Gleicher interrupted him sternly.
“There’s no question of that, either. I will not countenance the specter of torture—or physical pressure, as you put it—in this service. I should not be able to sleep at night if I ever debased myself by methods like that. No, Otto, psychological means are what we shall use,” he added in a gentler tone, “and in this particular case, to which I’ve given a great deal of thought, I’m certain the weapon we possess is infinitely more efficacious than violence.”
“Perhaps,” said Otto without much conviction.
“Have you really any doubt about it? Do you mean to say you still can’t see what his position is with regard to his superiors? Don’t you realize he has accused the other fellow of treachery and passed himself off as a hero? Nothing else can account for his having been entrusted with another mission. That being so, don’t you think this man will do absolutely anything for us to keep his secret?”
Otto looked at his chief with surprise, then with admiration. He would never have believed him capable of such ingenuity. For a moment, but no more than a moment, he had a vague suspicion that this plan might involve him in a procedure even more cruel than the methods of the Gestapo, but the evidence of its efficacy prevented these qualms from assuming definite shape and he merely replied:
“You're right, Colonel”—this was the first time he had addressed Gleicher by his military ran —“he is obliged to obey us. It’s unpardonable of me not to have realized that before. I’m grateful to you for opening my eyes to the immorality and the uselessness of torture."
“Ein Herrendienst, Otto," Gleicher concluded, grinning with delight at this tribute.
Arvers did not offer the slightest resistance when Gleicher took him in hand. Such an effort was beyond him. The vague apprehension in which he had been living until then was succeeded by a palpable terror in the form of a ghastly vision that obtruded on him at every hour of the day and night.
The scene was Dr. Fog’s office, which his memory depicted as the haunt of a mysterious and forbidding figure. The doctor was there with Austin and a number of French officers Arvers had known in London and who were full of admiration for his brilliant record. Claire had just come in, with that abominable smile on her lips. He himself was sitting in an armchair; the at- tention of the others was directed elsewhere.
Dr. Fog was examining with interest a flat, cylindrical object, turning it over in his nervous hands. At times his features reminded Arvers of Gleicher. He was saying:
“This has just arrived from France. This lady here brought it with her. An extremely interesting document, it seems.”
“Extremely interesting, sir,” Claire murmured.
“Extremely interesting, sir,” Austin echoed.
“Very, very interesting indeed, sir,” all his assistants repeated in unison, as though they knew what it was all about.
“We’ll soon see,” said Dr. Fog. “Someone bring me a tape recorder.”
“A tape recorder, someone go and get a tape recorder! Where can we get hold of a tape recorder?” the rest of them chorused.
They scattered like a flock of sparrows and started hunting around the house, passing in and out of the room in frantic haste. The dream then assumed a particularly horrifying form for Arvers. During their interminably long search, he struggled feverishly but in vain to start his mind working. He cudgeled his brain passionately to find some means of preventing the audition. His mind, generally so fertile, was paralyzed by the weight of the problem and refused to work; his imagination was completely powerless; and his acute awareness of this total intellectual impotence was one of the most frightening aspects of his nightmare.
The machine was eventually brought in. Then all of a sudden, as though at the touch of a fairy’s wand, the matrix imprisoning the workings of his brain seemed to dissolve and he recovered his mental powers. An idea came into his head by which he could avert the danger once and for all—an idea magnificent in its simplicity and which he greeted as a glorious miracle of his intelligence. But this glimmer of hope was instantly extinguished and his suffering assumed another form; for no sooner had he begun to congratulate himself on his marvelous discovery, no sooner had he been dazzled, in the incoherence of his hallucination, by the brilliance of this brain wave, than his physical paralysis, following on his mental impotence, hindered its execution. And so his ingenuity had shown itself in vain; for this amazing scheme consisted simply in his pouncing on the tape, tearing it into shreds, and swallowing the pieces!
Dr. Fog had picked up the cylinder again before he was able to lift a finger. He placed it on the machine with infinite care. Claire’s laughter rang in his ears, a chant of triumph that intensified his torment. Arvers was now trying to channel his remaining energy into the muscles of his throat. His will was strained to the utmost in his effort to speak, to shout out loud, to drown the sound of the damnable machine that was already emitting his initial splutters, like the jarring voice of a demon announcing some infernal entertainment. But just when he thought he had succeeded, when the cry of salvation was about to issue from his lips, Dr. Fog noticed his presence. He now resembled Gleicher so closely that he might have been his twin. He silenced his victim with a lordly gesture.
