第 13 页

‘You’ve got a job for me?’ Victoria sat up in bed, her cheeks bright with anticipation.

‘Perhaps. But not the kind of job you’re thinking of. This is a serious job, Victoria. And it’s dangerous.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Victoria cheerfully. She added doubtfully, ‘It’s not dishonest, is it? Because though I know I tell an awful lot of lies, I wouldn’t really like to do anything that was dishonest.’

Dakin smiled a little.

‘Strangely enough, your capacity to think up a convincing lie quickly is one of your qualifications for the job. No, it’s not dishonest. On the contrary, you are enlisted in the cause of law and order. I’m going to put you in the picture – only in a general kind of way, but so that you can understand fully what it is you are doing and exactly what the dangers are. You seem to be a sensible young woman and I don’t suppose you’ve thought much about world politics which is just as well, because as Hamlet very wisely remarked, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.’

‘I know everybody says there’s going to be another war sooner or later,’ said Victoria.

‘Exactly,’ said Mr Dakin. ‘Why does everybody say so, Victoria?’

She frowned. ‘Why, because Russia – the Communists – America –’ she stopped.

‘You see,’ said Dakin. ‘Those aren’t your own opinions or words. They’re picked up from newspapers and casual talk, and the wireless. There are two divergent points of view dominating different parts of the world, that is true enough. And they are represented loosely in the public mind as “Russia and the Communists” and “America”. Now the only hope for the future, Victoria, lies in peace, in production, in constructive activities and not destructive ones. Therefore everything depends on those who hold those two divergent viewpoints, either agreeing to differ and each contenting themselves with their respective spheres of activity, or else finding a mutual basis for agreement, or at least toleration. Instead of that, the opposite is happening, a wedge is being driven in the whole time to force two mutually suspicious groups farther and farther apart. Certain things led one or two people to believe that this activity comes from a third party or group working under cover and so far absolutely unsuspected by the world at large. Whenever there is a chance of agreement being reached or any sign of dispersal of suspicion, some incident occurs to plunge one side back in distrust, or the other side into definite hysterical fear. These things are not accidents, Victoria, they are deliberately produced for a calculated effect.’

‘But why do you think so and who’s doing it?’

‘One of the reasons we think so is because of money. The money, you see, is coming from the wrong sources. Money, Victoria, is always the great clue to what is happening in the world. As a physician feels your pulse, to get a clue to your state of health, so money is the life-blood that feeds any great movement or cause. Without it, the movement can’t make headway. Now here, there are very large sums of money involved and although very cleverly and artfully camouflaged, there is definitely something wrong about where the money comes from and where it is going. A great many unofficial strikes, various threats to Governments in Europe who show signs of recovery, are staged and brought into being by Communists, earnest workers for their cause – but the funds for these measures do not come from Communist sources, and traced back, they come from very strange and unlikely quarters. In the same way an increasing wave of fear of Communism, of almost hysterical panic, is arising in America and in other countries, and here, too, the funds are not coming from the appropriate quarter – it is not Capitalist money, though it naturally passes through Capitalist hands. A third point, enormous sums of money seem to be going completely out of circulation. As much as though – to put it simply – you spent your salary every week on things – bracelets or tables or chairs – and those things then disappeared or passed out of ordinary circulation and sight. All over the world a great demand for diamonds and other precious stones has arisen. They change hands a dozen or more times until finally they disappear and cannot be traced.

‘This, of course, is only a vague sketch. The upshot is that somewhere a third group of people whose aim is as yet obscure, as fomenting strife and misunderstanding and are engaging in cleverly camouflaged money and jewel transactions for their own ends. We have reason to believe that in every country there are agents of this group, some established there many years ago. Some are in very high and respectable positions, others are playing humble parts, but all are working with one unknown end in view. In substance, it is exactly like the Fifth Column activities at the beginning of the last war, only this time it is on a worldwide scale.’

‘But who are these people?’ Victoria demanded.

