'Can I speak to you?'
He studied her for a moment before replying. No - not what one might have thought - this wasn't a pick-up. This was something else.
'I see no reason,' he said, 'why you should not do so. We have time to waste here, it seems.'
'Fog,' said the woman, 'fog in Geneva, fog in London, perhaps. Fog everywhere. I don't know what to do.'
'Oh, you mustn't worry,' he said reassuringly, 'they'll land you somewhere all right. They're quite efficient, you know. Where are you going?'
'I was going to Geneva.'
'Well, I expect you'll get there in the end.'
'I have to get there now. If I can get to Geneva, it will be all right. There is someone who will meet me there. I can be safe.'
'Safe?' He smiled a little.
She said, 'Safe is a four-letter word but not the kind of four-letter word that people are interested in nowadays. And yet it can mean a lot. It means a lot to me.' Then she said, 'You see, if I can't get to Geneva, if I have to leave this plane here, or go on in this plane to London with no arrangements made, I shall be killed.' She looked at him sharply. 'I suppose you don't believe that.'
'I'm afraid I don't.'
'It's quite true. People can be. They are, every day.'
'Who wants to kill you?'
'Does it matter?'
'Not to me.'
'You can believe me if you wish to believe me. I am speaking the truth. I want help. Help to get to London safely.'
'And why should you select me to help you?'
'Because I think that you know something about death. You have known of death, perhaps seen death happen.'
He looked sharply at her and then away again.
'Any other reason?' he said,
'Yes. This.' She stretched out her narrow olive-skinned hand and touched the folds of the voluminous cloak. 'This,' she said.
For the first time his interest was aroused.
'Now what do you mean by that?'
'It's unusual - characteristic. It's not what everyone wears.'
'True enough. It's one of my affectations, shall we say?'
'It's an affectation that could be useful to me.'
'What do you mean?'
'I am asking you something. Probably you will refuse but you might not refuse because I think you are a man who is ready to take risks. Just as I am a woman who takes risks.'
'I'll listen to your project,' he said, with a faint smile.
'I want your cloak to wear. I want your passport. I want your boarding ticket for the plane. Presently, in twenty minutes or so, say, the flight for London will be called. I shall have your passport, I shall wear your cloak. And so I shall travel to London and arrive safely.'
'You mean you'll pass yourself off as me? My dear girl.' She opened a handbag. From it she took a small square mirror.
'Look there,' she said. 'Look at me and then look at your own face.'
He saw then, saw what had been vaguely nagging at his mind. His sister, Pamela, who had died about twenty years ago. They had always been very alike, he and Pamela. A strong family, resemblance. She had had a slightly masculine type of face. His face, perhaps, had been, certainly in early life, of a slightly effeminate type. They had both had the high-bridged nose, the tilt of eyebrows, the slight sideways smile of the lips. Pamela had been tall, five foot eight, he himself five foot ten. He looked at the woman who had tendered him the mirror.
'There is a facial likeness between us, that's what you mean, isn't it? But my dear girl, it wouldn't deceive anyone who knew me or knew you.'
'Of course it wouldn't. Don't you understand? It doesn't need to. I am travelling wearing slacks. You have been travelling with the hood of your cloak drawn up round your face. All I have to do is to cut off my hair, wrap it up in a twist of newspaper, throw it in one of the litter-basket here. Then I put on your burnous, I have your boards card, ticket, and passport. Unless there is someone who knows you well on this plane, and I presume there is not or they would have spoken to you already, then I can safely travel as you. Showing your passport when it's necessary, keeping the burnous and cloak drawn up so that my nose and eyes and mouth are about all that are seen. I can walk out safely when the plane reaches its destination because no one will know I have travelled by it. Walk out safely and disappear into the crowds of the city of London.'
'And what do I do?' asked Sir Stafford, with a slight smile.
'I can make a suggestion if you have the nerve to face it.'
'Suggest,' he said. 'I always like to hear suggestions.'
