"Oh, to be sure, to be sure. I never intended to deny--"
"That was the first point," said Frost. "The second is that her mind became opaque to our authorities immediately afterwards. We know only one cause for such occultations. They occur when the mind in question has placed itself, by some voluntary choice, however vague, under the control of some hostile organism. The occultation, therefore, while cutting off our access to the dreams, also tells us that she has come under enemy influence. It also means that to find her would probably mean discovering the enemy's headquarters. Miss Hardcastle is probably right in maintaining that torture would soon induce Studdock to give up his wife's address. But as you pointed out, a round-up at their headquarters, an arrest, and the discovery of her husband here in the condition in which the torture would leave him, would produce psychological conditions in the woman which might destroy her faculty. That is the first objection. The second is, that an attack on enemy headquarters is very risky. They almost certainly have protection of a kind we are not prepared to cope with. And, finally, the man may not know his wife's address. In that case . . ."
"Oh," said Wither, " there is nothing I should more deeply deplore. Scientific examination (I cannot allow the word Torture in this context) in cases where the patient doesn't know the answer is always a mistake. As men of humanity we should neither of us ... and then, if you go on, the patient naturally does not recover. . . ."
"There is, in fact, no way of implementing our instructions except by inducing Studdock to bring his wife here himself."
"Or else," said Wither, a little more dreamily than usual, "if it were possible, by inducing in him a much more radical allegiance to our side than he has yet shown. I am speaking, my dear friend, of a real change of heart."
"I was saying that he must be induced to send for the woman himself. That can be done in two ways. Either by supplying him with some motive on the instinctive level, such as fear of us or desire for her; or else by conditioning him to identify himself so completely with the Cause that he will understand the real motive for securing her person and act on it."
"Exactly . . . exactly," said Wither. "Where is Studdock at present?" said Frost. "In one of the cells."
"Under the impression he has been arrested by the ordinary police?"
"I presume he would be."
"And how are you proposing to act?"
"We had proposed to allow the psychological results of the arrest to mature. I have ventured . . . of course, with every regard for humanity ... to reckon on the value of some slight discomforts- he will not have dined, you understand. They have instructions to empty his pockets. One would not wish the young man to relieve any nervous tension by smoking."
"Of course. And what next?"
"Well, I suppose some sort of examination. I am inclined to think that the appearance of examination by the ordinary police should be maintained a little longer. Then at a later stage will come the discovery that he is still in our hands. It would be well to let him realise only gradually that this by no means frees him from the-er-embarrassments arising out of Hingest's death. I take it that some fuller realisation of his inevitable solidarity with the Institute would then follow. . . ."
"The weakness is that you are relying wholly on fear."
"Fear," repeated Wither as if he had not heard the word before. "I do not quite follow the connection of thought. I can hardly suppose you are following the opposite suggestion, once made, if I remember, by Miss Hardcastle."
"What was that?"
"Why," said Wither, " if I understand her right she thought of taking scientific measures to render the society of his wife more desirable to him. Some of the chemical resources ..."
"You mean an aphrodisiac?" Wither sighed gently and said nothing. "That is nonsense," said Frost. "It isn't to his wife that a man turns under the influence of aphrodisiacs. But as I was saying, I think it is a mistake to rely wholly on fear. But there are other alternatives. There is desire."
"I am not sure that I am following you. You have rejected the idea of any medical or chemical approach."
"I was thinking of stronger desires." Neither at this stage of the conversation nor at any other did the Deputy Director look much at the face of Frost. But either Frost or Wither-it was difficult to say which- had been gradually moving his chair, so that by this time the two sat with their knees almost touching.
"I had my conversation with Filostrato," said Frost. "I used expressions which must have made my meaning clear if he had any notion of the truth. His assistant, Wilkins, was present. The truth is, neither is really interested. What interests them is the fact that they have succeeded-as they think-in keeping the Head alive and getting it to talk. What it says does not really interest them. As to any question about what is really speaking, they have no curiosity."
"You are suggesting, if I understand," said Wither, "a movement towards Mr. Studdock along those lines. I need hardly say that I fully realise a certain disappointment which serious minded people must feel with such colleagues as Filostrato."
"That is the point," said Frost. "One must guard against supposing that the political and economic dominance of England by the N.I.C.E. is more than a subordinate object: it is individuals we are really concerned with. A hard core of individuals really devoted to the cause- that is what we need and are under orders to supply. We have not succeeded so far in bringing many people in- really in."
"There is still no news from Bragdon Wood?"
"No."
"And you believe that Studdock might really be a suitable person?"
"You must not forget," said Frost, " that his value does not rest solely on his wife's clairvoyance. The couple are eugenically interesting. And I think he can offer no resistance. The hours of fear in the cell, and then an appeal to desires that undercut the fear, will have an almost certain effect on a character of that sort."
"Of course," said Wither, " nothing is so much to be desired as the greatest possible unity. Any fresh individual brought into that unity would be a source of the most intense satisfaction-to-ah-all concerned. You need not doubt that I would open my arms to receive-to absorb- ; to assimilate this young man."
They were now sitting so close together that their faces ; almost touched, as if they had been lovers about to kiss. Suddenly there was a crash. Who's Who had fallen off the table, swept on to the floor as, with sudden, swift convulsive movement, the two old men lurched forward towards each other and sat swaying to and fro, locked in an embrace from which each seemed to be struggling to escape. And as they swayed and scrabbled with hand and nail, there arose, shrill and faint at first, a cackling noise that seemed in the end rather an animal than a senile parody of laughter.
When Mark was bundled out of the police wagon and left at length alone in a little lighted room, he had no idea that he was at Belbury. Nor would he have cared greatly if he had known, for the moment he was arrested he had despaired of his life. He was going to be hanged.
There came a sudden uprush of grisly details about execution, supplied long since by Miss Hardcastle.
Because he felt that he was choking, he looked round the cell for any sign of ventilation. There was, in fact, some sort of grating above the door. All else was white floor, white ceiling, white wall, without a chair or table or peg, and one hard white light in the centre of the ceiling.
Something in the look of the place now suggested to him for the first time the idea that he might be at Belbury and not in an ordinary police station. But the flash of hope aroused by this idea was so brief as to be instantaneous. What difference did it make whether Wither and Miss Hardcastle and the rest decided to get rid of him by handing him over to the ordinary police or by making away with him in private? They were all his enemies, playing upon his hopes and fears to reduce him to servility, certain to kill him if he broke away, and certain to kill him in the long run when he had served the purpose for which they wanted him. It appeared to him astonishing that he could ever have thought otherwise.
What a fool-a babyish, gullible fool-he had been!
Why had he come to Belbury in the first instance ? Ought not his first interview with the Deputy Director to have warned him. Feverstone's guffaw, that day he had called him an " incurable romantic ", came back to his mind. Feverstone . . . that was how he had come to believe in Wither: on Feverstone's recommendation. Apparently his folly went farther back. How on earth had he come to trust Feverstone? Jane, or Dimble, would have seen through him at once. He had crook written all over him. He was fit only to deceive puppets like Curry and Busby. But then, at the time when he first met Feverstone, he had not thought Curry and Busby puppets. With astonishment he remembered how he had felt about the Progressive Element at Bracton when he was first admitted to its confidence. Was there no beginning to his folly? Had he been a fool all through from the day of his birth ? Even as a schoolboy, when he had ruined his work and half broken his heart trying to get into the society called Grip, and lost his only real friend in doing so ? Even as a child, fighting Myrtle because she would go and talk secrets with Pamela next door?