Prince Cecil: XVIII.

Chapter XVIII.

The Heir’s Return

Csilla replaced the receiver and turned around. That was when she saw that the door of the room was open and that Zköllmann stood in it.
For several agonising minutes neither spoke. It is said that in a battle of looks the weaker party will blink first. In a battle of silence the weaker party speaks first. When she could no longer stand the suspense, Csilla broke the silence.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked in a dry, choked voice.
Zköllmann made no reply.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Csilla again in a voice that had a sob in it. She swallowed and said, ‘What do you want?’
‘I’m looking for the prince,’ he said, glancing at the table that stood to one side.
‘He isn’t here.’
No, I know he isn’t because I just heard you talking to him on the telephone.’
She had a momentary idea of denying it, but knew that it would have been useless to do so.
‘So he was at the shop after all,’ said Zköllmann. ‘They should have searched it, the lazy fools!’
A desperate plan began to form in Csilla’s mind. If only she could keep him here for twenty minutes—even ten—until Cecil had time to get into the palace. Ten minutes might do it.
‘Did you think you would find him here?’ she asked. ‘Or did you think I would tell you where he was?’
‘It doesn’t matter now; I know what I want to know.’
‘I wonder how you found out about Karotski and the others,’ she said.
‘Of course you do. You’d like to keep me here so the prince will have time to escape. That’s quite unecessary however—I don’t intend to go yet. He won’t be at the palace for several more minutes at least and it would be too difficult trying to find him until he gets there, so I’m quite at your disposal for the next ten minutes. Ten sounds about right, doesn’t it?’
Csilla could not speak.
‘You wanted to know how I found out about Karotski. Leiber didn’t talk, if that’s what you mean. I could have arrested them all beforehand but I wanted them to play their cards first.’
‘But you didn’t arrest the prince,’ said Csilla.
Zköllmann did not seem bothered. He was as unruffled as he always was but there seemed a touch of triumph beneath his serenity.
‘No, I didn’t arrest the prince,’ he said. ‘I was saving him for the last.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ he said abruptly. ‘I told you I had time to talk.’
She took a chair.
‘He was rather good, dodging us all that while,’ Zköllmann went on. ‘If he’d been a few years older, he might have had us beaten. As it was, I was afraid we’d lost him and that he’d got out of the country, but he was foolish enough to think he could get rid of Wakjavotski on his own. I knew I’d find out where he was if I came here.’
Despair settled over Csilla, mixed with helplessness. If only there was a way she could stop him!
‘As for the others,’ said Zköllmann; ‘You won’t have to give the codeword to the other agents—the whole underground has been cleaned up. I knew enough to arrest them all several days ago. I only waited to make sure I got all of them.’
‘You’re saying I instead of we like you usually do,’ said Csilla. ‘Did you really discover all this single-handed?’
‘I discovered it single-minded, which is better.’
‘All you have is a mind!’ she burst out. ‘You have no heart—no feelings! I used to think it was impossible to be completely heartless, but I know better now.’
For a moment he said nothing. He had taken a chair across from her and as she looked up at him she saw in his immoveable gaze an expression so full of antipathy that it chilled her blood, though at the same time it stirred within her a reckless defiance.
‘I don’t care what you do!’ she cried.
‘Why do you say I have no feelings?’ he asked.
‘Because it’s true.’
‘Say for the sake of argument it is. What made you think so?’
‘You can’t do the things you do if you had a conscience.’
‘That’s conscience. That’s different from feelings.’
‘No, it isn’t. Without conscience you can’t have any true feelings. You can’t love. You’re no more than an animal.’
‘If so, then a very intelligent animal,’ he said.
‘But what good is that?’ she asked impatiently. ‘What is the good of shutting yourself off from everybody? Supposing you got everything you ever wanted—what would you do then?’
She paused.
‘Go on,’ said Zköllmann.
‘Answer me.’
‘You want to know why I pursue success instead of things most people think are important, such as personal relationships?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she replied firmly.
‘Have you never striven for one thing at the expense of everything else?’
He knew she had! Wasn’t she willing to sacrifice her own brother for the sake of—well, what was it? Loyalty? Honour? She was like him in that her goal was simply a blank. Yet his success seemed somehow even bleaker than hers.
‘What you’re fighting for isn’t worth it,’ she said quietly.
‘Who says so?’
‘You know it’s true.’
‘If I have no conscience,’ he said; ‘how do I know what’s true and what isn’t? How do I know that anything is true?’
‘Everyone knows what’s true. We are without excuse if we disregard it. That’s why it’s your fault if you haven’t got a conscience.’
‘My fault?’ he said.
‘Yes. You killed it. –Long ago, I suppose.’
There was a silence then, because neither of them had anything left to say.
Zköllmann glanced suddenly at his watch.
‘It’s time,’ he said, rising.
Csilla leaped up and dashed past him to the door. She turned as she reached it and put her hands behind her, her palms against the wood. Her eyes were frantic as Zköllmann stepped towards her.
‘Don’t try to stop me,’ he said. ‘I’d shoot you down, so it wouldn’t do any good.’
‘No; I won’t,’ said Csilla with a gasp. ‘I can’t stop you, I know, but I want to say something first. I know it will do no good. I don’t know why I’m doing it, but I must say it, I must. He’s only a boy. It isn’t fair. He’s only one against so many; he can’t possibly win. He’s so young. He doesn’t understand life yet. He thinks it’s all fairy tales and brave heroes and good triumphing over evil. He hasn’t had time to find out what it’s really like yet. He’s like I was once. He believes in what is good. He is all that Pyromania really means. If you kill him, you’ll kill the hearts of the people.’
‘Stand aside,’ said Zköllmann.
‘I will in a minute. Let me speak first. I must speak. I don’t know what will move you. Perhaps nothing will. But I must speak still. You don’t believe in God; you don’t believe in anything, unless it’s yourself and maybe you don’t even believe in that. But if you ever did believe in God, if you ever had a mother who taught you to pray, by anything that is sacred to you I adjure you, spare your king!
‘Zköllmann!’ she cried, as he came a step nearer, ‘Don’t! One day you’ll be old and there will be very little left to you—only memories, and regrets. You’ll lie awake at night thinking about things you’d like to forget. And the nights are long when you’re old: it’s always winter when you’re old. Don’t do it! You’ll be sorry one day—you know you will be!’
‘Get away from the door,’ said Zköllmann.
‘Not yet—not yet! I will, but not yet. Zköllmann! I’m a woman. I appeal to you as something weak and helpless of something strong. I am unarmed. I can’t stop you. You can do whatever you want to. But I ask you to spare him—for my sake. Oh, spare him! He’s all alone. Someday you’ll be weak, too—helpless, even. Maybe you’ll beg someone else for help someday. You’re strong now. You don’t have to do this. Don’t do it—don’t!’
She stopped with a gasp.
‘Get out of the way or I’ll shoot you,’ said Zköllmann.
His voice was quiet and steady, without any trace of emotion, but it was low in a deadly way.
But Csilla did not move. The two stood frozen, staring at each other over a dead silence. She gazed at him in a wild manner and as she gazed, the fear in her seemed to drain away and a new look came into her eyes.
This time Zköllmann was forced to speak first.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Your eyes are brown,’ she said.
Her hands had stopped trembling. She was suddenly calm and felt nothing except a slight touch of surprise.
‘What does it matter what colour they are?’
‘I never noticed them before, that’s all. I never looked into your eyes before. I was always afraid to. I’m not afraid of you anymore.’
She had a strange feeling of relief and freedom as she said it.
‘Perhaps you are human and not just a machine,’ she said. ‘You must have a soul behind those eyes. Were you ever in love?’
‘Stop changing the subject,’ said Zköllmann.
‘I saved your life once, you know,’ said Csilla. ‘I don’t know why I did—I didn’t have to.’
He stared at her as if with all his knowledge of human psychology he could not quite see through her.
‘…No,’ she went on softly. ‘I do know why, after all: I did it because I didn’t want you to die.’
There was silence for nearly half a minute.
‘Get out of my way,’ said Zköllmann.
Csilla stepped away from the door and he strode past her. His boots stamped over the floorboards as though made of iron. Her eyes followed him until he was gone, then she sank down into a chair without bothering to close the door and put her face in her hands. He had not listened, nor cared. He was a machine after all for no human being with a heart could have disregarded such an appeal as she had made.

* * * * *

Wakjavotski was having his air-conditioning system repaired. He always felt too hot. The royal palace had had many modern improvements made to it since Wakjavotski had become an inmate. These included the intercommunication system, the extensive telephone lines with the palace’s own switchboard, an elaborate alarm system, a private cinema, a recording room, a photography studio, and the hot and cold air-conditioning system, to name only a few and without even going into the swimming pool and the tennis court.
A repair man had been called in to see what was the matter with the air-conditioning and why it wasn’t working well enough. Wakjavotski did not allow him to bring in an assistant. This secured Wakjavotski against any attempt on his life that the repair man might make, but it did not secure the repair man against a sudden and unexpected assault from a grubby boy concealed in the cellar.
‘Put your hands up immediately,’ said Cecil.
‘What the--!’ exclaimed the repair man. ‘What are you doing down here? Don’t you know they don’t allow anyone down here without written permission? And what are you doing with that water-gun?’
‘It’s real,’ said Cecil. ‘Do as I say and be quick about it. Or else, as they say in the motion pictures, you’ll be sorry.’
‘What do you mean? I haven’t got any money,’ said the unfortunate man, growing alarmed.
‘I don’t want your money; I want you to keep quiet. No one is to know that I’m here.’
‘What then? I’ll keep quiet. On my life, I swear it.’
‘I believe you,’ said Cecil. ‘You look a decent sort of fellow. But I’m very sorry, I shall have to tie you up and gag you. Don’t worry, after I’m king I’ll see that you’re compensated.’
‘Ma—’ began the man in amazement, but Cecil tied his handkerchief firmly over his mouth before he had a chance to finish saying ‘mad.’
Cecil next tied his hands behind his back with his shoe laces and his feet up with some wire in the repair box. Lastly, he dragged the man behind the water heater and put a piece of ventilator pipe in front to cover up his feet. This done, he took the repair man’s cap, jacket, and tool bag and made his way up the cellar steps.
At the top of the steps was a door, and here Cecil paused, for there were voices on the other side of it. All he could make out at first was a confused murmur, but as he listened they grew more distinct.
‘…he said the Bourbon. Don’t ask me about it. He said he was going to celebrate, though what he can have to celebrate I don’t know. Better get a move on, you know how patient he is.’
‘I don’t know where it is.’
‘To your right as you go in the wine cellar door.’
The voices were approaching the cellar steps and only the door separated the speakers from Cecil. He glanced round but there was not time to go back down the stairs.
‘Where’s the key?’ asked the second voice and Cecil heard a hand grasp the doorknob.
The question gave him a sudden inspiration. He took hold of the knob on his side and gripped it firmly.
‘It’s not locked. I never lock it anymore.’
‘Well, this door’s locked,’ said the second speaker, giving the knob a shake.
‘What? Impossible! I don’t even know where the key to that door is. Who could have locked it?’
The first speaker tried the handle as well, as was apparent from the rattling of the doorknob, but Cecil clung grimly to his side of the door and the other gave up the effort.
‘Well, I’ll have to go through the key ring, I suppose. Of all the silly things for someone to do!’
Their steps retreated and Cecil, after waiting for a moment, cautiously opened the door. He was in the servants’ wing of the palace and the two speakers had evidently been butlers. The room he entered was a hall that opened through a heavy oak door into the carriage yard between the palace and the coach houses. Of course, these last were not used anymore, because Wakjavotski was not fond of animals of any kind and had an automobile (although he never used it anymore because he never went out).
The hall was dimly lighted by a lamp on a side table. On one side of the door stood a hat tree on which hung several coats and hats belonging to the servants, and on the other side of the door stood a collection of boots and shoes. On the side table, next to the lamp, stood a telephone. Cecil at once went up to it and picked up the receiver, but before he could give the number he heard the two servants returning.
Again, there was nowhere to hide. Cecil took a deep breath and risked all on the clumsy disguise he had taken from the repair man. As the servants came in, still conversing, he knelt down on the floor and began to unscrew a vent cover, rattling the screw driver and whistling.
The servants glanced at him, but in the dim light and crouched as he was, they could not discern him from the true repair man. They tried the cellar door, found that it opened without trouble, and exclaimed in exasperation over their wasted effort.
‘Well, go on down, then,’ said the one. ‘I’ll wait here for you with the glasses.’
He put his tray on the side table and then leaned up against the wall as he waited, much to Cecil’s discomfort for he was sure he would soon be recognised. He glanced over his shoulder at the butler, who was playing unconsciously with the telephone cord and looking the other way. Cautiously Cecil got to his feet and edged his way to the nearest door.
This door led from the servants’ wing into the rest of the palace. He had just laid his hand on the knob when the butler happened to casually glance in his direction. He stared at Cecil in surprise, but Cecil did not wait to see his reaction. He darted through the door and dashed down a corridor that ended in two glass-paned doors. Through these Cecil could see a great and shadowy ballroom, deserted and unlit. He paused for a moment but there was no sign of pursuit so, putting a trembling hand on the handle, he opened one of the doors and went in.
He had the feeling as he entered of a huge space opening out around him. The ceiling soared up into darkness above his head and on either side the walls slipped back into shadows. A wide marble floor ran away in front of him and spread out on either hand like a vast frozen lake. In a far wall of the room was a row of windows that reached from the floor nearly to the ceiling, throwing the pale beams of an early moon across the white marble floor.
Cecil forgot his fear and his hurry. A feeling of awe struck through him as he stepped slowly across the great dance floor. Ghosts of other days seemed to flit by between the moonlight and shadow: figures of men with broad ribbons across their chests and gold braid hanging from their shoulders; forms of ladies in silks and diamonds. Once the old ballroom had been full of them. It seemed to hold onto them like an old man holds to his memories.
Never in all his life before had Cecil felt at home in any place. He had always been a wayfarer, in all the many places he had been, never finding that sense of belonging to any one of them. Here, in the moonlight, in the shadowy stillness of the great ballroom, he felt at last that he had come home.
He was surprised to find his nose running and, as he put his hand to his face, was shocked to find his cheeks wet with tears. He hadn’t cried since he was small, and even now it was not because he was upset at all. It was some other feeling—a feeling as if familiar arms he had thought far away had come softly through the dark and encircled him. He had never felt so near to his father and mother since they had died.

