第 24 页

It was madness – but it was constructive madness. It was the sort of thing that in a world, shattered and disintegrating, could happen.

‘But think,’ said Victoria, ‘of all the people who will be killed first.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Edward. ‘That doesn’t matter.’

It doesn’t matter – that was Edward’s creed. And suddenly for no reason, a remembrance of that three thousand years old coarse pottery bowl mended with bitumen flashed across Victoria’s mind. Surely those were the things that mattered – the little everyday things, the family to be cooked for, the four walls that enclosed the home, the one or two cherished possessions. All the thousands of ordinary people on the earth, minding their own business, and tilling the earth, and making pots and bringing up families and laughing and crying, and getting up in the morning and going to bed at night. They were the people who mattered, not these Angels with wicked faces who wanted to make a new world and who didn’t care whom they hurt to do it.

And carefully, feeling her way, for here in Devonshire she knew that death might be very near, she said:

‘You are wonderful, Edward. But what about me? What can I do?’

‘You want to – help? You believe in it?’

But she was prudent. Not sudden conversion. That would be too much.

‘I think I just believe in you!’ she said. ‘Anything you tell me to do, Edward, I’ll do.’

‘Good girl,’ he said.

‘Why did you arrange for me to come out here to begin with? There must have been some reason?’

‘Of course there was. Do you remember I took a snap of you that day?’

‘I remember,’ said Victoria.

(You fool, how flattered you were, how you simpered! she thought to herself.)

‘I’d been struck by your profile – by your resemblance to someone. I took that snap to make sure.’

‘Whom do I resemble?’

‘A woman who’s been causing us a good deal of trouble – Anna Scheele.’

‘Anna Scheele.’ Victoria stared at him in blank surprise. Whatever she had expected, it was not this. ‘You mean – she looks like me?’

‘Quite remarkably so side view. The features in profile are almost exactly the same. And there’s one most extraordinary thing, you’ve got a tiny mark of a scar on your upper lip, left side –’

‘I know. It’s where I fell on a tin horse when I was a child. It had a sharp ear sticking up and it cut quite deep in. It doesn’t show much – not with powder on.’

‘Anna Scheele has a mark in just the same place. That was a most valuable point. You’re alike in height and build – she’s about four or five years older than you. The real difference is the hair, you’re a brunette and she’s a blonde. And your style of hairdressing is quite different. Your eyes are a darker blue, but that wouldn’t matter with tinted glasses.’

‘And that’s why you wanted me to come to Baghdad? Because I looked like her.’

‘Yes, I thought the resemblance might – come in useful.’

‘So you arranged the whole thing…The Clipps – who are the Clipps?’

‘They’re not important – they just do as they’re told.’

Something in Edward’s tone sent a faint shiver down Victoria’s spine. It was as though he had said with inhuman detachment, ‘They are under Obedience.’

There was a religious flavour about this mad project. ‘Edward,’ she thought, ‘is his own God. That’s what’s so frightening.’

Aloud she said:

‘You told me that Anna Scheele was the boss, the Queen Bee, in your show?’

‘I had to tell you something to put you off the scent. You had already learnt too much.’

‘And if I hadn’t happened to look like Anna Scheele that would have been the end of me,’ thought Victoria.

She said:

‘Who is she really?’

‘She’s confidential secretary to Otto Morganthal, the American and international banker. But that isn’t all she is. She has the most remarkable financial brain. We’ve reason to believe she’s traced out a lot of our financial operations. Three people have been dangerous to us – Rupert Crofton Lee, Carmichael – well they’re both wiped out. There remains Anna Scheele. She’s due in Baghdad in three days’ time. In the meantime, she’s disappeared.’

‘Disappeared? Where?’

‘In London. Vanished, apparently, off the face of the earth.’

‘And does no one know where she is?’

‘Dakin may know.’

But Dakin didn’t know. Victoria knew that, though Edward didn’t – so where was Anna Scheele?

She asked:

‘You really haven’t the least idea?’

‘We’ve an idea,’ said Edward slowly.

‘Well?’

‘It’s vital that Anna Scheele should be here in Baghdad for the Conference. That, as you know, is in five days’ time.’

‘As soon as that? I’d no idea.’

‘We’ve got every entry into this country taped. She’s certainly not coming here under her own name. And she’s not coming in on a Government service plane. We’ve our means of checking that. So we’ve investigated all the private bookings. There’s a passage booked by BOAC in the name of Grete Harden. We’ve traced Grete Harden back and there’s no such person. It’s an assumed name. The address given is a phony one. It’s our idea that Grete Harden is Anna Scheele.’

