enough. As they drove along Hilary made a little desultory conversation from time to time. The weather, the excellence of the car. She spoke French quite easily and well, and the chauffeur responded agreeably. His manner was entirely natural and matter of fact.
'How long will it take us?' she asked presently.
'From the aerodrome to the hospital? It is a drive of perhaps two hours, Madame.'
The words struck Hilary with faintly disagreeable surprise. She had noted, without thinking much about it, that Helga Needheim had changed at the rest house and was now wearing a hospital nurse's kit. This fitted in.
'Tell me something about the hospital,' she said to the chauffeur.
His reply was enthusiastic.
'Ah, Madame, it is magnificent. The equipment, it is the most up-to-date in the world. Many doctors come and visit it! and all of them go away full of praise. It is a great thing that is being done there for humanity.'
'It must be,' said Hilary, 'yes, yes, indeed it must.'
'These miserable ones,' said the chauffeur, 'they have been sent in the past to perish miserably on a lonely island. But here this new treatment of Dr. Kolini's cures a very high percentage. Even those who are far gone.'
'It seems a lonely place to have a hospital,' said Hilary.
'Ah, Madame; but you would have to be lonely in the circumstances. The authorities would insist upon it. But it is good air here, wonderful air. See, Madame, you can see now where we are going.' He pointed.
They were approaching the first spurs of a mountain range, and on the side of it, set flat against the hillside, was a long gleaming white building.
'What an achievement,' said the chauffeur, 'to raise such a building out here. The money spent must have been fantastic. We owe much, Madame, to the rich philanthropists of this world. They are not like governments who do things always in a cheap way. Here money has been spent like water. Our patron, he is one of the richest men in the world, they say. Here truly he has built a magnificent achievement for the relief of human suffering.'
He drove up a winding track. Finally they came to rest outside great barred iron gates.
'You must dismount here, Madame,' said the chauffeur. 'It is not permitted that I take the car through these gates. The garages are a kilometre away.'
The travellers got out of the car. There was a big bell pull at the gate, but before they could touch it the gates swung slowly open. A white-robed figure with a black, smiling face bowed to them and bade them enter. They passed through the gate; at one side screened by a high fence of wire, there was a big courtyard where men were walking up and down. As these men turned to look at the arrivals, Hilary uttered a gasp of horror.
'But they're lepers!' she exclaimed. 'Lepers!'
A shiver of horror shook her entire frame.
Chapter 11
The gates of the leper colony closed behind the travellers with a metallic clang. The noise struck on Hilary's startled consciousness with a horrible note of finality. Abandon hope, it seemed to say, all ye who enter here… This, she thought, was the end… really the end. Any way of retreat there might have been was now cut off.
She was alone now amongst enemies, and in, at most, a very few minutes, she would be confronted with discovery and failure. Subconsciously, she supposed, she had known that all day, but some undefeatable optimism of the human spirit, some persistence in the belief that that entity oneself could not possibly cease to exist, had been masking that fact from her. She had said to Jessop in Casablanca 'And when do I reach Tom Betterton?' and he had said then gravely that that was when the danger would become acute. He had added that he hoped that by then he might be in a position to give her protection, but that hope, Hilary could not but realise, had failed to materialise.
If 'Miss Hetherington' had been the agent on whom Jessop was relying, 'Miss Hetherington' had been outmanoeuvred and left to confess failure at Marrakesh. But in any case, what could Miss Hetherington have done?
The party of travellers had arrived at the place of no return. Hilary had gambled with death and lost. And she knew now that Jessop's diagnosis had been correct. She no longer wanted to die. She wanted to live. The zest of living had come back to her in full strength. She could think of Nigel, of the little mound that was Brenda's grave, with a sad wondering pity, but no longer with the cold lifeless despair that had urged her on to seek oblivion in death. She thought: 'I'm alive again, sane, whole… and now I'm like a rat in a trap. If only there were some way out…'
It was not that she had given no thought to the problem. She had. But it seemed to her, reluctantly, that once confronted with Betterton, there could be no way out…
Betterton would say: 'But that's not my wife -' And that would be that! Eyes turning towards her… realisation… a spy in their midst…
Because what other solution could there be? Supposing she were to get in first? Supposing she were to cry out, before Tom Betterton could get in a word – 'Who are you? You're not my husband!' If she could simulate indignation, shock, horror, sufficiently well – might it, just credibly, raise a doubt? A doubt whether Betterton was Betterton – or some other scientist sent to impersonate him. A spy, in other words. But if they believed that, then it might be rather hard on Betterton! But, she thought, her mind turning in tired circles, if Betterton was a traitor, a man willing to sell his country's secrets, could anything be 'hard on him'? How difficult it was, she thought, to make any appraisement of loyalties – or indeed any judgments of people or things… At any rate it might be worth trying. To create a doubt -
With a giddy feeling, she returned to her immediate surroundings. Her thoughts had been running underground with the frenzied violence of a rat caught in a trap. But during that time her surface stream of consciousness had been playing its appointed part.
The little party from the outside world had been welcomed by a big handsome man – a linguist, it would seem, since he had said a word or two to each person in his or her own language.
'Enchante de faire votre connaisance, mon cher doctor,' he was murmuring to Dr. Barron, and then turning to her:
'Ah, Mrs. Betterton, we're very pleased to welcome you here. A long confusing journey, I'm afraid. Your husband's very well and, naturally, awaiting you with impatience.'
He gave her a discreet smile; it was a smile, she noticed, that did not touch his cold pale eyes.
'You must,' he added, 'be longing to see him.'
The giddiness increased – she felt the group round her approaching and receding like the waves of the sea. Beside her, Andy Peters put out an arm and steadied her.
'I guess you haven't heard,' he said to their welcoming host. 'Mrs. Betterton had a bad crash at Casablanca – concussion. This journey's done her no good. Nor the excitement of looking forward to meeting her husband. I'd say she ought to lie down right now in a darkened room.'
Hilary felt the kindness of his voice, of the supporting arm. She swayed a little more. It would be easy, incredibly easy, to crumple at the knees, to drop flaccidly down… to feign unconsciousness – or at any rate near unconsciousness. To be laid on a bed in a darkened room – to put off the moment of discovery just a little longer… But Betterton would come to her there – any husband would. He would come there and lean over the bed in the dim gloom and at the first murmur of her voice, the first dim outline of her face as his eye became accustomed to the twilight he would realise that she was not Olive Betterton.
Courage came back to Hilary. She straightened up. Colour came into her cheeks. She flung up her head.
If this were to be the end, let it be a gallant end! She would go to Betterton and when he repudiated her, she would try out the last lie, come out with it confidently, fearlessly:
'No, of course I'm not your wife. Your wife – I'm terribly sorry, it's awful – she's dead. I was in hospital with her when she died. I promised her I'd get to you somehow and give you her last messages. I wanted to. You see, I'm in sympathy with what you did – with what all of you are doing. I agree with you politically. I want to help…'
Thin, thin, all very thin… And such awkward trifles to explain – the faked passport – the forged letter of credit. Yes, but people did get by sometimes with the most audacious lies – if one lied with sufficient confidence – if
