“Don’t put me in the same bracket as yourself. Thixey.” Thixey flushed. “I know what you must think of me. I’m not going to give you a lecture on the philosophies I’ve come to believe in.”
“Fine. I still haven’t anything to say, though.”
“Well, it’s up to you, then, old man.” Thixey nodded at the dwarf. “Go ahead, Kortweiler.”
Kortweiler lumbered forward again, heavy and slow, breath hissing through a broken-down set of teeth. He seemed to be asthmatical. It was impossible to guess his age. He was no more than five foot in height, with a chest like a rum cask in comparison. There was little intelligence in the low forehead, but the beady eyes showed any amount of cunning as they peered through the slits in the black mask. Shaw felt his flesh creep as Kortweiler approached him, moving on soft-soled shoes across the littered floor of the cellar. He stopped six inches away from Shaw. Everyone was watching closely. The girl Beatty had a bead of sweat gathering on her upper lip and her eyes seemed glazed; her breasts rose and fell rapidly. She was enjoying this; Shaw had a feeling that Rencke, who must have been otherwise and importantly engaged, would be sorry to miss whatever was coming next.
Suddenly, without any warning, without any sound or preliminary movement, without even appearing to bend his knees, Kortweiler jumped.
It was as though he were motivated by some invisible interior spring that acted through the soles of his feet, similar to the action of the spring-hafted steel spike that Rencke had used to kill Spalinski and P. J. Fetters. Shaw knew what was coming; his stomach muscles tautened instinctively and a second later Kortweiler’s full weight crashed down on his midriff. He twitched convulsively, pulling against the holding ropes. He felt agonizing pain. Kortweiler moved away and through a drumming of blood in his ears Shaw heard Thixey’s voice.
“You don’t want that to happen again, do you, old man?” Thixey asked. When Shaw didn’t respond Kortweiler duly jumped again. As before Shaw’s stomach muscles tensed and again there was the searing pain as though his guts were being wrenched out, drawn from his protesting body with red-hot irons, and then came an agonizing retching. Kortweiler jumped once more and dimly after that Shaw heard Thixey ordering a halt for the time being, then he passed out.
When Shaw came round the others had gone and Thixey was standing over him. When he opened his eyes Thixey squatted on the floor beside him; even in a situation like this, Thixey had an eye for his immaculate appearance— he was taking pains to keep his expensive pants off the coal-dust. His joints creaked a little from the effort. He said, “Well, old man. Are you going to talk now?”
“Not a syllable, Thixey. You’re wasting your time.”
Thixey looked at him thoughtfully. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “we’re not. I believe you’ll talk in the end, but you’re not going to harm our plans in any way if you don’t. You can just make things a little smoother, that’s all — for us and for yourself. We shall succeed, whatever you choose not to do. Shall I tell you something?”
Shaw’s guts felt as if they were on fire. “If you want to,” he said thickly. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Thixey smiled, sat back a little and dropped his bombshell. “Danvers-Marshall is with us,” he said.
Shaw’s body jerked against the ropes. “Danvers-Marshall! Are you trying to tell me he’s a traitor… the same sort of bastard as you, Thixey? You expect me to believe that?”
Thixey nodded. “Yes, I do, old man, because it’s absolutely true. As a matter of fact, he’s been passing information to the East for some time.” He gave a discreet cough. “I — er — understand you already know about his wife’s natural daughter, old man?”
“Yes, I do.” Shaw’s head throbbed. He stared up at Thixey’s face, his mind reeling. “Yes… I suppose it could check.”
Thixey laughed. “It does! If—”
“How do you know I’ve heard about the daughter in Poland?”
Again Thixey laughed. “I’ve talked to the wife. Our agents in the US have also talked a good deal to her in recent weeks… as a matter of fact she’s already en route for Russia, old man. She was driven down from Suffolk yesterday — soon after you’d been to Long Melford. You see, she told us all about your visit… and by the way, there won’t be any alert put out for her till it’s too late. She told her mother-in-law a prepared cover story that’ll account for her absence for quite long enough. It s all been very neatly managed, you know, and—”
“Where is she now, Thixey?”
“She was smuggled aboard a Polish freighter lying off Shellhaven — after the ship had been cleared for foreign by the customs and immigration people. That ship, she’s the motor vessel Czestochowski, has since sailed for Leningrad.”
“What do they want with her?”
Thixey shrugged. “Frankly, nothing. She knew her husband was going to defect, old man, and she wanted to be with him. That’s all. You slipped up in letting her through your net, didn’t you?” He grinned down at Shaw. “There’s nothing anyone can do to stop us now, you know. With Danvers-Marshall’s help, we can intercept Skyprobe at any time from now — or to be more precise, we can intercept her the moment she re-enters the earth’s atmosphere, whenever and wherever NASA orders her to ditch. If you. — ” Thixey broke off as the cellar door opened and footsteps clattered down the stairway.
Horn asked as he descended, “Got any place yet, Mr. Thixey?”
Thixey shook his head, got to his feet, and dusted down his clothing fastidiously. “No,” he said. “I haven’t. We’ll have to go to the limit after all.”
Horn nodded. “That’s what I reckoned,” he said as he reached the bottom of the steps. “We’re all set, Mr. Thixey.” His hand wandered towards a knife that was thrust into the waistband of his trousers. Behind him Moss and Beatty appeared, coming down the steps. Moss was carrying two coils of rope, one stout, the other a good deal lighter. As Moss dropped his ropes on the floor, Horn caught Thixey’s eye. “Okay to go?” he asked.
Thixey said, “He’s all yours.”
“Right.” Horn looked happy. He glanced at the girl. “Okay, Beatty,” he told her. “Untie Mister Shaw.”
The girl bent and loosened the ropes from the ring-bolts, then slipped the nooses off Shaw’s wrists and ankles while Horn and Moss kept him covered. He sat up, flexing his muscles, feeling the soreness in his stomach like a knife-
thrust as he moved. Horn nodded at Moss, who went over to the manhole cover and dragged at it, pulling it clear with an effort. A dank, foul smell seeped up from the open shaft.
Horn, holding his nose in an exaggeration of nausea, said, “Lovely! Shaw’s going to like that, I guess! On your feet, Limey. Move!”
Shaw got up. Horn said, “Don’t worry, you’re not going to die — yet. You’re just going to come close to it, that’s all. To avoid actually dying, you’re going to talk, and talk better’n you talked to Mr. Thixey.” Horn grinned and waved his gun threateningly, then he gestured to Moss and Beatty. “Okay,” he said laconically. “Set up the long drop.”
Moss, dealing with his nose trouble as he did so, picked up his length of stout rope. He threaded one end of it through a hole in the centre of the manhold cover and tossed the other end towards Beatty, who caught it and draped it over a pulley on the gallows. Moss dragged several feet of the rope through the manhole cover, so that a good length appeared on the cover’s underside, made a bowline in the end of this, and jerked the loop over Shaw’s head, pulling it up beneath his arms and adjusting it to his body.