He stepped softly through the silent room, across the bars of moonlight on the marble floor, to the far end and to a great doorway. He came out of the ballroom through this archway into a lofty hall, on either side of which two semi-circular staircases climbed up to a balcony above. Straight before him stood the two-leaved door of the grand entrance of the palace and high above his head hung a chandelier which would have sparkled like a thousand diamonds had it been lit, but now only gleamed faintly in the moonlight. Cecil turned, passed through a doorway to the left, and entered a long, carpeted corridor lined with portraits, suits of armour, and the doors of offices.
This wing of the palace seemed singularly deserted that evening. The guards that usually patrolled the building were nowhere to be seen and the lamps in the corridor were unlit. Ahead Cecil could see the door of an office ajar, shedding a bright ray of yellow lamplight across the blood red carpet. He approached cautiously and put his eye to the crack.

* * * * *

Csilla had been sitting there, it seemed, for hours. The house and the street outside were singularly silent and the horrible stillness stretched her nerves to the breaking point. She wondered what was happening to Cecil at that moment, and tried to think of a hundred ways he might possibly escape from Zköllmann. But beneath it all she knew that escape was impossible—she knew this from her own experience. A wild desire kept rising up inside her to do something to help Cecil, and yet she couldn’t. She couldn’t even warn him.
The underground no longer existed. She was the only one left of all the little revolutionary band—she…and the Silver Heels. This last thought flashed into her mind like a sword. Zköllmann had not said anything to her about the Silver Heels—perhaps he did not know about them. Could it be that they were still out there somewhere in the city, waiting for the signal?
The thoughts clicked together in her mind one after another. Cecil was in the palace, but he could be saved—if the whole country were to rise up to his aid. If the Silver Heels could take the radio tower, and if the Pyromanian people could be alerted of the danger of the prince, they might rise up and throw off the tyranny that was strangling them. The coup might work after all. She must find the Silver Heels!
She got somehow to her feet and went to the telephone. She had taken down the receiver and heard the buzz of the wires in her ear before she realised that Cecil had not given her any number with which to reach them.
A horrible panic seized her by the throat. She must find them, she must! There was so little time! She sank into a chair with the receiver in her hand and settled her mind to think. The Silver Heels were concealed—in the city or outside it? Probably in it, so as to be ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Where in the city could a force of a hundred and fifty men be hidden?
She was very familiar with the city and she knew of only one place where so many men could wait unnoticed. She put the telephone to her ear again and gave the operator the number for the national cathedral.
The ring of the other line sounded as small and faint as if it were worlds away. One ring…two….No answer. Her pulse beat so loudly in her ear that she scarcely could hear the faint ringing above it. Suddenly a voice broke over the line and Csilla caught her breath while her blood seemed to rush up to her cheeks like a flood.
It was the voice that had sung over the wireless, the evening before, that strange, strange song.
‘Sevastopol,’ she said, and her voice was surprisingly calm and even.
The receiver caught a shallow click from the other end and the line went dead.
She stood still for a moment with the receiver in her hand. She was alone again and that far off human voice, now that it was gone, made her feel twice as alone as before. Outside her window a pale moon glimmered through onto the carpet. From where she stood she could see a bit of the railing of the park through the window and a low black tree branch which hung above it.
With a sudden movement, she caught up her cloak and threw it round her shoulders. Her dress was dark and as she put out the lamp and slipped through her front door, she melted into the night like a shadow.
The city seemed deserted. There were no policemen to be seen, no government vehicles. The great bustling hive of several millions was as silent and dead as if only one soul were left in it. Csilla flitted down the avenues, caught occasionally by the gleam of the street lamps as she passed beneath them. At the junction of three streets she stopped and waited beneath the shadow of a doorway.
The radio building stood across the road, also seemingly deserted but for a light in a second storey window. Above it the radio tower shot up towards the stars like a silver needle balanced on its eye. It seemed so frail and delicate amid the vast immensity of space around it, looking like the razor edge of truth against a universe of muddy ambiguity. It was strange to think that on that slender shaft rested all their hopes for the future of Pyromania.
There seemed to be something going on at the far end of Grimes Boulevard. She could distinguish nothing but dark shapes in the shadows, but there seemed to be a lot of them and they were rushing about purposefully, yet not a sound was heard.
Then, as from far away, came a noise like the rushing of the tide on a windy day. It grew to a thunder and then a roar—an avalanche of iron on stone which echoed against the enclosing buildings and redounded in a wave down the three streets simultaneously.
Csilla looked and could scarcely believe her eyes. In the weak light of the street lamps she saw horsemen, hundreds it seemed. They came down the cobblestoned thoroughfares like a host from a dream, the manes of the animals flying and the shadowy warriors astride like ancient knights as the moonlight glinted off of their heels like silver. They rushed together upon the radio building and took it by storm, some dismounting at the doors and making their way in, others galloping round and round the building, never uttering a cry.
Several shots were heard from within but these were quickly silenced and a voice in the doorway called to the others. These who had remained outside took their stations before the doors, still mounted. In the confusion of grouping themselves, nobody noticed a dark figure slip through the back door of the radio building.
Csilla hurried to the staircase and ran lightly up to the second floor. The radio control-room, usually in a state of mayhem from announcers’ voices, classical music, and clicking typewriters, was now suddenly quiet and occupied by a body of men in blue and grey uniforms. They were at the moment engaged in tying up the broadcasting crew. They had already tied up the guards.
One of the soldiers, a rather handsome fellow who appeared to be the leader, was giving orders.
‘You needn’t gag them,’ he was saying. ‘Put them in the coat closet downstairs and make sure you lock the door.’
‘And what do we do with the broadcasting in the meantime?’ asked one of the soldiers.
‘That’s Karotski’s business. I haven’t heard anything from him—I hope nothing’s happened. But at any rate, I can’t attend to that now. They’ll be all about our ears in a few more minutes.’
‘Unless we keep some sort of program running, the whole country will get the alarm.’
‘Our job is to defend this place. Someone will show up soon. They can’t all be jugged because someone gave me the codeword.’
‘I did,’ said Csilla.
The man who giving orders turned around sharply and saw her.
‘How did you get in?’ he asked in surprise, and she recognised the voice on the telephone.
‘I’ve come to help,’ she replied. ‘It was I who gave the codeword.’
‘I thought it was a woman’s voice! You’re the Hungarian singer, aren’t you? Then it’s all right,’ he said, turning to the others.
‘Yes,’ she said; ‘but I’ve got to tell you—the others have been caught—all of them.’
‘Not the prince?’
‘I think not as yet, but I’m afraid he can’t remain free much longer. That’s why I called you here. The only chance of saving him lies in our getting a message to the Pyromanian people and in their rising against the government.’
The men stared at her blankly. Mikhailov (who, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, was the leader of the party) looked at her with a grim understanding gathering in his eyes.
‘The only chance?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’ve called you to a hopeless mission—like the one you performed eleven years ago. Perhaps I've murdered all of you; but I’ve come to fight with you.’

‘I told him we’d hold this place to the death and we shall,’ said Mikhailov with his usual mixture of melodrama and practicality. ‘That’s what we signed up for. But I’m sure I don’t know what to do about the broadcast, and that’s the whole point, after all. Isn’t there anything recorded?’
‘I can manage it,’ said Csilla, wondering, as she said it, just what she would say.
‘Can you work the equipment?’ asked Mikhailov in surprise.
‘If I can’t figure out how to, my spy training was not very thorough,’ she replied.
‘Something’s up outside, chief,’ said one of the men sharply.
By this time the police had taken the alarm and had come to see what was causing the disturbance at the radio building. They had no sooner made out the threatening shapes then they hurried away to bring the army. They had not been very well-organised themselves since Bubol had been arrested—in fact, no arrests at all had been made by the civil police for the last twenty-four hours.
The alarm was sent from the police station to von der Grosse’s headquarters and an infantry detachment was sent out to reconoitre. They advanced cautiously from the end of each of the three separate streets, their rifles at the ready.
There was a sudden commotion among the shadowy group surrounding the radio building. Suddenly, a wave of living creatures came rushing down the boulevards, neighing and pawing like centaurs. The soldiers broke and scattered as this body of riderless cavalry descended upon them. These were the mounts of the marauding forces, and an odd medley they were—cart horses and draught horses gleaned from the surrounding countryside, with a few milk wagon jades thrown in. The infantry melted back before this onslaught but, when it had passed, once again advanced cautiously toward the radio building.

Prince Cecil: XVII

Chapter XVII.