'You get up from here, you go away and buy a magazine or a newspaper, or a gift at the gift counter. You leave your cloak hanging here on the seat. When you come back with whatever it is, you sit down somewhere else - say at the end of that bench opposite here. There will be a glass in front of you, this glass still. In it there will be something that will send you to sleep. Sleep in a quiet corner.'
'What happens next?'
'You will have been presumably the victim of a robbery,' she said. 'Somebody will have added a few knock-out drops to your drink, and will have stolen your wallet from you. Something of that kind. You declare your identity, say that your passport and things are stolen. You can easily establish your identity.'
'You know who I am? My name, I mean?'
'Not yet,' she said. 'I haven't seen your passport yet. I've no idea who you are.'
'And yet you say I can establish my identity easily.'
'I am a good judge of people. I know who is important or who isn't. You are an important person.'
'And why should I do all this?'
'Perhaps to save the life of a fellow human being.'
'Isn't that rather a highly coloured story?'
'Oh yes. Quite easily not believed. Do you believe it?'
He looked at her thoughtfully. 'You know what you're talking like? A beautiful spy in a thriller.'
'Yes, perhaps. But I am not beautiful.'
'And you're not a spy?'
'I might be so described, perhaps. I have certain information. Information I want to preserve. You will have to take my word for it, it is information that would be valuable to your country.'
'Don't you think you're being rather absurd?'
'Yes I do. If this was written down it would look absurd, But so many absurd things are true, aren't they?'
He looked at her again. She was very like Pamela. Her voice, although foreign in intonation, was like Pamela's. What she proposed was ridiculous, absurd, quite impossible, and probably dangerous. Dangerous to him. Unfortunately, though, that was what attracted him. To have the nerve to suggest such a thing to him! What would come of it all? It might be interesting, certainly, to find out.
'What do I get out of it?' he said. That's what I'd like to know.'
She looked at him consideringly.
'Diversion,' she said. 'Something out of the everyday happenings. An antidote to boredom, perhaps. We've not got very long. It's up to you.'
'And what happens to your passport? Do I have to buy myself a wig, if they sell such a thing, at the counter? Do I have to impersonate a female?'
'No. There's no question of exchanging places. You have been robbed and drugged but you remain yourself. Make up your mind. There isn't long. Time is passing very quickly. I have got to do my own transformation.'
'You win,' he said. 'One mustn't refuse the unusual, if it is offered to one.'
'I hoped you might feel that way, but it was a tossup.'
From his pocket Stafford Nye took out his passport. He slipped it into the outer pocket of the cloak he had been wearing. He rose to his feet, yawned, looked round him, looked at his watch, and strolled over to the counter where various goods were displayed for sale. He did not even look back. He bought a paperback book and fingered some silly woolly animals, a suitable gift for some child. Finally he chose a panda. He looked round the lounge, came back to where he had been sitting. The cloak was gone and so had the girl. A half glass of beer was on the table still.
Here, he thought, is where I take the risk. He picked up the glass, moved away a little, and drank it. Not quickly. Quite slowly. It tasted much the same as it had tasted before.
'Now I wonder,' said Sir Stafford. 'Now I wonder.'
He walked across the lounge to a far corner. There was a somewhat noisy family sitting there, laughing and talking together. He sat down near them, yawned, let his head fall back on the edge of the cushion. A flight was announced leaving for Teheran. A large number of passengers got up and went to queue by the requisite numbered gate. The lounge still remained half full. He opened his paperback book. He yawned again. He was really sleepy now, yes, he was very sleepy... He must just think out where it was best for him go off to sleep. Somewhere where he could remain...
Trans-European Airways announced the departure of their plane. Flight 309 for London.
Quite a good sprinkling of passengers rose to their feet to obey the summons. By this time though, more passengers had entered the transit lounge waiting for other planes. Announcements followed as to fog at Geneva and other disabilities of travel. A slim man of middle height wearing a dark blue cloak with its red lining showing and with a hoot drawn up over a close-cropped head, not noticeably more untidy than many of the heads of young men nowadays, walked across the floor to take his place in the queue to the plane. Showing a boarding ticket, he passed out through gate No. 9.
