The Legion of the Lost, стр. 65
‘Good,’ said Palfrey, smiling with deep satisfaction. ‘It gives us an even better chance. We’ll have to raid the lecture hall at the end of the meeting.’
‘But how?’ demanded Hilde. ‘How can so few of you overcome so many?’
Palfrey said: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll do it.’
‘You do not trust me,’ Hilde said sharply. ‘If there is a way you should tell me. I do not believe it is really possible, you will only make it worse for those in that hell-house! You cannot get them all out. You are pretending!’
Palfrey said sharply: ‘Hilde! Stop that!’
‘I shall not stop,’ she cried. ‘I do not know that I trust you. Von Otten is very well-disposed towards you, and it was on your evidence that Karl was killed. He has told me that! Karl was a worker for our cause. Why did you allow him to be taken by them? Why, tell me that? Why?’
Palfrey, standing in front of her, watched her closely. Her eyes were blazing, her hands were clenched; he was reminded of the time when she had rated at him because he would not allow her to return to Norway.
Conroy and Brian, Brian looking startled, were staring at the girl. Drusilla, standing with her back to the window, was frowning. It was a moment of greater tension than Palfrey had known since he had visited the prison. He thought suddenly that he should not have told Hilde. She was not safe; she was too prone to such outbursts. He marvelled the more that she had been able to deal with von Otten so effectively.
And then something that she had said came back to him. Its import, the sickening realisation of what it might mean, made him feel cold, then sick and hot.
He said slowly: ‘Hilde, I know. No one else here does. I’ve told no one because it isn’t safe to know. It’s no more safe for you than the others. We’ll find a way, don’t worry about that, and—’
‘You are lying to me!’ she shouted. ‘I know you are, you are lying! You have lied all the time!’
‘Hilde—’ Brian started.
‘You be quiet!’ she spat at him. ‘Hold your tongue!’ She was standing at her full height, a lovely creature made more beautiful by the emotion which shook her. For some moments there was no sound but her heavy breathing; then she turned away with tears in her eyes.
Hardly had she turned before she looked back at Palfrey, holding out a hand beseechingly. He still felt nausea at the realisation.
She was acting: she had acted the same way in London.
‘Dr. Palfrey, I beg of you, do not distrust me. I have sacrificed so much, it is part of my very life.’ Her voice throbbed. ‘I cannot feel that I have done anything to help you; if I know, if I can hug that secret to my breast—’ there was a catch in her throat, but when Palfrey only continued to look down at her, expressionless, she turned to Drusilla.
‘You, Drusilla,’ she said in that piteous, broken voice. ‘You know to what lengths I have gone, how I have suffered that beast of a man, how I have tried, have sold my very soul that I should help my people. Can you not make him understand how much it matters to me?’
‘Hilde—’ began Drusilla.
Palfrey said sharply: ‘Leave it to me, ’Silla.’ He stared down at the girl, who was now leaning against the arm of a chair as if she lacked the strength to support herself. ‘Hilde,’ he said. ‘How long have you known von Otten?’
She looked startled.
‘How long have I been here? It must be—’
‘How long have you known von Otten?’ demanded Palfrey. To the stupefaction of the others he went forward and gripped her wrist. ‘How long have you been working for him?’
She stared, transfixed. Brian gasped, Conroy stepped forward, swiftly, to the door. Then Hilde opened her lips, a shrill scream began, but Palfrey clapped his hand over her mouth. She tried to bite him but her teeth slid over the palm of his hand; she struggled and tried to get away, but he held her fast.
‘Sap—’ began Brian in a strangled voice.
‘It’s clear now,’ said Palfrey, thinly. ‘She made the mistake of being too temperamental. I wasn’t happy about her in London. She changed too quickly, she was too anxious to get back or to get work with us. She let me think that she didn’t know that Karl had been shot, now says that we condemned him. So she betrayed herself. She told von Otten that Karl had unburdened himself to us.’ He spoke like a man in a dream, while he gripped the girl’s wrist, holding her so that she could hardly move. ‘I couldn’t understand why he was arrested so soon afterwards, it seemed a freakish thing.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Brian, unsteadily.
‘We’ve got to face it,’ said Palfrey roughly. ‘She’s been spying on us for von Otten, damn her treacherous soul! He’s held his hand to the last because he wants to know just what we’re planning. He wants to make sure that we can put nothing across him. Why else was she so desperately anxious to know how we’re going to work?’ He released her, even pushed her away from him as if to rid himself of something unclean.
She rushed towards the door, mouth wide open, a scream starting again; Conroy met her, stopped the scream, quite simply, by driving his fist against the point of her chin. She staggered back and banged into Palfrey; then, half conscious, sagged to the floor.
Conroy said: ‘That’s your answer, Brian.’ He looked suddenly much older. ‘She’s had us on a piece of string, and now—oh, heck! von Otten knows us. He sent her to find out what we were going to do. We’ve got to face it, for he knows all right—if she isn’t