"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;
"Can any of this possibly matter?"
And to that he had replied quietly:
"Probably not. But you've got to make yourself into the authentic article. Think of it this way, Hilary. You're a writer. You're writing a book about a woman. The woman is Olive. You describe scenes of her childhood, her girlhood; you describe her marriage, the house she lived in. All the time that you do it she becomes more and more of a real person to you. Then you go over it a second time. You write it this time as an autobiography. You write it in the first person. Do you see what I mean?"
She nodded slowly, impressed in spite of herself.
"You can't think of yourself as Olive Betterton until you are Olive Betterton. It would be better if you had time to learn it up, but we can't afford time. So I've got to cram you. Cram you like a schoolboy - like a student who is going in for an important examination." He added, "You've got a quick brain and a good memory, thank the Lord."
He looked at her in cool appraisement.
The passport descriptions of Olive Betterton and Hilary Craven were almost identical, but actually the two faces were entirely different. Olive Betterton had had a quality of rather commonplace and insignificant prettiness. She had looked obstinate but not intelligent. Hilary's face had power and an intriguing quality. The deep set bluish-green eyes under dark level brows had fire and intelligence in their depths. Her mouth curved upwards in a wide and generous line. The plane of the jaw was unusual - a sculptor would have found the angles of the face interesting.
Jessop thought: "There's passion there - and guts - and somewhere, damped but not quenched, there's a gay spirit that's tough - and that enjoys life and searches out for adventure."
"You'll do," he said to her. "You're an apt pupil."
This challenge to her intellect and her memory had stimulated Hilary. She was becoming interested now, keen to achieve success. Once or twice objections occurred to her. She voiced them to Jessop.
"You say that I shan't be rejected as Olive Betterton. You say that they won't know what she looks like, except in general detail. But how sure can you be of that?"
Jessop shrugged his shoulders.
"One can't be sure - of anything. But we do know a certain amount about the set up of these shows, and it does seem that internationally there is very little communication from one country to another. Actually, that's a great advantage to them. If we come upon a weak link in England (and, mind you, in every organisation there always will be a weak link), that weak link in the chain knows nothing about what's going on in France, or Italy, or Germany, or wherever you like, we are brought up short by a blank wall. They know their own little part of the whole - no more. The same applies the opposite way round. I dare swear that all the cell operating here knows is that Olive Betterton will arrive on such and such a plane and is to be given such and such instructions. You see, it's not as though she were important in herself. If they're bringing her to her husband, it's because her husband wants her brought to him and because they think they'll get better work out of him if she joins him. She herself is a mere pawn in the game. You must remember too, that the idea of substituting a false Olive Betterton is definitely a spur of the moment improvisation - occasioned by the plane accident and the colour of your hair. Our plan of operation was to keep tabs on Olive Betterton and find out where she went, how she went, whom she met - and so on. That's what the other side will be on the look out for."
Hilary asked:
"Haven't you tried all that before?"
"Yes. It was tried in Switzerland. Very unobtrusively. And it failed as far as our main objective was concerned. If anyone contacted her there we didn't know about it. So the contact must have been very brief. Naturally they'll expect that someone will be keeping tabs on Olive Betterton. They'll be prepared for that. It's up to us to do our job more thoroughly than last time. We've got to try and be rather more cunning than our adversaries."
"So you'll be keeping tabs on me?"
"Of course."
"How?"
He shook his head.
"I shan't tell you that. Much better for you not to know. What you, don't know you can't give away."
"Do you think I would give it away?"
Jessop put on his owl-like expression again.
"I don't know how good an actress you are - how good a liar. It's not easy, you know. It's not a question of saying anything indiscreet. It can be anything, a sudden intake of the breath, the momentary pause in some action - lighting a cigarette, for instance. Recognition of a name or a friend. You could cover it up quickly, but just a flash might be enough!"
"I see. It means - being on your guard for every single split second."
"Exactly. In the meantime, on with the lessons! Quite like going back to school, isn't it? You're pretty well word-perfect on Olive Betterton, now. Let's go on to the other."
