"I see," said Hilary, "oh, I see now."
"I wrote to you," said Peters, "when I got to England. Wrote to you, that is, in my Polish name, telling you the facts." He looked at her. "I suppose you didn't believe me. You never answered." He shrugged his shoulders. "Then I went to the Intelligence people. At first I went there putting on an act. Polish officer. Stiff, foreign and correctly formal. I was suspicious just then of everybody. However, in the end Jessop and I got together." He paused. "This morning my quest has come to an end. Extradition will be applied for, Betterton will go to the U.S.A. and will stand his trial there. If he's acquitted, I have no more to say." He added grimly, "But he won't be acquitted. The evidence is too strong."
He paused, staring down over the sunlit gardens towards the sea.
"The hell of it is," he said, "that you came out there to join him and I met you and fell in love with you. It has been hell, Olive. Believe me. So there we are. I'm the man who's responsible for sending your husband to the electric chair. We can't get away from it. It's a thing that you'll never be able to forget even if you forgave it." He got up. "Well, I wanted to tell you the whole story from my own lips. This is good-bye." He turned abruptly as Hilary stretched out a hand.
"Wait," she said, "wait. There is something you don't know. I'm not Betterton's wife. Betterton's wife, Olive Betterton, died at Casablanca. Jessop persuaded me to take her place."
He wheeled round staring at her.
"You're not Olive Betterton?"
"No."
"Good Lord," said Andy Peters. "Good Lord!" He dropped heavily into a chair beside her. "Olive," he said, "Olive, my darling."
"Don't call me Olive. My name's Hilary. Hilary Craven."
"Hilary?" He said it questioningly. "I'll have to get used to that." He put his hand over hers.
At the other end of the terrace Jessop, discussing with Leblanc various technical difficulties in the present situation, broke off in the middle of a sentence.
"You were saying?" he asked absently.
"I said, mon cher, that it does not seem to me that we are going to be able to proceed against this animal of Aristides."
"No, no. Aristides always wins. That is to say he always manages to squirm out from under. But he'll have lost a lot of money, and he won't like that. And even Aristides can't keep death at bay for ever. I should say he'll be coming up before the Supreme Justice before very long, from the look of him."
"What was it attracting your attention, my friend?"
"Those two," said Jessop. "I sent Hilary Craven off on a journey to a destination unknown, but it seems to me that her journey's end is the usual one after all."
Leblanc looked puzzled for a moment then he said,
"Aha! Yes! Your Shakespeare!"
"You Frenchmen are so well read," said Jessop.
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