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, her fingers 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 bird-like 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-green 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.