until they finally stopped. It had been a somewhat rough landing, but it was a landing in the middle of nowhere.
Had something gone wrong with the engine, Hilary wondered, or had they run out of petrol? The pilot, a dark-skinned, handsome young man, came through the forward door and along the plane.
'If you please,' he said, 'you will all get out.'
He opened the rear door, let down a short ladder and stood there waiting for them all to pass out. They stood in a little group on the ground, shivering a little. It was chilly here, with the wind blowing sharply from the mountains in the distance. The mountains, Hilary noticed, were covered with snow and singularly beautiful. The air was crisply cold and intoxicating. The pilot descended too, and addressed them, speaking French:
'You are all here? Yes? Excuse, please, you will have to wait a little minute, perhaps. Ah, no, I see it is arriving.'
He pointed to where a small dot on the horizon was gradually growing nearer. Hilary said in a slightly bewildered voice:
'But why have we come down here? What is the matter? How long shall we have to be here?'
The French traveller said,
'There is, I understand, a station wagon arriving. We shall go on in that.'
'Did the engine fail?' asked Hilary.
Andy Peters smiled cheerfully.
'Why no, I shouldn't say so.' he said, 'the engine sounded all right to me. However, they'll fix up something of that kind, no doubt.'
She stared, puzzled. Mrs. Calvin Baker murmured,
'My, but it's chilly, standing about here. That's the worst of this climate. It seems so sunny but it's cold the moment you get near sunset.'
The pilot was murmuring under his breath, swearing, Hilary thought. He was saying something like:
'Toujours des retards insupportables.'
The station wagon came towards them at a break-neck pace. The Berber driver drew up with a grinding of brakes. He sprang down and was immediately engaged by the pilot in angry conversation. Rather to Hilary's surprise, Mrs. Baker intervened in the dispute – speaking in French.
'Don't waste time,' she said peremptorily. 'What's the good of arguing? We want to get out of here.'
The driver shrugged his shoulders, and going to the station wagon, he unhitched the back part of it which let down. Inside was a large packing case. Together with the pilot and with help from Ericsson and Peters, they got it down on to the ground. From the effort it took, it seemed to be heavy. Mrs. Calvin Baker put her hand on Hilary's arm and said, as the man began to raise the lid of the case,
'I shouldn't watch, my dear. It's never a pretty sight.'
She led Hilary a little way away, on the other side of the wagon. The Frenchman and Peters came with them. The Frenchman said in his own language,
'What is it then, this manoeuvre there that they do?'
Mrs. Baker said,
'You are Dr. Barron?'
The Frenchman bowed.
'Pleased to meet you,' said Mrs. Baker. She stretched out her hand, rather like a hostess welcoming him to a party. Hilary said in a bewildered tone,
'But I don't understand. What is in that case? Why is it better not to look?'
Andy Peters looked down on her consideringly. He had a nice face, Hilary thought. Something square and dependable about it. He said,
'I know what it is. The pilot told me. It's not very pretty perhaps, but I guess it's necessary.' He added quietly, 'There are bodies in there.'
'Bodies!' She stared at him.
'Oh, they haven't been murdered or anything,' he grinned reassuringly. 'They were obtained in a perfectly legitimate way for research – medical research, you know.'
But Hilary still stared.
'I don't understand.'
'Ah. You see, Mrs. Betterton, this is where the journey ends. One journey, that is.'
'Ends?'
'Yes. They'll arrange the bodies in that plane and then the pilot will fix things and presently, as we're driving away from here, we shall see in the distance the flames going up in the air. Another plane that has crashed and come down in flames, and no survivors!'
'But why? How fantastic!'
'But surely -' It was Dr. Barron now who spoke to her. 'But surely you know where we are going?'
Mrs. Baker, drawing near, said cheerfully,
'Of course she knows. But maybe she didn't expect it quite so soon.'
Hilary said, after a short bewildered pause,
'But you mean – all of us?' She looked round.
'We're fellow travellers,' said Peters gently.
The young Norwegian, nodding his head, said with an almost fanatical enthusiasm,
'Yes, we are all fellow travellers.'
Chapter 9
The pilot came up to them.
'You will start now, please,' he said. 'As soon as possible. There is much to be done, and we are late on schedule.'
Hilary recoiled for a moment. She put her hand nervously to her throat. The pearl choker she was wearing broke under the strain of her fingers. She picked up the loose pearls and crammed them into her pocket.
They all got into the station wagon. Hilary was on a long bench crowded up with Peters on one side of her and Mrs. Baker the other. Turning her head towards the American woman, Hilary said,
'So you – so you – are what you might call the liaison officer, Mrs. Baker?'
'That hits it off exactly. And though I say it myself, I'm well qualified. Nobody is surprised to find an American woman getting around and travelling a lot.'
She was still plump and smiling, but Hilary sensed, or thought she sensed, a difference. The slight fatuity and surface conventionality had gone. This was an efficient, probably ruthless woman.
'It will make a fine sensation in the headlines,' said Mrs. Baker. She laughed with some enjoyment. 'You, I mean, my dear. Persistently dogged by ill-luck, they'll say. First nearly losing your life in the crash at Casablanca, then being killed in this further disaster.'
Hilary realised suddenly the cleverness of the plan.
'These others?' she murmured. 'Are they who they say they are?'
'Why yes. Dr. Barron is a bacteriologist, I believe. Mr. Ericsson a very brilliant young physicist, Mr. Peters is a research chemist, Miss Needheim, of course, isn't a nun, she's an endocrinologist. Me, as I say, I'm only the liaison officer. I don't belong in this scientific bunch.' She laughed again as she said, 'That Hetherington woman never had a chance.'
'Miss Hetherington – was she – was she -'
Mrs. Baker nodded emphatically.
'If you ask me, she's been tailing you. Took over in Casablanca from whoever followed you out.'
'But she didn't come with us today although I urged her to?'
'That wouldn't have been in character,' said Mrs. Baker. 'It would have looked a little too obvious to go back again to Marrakesh after having been there already. No, she'll have sent a telegram or a phone message through and there'll be someone waiting at Marrakesh to pick you up when you arrive. When you arrive! That's a good laugh,
