“He was probably dead right,” Shaw said grimly. “Especially in the States! He’d be considered wide open to persuasion. That’s precisely the kind of pressure the Communists love to exploit. Now — let’s have a little more about Spalinski.”
She said, “I can tell you one thing, they could never have pinned Communistic leanings on Stefan — or on Neil, of course.”
“If Spalinski wasn’t a Communist, why did he return to Poland?”
She said quietly, “Because he loved his country and had never quite settled to English life. And also because he had been a pre-war officer in the Polish Army. He wanted to fight for Poland in the only way left to him once the war was over — underground.” She added, “When he was still in England, after the war, he became a member of the NTS. I believe he went back to Poland as an agent for them.”
“Did he indeed? That’s extremely useful to know!” Here was an avenue that could well yield up whatever it was Spalinski had been trying to tell him; Shaw knew precisely where he could find the British agents of the anti-Communist organization known as the NTS. The Popular
Labour Alliance — which was the translation of the Russian name — was in fact a Russian set-up but it had many sympathizers and active supporters in the satellite countries. Its aim was consistently to organize anti-Communist forces with the object of fostering revolution by peaceful means. To this eventual end the NTS, as directed from its operational centre in Frankfurt, maintained representatives in all important seaports. These agents contacted seamen from Communist-bloc ships in order to disseminate literature and establish contacts with members inside the Communist countries. In addition the NTS organized frontier crossings into these countries and had even, from time to time, dropped parachutists inside the Communist borders. Perhaps this was how the Spalinskis had entered Poland in 1948—completely with forged papers, to start a new life. The Polish authorities could scarcely have been unaware of Spalinski’s connection with the NTS; as Spalinski, he could hardly have expected to remain alive for long once he had crossed the border. He would have been provided with a completely new identity, but Katherine Danvers-Marshall couldn’t be expected to know about that.…
Shaw asked, “Have you any ideas as to what this threat Spalinski spoke of could be? In your personal relationship with your husband, can you find any clues, any pointers?”
She was puzzled. “How do you mean, exactly, Commander?”
Shaw frowned; it was a hard question to answer. Latymer had failed to convince him that a woman’s intuition could pierce the intricacies of a Communist plot in advance. He said off-handedly, “It just occurred to me that you might have noticed something off-beat… that’s all really.”
“Men lurking around Florida with cloaks and daggers?” She laughed, cynically. “Doesn’t the British Defence Staff or whatever it is, know better than that, Commander?”
“I apologize,” he told her, smiling. “I just thought you might have been aware of something in the air — that possibly, for example, your husband had had something on his mind, that he might have made unscheduled trips perhaps, during which, let’s say, he could have been approached by persons who wished to talk to him privately?”
She stiffened. “Do you mean Neil might have been in touch with foreign agents, Commander Shaw? Why, that’s just ridiculous! He just isn’t—”
“No,” Shaw broke in. “I don’t mean that — at least, I certainly don’t mean to suggest he’d ever had initiated anything of that sort. But, you see, I do find it hard to believe the Communists would be planning anything that might say, destroy Skyprobe IV unless they had first contacted your husband with a view to getting him to part with information — or whatever it is they want — while he was still on the ground. After all — he’s a pretty valuable property to both sides. He’s not expendable. Do you follow?”
Her mouth was still tight. “Yes,” she said. “I follow, all right. But there wasn’t anything like that, I assure you. He’d have told me — I know he would. And if there had been anything likely to go wrong, and if Neil had known about it, or if approaches, as you call them, had been made to him… well, he’d scarcely have cleared the flight at all, would he? He’d have reported to NASA or CIA or someone and called it off!”
“It was just an idea,” Shaw murmured, “and obviously a poor one! In any case, this threat may not exist at all for all I can say at the moment.” He didn’t want to add to this woman’s worries by reminding her that Danvers-Marshall was still liable to pressures on account of the girl in Poland and that, if approaches had been made, he could hardly report them unless at the same time he was prepared to reveal that he had come in on a dirty ticket years before. In the light of what he had heard, and of what Latymer had told him the previous day, Shaw was currently unhappy about Neil Danvers-Marshall; but all he said, when he got to his feet, was: “I don’t think I need bother you any more for now, Mrs. Danvers-Marshall. You’ve been a lot of help, and I’m grateful.” He paused, then said casually, “As a matter of fact, though, there is just one more thing. Do you know a man called Rudolf Rencke, by any chance?”
“Rudolf Rencke?” She frowned. “Heavens, what a name… no, I’ve never heard of him. Should I have?”
He shrugged. “Not necessarily.” He turned for the door, but she stopped him.
She asked, “What about Neil… afterwards?”
“Once we’ve bowled this thing out and the capsule’s down safely?” He felt she was going ahead a little too fast, perhaps. He wanted to let her down lightly for now, even at the expense of a white lie. He went on, “I’m bound to report what you’ve told me, you’ll realize that, and I can’t forecast the official reaction. But I doubt if after all these years they’d drop a man of the Professor’s stature just because of an omission in his original security statement, still less make any charges public.” He didn’t add that that would apply only if Danvers-Marshall hadn’t in fact had any contact with hostile agents that he had failed to report; he left her to fill that in for herself.
By lunch-time Shaw was back in London.
Wasting no time he drove through to the car park at Tower Hill, where he left the Wankel. He walked quickly through to Houndsditch where half way along he took a turning to the left. He crossed the road, went on for another thirty yards, then entered a dismal-looking shop over which was a fascia board inscribed P. J. Fetters. Stamps — Coins — Curios. A bell gave a tinny sound as he pushed the door open. There was a musty smell, a smell compounded of dust and mothballs, decay and mildew and damp. Shaw waited at the counter; behind it, a door led into P. J. Fetters’s private apartments but no P. J. Fetters appeared. Shaw went back to the door and operated the bell again. He returned to the counter and banged on the wood. When this produced no result he went behind the counter and opened the inner door and he found P. J. Fetters stone cold dead on the floor of a shadowy room overfilled with stuffy Victoriana.