‘They are not, we think, of any special nationality. What they want is, I fear, the betterment of the world! The delusion that by force you can impose the Millennium on the human race is one of the most dangerous delusions in existence. Those who are out only to line their own pockets can do little harm – mere greed defeats its own ends. But the belief in a superstratum of human beings – in Supermen to rule the rest of the decadent world – that, Victoria, is the most evil of all beliefs. For when you say, “I am not as other men” – you have lost the two most valuable qualities we have ever tried to attain: humility and brotherhood.’

He coughed. ‘Well, I mustn’t preach a sermon. Let me just explain to you what we do know. There are various centres of activity. One in the Argentine, one in Canada – certainly one or more in the United States of America, and I should imagine, though we can’t tell, one in Russia. And now we come to a very interesting phenomenon.

‘In the past two years, twenty-eight promising young scientists of various nationalities have quietly faded out of their background. The same thing has happened with constructional engineers, with aviators, with electricians and many other skilled trades. These disappearances have this in common: those concerned are all young, ambitious, and all without close ties. Besides those we know of, there must be many many more, and we are beginning to guess at something of what they are accomplishing.’

Victoria listened, her brows drawn together.

‘You might say it was impossible in these days for anything to go on in any country unbeknownst to the rest of the world. I do not, of course, mean undercover activities; those may go on anywhere. But anything on a large scale of up-to-date production. And yet there are still obscure parts of the world, remote from trade routes, cut off by mountains and deserts, in the midst of peoples who still have the power to bar out strangers and which are never known or visited except by a solitary and exceptional traveller. Things could go on there the news of which would never penetrate to the outside world, or only as a dim and ridiculous rumour.

‘I won’t particularize the spot. It can be reached from China – and nobody knows what goes on in the interior of China. It can be reached from the Himalayas, but the journey there, save to the initiated, is hard and long to travel. Machinery and personnel dispatched from all over the globe reaches it after being diverted from its ostensible destination. The mechanics of it all need not be gone into.

‘But one man got interested in following up a certain trail. He was an unusual man, a man who has friends and contacts throughout the East. He was born in Kashgar and he knows a score of local dialects and languages. He suspected and he followed up the trail. What he heard was so incredible that when he got back to civilization and reported it he was not believed. He admitted that he had had fever and he was treated as a man who had had delirium.

‘Only two people believed his story. One was myself. I never object to believing impossible things – they’re so often true. The other –’ he hesitated.

‘Yes?’ said Victoria.

‘The other was Sir Rupert Crofton Lee, a great traveller, and a man who had himself travelled through these remote regions and who knew something about their possibilities.

‘The upshot of it all was that Carmichael, that’s my man, decided to go and find out for himself. It was a desperate and hazardous journey, but he was as well equipped as any man to carry it through. That was nine months back. We heard nothing until a few weeks ago and then news came through. He was alive and he’d got what he went to get. Definite proof.

‘But the other side were on to him. It was vital to them that he should never get back with his proofs. And we’ve had ample evidence of how the whole system is penetrated and infiltrated with their agents. Even in my own department there are leaks. And some of those leaks, Heaven help us, are at a very high level.

‘Every frontier has been watched for him. Innocent lives have been sacrificed in mistake for his – they don’t set much store by human life. But somehow or other he got through unscathed – until tonight.’

‘Then that was who –he was?’

‘Yes, my dear. A very brave and indomitable young man.’

‘But what about the proofs? Did they get those?’

A very slow smile showed on Dakin’s tired face.

‘I don’t think they did. No, knowing Carmichael, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. But he died without being able to tell us where those proofs are and how to get hold of them. I think he probably tried to say something when he was dying that should give us the clue.’ He repeated slowly, ‘Lucifer – Basrah – Lefarge. He’d been in Basrah – tried to report at the Consulate and narrowly missed being shot. It’s possible that he left the proofs somewhere in Basrah. What I want you to do, Victoria, is to go there and try to find out.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You’ve no experience. You don’t know what you’re looking for. But you heard Carmichael’s last words and they may suggest something to you when you get there. Who knows – you may have beginner’s luck?’

‘I’d love to go to Basrah,’ said Victoria eagerly.

Dakin smiled.