All eyes were then turned on Arvers, and the lamentable note of entreaty in his voice resounded in the deathly hush: “I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything, everything! I’ll do anything you wish. . .”
25
The sound of that voice set in motion such painful vibrations in his body that he woke with a start. He was not in London but sprawled in an armchair in his living room, from which he had not moved for some time. He tried to persuade himself that this ridiculous dream was the product of a morbid imagination. It could not possibly happen like that in real life. He would find some way of warding off the danger. He had got himself out of many tight spots before. But first of all he would have to find a means of defense against this excruciating nightmare constantly hovering around him, waiting to overwhelm him the moment he was off guard. And in order to gain the upper hand in this struggle, his nature could conceive of only one weapon, one single stratagem—to charm away the diabolical obsession with the virtues of some other obsession of his own choosing and deliberately invoke a divine hallucination in colors bright enough to obliterate the first. He sometimes actually succeeded in doing so.
It was by no means an easy business. A desperate mental effort was needed for him to create the illusion that he was still a man of honor. Gleicher had done nothing to make this task any easier. He despised him to such an extent that he did not even bother to conceal his true intentions. He made no attempt to lend the least plausibility to the pretext he had invented in order to draw an important member of the Allied services into his clutches. His attitude could leave no doubt in Arvers' mind as to the infamy of his conduct. And yet, during those pathetic moments when he feverishly tried to find some antidote to the haunting nightmare, he frequently succeeded in convincing himself that his behavior had been dictated by an ardent sense of patriotism in the interests of the Allied cause. Such is the sovereign power of the human mind; such is its sublime dishonesty.
That day, as on every previous day, he racked his brains to conjure up the wretched arguments he considered fit to support this thesis, to furbish them with infinite patience and endow them with the quality needed to create his supreme illusion. After all, though Gleicher did not attempt to persuade him of the purity of his intentions, the German had not
actually said this was a case of deception. There was nothing to prove he was not genuinely seeking a means of collaboration. Admittedly, Arvers had been careful not to question him on this subject, for fear of receiving a forthright answer that would deprive him of all hope. This was a tenuous starting point, but enough for his dream to begin to take shape and eventually to illuminate the evidence of his integrity and perspicacity.
Then . . . then, in his mind’s eye, he emerged as the promoter of one of the most important negotiations of the war. He, Arvers, the secret agent hunted by several police forces, whom his superiors did not provide with means worthy of him, accomplished the feat of leading the enemy to believe in their defeat and to surren- der. Few characters in history had maneuvered with such Machiavellian cunning. Of all the masters of intrigue whose names he recalled, none had solved a
problem comparable to this, or under such difficult conditions. And it was in his apparent submission to Gleicher that his ingenuity showed itself most strikingly. In fact, it was he who inspired every step the German took and directed every move he made, without his realizing it.
Usually he did not develop his romantic fancy beyond this stage: the submission of the Abwehr, brought about by his stratagems and by the influence he secretly exercised over Gleicher. He derived considerable comfort from the mere contemplation of this simple result and, in view of recent events, seemed to feel a sort of reluctance to venture toward more complicated ideas.
Today, however, he felt bold enough to let the hallucination grow in beauty and in power, follow its natural course unimpeded, gradually encroach upon those regions forbidden to the common run of humanity, and finally erupt into the glorious realm of his former chimeras, reviving the exaltation he had previously enjoyed:
The blow delivered against the enemy had to be exploited immediately. Arvers acted with the speed of lightning. Admiral Canaris having offered his services to the Allies, Arvers now demanded—he no longer dealt with any but the highest authority; Gleicher was restricted to a liaison role—he now demanded that Canaris arrest the Fiihrer as proof of his loyalty. He would allow no evasion, no delay, no excuse. The plot organized under his auspices succeeded beyond the wildest hopes. Hitler and the entire High Command were captured. They were handed over to him one night, bound hand and foot, and he took them back with him to England after countless adventures. This was his last mission. The news of this capture suddenly burst upon the world, leading to an immediate cessation of hostilities. The rumor began to spread that this exploit was the feat of a single individual, an unknown hero who was only now allowed to come out into the open. It was not long before these rumors were confirmed by official announcements.