The Foundations Shaken

It was nearly Krassok’s usual time to begin his secretarial work for the Superior. He was just a bit early this morning, and he whistled cheerfully as he walked down the palace corridor towards the double doors of the audience chamber, pleased with the thought that the Superior would think him a very useful secretary indeed.
He paused as he reached the doors, hearing a familiar voice speaking in loud and irate tones and vociferating more fiercely than was usual even for the Superior. He stood indecisively for a moment, then thought that he had better come back later.
Wakjavotski was talking on the telephone. Baden had called him up that morning with some startling news.
‘THEY DID!’ rang the dictator’s amazed stentorian tones into the receiver. ‘Do you expect me to believe that? –That the SO would actually dare to arrest one of my top ministers? By all the futile Freudian fallacies! What is Zköllmann thinking? Yes, I was angry when he jugged Bubol, of course, but Bubol was getting rather useless anyway and he never had any imagination—but Limbrugher? He can’t just arrest Limbrugher like that—he’s my minister.’
‘Perhaps Zköllmann would benefit by a reminder of that fact,’ came Baden’s voice sarcastictically over the wire. ‘I warned you, you know.’
‘I’ll show you and everybody else that Zköllmann can’t just walk over me like that,’ shouted Wakjavotski. ‘He will be here in fifteen minutes and he will explain everything or lose his position.’
‘He’ll explain, certainly,’ said Baden. ‘He’ll explain everything too satisfactorily. He’d easily talk you round. Don’t give him the chance—arrest him at once. Use the tank brigade if you’re afraid the SO will support him.’
‘I won’t use the tanks for paltry manouvres. They’re to remain in the fort where they’re safe. Besides, I’m not afraid the SO will support Zköllmann. They’re loyal to me first.’
‘I’d be wary all the same. You never know what he’s got up his sleeve. Don’t let him explain anything, at all costs, just put him quietly out of the way. You can always find another secret police chief. I told you he was too ambitious. What do you want—do you want him to be arresting you next? Take strong measures.’
‘I shall take Herculean measures! Dempsey and Lewis won’t even be in the running with me! I’ll clear this calumny up! Zköllmann, your fun is over! Yes, by the Fasces, sickle, and Swastika combined!’
‘Good,’ said Baden, and hung up.
Wakjavotski slammed his receiver down, breaking his telephone.
‘Krassok! Grosse! Anyone! Who’s in here?’ he shouted.
Two guards entered.
‘Hoch Wakjavotski!’ they cried.
‘Ah!’ said Wakjavotski. ‘Send for Grosse immediately. I want him to… oh, never mind—just send him in here.’
The guards saluted and hurried out and Krassok hurried in.
‘Did Your Excellency call me?’ he asked.
‘I don’t want you anymore. You are always late! Goodbye!’
Krassok left.
It took some time for the guards to find Grosse and some more time for him to finish his breakfast (he did not dine particularly late but his meals lasted for quite awhile). He did not appear in the audience chamber until half an hour later.
‘Finally!’ said Wakjavotski who had been stamping up and down the room impatiently the while. ‘Go take some of your men and bring Zköllmann here.’
‘Why couldn’t you have just called him, instead of making me come?’ asked Grosse, who did not like having his breakfast rushed.
‘Don’t question me! Insubordination! Go at once!’
Grosse obeyed rapidly.
He was gone for some time. In the meantime the telephone was repaired. As soon as it was fixed it began to ring.
‘What?!’ asked Wakjavotski, answering it.
‘Zköllmann isn’t home,’ said Grosse’s voice.
‘Find him!’
Wakjavotski hung up.
‘Who are you looking for?’ asked a voice behind him.
He turned around and saw Zköllmann standing just inside the door.
‘You!’ he thundered irately.
‘Here I am.’
‘—And here you’ll stay until I’m through with you. What do you mean by arresting one of my ministers? You will release him immediately.’
‘Which one?’
‘What do you mean, which one? Limbrugher, of course. And what did you arrest him for, anyway?’
‘Conspiracy.’
‘Against whom? Against me? You’re mad! I won’t believe it of him. He not only does not have the guts to do that sort of thing, he does not even have the brains.’
‘He was only an agent in the plot.’
‘I said release him at once!…What plot?’
‘He has already been released,’ went on Zköllmann evenly. ‘We asked him a few questions, and he confessed everything. As you said, he hasn’t much courage or intelligence. He has been taught a lesson and will not try anything of the sort again.’
‘But what plot? What plot? I want to know!’
‘A plot against you. Baden has been maturing it for some time.’
‘Baden! Ha! Of course you’d pick Baden. The two of you aren’t too good friends, are you? Well, it was rather stupid of you to choose Baden to style as the originator of your fictional intrigue. He may be bad, but I know him too well to believe he’s in a plot against me. He said the same thing about you, you know.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yes, and I almost believe it now, after this premature arrest of Limbrugher. Baden informs me that you’ve made it your business to know all about our private affairs. That kind of curiosity is not healthy. –Because of course if we decided we didn’t want you to have that knowledge, we’d have no other alternative but to dispose of you. You’ve been getting too restless, lately, I think. I am going to call Baden in and get to the bottom of this arrest and supposed “plot.” You still haven’t explained the particulars to me, you know.’
Wakjavotski picked up the telephone and dialed Baden’s number.
‘You won’t find him at home,’ remarked Zköllmann, watching him.
‘Where is he, then?’
‘Just now he’s at the SO headquarters.’
Wakjavotski laid down the receiver.
‘What’s he doing there?’ he asked.
‘He was arrested fifteen minutes ago by the SO.’
Wakjavotski stared at Zköllmann while the blood mounted in his face.
‘By the…’ he began and cut himself short with, ‘WHAT ON EARTH DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!!’
‘He was in a plot against you,’ Zköllmann repeated patiently.
‘So you really expect me to believe that—that lie?’ asked Wakjavotski with determined incredulity.
‘He confessed to it himself.’
‘Under coercion, no doubt. You probably got that out of him with your interrogation.’
‘Not at all. He confessed freely the moment we confronted him with the documents found in his house. There was no use in his denying it.’
‘What documents? Give me physical proof!’
Zköllmann laid a folder stuffed with papers on Wakjavotski’s desk.
‘This is the evidence we’ve found so far,’ he said.
‘Forged probably—the lot of it! You’ll release Baden immediately.’
‘If you think it best.’
‘And you’ll concern yourself only with what I tell you to from now on. Do you imagine I have time to keep my ministers from killing each other? I have more important things to do—such as the war, for instance. I’m having you dismissed, Zköllmann.’
Wakjavotski flipped open the folder and began to look over the papers inside.
‘Are you going to have the tanks sent back to the fort as well?’ asked Zköllmann, immoveably.
‘Who ordered the tanks away from the fort?’ asked Wakjavotski. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Baden did.’
Wakjavotski laid down the papers, straightened up, and gaped at Zköllmann for a few seconds, then rushed to the telephone and gave the necessary orders. When he hung up again, he sat down in a chair and gave his secret police chief a long scrutiny, as if trying to plumb the depths of that impenetrable mind. Zköllmann returned his gaze serenely.
‘Was Grosse in the plot as well?’ Wakjavotski asked at last.
‘They had not yet let him into the secret, although of course they planned to, in order to have the support of the army.’
‘I never trusted Baden,’ said Wakjavotski. ‘—But I don’t trust you, either. That’s why I made you both ministers—two scoundrels whom I couldn’t trust—so that you’d watch each other and balance out each other. If one of you started to get too strong, I knew the other would keep him in check. You knew that, too—didn’t you?—and that’s why you’ve arrested Baden.’
‘Do you still want me to release him?’ asked Zköllmann.
‘No, he’s convinced me. –Something you couldn’t do. Well, now that he’s out of the way, you think you can do what you like. But you’ve forgotten one thing—you’ve still got me to deal with.’
Zköllmann stood silently regarding him.
‘You think I’m just a charismatic politician, don’t you?–One who has the people’s imaginations captivated, but who has to rely on his ministers for the real work?’ asked Wakjavotski. ‘Not at all! I’m in control completely. Try to get rid of me! You think the SO will support you, but I know better. They’re loyal to me and I’ve seen to it that they’ve stayed that way. If they had to choose between you and I, you wouldn’t stand a chance—not even from your own special force. Sad, isn’t it? Do you want to pit your wits against mine? Go ahead! I’m not afraid of you!’
Wakjavotski paused in his harangue to give Zköllmann a long look.
‘You just stand there as silent as a great black grave,’ he went on after a moment. ‘But you can’t frighten me! I can read minds, too—maybe even better than you can with all your psychoanalysis, you loony doctor!’
‘Some kinds of psychology make mad men sane; some kinds make sane men mad,’ replied Zköllmann.
‘Enough of your oraculations! I’m not interested! Don’t mistake me—I’m letting you return to your work, but don’t make the slightest move without my say-so. I have the tank brigade; I have the army; I have a secret weapon that is powerful enough to liquidate our allies as well as our enemies, however much you may scoff at it; and I have my own incomparable self—that’s something you can’t get the better of.’
‘Was that all you wanted me for?’ asked Zköllmann.
‘Go!’ cried Wakjavotski.