Codes, responses, various properties. The lesson went on, the questioning, the repetition, the endeavour to confuse her, to trip her up; then hypothetical schemes and her own reactions to them. In the end, Jessop nodded his head and declared himself satisfied.
"You'll do," he said. He patted her on the shoulder in an avuncular manner. "You're an apt pupil. And remember this, however much you may feel at times that you're all alone in this, you're probably not. I say probably - I won't put it higher than that. These are clever devils."
"What happens," said Hilary, "if I reach journey's end?"
"I mean when at last I come face to face with Tom Betterton."
Jessop nodded grimly.
"Yes," he said. "That's the danger moment. I can only say that at that moment, if all has gone well, you should have protection. If, that is to say, things have gone as we hope; but the very basis of this operation, as you may remember, was that there wasn't a very high chance of survival."
"Didn't you say one in a hundred?" said Hilary drily.
"I think we can shorten the odds a little. I didn't know what you were like."
"No, I suppose not." She was thoughtful. "To you, I suppose, I was just..."
He finished the sentence for her:
"A woman with a noticeable head of red hair and who hadn't the pluck to go on living."
She flushed.
"That's a harsh judgment."
"It's a true one, isn't it? I don't go in for being sorry for people. For one thing it's insulting. One is only sorry for people when they're sorry for themselves. Self-pity is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the world today."
Hilary said thoughtfully:
"I think perhaps you're right. Will you permit yourself to be sorry for me when I've been liquidated or whatever the term is, in fulfilling this mission?"
"Sorry for you? No. I shall curse like hell because we've lost someone who's worth while taking a bit of trouble over."
"A compliment at last." In spite of herself she was pleased.
She went on in a practical tone:
"There's just one other thing that occurred to me. You say nobody's likely to know what Olive Betterton looks like, but what about being recognised as myself? I don't know anyone in Casablanca, but there are the people who travelled here with me in the plane. Or one may of course run across somebody one knows among the tourists here."
"You needn't worry about the passengers in the plane. The people who flew with you from Paris were business men who went on to Dakar and a man who got off here who has since flown back to Paris. You will go to a different hotel when you leave here, the hotel for which Mrs. Betterton had reservations. You will be wearing her clothes and her style of hairdressing and one or two strips of plaster at the sides of your face will make you look very different in feature. We've got a doctor coming to work upon you, by the way. Local anaesthetic, so it won't hurt, but you will have to have a few genuine marks of the accident."
"You're very thorough," said Hilary.
"Have to be."
"You've never asked me," said Hilary, "whether Olive Betterton told me anything before she died."
"I understood you had scruples."
"I'm sorry."
"Not at all. I respect you for them. I'd like to indulge in them myself - but they're not in the schedule."
"She did say something that perhaps I ought to tell you. She said 'Tell him' - Betterton, that is - 'tell him to be careful - Boris - dangerous -'"
"Boris." Jessop repeated the name with interest. "Ah! Our correct foreign Major Boris Glydr."
"You know him? Who is he?"
"A Pole. He came to see me in London. He's supposed to be a cousin of Tom Betterton by marriage."
"Supposed?"
"Let us say, more correctly, that if he is who he says he is, he is a cousin of the late Mrs. Betterton. But we've only his word for it."
"She was frightened," said Hilary, frowning. "Can you describe him? I'd like to be able to recognise him."
"Yes. It might be as well. Six foot. Weight roughly 160 lbs. Fair - rather wooden poker face - light eyes - foreign stilted manner - English very correct, but a pronounced accent, military bearing."
He added:
"I had him tailed when he left my office. Nothing doing. He went straight to the U.S. Embassy - quite correctly - he'd brought me an introductory letter from there. The usual kind they send out when they want to be polite but non-committal. I presume he left the Embassy either in somebody's car or by the back entrance disguised as a footman or something. Anyway he evaded us. Yes - I should say that Olive Betterton was perhaps right when she said that Boris Glydr was dangerous."