He added:

‘Her plane will touch down at Damascus the day after tomorrow.’

‘And then?’

Edward’s eyes looked suddenly into hers.

‘That’s up to you, Victoria.’

‘To me?’

‘You’ll take her place.’

Victoria said slowly:

‘Like Rupert Crofton Lee?’

It was almost a whisper. In the course of that substitution Rupert Crofton Lee had died. And when Victoria took her place, presumably Anna Scheele, or Grete Harden, would die.

And Edward was waiting – and if for one moment Edward doubted her loyalty, then she, Victoria, would die – and die without the possibility of warning any one.

No, she must agree and seize a chance to report to Mr Dakin.

She drew a deep breath and said:

‘I – I – oh, but Edward, I couldn’t do it. I’d be found out. I can’t do an American voice.’

‘Anna Scheele has practically no accent. In any case you will be suffering from laryngitis. One of the best doctors in this part of the world will say so.’

‘They’ve got people everywhere,’ thought Victoria.

‘What would I have to do?’ she asked.

‘Fly from Damascus to Baghdad as Grete Harden. Take to your bed immediately. Be allowed up by our reputable doctor just in time to go to the Conference. There you will lay before them the documents which you have brought with you.’

Victoria asked: ‘The real documents?’

‘Of course not. We shall substitute our version.’

‘What will the documents show?’

Edward smiled.

‘Convincing details of the most stupendous Communist plot in America.’

Victoria thought: ‘How well they’ve got it planned.’

Aloud she said:

‘Do you really think I can get away with it, Edward?’

Now that she was playing a part, it was quite easy for Victoria to ask it with every appearance of anxious sincerity.

‘I’m sure you can. I’ve noticed that your playing of a part affords you such enjoyment that it’s practically impossible to disbelieve you.’

Victoria said meditatively:

‘I still feel an awful fool when I think of the Hamilton Clipps.’

He laughed in a superior way.

Victoria, her face still a mask of adoration, thought to herself viciously. ‘But you were an awful fool, too, to let slip that about the Bishop at Basrah. If you hadn’t I’d never have seen through you.’

She said suddenly: ‘What about Dr Rathbone?’

‘What do you mean “What about him?”’

‘Is he just a figurehead?’

Edward’s lips curved in cruel amusement.

‘Rathbone has got to toe the line. Do you know what he’s been doing all these years? Cleverly appropriating about three-quarters of the subscriptions which pour in from all over the world to his own use. It’s the cleverest swindle since the time of Horatio Bottomley. Oh yes, Rathbone’s completely in our hands – we can expose him at any time and he knows it.’

Victoria felt a sudden gratitude to the old man with the noble domed head, and the mean acquisitive soul. He might be a swindler – but he had known pity – he had tried to get her to escape in time.

‘All things work towards our New Order,’ said Edward.

She thought to herself, ‘Edward, who looks so sane, is really mad! You get mad, perhaps, if you try and act the part of God. They always say humility is a Christian virtue – now I see why. Humility is what keeps you sane and a human being…’

Edward got up.

‘Time to be moving,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to get you to Damascus and our plans there worked out by the day after tomorrow.’

Victoria rose with alacrity. Once she was away from Devonshire, back in Baghdad with its crowds, in the Tio Hotel with Marcus shouting and beaming and offering her a drink, the near persistent menace of Edward would be removed. Her part was to play a double game – continue to fool Edward by a sickly dog-like devotion, and counter his plans secretly.

She said: ‘You think that Mr Dakin knows where Anna Scheele is? Perhaps I could find that out. He might drop some hint.’

‘Unlikely – and in any case, you won’t be seeing Dakin.’

‘He told me to come to see him this evening,’ said Victoria mendaciously, a slightly chilly feeling attacking her spine. ‘He’ll think it odd if I don’t turn up.’

‘It doesn’t matter at this stage what he thinks,’ said Edward. ‘Our plans are made.’ He added, ‘You won’t be seen in Baghdad again.’

‘But Edward, all my things are at the Tio! I’ve booked a room.’

The scarf. The precious scarf.

‘You won’t need your things for some time to come. I’ve got a rig-out waiting for you. Come on.’

They got in the car again. Victoria thought, ‘I ought to have known that Edward would never be such a fool as to let me get in touch with Mr Dakin after I’d found him out. He believes I’m besotted about him – yes, I think he’s sure of that – but all the same he isn’t going to take any chances.’

She said: ‘Won’t there be a search for me if I – don’t turn up?’