* * * * *

‘A quarter of an hour yet to go,’ said Mikhailov.
The four conspirators sat together in Leiber’s upstairs room. The sun had set and darkness was beginning to creep into the city. All was in readiness for the operation that night—the agents had been apprised of their parts and the Silver Heels had been given their injunctions. There was nothing to do now but to wait.
It was a quiet party in the little room. There wasn’t much left to talk about and no one felt much like talking. Leiber studied some shorthand notes, Cecil swung his legs, and Mikhailov sat and cleaned a tommy gun—one of the few of the underground’s weapons. Karotski stood leaning against the wall and staring at nothing. No one else wanted to bother him, so nobody had broken the silence until Mikhailov made the above remark. When he had made it, Karotski jerked his head up to look at the grandfather clock.
‘It’s nearly dark enough,’ was all he said, with a glance at the window.
‘I’ve just time to wind my watches, I think,’ said Leiber, getting up.
He went through the door and they heard his footsteps going steadily down the stairs until they reached the bottom; then Cecil suddenly jumped up and hurried after him.
Leiber sat on the counter in the watch shop with a lamp above his head, the light from which streamed over his shoulder. He held one of the watches up to the light as he wound it. He was always very careful with his watches.
‘They’re almost like living things,’ he remarked, seeing Cecil come in. ‘I don’t like to think of what will happen to them if I don’t come back. I hate for a watch to run down.’
Cecil came up to the counter and watched Leiber’s painstaking fingers as they turned a tiny gold key in the side of the watch.
‘I thought of asking you to take the job of winding them for me every night, Tzaddi,’ said Leiber, looking slightly embarrassed. ‘—I mean, if anything happened to me. But I suppose you’ll be far too busy once you’ve got your kingdom back.’
‘I won’t be too busy,’ said Cecil quickly.
Leiber replaced the watch beneath the counter and took out another.
‘This watch was given to me several years ago by a friend who is dead now,’ he said thoughtfully, opening up the back and examining the little wheels inside. ‘I’ve always kept it. Watches are curious things. You’ve got to treat them just right—not drop them or get them wet or anything like that. If you keep one long enough, it gets to be an old friend.’
He put a key into the watch and began to wind it.
‘What will you do after Pyromania is free again?’ asked Cecil.
‘I don’t know,’ said Leiber. ‘I suppose I’ll keep the watch shop like I do now. I haven’t thought much about it.’
‘Don’t you want to be rich, or in government, or anything like that?’
‘Not much. Most of the fellows in the underground just want to settle down quietly and begin life for real. I suppose that’s what I want, too. I don’t know what I want, exactly.’
‘Then what is it you’re fighting for?’ asked Cecil.
‘Why, to make Pyromania free. That’s what we’re all fighting for. You didn’t come back just to be king, did you?’
‘No,’ said Cecil; ‘but I thought you’d want something at the end of it all for yourself.’
‘All I want is for all this to be over.’
‘I wish I were going in there instead of you.’
‘You wouldn’t look very convincing in the disguise,’ said Leiber.
‘But it seems a rotten shame,’ said Cecil; ‘—that I’m the one who will get to be king and you’re the one who’s got the bad job.’
‘It isn’t a bad job,’ said Leiber. ‘It’s a good job.’
‘Doesn’t it bother you that you’re going to murder him?’
‘It was a hard decision to make in the beginning. Murder is wrong, but so is standing by while Wakjavotski hurts innocent people. All I knew when I decided was that I had to make a choice one way or the other, and I’ve made it. Pretty soon I shall know whether I was right or wrong.’
‘What if you’re wrong?’ asked Cecil.
‘I have to go through with it whether I’m wrong or not,’ said Leiber. ‘If I am wrong, I shall suffer for it, but I hope a lot of other people will be made happy.’
The clocks and watches began to chime the hour in their silvery voices and Leiber got up and put on the white laboratory jacket and spectacles that were his disguise. Karotski and Mikhailov entered the shop from the stairway.
‘Don’t forget your parts,’ said Karotksi. ‘Leiber, hire a taxi. You’ll look more official. Mikhailov, see that the Silver Heels don’t get arrested after the curfew hour strikes.’
‘We won’t be,’ said Mikhailov. ‘We can handle any policemen we meet.’
‘Good. The prince will come with me. Remember, don’t do anything until you’ve gotten the codeword. We can’t afford any premature manouvres.’
‘Right.’
‘Leiber,’ said Karotksi, turning to him and lowering his voice; ‘if you run into trouble forget everything and get out. You’re more important than the success of this plan.’
Leiber picked up the gun case and said nothing.
‘Well, I’m off,’ said Mikhailov. ‘Good luck, Leiber.’
He disappeared through the door and they heard him whistling as he ran up the street. Karotski and Cecil went out next and Leiber followed last, locking the shop door behind him.
Karotski and Cecil started off toward the radio building and Leiber went down the street in the opposite direction. They glanced back at him once and saw him stop to hail a passing taxicab. Then they went on together without looking back. Not a word was spoken between them until they reached the safe house across from the radio tower.
Cecil and Karotski entered the empty building and climbed the stairs to a room on the second storey. Karotski went quietly to the window and looked out at the street. Nothing stirred. It was approaching the curfew hour. They had had to time the operations carefully so that Leiber would not arrive at the palace at a suspiciously late hour, but so that the Silver Heels would have the cover of darkness in which to surprise the radio station.
Karotski ensconced himself beside the telephone. If Leiber was successful, Vau would soon know by the panic-stricken telephone calls that would come pouring out of the palace. After tying up the telephone lines, Vau would pass the message on to Karotski who would give the code word to the Silver Heels and to the other agents.
They sat in the twilit room, waiting anxiously for the ring of the telephone to break the stillness. In the meanwhile Karotski went mentally over the plans, muttering them aloud in an effort to keep them straight in his mind. Cecil sat and mused nervously.
The telephone call came much more quickly than they had expected. It was Vau’s voice, certainly, but there was something wrong in its tones.
‘Hello, hello, are you there?’
‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘The game’s up, Aleph.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘They’ve got Gimel.’
‘Who?’
‘The SO. He didn’t have a chance to do anything. They got him as soon as he got inside the palace. They were expecting him. Better clear out while there’s time.’
‘But—’
‘Listen,’ came Vau’s voice sharply; ‘I can’t tell you any more. Two SO officers just came into the switchroom. They’ve come for me, I think. I’ve got to hang up…’
The line went dead.
Karotski slowly hung up the receiver. Cecil had stood near enough to catch most of this and a deadly weight settled on their hopes.
‘They’ve got him?’ Cecil asked, meaning Leiber.
Karotski nodded. ‘The butchers!’ he muttered.
Cecil leaned his head against the dark wall.
‘Well, we’ve failed,’ he said dully.
‘Yes, failed,’ repeated Karotski. ‘Failed!’ he cried, suddenly. ‘It’s all over. That was our last chance and it’s gone. It wasn’t Leiber’s fault, though. I shouldn’t have let him go. Oh, why did I let him go?’
‘They’ll be after us next,’ said Cecil.
‘Yes, they’re probably on to all of us. But what does it matter? They’ve got Leiber. What could we have done without him?’
‘Look here,’ said Cecil, straightening up with a determined look on his face. ‘We aren’t giving up. They haven’t caught us yet and there’s still time. Leiber won’t talk.’
‘No, Leiber won’t talk,’ said Karotski, beginning to pace up and down. ‘Leiber won’t talk, no matter what they do. Not Leiber! He’s true: true as gold. They’ll torture him—again—the brutes! Fiends! Villains! But he’ll never betray us. No! Not him. Oh, Leiber! Why did it have to be you?’ and he put his head into his hands.
‘We’ve got to make a plan,’ said Cecil. ‘We haven’t much time.’
‘Yes!’ said Karotski, straightening up again. ‘All’s not lost. We’ll save him yet. Leiber! I’ll save you, or die in the attempt.’
‘How are we to do it?’ asked Cecil practically.
‘Storm the SO headquarters,’ said Karotski wildly. ‘We can use the Silver Heels.’
‘I don’t think there are enough of them for that,’ said Cecil. ‘But—wait a minute!—the plans and maps and things—aren’t they still at Leiber’s shop? …They’ll search it, you know, now that they’ve arrested him.’
Karotski stared at him.
‘We’ve time!’ said Cecil, darting past him to the door. ‘They can’t have got there yet. We can beat them if we run.’
He dashed out and down the stairs to the street. Only once he looked back and saw Karotski pounding after him. They reached the deserted street where the clock shop stood and Karotski unlocked the door.
All was order within. The ticking of the fifty or so clocks and watches sounded like fifty hearts beating in their sleep.
‘They haven’t been here yet,’ said Cecil, as he hurried up the dark staircase. He opened the secret compartment in the grandfather clock with the key Leiber had entrusted to him.
‘They will be, though,’ said Karotski, who was just behind him. ‘They’ll smash everything up.’
‘There’s nothing we can do. Here’s the papers. Have you a match?’
‘Don’t burn them yet. I want to look over them.’
Karotski pulled out the map of the SO headquarters and studied it, spread out on the table. He attempted several different modes of attack with a pencil, but each time he couldn’t work it out with only one hundred and fifty Silver Heels.
‘There’s only one thing to do,’ he said, straightening up. ‘We’ll just have to try our luck.’
‘Do you think we have a chance?’ asked Cecil.
‘No, but we’ve got to do it. I won’t leave Leiber to the mercy of those devils.’
‘But what can we do against them?’
‘We’ll see!’ cried Karotski.
He strode to the door and opened it. Outside on the landing stood a bevy of figures in black uniforms.
And here, Karotski, with all his preoccupation, was gripped with that fabulous presence of mind that always came to him in the most desperate of situations. He closed the door.
He closed it and threw himself against it as a human barricade. At the same time, he glanced over his shoulder at Cecil.
‘The clock!’ he whispered.
Cecil understood him and knew that it was the only thing to do. As quick as thought, he put one leg down into the cavernous space that was the pendulum cabinet of the old clock. He ducked his head under the upper part of the opening and pulled in his other leg, making himself as small and thin as possible. Then he shut the door and, because he still had the key, locked it.
All this time, which was in sum about three seconds, Karotski had held the door shut against the men outside. They weren’t interested in battering the door down and quickly resorted to firing several bullets through the door panels. One of these grazed Karotski’s hand. He stepped back from the door and allowed them to open it and enter.
‘Comrade Karotski, also known as Aleph; under arrest!’ said the head officer.
Karotski made no demure as they buckled the handcuffs on his bleeding hands. He seemed to have burnt the last of his energy in that one frantic outburst and now he had nothing left.
‘Here’s the papers,’ said one of the officers, taking them from the table. ‘That’s what we want; we can go over the place later.’
‘Very well. You two stay and guard this place. Arrest anyone who comes here,’ said the head officer.
Then they went away, leaving the two guards to keep a watch outside the door. When he was quite sure that they had gone, Cecil crawled out of the clock. For a few minutes he stood in the quiet room uncertainly. He was on his own now. There was only one way left to save Pyromania and Cecil had felt all along that it was what he would have to do in the end anyway.
He went to the telephone on the wall, took down the receiver, and gave the number for Miss Kaparthy’s house. It was her voice that answered it and he could tell from her unsuspecting tones that she had not heard anything yet.
‘Miss Kaparthy,’ he said; ‘—it’s I—Cecil.’
‘Cecil!’ she exclaimed, forgetting to call him ‘Your Highness.’ ‘Oh, Cecil, you shouldn’t call here, I’ve told you before. They might catch you.’
‘I had to. They’ve got Leiber.’
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment.
‘Who did?’ asked Csilla.
‘The SO. They’ve got Karotski too.’
‘Not Karotski! What are we going to do?’
‘I’m going to save them.’
‘How?’
‘I’ve got to get into the palace and get rid of Wakjavotski myself.’
‘But you can’t!’
‘I have to, that’s why I called you.’
‘…You want me to tell you the secret way in?’ she said.
‘You must—there’s no other way.’
‘No, I know. Listen carefully, Cecil. The vaults under the church are very extensive and they connect to a passage into the palace. You can get into them through the door in the alley you went through that first night. If you go through the archway on the north side it will take you down a long passage. It ends in a wall with an inscription in it, but it isn’t a real wall. If you push on it, it slides in like a door. Follow the passage behind it. It goes on for a long ways. At one place it is nearly choked up with rubble from where the roof collapsed once. I think you can get through—I did once—but a man couldn’t. At the end of the passage you’ll come to a wooden panel. It is part of the wall of the palace wine cellar. Can you find your way from there to the upper levels?’
‘I can do it,’ said Cecil. ‘I’ve almost memorized the floorplans. Is that all?’
‘Yes, that’s all. Are you sure you can do it by yourself?’
‘I’ll manage.’
‘Cecil, I’m coming with you!’
‘You can’t. There’s something else you’ve got to do. If I succeed in getting Wakjavotski I’ll ring you up on the telephone and give you the codeword. You’ve got to let the Silver Heels and any of our men they haven’t nabbed yet know and get them off on their work. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, I can!’
‘The code word is Savastopol.’
‘Savastopol,’ she repeated.
‘Good bye, then.’
‘Good bye—be careful.’
Cecil hung up and went to the window. He had slid down enough drainspouts in his life to effect an escape from the upper window without difficulty and neither of the two guards saw him as he slipped away up the street.

Prince Cecil: XVI

Chapter XVI.

