Free While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes Page B

more, you had a strange reluctance to leave Poland. Edward Korytowski told me about the station incident last night. Of course, we could have checked with the British Embassy to find out why you were staying. I presume you informed them?”
    Sheila’s face was answer enough. She said, at last, to end his obvious amusement, “I went this afternoon. That was why I was late for Hofmeyer’s. But everything, everyone was so busy... Really, I didn’t think I mattered so much just then.”
    “I see.” It was an encouraging rather than a polite remark. Sheila felt that not one of her most hidden emotions could escape these sharp eyes.
    “Why do you believe me, then?” she asked.
    “Because,” and he paused and his voice was very quiet, “I knew your father. You are very like him. The resemblance is extraordinary. Except that your eyebrows and eyelashes are darker, but perhaps that isn’t nature’s fault.”
    “You knew him?”
    “Yes, I was at the last meeting he and Madalinski attended. I had just left. It was raided by the Germans. They were shot.” He looked at the girl almost gently. “When you get angry, and push your hair back from your face, and lift that chin and youreyebrows, I can see enough of Charles Matthews to please me.”
    “Then why didn’t you tell Colonel Bolt? Why didn’t you? He would have believed you.”
    “Yes. I’ll explain that later, once you have answered a few questions. Now, quietly, Miss Matthews. Please be patient. The questions are important to me. First, what did you know about your father? What did your uncle tell you?”
    “Only that my father was killed in the war.”
    “Did you never ask for more information than that?”
    “Of course. But you don’t know Uncle Matthews. He isn’t very communicative. There wasn’t even a photograph of my father. And it was only last winter, when Andrew Aleksander came to London, that I found out that my father had died in Poland. I had always thought it was France.”
    “Men like your father, Miss Matthews, don’t go about being photographed, and don’t have medals pinned on their chests. When they are wounded, it must be explained by the word ‘accident’. When they are killed, there is no military funeral, no name on a Roll of Honour. Their families can’t talk about their deeds, for their families even don’t know about them.”
    “My father was a spy?” Sheila asked haltingly.
    “A spy, to me, is someone who finds out information for a certain amount of money. The money smothers his conscience if he is a traitor. If he is a patriot, the money softens the lack of public recognition. But there is another word which I prefer to give to men who care neither for the money nor for any recognition. Their lives are often ruined; they may meet an unpleasant death; but they fight in their own way—with their brains, secretly, courageously—because all that matters to them is what they are fighting for. I think it is only fair to give them fullcredit for that. Shall we say that your father was a secret agent?”
    Sheila didn’t answer.
    “Now tell me another thing... Why did you come to Poland this summer?”
    Sheila said with some difficulty, “Partly because I wanted to see the Aleksanders. Partly because I wanted to see where my father had died.”
    “I want you to be frank, for I have been frank with you. You came to see the Aleksanders?”
    Sheila’s colour deepened. “Andrew wanted to marry me. I wasn’t quite sure. I...”
    Olszak seemed pleased. “That’s better,” he said. “Now you are being as frank as I am. Good. And when you came to Poland, you intended to leave before any trouble started?”
    Sheila’s face was scarlet. “Yes. It sounds mean and callous now. But I never thought of it that way then, somehow.”
    “Why didn’t you keep your intentions?”
    “I’ve been trying to find out the reasons for myself. Perhaps I stayed so long because Poland was so like, and yet so unlike, anything I had