Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [38]
‘Such people have power. The great religious teachers had this power, and so has an evil spirit power also. Belief can be created in a certain movement, in certain things to be done, things that will result in a new heaven and a new earth, and people will believe it and work for it and fight for it and even die for it.’
He lowered his voice as he said: ‘Jan Smuts puts it in a phrase. He said Leadership, besides being a great creative force, can be diabolical.’
Stafford Nye moved in his chair.
‘I understand what you mean. It is interesting what you say. I can see perhaps that it might be true.’
‘But you think it’s exaggerated, of course.’
‘I don’t know that I do,’ said Stafford Nye. ‘Things that sound exaggerated are very often not exaggerated at all. They are only things that you haven’t heard said before or thought about before. And therefore they come to you as so unfamiliar that you can hardly do anything about them except accept them. By the way, may I ask a simple question? What does one do about them?’
‘If you come across the suspicion that this sort of thing is going on, you must find out about them,’ said Lord Altamount. ‘You’ve got to go like Kipling’s mongoose: Go and find out. Find out where the money comes from and where the ideas are coming from, and where, if I may say so, the machinery comes from. Who is directing the machinery? There’s a chief of staff, you know, as well as a commander-in-chief. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’d like you to come and help us.’
It was one of the rare occasions in his life when Sir Stafford Nye was taken aback. Whatever he may have felt on some former occasions, he had always managed to conceal the fact. But this time it was different. He looked from one to the other of the men in the room. At Mr Robinson, impassively yellow-faced with his mouthful of teeth displayed; to Sir James Kleek, a somewhat brash talker, Sir Stafford Nye had considered him, but nevertheless he had obviously his uses; Master’s dog, he called him in his own mind. He looked at Lord Altamount, the hood of the porter’s chair framed round his head. The lighting was not strong in the room. It gave him the look of a saint in a niche in a cathedral somewhere. Ascetic. Fourteenth-century. A great man. Yes, Altamount had been one of the great men of the past. Stafford Nye had no doubt of that, but he was now a very old man. Hence, he supposed, the necessity for Sir James Kleek, and Lord Altamount’s reliance on him. He looked past them to the enigmatic, cool creature who had brought him here, the Countess Renata Zerkowski alias Mary Ann, alias Daphne Theodofanous. Her face told him nothing. She was not even looking at him. His eyes came round last to Mr Henry Horsham of Security.
With faint surprise he observed that Henry Horsham was grinning at him.
‘But look here,’ said Stafford Nye, dropping all formal language, and speaking rather like the schoolboy of eighteen he had once been. ‘Where on earth do I come in? What do I know? Quite frankly, I’m not distinguished in any way in my own profession, you know. They don’t think very much of me at the FO. Never have.’
‘We know that,’ said Lord Altamount.
It was Sir James Kleek’s turn to grin and he did so.
‘All the better perhaps,’ he remarked, and added apologetically as Lord Altamount frowned at him, ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘This is a committee of investigation,’ said Mr Robinson. ‘It is not a question of what you have done in the past, of what other people’s opinion of you may be. What we are doing is to recruit a committee to investigate. There are not very many of us at the moment forming this committee. We ask you to join it because we think that you have certain qualities which may help in