"What do you mean?"
"Well, I've already told you that they're not as romantic as they sound. Throwing yourself off a building isn't too nice, either. You don't always die at once. And the same applies to falling under a train. What I'm getting at is that there are other ways."
"I don't understand what you mean."
"I'm suggesting another method. Rather a sporting method, really. There's some excitement in it, too. I'll be fair with you. There's just a hundred to one chance that you mightn't die. But I don't believe under the circumstances, that you'd really object by that time."
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."
"Of course you haven't," said Jessop. "I've not begun to tell you about it yet. I'm afraid I'll have to make rather a thing about it - tell you a story, I mean. Shall I go ahead?"
"I suppose so."
Jessop paid no attention to the grudgingness of the assent. He started off in his most owl-like manner.
"You're the sort of woman who reads the papers and keeps up with things generally, I expect," he said. "You'll have read about the disappearance of various scientists from time to time. There was that Italian chap about a year ago, and about two months ago a young scientist called Thomas Betterton disappeared."
Hilary nodded. "Yes, I read about that in the papers."
"Well, there's been a good deal more than has appeared in the papers. More people, I mean, have disappeared. They haven't always been scientists. Some of them have been young men who were engaged in important medical research. Some of them have been research chemists, some of them have been physicists, there was one barrister. Oh, quite a lot here and there and everywhere. Well, ours is a so-called free country. You can leave it if you like. But in these peculiar circumstances we've got to know why these people left it and where they went, and, also important, how they went. Did they go of their own free will? Were they kidnapped? Were they blackmailed into going? What route did they take - what kind of organisation is it that sets this in motion and what is its ultimate aim? Lots of questions. We want the answer to them. You might be able to help get us that answer."
Hilary stared at him.
"Me? How? Why?"
"I'm coming down to the particular case of Thomas Betterton. He disappeared from Paris just over two months ago. He left a wife in England. She was distracted - or said she was distracted. She swore that she had no idea why he'd gone or where or how. That may be true, or it may not. Some people - and I'm one of them - think it wasn't true."
Hilary leaned forward in her chair. In spite of herself she was becoming interested. Jessop went on.
"We prepared to keep a nice, unobtrusive eye on Mrs. Betterton. About a fortnight ago she came to me and told me she had been ordered by her doctor to go abroad, take a thorough rest and get some distraction. She was doing no good in England, and people were continually bothering her - newspaper reporters, relations, kind friends."
Hilary said drily: "I can imagine it."
"Yes, tough. Quite natural she would want to get away for a bit."
"Quite natural, I should think."
"But we've got nasty, suspicious minds in our department, you know. We arranged to keep tabs on Mrs. Betterton. Yesterday she left England as arranged, for Casablanca."
"Casablanca?"
"Yes - en route to other places in Morocco, of course. All quite open and above board, plans made, bookings ahead. But it may be that this trip to Morocco is where Mrs. Betterton steps off into the unknown."
Hilary shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't see where I come into all this."
Jessop smiled.
"You come into it because you've got a very magnificent head of red hair, Mrs. Craven."
"Hair?"
"Yes. It's the most noticeable thing about Mrs. Betterton - her hair. You've heard, perhaps, that the plane before yours today crashed on landing."
"I know. I should have been on that plane. I actually had reservations for it."
"Interesting," said Jessop. "Well, Mrs. Betterton was on that plane. She wasn't killed. She was taken out of the wreckage still alive, and she is in hospital now. But according to the doctor, she won't be alive tomorrow morning."
A faint glimmer of light came to Hilary. She looked at him enquiringly.
"Yes," said Jessop, "perhaps now you see the form of suicide I'm offering you. I'm suggesting that Mrs. Betterton goes on with her journey. I'm suggesting that you should become Mrs. Betterton."
"But surely," said Hilary, "that would be quite impossible. I mean, they'd know at once she wasn't me."
Jessop put his head on one side.
"That, of course, depends entirely on who you mean by 'they.' It's a very vague term. Who is or are 'they'? Is there such a thing, are there such persons as 'they'? We don't know. But I can tell you this. If the most popular explanation of 'they' is accepted, then these people work in very close, self-contained cells. They do that for their own security. If Mrs. Betterton's journey had a purpose and is planned, then the people who were in charge of it here will know nothing about the English side of it. At the appointed moment they will contact a certain woman at a certain place, and carry on from there. Mrs. Betterton's passport description is five-feet-seven, red hair, blue eyes, mouth medium, no distinguishing marks. Good enough."
"But the authorities here. Surely they -"
Jessop smiled. "That part of it will be quite all right. The French have lost a few valuable young scientists and chemists of their own. They'll co-operate. The facts will be as follows. Mrs. Betterton, suffering from concussion, is taken to hospital. Mrs. Craven, another passenger in the crashed plane will also be admitted to hospital. Within a day or two Mrs. Craven will die in hospital, and Mrs. Betterton will be discharged, suffering slightly from concussion, but able to proceed on her tour. The crash was genuine, the concussion is genuine, and concussion makes a very good cover for you. It excuses a lot of things like lapses of memory and various unpredictable behaviour."
Hilary said:
"It would be madness!"
"Oh, yes," said Jessop, "it's madness, all right. It's a very tough assignment and if our suspicions are realised, you'll probably cop it. You see, I'm being quite frank, but according to you, you're prepared and anxious to cop it. As an alternative to throwing yourself in front of a train or something like that. I should think you'd find it far more amusing."
Suddenly and unexpectedly Hilary laughed.
"I do believe," she said, "that you're quite right."
"You'll do it?"
"Yes. Why not."