Business As Usual

The back of Daleth’s restaurant looked the same as Cecil remembered it that night that seemed so long ago when he had first joined the underground. The same dumpster stood beneath the same window and by its aid Cecil and Mikhailov effected an entrance. Cecil rang up the watch shop on the telephone in Daleth’s living room and in fifteen minutes Karotski and Leiber appeared.
‘Well, so there you are,’ said Karotski as he entered, but he started as he saw Cecil and exclaimed, ‘What happened to you?’
Cecil stared at him, puzzled.
‘What’s the matter with your eye?’ added Leiber. ‘It’s blue.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Cecil. ‘It’s nothing. We had a bit of a scrap, that’s all.’
‘I think I did that,’ said Mikhailov in embarrassment. ‘I didn’t know who he was.’
‘You didn’t, eh?’ said Karotski.
‘It wasn’t his fault,’ explained Cecil. ‘I insulted him. And it doesn’t hurt anymore, anyway.’
‘You should ask Daleth for a beef steak to put on it,’ suggested Leiber.
‘That’s all very well,’ said Karotski drily. ‘What I want to know is, who is this person, anyway?’
‘He’s the new commander in chief of the imperial army,’ said Cecil. ‘Speaking of beef steak, would you mind asking Daleth to send up some supper for him? When did you last eat, Mik?’
‘Can’t remember; couldn’t care,’ said Mikhailov who was sprawled in a chair with his hands behind his head, enjoying the momentary lull. ‘Lead me to the larder. I’m not particular.’
‘We’ll see to that presently,’ said Karotski sharply. ‘But where have you been all this time? I thought you’d gone to see Kaparthy but when I talked to her she said you’d left hours ago and started worrying like a woman that something had happened to you.’
‘We got picked up by the SO,’ said Cecil and was prevented from saying more by the start Karotski and Leiber made simultaneously.
‘Impossible!’ said Karotksi. ‘Then how are you here?’
‘We escaped,’ said Cecil.
‘The deuce you did! What on earth do you mean? Did they actually arrest you?’
‘Not really arrested; we were apprehended,’ Cecil explained. ‘They took us in for questioning—’
‘Stop,’ said Karotski. ‘They took you in where?’
‘To the SO headquarters.’
‘There?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then how did you get away?’
‘I found the breaker room and cut the main power cable.’
‘And—got out?’
‘Yes. None of their alarms worked and the fence was useless.’
Karotski stared alternately at Cecil and Mikhailov, completely amazed.
‘So you were actually in that place,’ said Leiber.
‘What did you tell them?’ asked Karotski, coming out of his amazement and snapping into practicality again.
‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ said Cecil. ‘Zköllmann told me a lot, though—oh, I say!’
‘What?’
‘I forgot!’ said Cecil. ‘Sir Andrew Fletcher—they know about him. Zköllmann said so.’
‘They know about all of us, probably,’ said Karotski drily.
‘They suspect Leiber, but they don’t know about you—I’m pretty sure of that,’ said Cecil. ‘As long as they don’t know who you are we’re still all right.’
‘So they know about Fletcher, do they?’ said Karotski, ruminating.
‘Do you think they’ll kill him?’ asked Cecil.
‘Not right away, I should think. They’ve probably known about him for a few days at least and they haven’t arrested him yet—probably so they could watch him and get information.’
Karotski crossed his arms in thought.
‘Well,’ he continued; ‘that knocks out one of our chances. It was a small chance in the first place but now it’s non-existent.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Cecil.
‘We were going to ask him to try to contact the SIS,’ said Leiber. ‘We thought they might get us the men we need for an uprising.’
‘It was a straw and we, as drowning men, had to clutch at it,’ said Karotski. ‘The idea was impractical anyway. Even if the SIS wanted to help us, there wouldn’t be enough of them. We need an army.’
‘An army,’ repeated Cecil.
He sank into a chair despondently.
‘I’ve been an ass, Mik,’ he said ruefully. ‘That recording we did—I don’t know why I didn’t think of it—’
‘Yes, what of it?’ asked Mikhailov. ‘I was wondering what had become of all that.’
‘I switched it for the recording of Miss Kaparthy’s performance,’ explained Cecil. ‘A man was supposed to come and take it away to the radio broadcasting building so they could air it over the wireless.’
‘Over the wireless!’ exclaimed Mikhailov. ‘Do you mean that they played that song on every wireless in Pyromania? And all that row in the background too!’
‘It was the best way I could think of to make sure a lot of the Silver Heels heard it,’ said Cecil. ‘But even if they do hear it, they won’t know where to find us so they can join our forces. I didn’t think about it before. It was stupid of me. How could I have been so stupid?’
He felt not only embarrassed but absolutely silly. The plan had seemed a good one when he had first come up with it, but now that the excitement and danger were past his idea seemed sillier every minute.
‘What are you two talking about?’ said Karotski impatiently.
‘Never mind,’ said Cecil. ‘We tried to find some recruits but we failed and it was my fault. What an ass I am. I don’t know why I thought I could help Miss Kaparthy.’
They sat—or stood—in silence for several moments. No one could think of anything to say or anything to do. They were at the end of their wits and there seemed absolutely nothing left to try.
‘Speaking of Kaparthy,’ said Karotski, to whom the deference due a lady’s name meant nothing; ‘she told when I called her that she had something to tell you.’
‘Something to tell me?’ said Cecil, surprised. ‘What was it?’
‘I don’t know. She didn’t tell me. I told her we didn’t know where you were and she started to worry like I said before.’
‘Then I’d better go see her,’ said Cecil.
He put on his cap and made for the door.
‘You’re not going out again, are you?’ asked Leiber. ‘You just got in.’
‘The SO will be looking for you,’ said Karotski.
‘I won’t be gone long,’ said Cecil and then remembering his previous adventures added, ‘Hopefully.’
He dashed down the stairs and into the dining area of Daleth’s restaurant. It was extraordinarily late—nearing ten o’clock—and the restaurant was of course deserted. Even Daleth was not at his usual place behind the counter. Only one lamp was lit and it hung in the centre of the room, throwing shadows into the farthest corners. And yet the place was not deserted after all: at one of the darkest tables sat a woman wrapped in a black opera cloak. Cecil stopped short.
‘Great Scot!’ he gasped.
Miss Kaparthy looked up.
‘There you are!’ she said.
Cecil glanced quickly around but there was nobody else to be seen. He hurried silently to her table and she rose as he came up.
‘How did you find us?’ asked Cecil.
‘Sir Andrew told me.’
‘Sir Andrew!’
‘Yes. Just before he was arrested.’
Cecil laid a hand on the table, suddenly feeling dizzy.
‘When?’ he said.
‘Half an hour ago.’
He did a rapid sum: they had arrested Sir Andrew just after Cecil and Mikhailov had escaped from the SO headquarters.
‘He wanted me to tell you,’ explained Miss Kaparthy. ‘I know it’s dangerous for me to be here, but there was no one else to come. I may have been followed—but I don’t think I was.’
Cecil bit his lip. It had been his fault that Sir Andrew had been arrested. If he had never gone to his house the first day the SO might never had had any evidence against the consul.
‘I’m glad you’re safe,’ said Miss Kaparthy. ‘Karotski didn’t know what had happened to you, and—’
‘You know his name, then?’ asked Cecil quickly.
‘Sir Andrew told me their names--Aleph's and Gimel's. He thought I might need to know them.
‘But Karotski really shouldn’t have called me earlier,’ she went on, as if to herself. ‘They may recognise him by his voice, now.’
‘Are you going to tell him about Sir Andrew?’ asked Cecil.

‘Will you tell them? I don’t know what they look like, and I think it would be better if I don’t see them.’
‘I’ll tell them,’ said Cecil.
‘I’ll go, then, before I’m caught.’
‘Karotski said you wanted to tell me something.’
‘Yes, I did,’ she said, pausing. ‘—I wanted to ask you something. It’s about those men.’
‘What men?’ he asked, startled.
‘The men who have been coming to my house all evening. They’ve been coming since eight o’clock.’
‘What sort of men are they?’
‘All sorts. One was a plumber, another was a bus driver, one was the second cello from the Skolzor Philharmonic Orchestra whom I’ve known for several years… They all asked me what the song meant that was played this evening over the wireless. It was supposed to be the performance this evening but it wasn’t. There was some mistake. I thought perhaps you knew something about it.’
‘Oh…’ said Cecil, suddenly remembering. ‘Yes, it was I. I’m sorry not to have asked you first but of course there wasn’t time. Those men you were talking about—how many were there?’
‘Over a dozen—in spite of the curfew—and then there were the telephone callers. There were dozens of those.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘I told them to wait in the church—it’s never locked up and the police don’t bother it much. I told them I’d explain things as soon as I could.’
‘Thank you!’ said Cecil turning rapidly towards the door.
‘But who are they?’ asked Miss Kaparthy.
‘I’m going to find out, but I think I know,’ said Cecil over his shoulder.
‘Your Highness, wait!’ said Miss Kaparthy.
Cecil paused with one hand on the door knob and looked back. She stood with a look of confusion mixed with a strange sort of hope.
‘I listened to the broadcast—’ she said. ‘—that song was so queer, I’ve never heard it before—and the voice was a man’s—Your Highness, whose voice was it?’
‘It was a friend of mine,’ said Cecil. ‘I can’t explain just now—isn’t he a wonderful singer?—Goodbye!’
And he dashed out of the restaurant into the darkness.

