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?'
'You mean?'
'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
I
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,