‘We’ll attend to that. Officially you’ll say goodbye to me at the bridge and go off to see some friends on the West Bank.’

‘And actually?’

‘Wait and see.’

Victoria sat silent as they bumped over the rough track and twisted round palm gardens and over the little irrigation bridges.

‘Lefarge,’ murmured Edward. ‘I wish we knew what Carmichael meant by that.’

Victoria’s heart gave a leap of anxiety.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I forgot to tell you. I don’t know if it means anything. A M. Lefarge came to the Excavations one day at Tell Aswad.’

‘What?’ Edward almost stalled the car in his excitement. ‘When was this?’

‘Oh! About a week ago. He said he came from some Dig in Syria. M. Parrot’s, would it be?’

‘Did two men called André and Juvet come while you were there?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Victoria. ‘One of them had a sick stomach. He went to the house and lay down.’

‘They were two of our people,’ said Edward.

‘Why did they come here? To look for me?’

‘No – I’d no idea where you were. But Richard Baker was in Basrah at the same time as Carmichael. We had an idea Carmichael might have passed something on to Baker.’

‘He said his things had been searched. Did they find anything?’

‘No – now think carefully, Victoria. Did this man Lefarge come before the other two or afterwards?’

Victoria reflected in a convincing manner, as she decided what movements to impute to the mythical M. Lefarge.

‘It was – yes, the day before the other two came,’ she said.

‘What did he do?’

‘Well,’ said Victoria, ‘he went over the Dig – with Dr Pauncefoot Jones. And then Richard Baker took him down to the house to see some of the things in the Antika Room there.’

‘He went to the house with Richard Baker. They talked together?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Victoria. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t look at things in absolute silence, would you?’

‘Lefarge,’ murmured Edward.‘Who is Lefarge? Why have we got no line on him?’

Victoria longed to say, ‘He’s brother to Mrs Harris,’ but refrained. She was pleased with her invention of M. Lefarge. She could see him quite clearly now in her mind’s eye – a thin rather consumptive-looking young man with dark hair and a little moustache. Presently, when Edward asked her, she described him carefully and accurately.

They were driving now through the suburbs of Baghdad. Edward turned off down a side street of modern villas built in a pseudo-European style, with balconies and gardens round them. In front of one house a big touring car was standing. Edward drew up behind it and he and Victoria got out, and went up the steps to the front door.

A thin dark woman came out to meet them and Edward spoke to her rapidly in French. Victoria’s French was not sufficiently good to understand fully what was said, but it seemed to be to the effect that this was the young lady and that the change must be effected at once.

The woman turned to her and said politely in French:

‘Come with me, please.’

She led Victoria into a bedroom where, spread out on a bed, was the habit of a nun. The woman motioned to her, and Victoria undressed and put on the stiff wool undergarment and the voluminous medieval folds of dark stuff. The Frenchwoman adjusted the head-dress. Victoria caught a glimpse of herself in the glass. Her small pale face under the gigantic (was it a wimple?) with the white folds under her chin, looked strangely pure and unearthly. The Frenchwoman threw a Rosary of wooden beads over her head. Then, shuffling in the over-large coarse shoes Victoria was led out to rejoin Edward.

‘You look all right,’ he said approvingly. ‘Keep your eyes down, particularly when there are men about.’

The Frenchwoman rejoined them a moment or two later similarly apparelled. The two nuns went out of the house and got into the touring car which now had a tall dark man in European dress in the driver’s seat.

‘It’s up to you now, Victoria,’ said Edward. ‘Do exactly as you are told.’

There was a slight steely menace behind the words.

‘Aren’t you coming, Edward?’ Victoria sounded plaintive.

He smiled at her.

‘You’ll see me in three days’ time,’ he said. And then, with a resumption of his persuasive manner, he murmured, ‘Don’t fail me, darling. Only you could do this – I love you, Victoria. I daren’t be seen kissing a nun – but I’d like to.’

Victoria dropped her eyes in approved nun-like fashion, but actually to conceal the fury that showed for a moment.

‘Horrible Judas,’ she thought.

Instead she said with an assumption of her usual manner:

‘Well, I seem to be a Christian Slave all right.’

‘That’s the girl!’ said Edward. He added, ‘Don’t worry. Your papers are in perfect order – you’ll have no difficulty at the Syrian frontier. Your name in religion, by the way, is Sister Marie des Anges. Sister Thérèse who accompanies you has all the documents and is in full charge, and for God’s sake obey orders – or I warn you frankly, you’re for it.’

He stepped back, waved his hand cheerfully, and the touring car started off.