When he returned to the restaurant half an hour later, she was gone, but Karotski, Leiber, and Mikhailov were all still in the upstairs room; Mikhailov was eating a plateful of steak and potatoes, Leiber was making notes in a little brown notebook, and Karotski was striding up and down the room with his usual impatience.
‘Well?’ said several voices in unison as Cecil entered.
‘Capital!’ said Cecil. ‘I’ve found our army.’
‘Who? How?’
‘The Silver Heels,’ he said. ‘Mikhailov, our broadcast did it. You remember the Silver Heels, don’t you?’ (This he said to Karotski and Leiber.)
‘The king’s guard,’ said Karotski.
‘Yes,’ said Cecil. ‘They were the only ones who kept fighting for him in the take-over. They’re all as true as steel and as loyal as they ever were. Mik here’s one of them.’
‘I congratulate you,’ said Karotski. ‘Now just where is this army, as you call it?’
‘Miss Kaparthy found them—or they found her. They thought she was the one who had put that song over the wireless, you see and so they called her and wanted to know all about it. She sent them all down to the church and I found them waiting there. I told them to stand by for further orders. I’ve got all their names and telephone numbers—there’s thirty-four of them, and every one of them knows five or six more who may join us. That makes over a hundred and fifty.’
‘Provided those others will join us,’ observed Karotski.
‘And provided they don’t all know the same five or six,’ added Leiber.
‘Besides, what good would one hundred and fifty men do us? We’d need several hundred at least,’ said Karotski.
‘Maybe not,’ said Cecil.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking. There may be a way to take over with only a few men,’ said Cecil. ‘Isn’t there some sort of—of—what do you call it? –Some place where all the different government branches connect up to?’
‘Nerve-centre?’ suggested Mikhailov.
‘Yes—a place like the breaker room in the SO headquarters where, if you got control of it, you’d be able to mess up all the Javotskis at once? –Keep them from being able to do anything, I mean.’
Karotski and Leiber stared at Cecil as he said this, then slowly looked at each other.
‘By gum!’ said Leiber.
Karotski nodded.
‘The radio tower,’ he said.
‘The radio tower?’ asked Cecil.
‘It’s the Javotski mouthpiece,’ explained Karotski. ‘Every bit of news that Pyromanians get is through the wireless—not counting the newspapers, but they’re slow and we can count them out. If we got hold of the radio broadcasting station and sent round the news that Wakjavotski was dead and the prince had returned, we’d have the whole country rallied behind us in an hour.’
‘Really?’ said Mikhailov in excitement.
‘But we’d have to kill Wakjavotski,’ said Cecil.
‘That will be done,’ replied Karotski.
‘And we’d have to keep the Javotskis from figuring out what’s going on,’ said Mikhailov.
‘That, too, will be done,’ said Karotski.
He was no longer speaking of the operation as if it were simply an idea but as if it were a settled plan. He had thrown off all uncertainty and spoke as matter-of-factly as if he were simply out-lining a business scheme.
‘When?’ said Leiber.
‘To-morrow night,’ said Karotski.
‘Come,’ he added. ‘We can make the plans at the watch shop.’
Cecil, Leiber, and Mikhailov hurried after him as he strode out the door and down to the street. They went straight to the watch shop and up to the little room at the top of the stairs where Leiber’s great grandfather clock ticked stolidly.
‘Got the key?’ asked Karotski of Leiber.
‘Yes, here it is,’ said Leiber, taking out an old skeleton key and putting it into a keyhole in the little door on the front of the clock. Inside was the case where the heavy pendulum swung back and forth. Leiber reached into this space and pulled, from some secret nook, a sheaf of papers. These were maps of streets and floor plans of the government buildings. He and Karotski spread them out on the table.
‘There are two main executive organs of the government,’ said Karotski; ‘—the radio station and the main telephone hub. Those are the two ways the Javotskis get information to each other. With those two neutralised, enough confusion would be created to allow us to carry out the necessary operations for over-throwing the government.
‘First of all, Wakjavotski’s death is imperative. We can’t get the army without that prerequisite. Once the army is won over, the SO will be easy to knock out. Baden, Grosse, and Limbrugher must all be put out of action. This won’t be too difficult: they are always guarded, but several of our agents in SO uniforms (which can be procured) can arrest them without the guards intervening.
‘Here is the radio broadcasting station,’ said Karotski, drawing a circle on one of the maps. ‘This here,’ he said, making a tick mark on a nearby building; ‘—is a safe-house. It’s empty, and we shall make it our headquarters for to-morrow night. From there I’ll direct the operations by telephone.
‘Once Wakjavotski is dead,’ he continued; ‘I’ll give the codeword for the start of operations—the codeword will be Sevastopol.
‘There are three approaches to the radio station,’ he went on, addressing Mikhailov. ‘Here they are: the Grimes Boulevard, Bendzler Street, and 24th Avenue. The Silver Heels will guard all three approaching streets. You’ll want to make a rush on one of the doors of the station—either the front or back.’
‘How many guards are there?’ asked Mikhailov.
‘Eight all together.’
‘Heavily armed?’
‘Rifles and revolvers for most of them. There are two machine-gunners.’
‘Easily managed,’ replied Mikhailov.
‘There are only four second-storey windows and they command only the boulevard and 24th Avenue. That means the back door can’t be guarded from the second storey, as it opens onto Bendzler Street.’
‘It can be barricaded,’ said Mikhailov.
‘How many men will you require?’
‘Twenty to effect an entrance; after that, I’ll take as many as I can get to hold the building.’
‘What will you do for weapons?’
‘We’ll use the guards’ and any others that come to hand.’
‘We’ve a few among ourselves, but not many. You may be required to hold that building for some time, depending on how smoothly things go. How long do you think you can hold out?’
‘I should think an hour at least,’ said Mikhailov. ‘We’ll hold out to the death, of course.’
‘What about the main telephone hub?’ interposed Leiber.
‘Vau can manage that,’ Karotski replied. ‘He has his switchboard job still—he’ll be able to cut the connection to the palace for at least half an hour. That will be time enough for us to organise our forces.’
‘But what about Wakjavotski?’ asked Cecil. ‘How are we going to kill him?’
‘That is the one difficulty,’ said Karotski. ‘It would have to be done by one man alone; a large body wouldn’t have a chance of getting in and we haven’t enough men for that, anyway.’
‘But how is even one of us to get in?’ asked Cecil. ‘Miss Kaparthy wouldn’t tell me the secret way into the palace.’
‘There are other ways of getting in,’ said Karotski. ‘One of us might be able to do it in disguise.’
‘But they don’t let anyone in at all—except for Wakjavotski’s henchmen.’
‘They let scientists in, I hear,’ said Mikhailov. ‘The Superior is always interested in new machines.’
‘That’s so!’ said Karotski. ‘One of our men will enter, then, under pretence of demonstrating an invention.’
‘They’ll be sure to search him first, to make sure he’s unarmed,’ said Leiber.
‘The invention he will be demonstrating will be that special type of hand gun we got from the spy in Sofia,’ said Karotski.
He got down on his knees on the floor, pulled up a loose floorboard, drew out the weapon in question, and laid it on the table.
‘Wakjavotski isn’t familiar with this type of weapon yet, and I’m sure he’ll find it interesting.’
‘The guards will make sure it isn’t loaded,’ said Mikhailov, admiring the weapon.
‘But the assassin will have to load it in order to demonstrate how it fires,’ said Karotski. ‘He’ll demonstrate on Wakjavotski.’
‘There’s one problem, still,’ said Mikhailov. ‘Whoever does it won’t have a chance to escape—the guards will shoot him as soon as he’s killed Wakjavotski.’
‘The guards will probably be stunned at first,’ said Karotski. ‘That will give our man a few seconds. That pistol holds three cartridges. There are usually only two guards. Nobody will be alarmed by the sound of gunshots because Wakjavotski is always shooting things in his laboratory, so very likely our agent will be permitted to walk calmly out of the palace. If not, he could make use of the guards’ weapons.’
‘But it’s still a very slim chance,’ said Mikhailov.
‘Well, for the matter of that,’ said Karotski unconcernedly; ‘I’ll do it myself.’
‘You can’t!’ said Cecil. ‘We need you to direct the operations.’
‘He can direct them,’ said Karotski, pointing at Mikhailov.
‘I shall be busy,’ said Mikhailov. ‘Anyway, I don’t know the plans as well as you do. –And you’re the one who has to give the speech over the wireless.’
‘He’s right,’ said Leiber. ‘I shall have to do it.’
Nobody spoke for a moment because they all suddenly realised that Leiber was right. There was only one person who had the steady mind and cool nerves necessary to kill Wakjavotski with a single bullet in a split second, and that person was Leiber. Whether he could silence the guards before they gave the alarm and escape afterwards from the palace, was not so certain, but if Leiber could not do it, no one else could.
Karotski’s coolness evaporated. He stood still, staring at Leiber with a look of horror in his eyes. His lips tried to articulate a protest but not a sound came from them. He struggled and his face turned ashy while the hair at his temples grew damp.
Leiber returned his tortured gaze without flinching.
‘Do you think I’m going to let you go in there?’ asked Karotski, recovering his voice with difficulty. ‘You’ll die. You can’t make it. You’re important to this plan, too.’
‘This is my part in it,’ said Leiber.
‘Leiber, I won’t let you,’ said Karotski.
‘You know yourself it has to be me.’
‘No!’ said Karotski, and then added in a mutter, ‘You’ve suffered enough already.’
‘We’ve come this far already,’ said Leiber practically and unaffectedly. ‘Now we’ve got to give it everything we have left.’
Karotski said nothing.
‘I’ll get out,’ said Leiber reassuringly.

Karotski turned his face to the wall and said no more. Cecil and Mikhailov felt embarrassed. The only one who was at his ease, strangely enough, was Leiber. But Leiber had always accepted everything with the same imperturbable calm. When a person has been through enough hardship, he develops not only a stout exterior but a solid core as well. Mere events can no longer shake him.

Prince Cecil: XV.

Chapter XV.