‘Suits you because your young man is there, eh? That’s all right. Good camouflage, too. Nothing like a genuine love affair for camouflage. You go to Basrah, keep your eyes and ears open and look about you. I can’t give you any instructions for how to set about things – in fact I’d much rather not. You seem a young woman with plenty of ingenuity of your own. What the words Lucifer and Lefarge mean, assuming that you heard correctly, I don’t know. I’m inclined to agree with you that Lefarge must be a name. Look out for that name.’

‘How do I get to Basrah?’ said Victoria in a businesslike way. ‘And what do I use for money?’

Dakin took out his pocket-book and handed her a wad of paper money.

‘That’s what you use for money. As for how you get to Basrah, fall into conversation with that old trout Mrs Cardew Trench tomorrow morning, say you’re anxious to visit Basrah before you go off to this Dig you’re pretending to work at. Ask her about a hotel. She’ll tell you at once you must stay at the Consulate and will send a telegram to Mrs Clayton. You’ll probably find your Edward there. The Claytons keep open house – everyone who passes through stays with them. Beyond that, I can’t give you any tips except one. If – er – anything unpleasant happens, if you’re asked what you know and who put you up to what you’re doing – don’t try and be heroic. Spill the beans at once.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Victoria gratefully. ‘I’m an awful coward about pain, and if anyone were to torture me I’m afraid I shouldn’t hold out.’

‘They won’t bother to torture you,’ said Mr Dakin. ‘Unless some sadistic element enters in. Torture’s very old-fashioned. A little prick with a needle and you answer every question truthfully without realizing you’re doing it. We live in a scientific age. That’s why I didn’t want you to get grand ideas of secrecy. You won’t be telling them anything they don’t know already. They’ll be wise to me after this evening – bound to be. And to Rupert Crofton Lee.’

‘What about Edward? Do I tell him?’

‘That I must leave to you. Theoretically, you’re to hold your tongue about what you’re doing to everybody. Practically!’ His eyebrows went up quizzically. ‘You can put him in danger, too. There’s that aspect of it. Still, I gather he had a good record in the Air Force. I don’t suppose danger will worry him. Two heads are often better than one. So he thinks there’s something fishy about this “Olive Branch” he’s working for? That’s interesting – very interesting.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we think so, too,’ said Dakin.

Then he added:

‘Just two parting tips. First, if you don’t mind my saying so, don’t tell too many different kinds of lies. It’s harder to remember and live up to. I know you’re a bit of a virtuoso, but keep it simple, is my advice.’

‘I’ll remember,’ said Victoria with becoming humility. ‘And what’s the other tip?’

‘Just keep your ears strained for any mention of a young woman called Anna Scheele.’

‘Who is she?’

‘We don’t know much about her. We could do with knowing a little more.’

CHAPTER 15

I

‘Of course you must stay at the Consulate,’ said Mrs Cardew Trench. ‘Nonsense, my dear – you can’t stay at the Airport Hotel. The Claytons will be delighted. I’ve known them for years. We’ll send a wire and you can go down on tonight’s train. They know Dr Pauncefoot Jones quite well.’

Victoria had the grace to blush. The Bishop of Llangow, alias the Bishop of Languao was one thing, a real flesh and blood Dr Pauncefoot Jones was quite another.

‘I suppose,’ thought Victoria guiltily, ‘I could be sent to prison for that – false pretences or something.’

Then she cheered herself up by reflecting that it was only if you attempted to obtain money by false statements that the rigours of the law were set in motion. Whether this was really so or not, Victoria did not know, being as ignorant of the law as most average people, but it had a cheering sound.

The train journey had all the fascination of novelty – to Victoria’s idea the train was hardly an express – but she had begun to feel conscious of her Western impatience.

A Consular car met her at the station and she was driven to the Consulate. The car drove in through big gates into a delightful garden and drew up before a flight of steps leading up to a balcony surrounding the house. Mrs Clayton, a smiling energetic woman, came through the swinging wire mesh door to meet her.

‘We’re so pleased to see you,’ she said. ‘Basrah’s really delightful this time of year and you oughtn’t to leave Iraq without seeing it. Luckily there’s no one much here just at the moment – sometimes we just don’t know where to turn so as to fit people in, but there’s no one here now except Dr Rathbone’s young man who’s quite charming. You’ve just missed Richard Baker, by the way. He left before I got Mrs Cardew Trench’s telegram.’