She told it exactly as Dominic had suggested yesterday, faithfully admitting Welland’s telephone call and her appointment with him, and describing the circumstances of his death. But everything that touched on the Marrion Institute, or national security, or the defection of Karol Alda, still had to be suppressed, and that effectively censored Welland’s last cryptic words to her. Had they meant anything, in any case? They stuck in her mind curiously, but their suggestions were too enormous and too vague, she could not trust herself to make a judgment upon them.
There was too much at stake. There sat the Director, listening to her with an anxious and sympathetic face, and willing her to be discreet if it killed her; and the Security Officer, brightly inscrutable, taking her in with cautious approval as she skirted delicately round the establishment that was his charge. She felt it when they began to breathe again. Compared with the secret activities and preoccupations they had to protect, both she and Welland were equally expendable.
Carefully she covered from sight the whole background of the death she most sincerely wanted solved. Right behaviour, she thought sadly, is always a compromise at best.
Ondrejov took down her statement, and presently transcribed it briskly, still in English, on the typewriter in the outer room, and brought it back for her to read and sign. No one tried to prevent her from signing. They were unspeakably relieved by the content of the statement. Her predicament hardly mattered, by comparison; but they gave her to understand, by encouraging glances, that in return for her services they would exert themselves to deliver her.
“I’m only terribly sorry,” she said suddenly, her voice a muted cry of protest, “for poor Robert Welland!”
“Of course, of course, so are we all. But I’m sure the affair will soon be cleared up,” said Freeling soothingly. “It occurs to me, Major, that as you have no facilities here in Pavol, and it may not be very convenient to move her elsewhere, perhaps you would agree to Miss Barber’s being discharged into my custody, pending further enquiries? On the strict understanding, of course, that she shall be made available to you whenever required, and shall not leave the town? I would pledge myself to produce her on demand at any time.”
“I hardly think,” suggested Sir Broughton Phelps rather drily, “that such a proposition can be entertained if it comes from your people. But as one who had the greatest respect for Miss Barber’s stepfather, I should be very glad to abandon my holiday and remain here, if you’ll allow me to make myself responsible for her? And for her friends, too, though they are not, I believe, in custody?”
Paul Newcombe bristled. “I am representing Mrs. Terrell here, and if Tossa can be released I think it should be into my care.”
Ondrejov thumbed through the stapled sheets of Tossa’s statement, and hummed a little tune to himself, modal, like the pipe-tunes of Zbojská Dolina. He looked inordinately placid and content, like a fed infant.
“Her friends are quite at liberty, here within Liptovsky Pavol, but I am restricting their movements to the town for the time being. Miss Barber, I regret, must remain my charge. She can be held available to you at any time which is suitable,” said Kriebel firmly, “but she is my responsibility. You have heard for yourselves the grounds on which I think it necessary to hold her, and they speak for themselves. Only Miss Barber had the opportunity of committing the murder, so far as we yet know. Of the others, only the boy Felse was also present at the chapel, the others clearly knew nothing about it until afterwards. They will all be invited to record statements, but they will not be held. Miss Barber did have the opportunity, and as you have heard on her own admission, she gave a false account of what happened. She must be held. I have my duty to do.”
It was at this moment that Ondrejov chose to look up at his chief and say ingenuously: “Perhaps, Comrade Major, it would be as well if young Felse made his statement next. Then I can start him off to collect their things from the Riavka, while the other two tell us what little they do know. They’ll be wanting their clothes and night things.”
“Certainly,” said Kriebel. “Call him in. And gentlemen, if you wish to remain…?”
Now why did he make them that gratuitous offer, she wondered? Not because he owed it to them, not because he felt pressed; on the contrary, he was more at ease every moment. He wanted to see what their response would be, whether they would jump at the chance of staying to make sure that Dominic’s account would bear out Tossa’s, and frowning him away from any undesirable revelations; and he wanted to observe their reactions if there were indiscretions—and indeed, even if there were none.
Three of them relaxed, cautiously but perceptibly. “That’s very considerate of you,” said Freeling. “We have a duty to all four of these youngsters, we shall be glad to stay.”
Only Paul Newcombe got to his feet, thick and glossy and lowering like a prize bull. “My job is to look after Miss Barber. Do I understand that she must continue in custody?”
“I regret that she must,” said Kriebel crisply.
“I would remind you that I’ve had no opportunity yet to talk to her, and that I’m here at her mother’s request. May I have a quarter of an hour with her, at least?”
The glance that flickered back and forth between Ondrejov and his superior was almost too rapid to be visible, but Tossa caught it.
“If you go down with her now, you may have a short interview with her, by all means.”
Paul jumped at it, was even surprised into expressions of appreciation; they were being almost excessively correct. Tossa wondered about these concessions herself, until she had been led helplessly past the anxious three fidgeting in the outer room, and down the stairs to her cell. Then she understood. The plain-clothes escort who opened the door for them and followed them in was Miroslav Zachar; if Paul had anything of interest to say to her, it certainly wasn’t going to be missed.
Ondrejov, ushering Dominic into the inner office, smiled fatly to himself, and sharpened his pencil with a leisurely, enjoying deliberation.
The twins, frayed into nervous silence, were admitted together into the inner room, and Dominic went down the stairs with Ondrejov’s hand on his shoulder. Every step seemed to him to be on eggs; or else there was a slack rope under him. He didn’t even know whether he’d said the right things, telling half the truth like that, suppressing the other half, with one eye cocked on the anxious, dignified, admonitory English faces, and the other on this gross, earthy, ordinary soul who tramped solidly at his heels. He hadn’t even known who they were, those three hanging on his words. They couldn’t all be from the embassy, could they?
Mirek had made it necessary to tell the truth about the actual circumstances of Welland’s death, to admit that Tossa had gone there to meet him, and had expected him to have something to tell her about her stepfather’s accident. As for the rest, he had objected to answering for anything that wasn’t known to him personally; hearsay evidence wasn’t good in English law, anyhow.
The van was standing in front of the Hotel Slovan, a small, decrepit, gabled house, its portal withdrawn under the arcade of the square.
“Drive carefully,” said Ondrejov at his shoulder. “You know the road?”