In the Jaws of the State

They were marched through two steel doors and led first of all into a small room on the right where they were searched for weapons. The SO officers confiscated Cecil’s pistol and he was glad that he had left his sword in Leiber’s shop where it was safe. Mikhailov, of course, had nothing and they seemed to think the worse of him for it, searching him over and over again until they were quite satisfied that he was unarmed.
When this welcoming ceremony was concluded, Cecil and Mikhailov were taken down the main hallway to an office. I should mention that they were guarded by the whole group of SO officers that had picked them up from the police station (there were six total). The office they were unceremoniously ushered into looked no different from any other ordinary office and the man who sat behind the desk looked very like an ordinary man. Cecil recognised him at once, though, as Zköllmann.
Cecil was able now to form a better idea of the SO chief’s appearance than he had been able to through the moth hole in the curtain in the little cathedral office. Zköllmann looked to be about thirty-four or thirty-five, had thin brown hair brushed straight back from his forehead, and wore the inescapable black uniform of the SO. There was nothing remarkable about his features and, seen on the street, he might have looked like a hundred other random people were it not for a manner he had of walking about with as much definite design and inflexible purpose as an incarnation of Fate.
He was almost handsome, and Cecil found himself wondering if this was really the man whom everyone was so afraid of—until Zköllmann laid aside the papers he had been examining and looked directly at him.
There was something sinister in those calculating, impersonal eyes. They might almost have been described as machine-like were it not for something deep in them far more terrifying than the mere automation of a machine. Cecil was suddenly reminded of the look of terror Miss Kaparthy had worn when those eyes were turned on her in the cathedral, and he understood it.
He was in his turn subjected to as thorough a scrutiny as he had taken of Zköllmann. The SO chief gazed at him with a look of mild interest and he seemed to be plumbing him through and through, though he gave not a glance to Mikhailov. Cecil felt as if everything about him were being learnt by that look and the tiny hope that they perhaps did not know who he was and which he had clutched at now disappeared. It was quite obvious that they knew.
‘Put them in detention until I have time to see to them,’ said Zköllmann to the head officer. ‘You can put that one through preliminary.’
This last he said with a slight gesture towards Mikhailov. They were marched out of the office and down the hallway again. The hallways in the building were made of concrete, the walls were unpainted and the floors were untiled, and the only lighting was from circular fixtures placed in the centre of the ceilings at measured intervals. The noise of their steps echoed endlessly down those long corridors, unshaken by any other sound.
The hallway they were led down ended in a T and here three of the guards turned to the left with Mikhailov, leaving the other two officers and Cecil to take the right. There was not time to say much. Cecil managed to catch hold of Mikhailov’s hand and give it a parting shake.
‘Sorry Mik,’ he muttered.
‘“Bullets in the front” is the old Guards’ watchword,’ said Mikhailov with a salute. Cecil thought he looked more excited than worried. The truth was that Mikhailov had led a boring life for so long that anything exciting happening at last appealed to him, no matter what the form.
One of the officers gave Mikhailov an unecessarily hard poke in the ribs with a luger and Cecil heard their footsteps echoing away down the hall. He could not see them, though, because he was being marched down the hall in the opposite direction.
He followed the officer in front of him down the seemingly-interminable labrynth of concrete corridors, the surroundings to Cecil looking strikingly similar to a very bad dream. As he went along he forced himself to concentrate. He knew well enough the reason he had been brought to the SO headquarters—they meant to interrogate him. Whatever happened, he must not allow a word to cross his lips that could give the game away. This would be difficult, he knew—perhaps impossible.
He was determined to be brave, but would he be able to outlast the SO? He pinched himself as hard as he could and tried to multiply the pain mentally a hundred times. If they hurt him as bad as that would he give in? He did not think so, but how could he be sure?
As he was thinking thus they stopped at a door in the wall and marched Cecil through it into another office. This was not for interrogation—they were taking another more thorough search of him. This time it was not for weapons but for anything that might give them information. Cecil was glad that Karotski had taken the precaution of making sure that Cecil carried nothing incriminating.
After the examination they went out again and turned down another passage where there were small doors along the walls at close intervals. They stopped before one of these, which one of the officers opened, and Cecil was thrust inside and the door was banged shut after him.
It was a very small space he was shut into. The walls were four feet by four feet and smooth straight up to the ceiling with no variation save for a small ventilator tube high up in one wall. The only light was from a bare bulb in the ceiling. The little space was as cold and cheerless as the inside of a safe or an icebox.
It was quite apparent that there was no possible way of escape, yet it always pays to make sure, so Cecil went round the walls three times, examining them and testing them for weak points. The space was so small that the task was soon completed and Cecil was far more convinced than he would have liked to be that his prison was a secure one.
Having satisfied himself on this point, he set to thinking about his next course of action. He was not the only one the SO would force to talk—Mikhailov would be questioned as well; he was probably being questioned already. But Mikhailov did not know anything.
‘Poor Mikhailov,’ he thought. ‘I hadn’t any right to get him mixed up in all this. If I get a chance to get clear I won’t leave this place without him—that’s a promise.’
This resolution set his mind at rest somewhat and he set again to thinking out a plan of escape. He had a fairly good idea of what would happen to him. They would come after a while and take him out of the cell to be interrogated. That would require them to take him down those corridors again. He would be guarded well and the guards would have their guns on him but at least there would be a better chance of escaping then. He did not know his way around the building and from what he had seen of it so far he knew it to be very large and confusing, but this was yet another obstacle he would have to overcome.
There was another possibility that he might be able to escape from the interrogation room. Probably it would not be so hard to get out of as his cell was and the door might not be locked. It was true that he would be watched the whole time, but men were not as impregnable as concrete walls and they could not watch every second.
There would be the yard to get across too, and the wire fence to get through. He had no idea how he would manage these, but he determined to concentrate on each step seperately. Whatever happened, he must make an attempt. An attempt was better than nothing.
As each new obstacle presented itself, a wave of fear rushed over him. It was all so hopeless. Of course there was no way of escape. Cecil knew this, but he also knew that funking was the one thing between possible success and certain failure. He remembered the awful terror that had gripped him in the vaults under the cathedral and knew that if he once let fear get a hold on him, he should not be able to conquer it.
And conquer it he must, for Mikhailov’s sake—for Miss Kaparthy’s—for Pyromania’s. They all depended on him now. Besides, he was determined that the SO should not triumph. He had come too far for that.
The bolt of his door shot back with a sharp clang and the door swung open. An officer stood in the corridor with two guards on either side of him. They had come to take him to the interrogation chamber.
Cecil stepped out and fell into step behind the officer. The two guards brought up the rear and though Cecil did not glance back he knew their pistols were trained on his back. As he went down the hall he made an effort to take bearings of his surroundings, but every door and corridor looked the same.
‘I would not suggest that you attempt to escape,’ said the officer, seeming to divine Cecil’s intentions. ‘Every door in this building has an electric alarm bell that will go off if the door is opened by anyone other than the administration. Furthermore, there are guards patrolling all corridors and on sentry duty at every exit. The yard is surrounded by high-voltage electric wire that kills on contact. The sentry towers are equipped with spotlights and machine guns. Allow me to inform you that no one has ever escaped from here.’
As he rattled on through this impressive list Cecil saw his chances of escape growing fewer and slimmer. Yet underneath it all there seemed something lurking—a sense, almost a certainty, of the existence of some sort of weakness in all these elaborate precautions. They seemed too perfect; they were specialized down to the smallest detail and therefore it seemed that something obvious had been over-looked. Cecil had no idea what this weakness could be, but the certainty that it existed grew stronger as he followed the officer down the corridor.
They soon arrived before a door which the officer opened and led the way through. Cecil followed and they entered a room with very little furniture and no sort of decoration on the walls, which were painted a dull grey. In the middle of the room was a chair and in it sat Mikhailov with his arms and legs strapped to the wood.
His eyes met Cecil’s and they both started slightly from the shock of the sudden meeting. Cecil stopped and opened his mouth to say something but the officer, without even looking back, said, ‘Speaking among prisoners is forbidden.’ Cecil felt the muzzles of the guards’ pistols pressed into his back and he shut his mouth and followed the officer, looking back over his shoulder at Mikhailov.
Things looked rather bad for both of them, but Cecil felt cheered just the slightest bit by the encounter. At least he knew where Mikhailov was and that would make it easier to rescue him when the time came.
He was led through a door on the far side of the room into yet another office that looked exactly like the first except that the only pieces of furniture in it were a desk and a chair behind it. There were two other doors in this room. One looked as if it led out into the hallway while another smaller door in the back of the room looked as if it opened into an office. As he looked at these two doors Cecil felt with a sudden instinct that anything in this den of deceit and fraud could not be what it was made to appear to be. It was the feeling he had had in the corridor a minute before that there must be some weakness beneath this seeming impregnability and he felt with the same certainty that, if he were to escape from that room, it would be through the little door in the back.
As these thoughts raced through his mind the said door opened and Zköllmann came into the room. He shut the door behind him, paused for a moment, surveying Cecil, then took a seat behind the desk.
‘Cecil Montellescue,’ he said, gazing probingly at Cecil with his inscrutable eyes. ‘Aged twelve years; in the lower fourth form at Mapleton, boys’ college, Sudbury, England. Makes good marks in Latin; speaks German fluently; deft hand with a pistol; owns private wireless set. Collects stamps; fond of tether ball; won a prize in composition last month; dislikes brussels sprouts.’
He said all this as if reading it off of a piece of paper—only he was not reading, he kept his eyes fixed on Cecil the whole time and had got it all by memory.
‘You see, we know all about you,’ he went on. ‘We’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since you first fled Pyromania. Our agents are observant and there isn’t anything about you that we are not informed about. Very likely we know more about you than you know about yourself. For instance, if you turn the tail of your jacket over you will find the number 36478 stitched on it.’
Cecil did so and found that it was the truth.
‘Here is a brief overview of your movements so far,’ said Zköllmann, going from memory still. ‘You reentered Pyromania on the 4:11 express on Monday afternoon. You were arrested by a patrol in the Grohcohr region and liberated by British SIS agents. Thereafter you went to the British consul who gave you shelter and introduced you to the underground. You joined forces with the insurgents and helped to steal a truck full of dynamite with which you and your compatriots blew up the conference room of the palace in an attempt to wipe out Wakjavotski and his three top ministers.
‘Failing this, you fled through the sewers and you and you alone managed to crawl through a drain into the tank bunker. From there you got hold of an army truck and escaped with a convoy. You drove the truck into an alley and hid in the national cathedral. While there you came into contact with Csilla Kaparthy who assisted you to escape. You rejoined the underground and began a campaign to enlist recruits into your forces.
‘Quite a lot accomplished in just three and a half days, but you did not manage to conceal your movements from us. The number on your jacket was from the shop that cleaned it and by it we were able to trace you. The clothes were bought and taken away this morning by a member of your band, Leiffer.’
Cecil almost fell for it. He had already opened his mouth to correct Zköllmann when he suddenly snapped it shut again. This was the way the SO got information from their prisoners—one of the ways, at least. They gave the prisoner a detailed account of the truth, carefully edited for their own purposes, and drew inferences from his responses. They didn’t know for certain that Leiber was a member of the underground, but all it would have taken to prove it was for Cecil to have said his name and shown that he knew him.
Cecil now understood what Karotski had meant when he had said that Cecil would wish he had never heard their real names. It was a terribly dangerous thing to know and he, Cecil, had very nearly betrayed one of his best friends.
‘Disguised thus you went to speak to Csilla Kaparthy at the theatre this afternoon,’ went on Zköllmann with scarcely a pause. ‘Oh, we didn’t know about it at the time—we would have arrested you then if we had—we found out about it shortly afterwards and by that knowledge traced you this far. It appears that after the concert, you went to a low sort of public house, involved yourself in a brawl, and were thrown out in company with a low and desperate sort of character—that soldier in the other room.’
Cecil said nothing. He now knew how the SO worked and he realised that this was a mental battle between himself and Zköllmann. He must be on his toes all the time, never missing the slightest detail. He must guard his lips closely and be sure that nothing passed them that could endanger the others in any way.
It was a dangerous game that must be played in the dark. Cecil did not know how much of the truth the SO knew or guessed, but still there were some things he could gather from what Zköllmann had told him. In the first instance, the SO did not know how many SIS agents had helped him to escape. This he was sure of because it was one of the few details that Zköllmann had neglected to include. The SO knew that there were at least two because the soldiers at the outpost had seen two, they could guess that there were probably more, but they could not be certain exactly how many. Therefore, the SIS agents had an advantage over the SO.
There was another thing that the SO did not know and that was what Aleph’s real name was. As long as that was a secret the underground could continue to operate. This Cecil was sure they would try to get out of him and he must be on his guard.
There was yet a third and last thing that Cecil knew and that Zköllmann didn’t—that was the secret paper he had found in Schumm’s office, and as he thought of it Cecil felt a sudden touch of pity for the SO chief. Zköllmann did not know about the threat hanging over him, and though he might have known everything else, it was not enough to save him.
Cecil knew a little about Zköllmann because Karotski had told him about him. The SO was Zköllmann’s own brain-child to which, though he had based it off of other secret police organisations such as the Gestapo or the KGB, he had given his own practical improvements. He had taken it from a mere idea to the most concise, organised, secretive, and deadly force in Pyromania. He was certainly a genius, but apart from that there was little that anyone knew about him. He had no friends, no family. He remained inscrutable—a black man against a black background.
And all his work—his life too, perhaps—was to come to an abrupt end as soon as Baden gave the word. Everyone comes up against Fate at one time or other—no one can take on the rest of the world without being bested at last by some part of it. For a moment Cecil almost felt that Zköllmann was only another person like himself and no one to be afraid of.
As he thought of all this, he had been looking absently at Zköllmann’s SO badge. He glanced up at Zköllmann’s face and suddenly saw those cold eyes fixed on him as they had been unwaveringly from the beginning and as he returned their gaze he saw something in them that he had not noticed before—a cold, passive hatred. This man had cut himself off from the rest of mankind and no human feeling or sentiment could reach him anymore across the unbridgeable gulf he himself had made. And as Cecil looked at those eyes he was afraid again.
Zköllmann had stopped talking. He was leaning back in his chair, regarding Cecil, possibly realising that Cecil had not been paying attention to what he had just been saying. Their eyes met like the clicking together of two magnetic poles but Cecil looked away again quickly. There was silence for a few moments—it seemed almost a puzzled silence because Zköllmann had seen the look of pity on Cecil’s face.
‘Have you ever tried reading minds?’ asked Zköllmann. His tone was suddenly conversational.
‘No,’ said Cecil in confusion.
‘It’s an interesting study, psychoanalysis—why people do what they do. Most people act on a set system from which mentally they are unable to deviate. A strong mind can identify these systems and predict exactly what such minds will do. You’d be surprised how narrow the groove is that the human brain runs in and how simple it is to crack—like a code.’
‘But you’ve missed half of it,’ said Cecil, surprising himself by this outburst for he had not intended to say anything. ‘People have feelings too—not just minds. Sometimes they do things that don’t make sense because…because they feel that they ought to.’
‘But you can predict even erratic behaviour,’ said Zköllmann. ‘It’s all because of how a person thinks.’
‘Not always,’ said Cecil. ‘You can’t tell how a person will feel about something unless you’ve felt the same way; and you haven’t. You’ve probably never had any feelings at all.’
Zköllmann didn’t say anything for a few minutes and chewed on the end of a pen.
‘Tell me if I’m right,’ he said, taking the pen out of his mouth suddenly. ‘You want to save Csilla Kaparthy’s brother, you know he is interned here, and you hope to find out exactly where.’
This was coming at him from a side-wind with a vengeance and Cecil was thrown mentally off-balance for a moment. It was quite true that that very idea had been lurking in the back of his mind and Zköllmann’s precision rather unnerved him. But he was not concerned with concealing the fact that he wanted to help Miss Kaparthy’s brother and at any rate, he was rather sure that Zköllmann was working mostly from guess work, as in the case of Leiber.
‘You don’t know why I want to save him,’ he said. ‘You think it’s all nonsense.’
‘It’s because you have a disproportionate set of ideals.’
‘I told you so!’ said Cecil. ‘If that’s true, then I can’t succeed.’
‘You won’t,’ said Zköllmann.
‘Watch me!’
‘You’re a prisoner yourself. You can’t get away from here.’
‘You’re a prisoner too—you don’t trust anybody; you’re afraid to go out alone. You don’t believe in anything. I’d rather be shut up in a box than be the kind of prisoner you are!’
Zköllmann remained impassive.
‘Pretty soon,’ he said; ‘you and that soldier in the other room will be feeling very unhappy. Then we will get what we need to know from you both. After that you will be shot.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cecil. ‘Now I shall not be in suspense about what is going to happen to me.’
Zköllmann said nothing and looked at him with an uninterpretable face. What he thought would have been impossible to say, but at that moment Cecil looked and sounded more like a prince than he ever had before.
‘Put him in cell 407,’ said Zköllmann with the end of the pen in his mouth again.
The officer and the two guards, who had been standing by the door all that time saying nothing, came forward and marched Cecil out through the room in which Mikhailov was going through ‘preliminary’ to the hallway again. This time they took Cecil to a different corridor full of narrow cell doors.
The officer paused before one of the doors and looked around.
‘Did he say 407 or 411?’ he asked one of the guards.
The guard could not remember, so the officer went down several doors to check cell 411. The guards watched the officer with bored expressions. Cecil realised that this was his chance…