More announcements followed. Swissair flying to Zurich - BEA to Athens and Cyprus - And then a different type of announcement.
'Will Miss Daphne Theodofanous, passenger to Geneva, kindly come to the flight desk. Plane to Geneva is delayed owing to fog. Passengers will travel by way of Athens. The aeroplane is now ready to leave.'
Other announcements followed dealing with passengers to Japan, to Egypt, to South Africa, air lines spanning the world.
Mr Sidney Cook, passenger to South Africa, was urged to come to the flight desk where there was a message for him.
Daphne Theodofanous was called for again.
'This is the last call before the departure of Flight 309.'
In a corner of the lounge a little girl was looking up at a man in a dark suit who was fast asleep, his head resting against the cushion of the red settee. In his hand he held a small woolly panda.
The little girl's hand stretched out towards the panda. Her mother said:
'Now, Joan, don't touch that. The poor gentleman's asleep.'
'Where is he going?'
'Perhaps he's going to Australia too,' said her mother, 'like we are.'
'Has he got a little girl like me?'
'I think he must have,' said her mother.
The little girl sighed and looked at the panda again. Sir Stafford Nye continued to sleep. He was dreaming that he was trying to shoot a leopard. A very dangerous animal, he was saying to the safari guide who was accompanying him.
'A very dangerous animal, so I've always heard. You can't trust a leopard.'
The dream switched at that moment, as dreams have a habit of doing, and he was having tea with his Great-Aunt Matilda, and trying to make her hear. She was deafer than ever! He had not heard any of the announcements except the first one for Miss Daphne Theodofanous. The little girl's mother said:
'I've always wondered, you know, about a passenger that's missing. Nearly always, whenever you go anywhere by air, you hear it. Somebody they can't find. Somebody who hasn't heard the call or isn't on the plane or something like that. I always wonder who it is and what they're doing, and why they haven't come. I suppose this Miss What's-a-name or whatever it is will just have missed her plane. What will they do with her then?'
Nobody was able to answer her question because nobody had the proper information.
Chapter 2
LONDON
Sir Stafford Nye's flat was a very pleasant one. It looked out upon Green Park. He switched on the coffee percolator and went to see what the post had left him this morning.
It did not appear to have left him anything very interesting. He sorted through the letters, a bill or two, a receipt and letters with rather uninteresting postmarks. He shove them together and placed them on the table where some mail was already lying, accumulating from the last days. He'd have to get down to things soon, he supposed. His secretary would be coming in some time or other this afternoon.
He went back to the kitchen, poured coffee into a cup and brought it to the table. He picked up the two or three letters that he had opened late last night when he arrived. One of them he referred to, and smiled a little as he read it.
'Eleven-thirty,' he said. 'Quite a suitable time. I wonder now. I expect I'd better just think things over, and get prepared for Chetwynd.'
Somebody pushed something through the letter-box. He went out into the hall and got the morning paper. There was very little news in the paper. A political crisis, an item of foreign news which might have been disquieting, but he didn't think it was. It was merely a journalist letting off steam and trying to make things rather more important than they were. Must give the people something to read. A girl had been strangled in the park. Girls were always being strangled. One a day, he thought callously. No child had been kidnapped or raped this morning. That was a nice surprise. He made himself a piece of toast and drank his coffee.
Later, he went out of the building, down into the street, and walked through the park in the direction of Whitehall. He was smiling to himself. Life, he felt, was rather good this morning. He began to think about Chetwynd. Chetwynd was a silly fool if there ever was one. A good fa?ade, important-seeming, and a nicely suspicious mind. He'd rather enjoy talking to Chetwynd.
He reached Whitehall a comfortable seven minutes late. That was only due to his own importance compared to that of Chetwynd, he thought. He walked into the room. Chetwynd was sitting behind his desk and had a lot of papers on it and a secretary there. He was looking properly important, as he always did when he could make it.