"In that case," said Jessop, rising in his seat with sudden energy, "there's absolutely no time to be lost"
Chapter 4
It was not really cold in the hospital but it felt cold. There was a smell of antiseptics in the air. Occasionally in the corridor outside could be heard the rattle of glasses and instruments as a trolley was pushed by. Hilary Craven sat in a hard iron chair by a bedside.
In the bed, lying flat under a shaded light with her head bandaged, Olive Betterton lay unconscious. There was a nurse standing on one side of the bed and the doctor on the other. Jessop sat in a chair in the far corner of the room. The doctor turned to him and spoke in French.
"It will not be very long now," he said. "The pulse is very much weaker."
"And she will not recover consciousness?"
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
"That I cannot say. It may be, yes, at the very end."
"There is nothing you can do - no stimulant?"
The doctor shook his head. He went out. The nurse followed him. She was replaced by a nun who moved to the head of the bed, and stood there, fingering her rosary. Hilary looked at Jessop and in obedience to a glance from him came to join him.
"You heard what the doctor said?" he asked in a low voice.
"Yes. What is it you want to say to her?"
"If she regains consciousness I want any information you can possibly get, any password, any sign, any message, anything. Do you understand? She is more likely to speak to you than to me."
Hilary said with sudden emotion:
"You want me to betray someone who is dying?"
Jessop put his head on one side in the birdlike manner which he sometimes adopted.
"So it seems like that to you, does it?" he said, considering.
"Yes, it does."
He looked at her thoughtfully.
"Very well then, you shall say and do what you please. For myself I can have no scruples! You understand that?"
"Of course. It's your duty. You'll do whatever questioning you please, but don't ask me to do it."
"You're a free agent."
"There is one question we shall have to decide. Are we to tell her that she is dying?"
"I don't know. I shall have to think it out."
She nodded and went back to her place by the bed. She was filled now with a deep compassion for the woman who lay there dying. The woman who was on her way to join the man she loved. Or were they all wrong? Had she come to Morocco simply to seek solace, to pass the time until perhaps some definite news could come to her as to whether her husband were alive or dead? Hilary wondered.
Time went on. It was nearly two hours later when the click of the nun's beads stopped. She spoke in a soft impersonal voice.
"There is a change," she said. "I think, Madame, it is the end that comes. I will fetch the doctor."
She left the room. Jessop moved to the opposite side of the bed, standing back against the wall so that he was out of the woman's range of vision. The eyelids flickered and opened. Pale incurious blue eyes looked into Hilary's. They closed, then opened again. A faint air of perplexity seemed to come into them.
"Where...?"
The word fluttered between the almost breathless lips, just as the doctor entered the room. He took her hand in his, his finger on the pulse, standing by the bed looking down on her.
"You are in hospital, Madame," he said. "There was an accident to the plane."
"To the plane?"
The words were repeated dreamily in that faint breathless voice.
"Is there anyone you want to see in Casablanca, Madame? Any message we can take?"
Her eyes were raised painfully to the doctor's face. She said:
"No."
She looked back again at Hilary.
"Who - who -"
Hilary bent forward and spoke clearly and distinctly.
"I came out from England on a plane, too - if there is anything I can do to help you, please tell me."
"No - nothing - nothing - unless -"
"Yes?"
"Nothing."
The eyes flickered again and half closed - Hilary raised her head and looked across to meet Jessop's imperious commanding glance. Firmly, she shook her head.
Jessop moved forward. He stood close beside the doctor. The dying woman's eyes opened again. Sudden recognition came into them. She said:
"I know you."
"Yes, Mrs. Betterton, you know me. Will you tell me anything you can about your husband?"
"No."
Her eyelids fell again. Jessop turned quietly and left the room. The doctor looked across at Hilary. He said very softly,
"C'est la fin!"
The dying woman's eyes opened again. They travelled painfully round the room, then they remained fixed on Hilary. Olive Betterton made a very faint motion with her hand, and Hilary instinctively took the white cold hand between her own. The doctor, with a shrug of his shoulders and a little bow, left the room. The two women were alone together. Olive Betterton was trying to speak:
"Tell me - tell me -"
Hilary knew what she was asking, and suddenly her own course of action opened clearly before her. She leaned down over the recumbent form.
"Yes," she said, her words clear and emphatic. "You are dying. That's what you want to know, isn't it? Now listen to me. I am going to try and reach your husband. Is there any message you want me to give him if I succeed?"
"Tell him - tell him - to be careful. Boris - Boris - dangerous..."
The breath fluttered off again with a sigh. Hilary bent closer.
"Is there anything you can tell me to help me - help me in my journey, I mean? Help me to get in contact with your husband?"
"Snow."
The word came so faintly that Hilary was puzzled. Snow? Snow? She repeated it uncomprehendingly. A faint, ghostlike little giggle came from Olive Betterton. Faint words came tumbling out:
"Snow, snow, beautiful snow!
You slip on a lump, and over you go!"
She repeated the last word. "Go... Go? Go and tell him about Boris. I didn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. But perhaps it's true... If so, if so..." a kind of agonised question came into her eyes which stared up into Hilary's. "... take care..."
A queer little rattle came to her throat. Her lips jerked.
Olive Betterton died.
II
The next five days were strenuous mentally, though inactive physically. Immured in a private room in the hospital, Hilary was set to work. Every evening she had to pass an examination on what she had studied that day. All the details of Olive Betterton's life, as far as they could be ascertained, were set down on paper and she had to memorise and learn them by heart. The house she had lived in, the daily women she had employed, her relations, the names of her pet dog and her canary, every detail of the six months of her married life with Thomas Betterton. Her wedding, the names of her bridesmaids, their dresses, the patterns of curtains, carpets and chintzes. Olive Betterton's tastes, predilections and day by day activities. Her preferences in food and drink. Hilary was forced to marvel at the amount of seemingly meaningless information that had been massed together. Once she said to Jessop;