Mikhailov had seen Cecil enter and depart with a great deal of apprehension. What were they doing to Cecil? What would they do to him? As for Mikhailov, so far he had only been asked his name, occupation, and address. The simple questions had been asked over and over again until Mikhailov began to wonder if they expected him to tell them something different each time.
‘What is your age?’ asked the SO officer who had the office of interrogator.
This was a new question, at any rate.
‘I’m twenty-nine,’ said Mikhailov glibly.
‘Where do you live?’
‘I already told you.’
‘Answer the question.’
Mikhailov suppressed a sigh and repeated the information with ill-concealed impatience.
‘What did you do after you left the army?’
‘I worked in a factory.’
‘You said before that you worked for a newspaper.’
‘I did that too.’
‘What is your—’
‘Eugensz Mikhailov,’ he interrupted.
‘That’s not the question.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
‘The question is, what is your occupation now?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Would you like me to swear to it before the court?’ asked Mikhailov sarcastically.
‘What is your age?’
‘Eighty-seven!’ cried Mikhailov.
The officer turned away and wrote something down on a piece of paper. There was another officer and three guards in the room as well; the guards were standing watchfully by the doors and the second officer was leaning up against the wall scrutinising Mikhailov in the hopes of making him nervous. They all looked up as the door to the further room opened and Zköllmann came in. Mikhailov had not been paying attention but he snapped his head up as he heard the click of Zköllmann’s boots coming towards him.
‘Hullo,’ he thought; ‘here’s the old head buzzard himself. Now I’m in for it!’
Zköllmann strode up and the officer handed him a paper. He looked at what the officer had written, looked at Mikhailov, and handed back the paper.
‘Put him through the next phase,’ he said.
And without another word he left the room.
The officer went to a desk in the corner and opened a drawer. The other officer came forward and turned on a light that hung directly over Mikhailov’s head and that shed an unpleasantly brilliant light over him. At the same time one of the guards turned out the other lights in the room so that Mikhailov was left in a little island of lemon-yellow radiance. He could scarcely see the interrogating officer and the probing voice seemed to come to him from some disembodied being.
‘What is your name?’
He answered, haltingly.
‘Where do you live?’
Again he replied, but his mind seemed strangely confused and he scarcely realised what he said.
‘What is your occupation?’
No answer came to his lips. His many different occupations floated before his mind, interspersed with many that he had never had. He shut his eyes and tried fiercely to concentrate.
The voice went on without waiting for him to answer.
‘Why did you go to the cinema to-night?’
‘I didn’t,’ he said, growing more bewildered. ‘It was the theatre…’
‘What time did the program end?’
‘I don’t know…It was over when we got there…’
‘Who unlocked the door?’
‘There was no key…we couldn’t open it…’
‘What was in the back room?’
‘Ho!’ cried Mikhailov so suddenly that he heard the officer drop his pen. ‘Do you mean you don’t know?’
‘Answer the question,’ came the reply.
‘Then you didn’t go inside the back room?’ asked Mikhailov.
‘Answer the question.’
‘You answer mine. You keep asking me questions that you already know the answer to; well, now I’ve found one that you don’t know and I’m not going to tell you.’
The truth was that Mikhailov didn’t know any more than the SO what was in the back room of the theatre, simply because he hadn’t been able to see anything when he was inside it. The SO, he thought, wanted to know what he and Cecil had been doing at the theatre. That he had been there they knew—they had gotten that much out of him with their backwards questions—but they could not fathom what business Cecil had had there and they wanted very much to know. Well, let them ask him: he would let them think there was something particularly important in that back room.
‘Answer the following questions yes or no,’ came the voice of the interrogator. ‘Did you take the prince to your flat?’
‘What prince?’
‘Answer yes or no.’
‘What flat?’
‘Did you or didn’t you?’
‘Did I what?’
The officer stepped up to where Mikhailov could see his boots at the edge of the circle of light on the floor.
‘So, you choose to be troublesome? Perhaps you’ll prefer the next phase.’
‘Maybe,’ said Mikhailov.
‘Shut up! Holben,’ said the first officer to the one leaning up against the wall; ‘is the next phase ready?’
‘Oh yes,’ came the officer’s voice unconcernedly. ‘It’s been ready for a good while.’
‘Do you hear?’ said the interrogating officer, turning again to Mikhailov. ‘Maybe you’d like to hear how the next phase works.’
‘No,’ said Mikhailov.
‘Ha! Here’s how: we will turn off the light; we will even let you out of this chair. You will be taken to another room and there something very unpleasant will happen to you. Have you ever wondered what it is like to go mad? Well, it is quite possible that you will have your curiosity satisfied on that point. Some people have gone into that room quite sane and come out quite otherwise…’

Cecil dashed down the passage, paused, and pressed himself up against a door. His lungs gasped for breath but he struggled to put them off with a few slow gulps of air. His ears strained for the sound of his pursuers’ footsteps.
They were coming: he could hear them just a few corridors down. They were not running, but were stalking at a steady, inexorable pace. They were in no hurry, for they knew they had him and that there was no way of escape for him. Weren’t there alarms on every door?
The footsteps were coming closer. They were in the next hallway but one now. Cecil could rest no longer. He darted out of the doorway and hurried on down the corridor, glancing at each door as he passed it in a desperate attempt to find a hiding place.
He turned the corner and found himself in a dead end. The corridor ran only a few feet and ended with a blank wall. There was not so much as a window. He glanced back. It was too late to go back down the corridor the way he had come. There was one door in the wall on his right, but it was of heavy steel and looked as if it would be locked. Then Cecil looked again. The door had not been shut properly. There was the slimmest crack between the door and the jam and he could see that the latch had not caught.
On the door hung a sign with a picture of a skull and crossbones and beneath it the words:

WARNING!
Risk of electric shock! Serious injury or death could occur. No one allowed to enter except for an experienced electrician.

Cecil opened the door and went in.

‘So, you think you’d prefer a change?’ asked the SO officer as the guards unstrapped Mikhailov’s arms from the chair. ‘You don’t like this room, eh?’
‘Oh, there’s nothing the matter with the room,’ said Mikhailov. ‘It’s the company I object to.’
‘We shall not be the ones putting you through the next phase,’ said the officer. ‘That is reserved for the professionals. We’ll be interested in hearing how you do, however.’
‘Remind me to tell you,’ said Mikhailov.
He was not feeling as pert as he sounded. ‘Still,’ he thought; ‘as long as they’re pitching into me maybe they’ll be too busy to do much to the prince.’
‘You will soon learn how to behave to your superiors,’ said the officer. ‘Before you’re done, you’ll be grovelling to us.’
‘How much do you wager?’ asked Mikhailov.
‘I’ll give you fifty to one,’ the officer replied sarcastically, gritting his teeth.
‘Here’s the one!’ said Mikhailov and fetched him a straight left to the jaw.
It was the neat sort of stroke that had felled Cecil, although to do Mikhailov justice, he had not hit Cecil half so hard or enjoyed it half so much. The officer spread out on the floor, stunned for a moment. A guard darted forward and raised his tommy gun.
‘Put that down!’ said the officer who had not been hit. ‘You know we need him still.’
But the officer on the floor took out a pistol and, before the others could stop him, fired straight at Mikhailov’s head. Fortunately he was still dizzy and his aim was off. One of the other guards tried to stop him before he fired a second shot. There was a momentary struggle; then suddenly the room was plunged into darkness.
It was a darkness so thick and complete that not a thing could be seen.
‘You idiot!’ said the officer who had not fired the pistol. ‘You’ve hit the light!’
The guards who were pinning Mikhailov’s hands behind his back felt him suddenly break away.
‘He’s escaping! Stop him! Don’t let him get past!’ they cried.
The door of the room opened but oddly enough the corridor was just as impenetrably dark as the room they were in and they only knew the door had opened by the sound it made.
‘He’s making a break for it! Get him, quick!’
There was a rumble of booted feet through the doorway and down the corridor. Then silence crept back into the room.
‘Well, that’s got rid of them,’ said a voice in the darkness and that voice was Mikhailov’s.
A second voice emerged from the gloom.
‘Are you in there, Mik?’
‘Cecil! Where are you?’
‘Here I am. I cut the main breaker and put out the power. We’ve got to get out of here quick before they bring torches. Follow me.’
Mikhailov shuffled toward the sound of Cecil’s shoes somewhere at the other end of the room.
‘I say,’ said Mikhailov sharply; ‘this isn’t the right door.’
‘I know,’ said Cecil. ‘If we go down the corridor they’ll find us. We’ve got to try to get out this way.’
‘Are you sure we can?’
‘We’ll find out,’ said Cecil.
‘I say, you should have seen the row a minute ago,’ said Mikhailov as they made their way into the next room.
It was the room where Cecil had spoken to Zköllmann.
‘Here’s the desk,’ said Cecil, bumping up against it. ‘The door’s behind it—here it is.’
‘Where does it lead?’ asked Mikhailov.
‘We’ll see,’ said Cecil.
The door was not locked. The space it led into did not seem to be an office or a corridor.
‘Snug in here,’ remarked Mikhailov. ‘Who’s been stuffing their coats in here?’
‘It seems to be some sort of a closet,’ said Cecil. ‘I wish I had my electric torch!’
But he didn’t have it, nor even a match. The SO had taken all his possessions away.
‘Here’s another door,’ said Cecil.
‘Let’s hope it leads somewhere airier; I’m stifling.’
‘Snakes!’ said Cecil.
He had opened the door (which was not locked) and the two prisoners had been greeted with a gust of fresh air. They were outside the building. The queer little door had been a back door of sorts for the SO headquarters. I will here tell you something that Cecil did not find out until later. This outer door was usually locked but the lock was electric and worked automatically. By cutting off the power Cecil had rendered every lock in the building useless. None of the alarms were working either.
It was a very dark night they emerged into, but the darkness was not so black as inside the building. The searchlights were of course all out of order and so the yard Cecil and Mikhailov were in was lit only by the stars. Their light twinkled faintly off the electric fence twenty meters away.
Parties of dark figures traversed the yard with electric torches but the light from these could only illumine small spaces at a time and Cecil and Mikhailov found them easy to dodge. They had reached the wire without incident and Cecil had already put his leg through when Mikhailov suddenly hesitated.
‘What if they get the electricity back on just when we’re half-way through?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Cecil. ‘They won’t get it on too soon. I took care of that.’They clambered through the taut wires and slipped out onto the street, the first two prisoners to ever escape from that gloomy citadel.