.”
She was saying, it seemed, all the things one should not say. Everything was topsy-turvy, only her enemies looked pleased with her, especially Ondrejov, who was beaming so brightly that his blue eyes were pale as aquamarines in his brick-red face. The embassy party looked painstakingly benevolent but inwardly frantic; even Sir Broughton, the most human of the three, was frowning at her admonishingly.
The pause of glee and consternation was abruptly interrupted by a loud, peremptory voice in the outer room, speaking unmistakable English. Tossa pricked up her ears apprehensively, unwilling to trust what they told her. She looked round for someone who would be quick to understand, and found herself appealing directly to Ondrejov.
“That’s somebody else for me, I’m afraid. I know him, he’s—he’s a friend of my mother’s.” How could she say, with these people still employing the mourning note when they spoke of Terrell: “He’s going to marry my mother.”?
Ondrejov got up and went into the outer room, closing the door between; and presently reappeared with a wooden face, ushering in before him a large, angry, black-avised man in an incongruous business suit, who descended upon Tossa like a perturbed thundercloud.
“For God’s sake, girl,” demanded Paul Newcombe, “what have you been up to? Here’s your mother phoning me in Vienna to say she’s had word from some chap called Welland that you’re prowling round the regions where poor old Herbert got killed, and will I please find out what you’re up to, and tell you to stop it. And when I come in from Austria to the address she says you put on your card home—and a hell of a job I had finding the place!—I’m told you and your friends have gone, and I’ll find you here.
Tossa sat shaken and pale. It was going to begin all over again, every one of them worse than the one before. She was going to hate this one as she’d hated Terrell; there was no escape. She looked past the looming shape that was without authority, straight at the two Slovaks who were looking on with such narrow and considering interest.
“Major Kriebel, this is Paul Newcombe. He is not related to me, but as a friend of my mother’s I suppose he feels responsible for me. Mr. Newcombe, I was just going to make a statement to Major Kriebel and Lieutenant Ondrejov. It ought to answer all your questions. And with their permission I should still like to make it.”
“By all means.” Kriebel was moving now partly by guesswork, but not entirely; he had exchanged one rapid glance with Ondrejov, and though nothing appeared to be communicated, something had certainly been understood. “Gentlemen, if you will allow Miss Barber to speak without interruption, you may remain. It is a concession I need not make, but I will make it.” Ondrejov’s aloof expression and slightly raised brows had said eloquently: “Please yourself, it’s your funeral. But
“Comrade Lieutenant, will you take down Miss Barber’s voluntary statement?”
“The reason I told some untruths last night, and persuaded Mr. Felse to tell them, too, against his advice, was because I was afraid of becoming more deeply involved if I told the truth. I thought I could give you all the relevant details about Mr. Welland’s death, without coming right out and saying that I came here for a special purpose of my own. I persuaded my friends to come, too, and spend the holiday here with me, because my stepfather had died in Zbojska Dolina, and I wasn’t satisfied about his death, and wanted to see the place for myself. I met Mr. Welland when he was on leave in London, and we talked about it, and he promised me to look into it himself. But I still wanted to come. I didn’t tell him that, and he knew nothing about it until he saw us at Zilina, on our way here. Evidently he didn’t approve, since it seems he notified my mother.”
She told it exactly as Dominic had suggested yesterday, faithfully admitting Welland’s telephone call and her appointment with him, and describing the circumstances of his death. But everything that touched on the Marrion Institute, or national security, or the defection of Karol Alda, still had to be suppressed, and that effectively censored Welland’s last cryptic words to her. Had they meant anything, in any case? They stuck in her mind curiously, but their suggestions were too enormous and too vague, she could not trust herself to make a judgment upon them.
There was too much at stake. There sat the Director, listening to her with an anxious and sympathetic face, and willing her to be discreet if it killed her; and the Security Officer, brightly inscrutable, taking her in with cautious approval as she skirted delicately round the establishment that was his charge. She felt it when they began to breathe again. Compared with the secret activities and preoccupations they had to protect, both she and Welland were equally expendable.
Carefully she covered from sight the whole background of the death she most sincerely wanted solved. Right behaviour, she thought sadly, is always a compromise at best.
Ondrejov took down her statement, and presently transcribed it briskly, still in English, on the typewriter in the outer room, and brought it back for her to read and sign. No one tried to prevent her from signing. They were unspeakably relieved by the content of the statement. Her predicament hardly mattered, by comparison; but they gave her to understand, by encouraging glances, that in return for her services they would exert themselves to deliver her.
“I’m only terribly sorry,” she said suddenly, her voice a muted cry of protest, “for poor Robert Welland!”
“Of course, of course, so are we all. But I’m sure the affair will soon be cleared up,” said Freeling soothingly. “It occurs to me, Major, that as you have no facilities here in Pavol, and it may not be very convenient to move her elsewhere, perhaps you would agree to Miss Barber’s being discharged into my custody, pending further enquiries? On the strict understanding, of course, that she shall be made available to you whenever required, and shall not leave the town? I would pledge myself to produce her on demand at any time.”
“I hardly think,” suggested Sir Broughton Phelps rather drily, “that such a proposition can be entertained if it comes from your people. But as one who had the greatest respect for Miss Barber’s stepfather, I should be very glad to abandon my holiday and remain here, if you’ll allow
Paul Newcombe bristled. “I am representing Mrs. Terrell here, and if Tossa can be released I think it should be into my care.”
Ondrejov thumbed through the stapled sheets of Tossa’s statement, and hummed a little tune to himself, modal, like the pipe-tunes of Zbojska Dolina. He looked inordinately placid and content, like a fed infant.
“Her friends are quite at liberty, here within Liptovsky Pavol, but I am restricting their movements to the town for the time being. Miss Barber, I regret, must remain my charge. She can be held available to you at any time which is suitable,” said Kriebel firmly, “but she is my responsibility. You have heard for yourselves the grounds on
