Destination Unknown. Agatha Christie
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‘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 judgement.’
‘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 worthwhile 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 recognized 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 anæsthetic, 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 by marriage of Tom Betterton.’
‘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 recognize him.’
‘Yes. It might be as well. Six feet. Weight roughly, 160 pounds. Fair—rather wooden poker face—light eyes—foreign stilted manner—English very correct, but a pronounced accent, stiff military bearing.’
He added:
‘I had him tailed when he left my office. Nothing doing. He went straight to the US 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.’
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