Chapter 5
In the small formal salon of the Hotel St. Louis, three ladies were sitting, each engaged in her particular occupation. Mrs. Calvin Baker, short, plump, with well blued hair, was writing letters with the same driving energy she applied to all forms of activity. No one could have mistaken Mrs. Calvin Baker for anything but a travelling American, comfortably off, with an inexhaustible thirst for precise information on every subject under the sun.
In an uncomfortable Empire type chair, Miss Hetherington who again could not have been mistaken for anything but travelling English, was knitting one of those melancholy shapeless looking garments that English ladies of middle age always seem to be knitting. Miss Hetherington was tall and thin with a scraggy neck, badly arranged hair, and a general expression of moral disapprovement of the Universe.
Mademoiselle Jeanne Maricot was sitting gracefully in an upright chair, looking out of the window and yawning. Mademoiselle Maricot was a brunette dyed blonde, with a plain but excitingly made-up face. She was wearing chic clothes and had no interest whatsoever in the other occupants of the room whom she dismissed contemptuously in her mind as being exactly what they were! She was contemplating an important change in her sex life and had no interest to spare for these animals of tourists!
Miss Hetherington and Mrs. Calvin Baker, having both spent a couple of nights under the roof of the St. Louis, had become acquainted. Mrs. Calvin Baker, with American friendliness, talked to everybody. Miss Hetherington, though just as eager for companionship, talked only to English and Americans of what she considered a certain social standing. The French she had no truck with unless guaranteed of respectable family life as evidenced by little ones who shared the parental table in the dining room.
A Frenchman looking like a prosperous business man glanced into the salon, was intimidated by its air of female solidarity and went out again with a look of lingering regret at Mademoiselle Jeanne Maricot.
Miss Hetherington began to count stitches sotto voce.
"Twenty-eight, twenty-nine - now what can I have - Oh, I see."
A tall woman with red hair looked into the room and hesitated a moment before going on down the passage towards the dining room.
Mrs. Calvin Baker and Miss Hetherington were immediately alert. Mrs. Baker slewed herself round from the writing table and spoke in a thrilled whisper.
"Did you happen to notice that woman with red hair who looked in, Miss Hetherington? They say she's the only survivor of that terrible plane crash last week."
"I saw her arrive this afternoon," said Miss Hetherington, dropping another stitch in her excitement. "In an ambulance."
"Straight from the hospital, so the manager said. I wonder now if it was wise - to leave hospital so soon. She's had concussion, I believe."
"She's got strapping on her face, too - cut, perhaps, by the glass. What a mercy she wasn't burnt. Terrible injuries from burning in these air accidents, I believe."
"It just doesn't bear thinking about. Poor young thing. I wonder if she had a husband with her and if he was killed?"
"I don't think so," Miss Hetherington shook her yellow grey head. "It said in the paper, one woman passenger."
"That's right. It gave her name, too. A Mrs. Beverly - no, Betterton, that was it."
"Betterton," said Miss Hetherington reflectively. "Now what does that remind me of! Betterton. In the papers. Oh, dear, I'm sure that was the name."
"Tant pis pour Pierre, " Mademoiselle Maricot said to herself. "Il est vraiment insupportable! Mais le petit Jules, lui il est bien gentil. Et son père est tres bien placé dans les affaires. Enfin, je me decide!"
And with long graceful steps Mademoiselle Maricot walked out of the small salon and out of the story.
II
Mrs. Thomas Betterton had left the hospital that afternoon five days after the accident. An ambulance had driven her to the
Hotel St. Louis.
Looking pale and ill, her face strapped and bandaged, Mrs. Betterton was shown at once to the room reserved for her, a sympathetic manager hovering in attendance.
"What emotions you must have experienced, Madame!" he said, after enquiring tenderly as to whether the room reserved suited her, and turning on all the electric lights quite unnecessarily. "But what an escape! What a miracle! What good fortune. Only three survivors, I understand, and one of them in a critical condition still."
Hilary sank down on a chair wearily.
Destination Unknown Page 5
