Jessop nodded.
'I hope you're not blaming me,' said Jessop in his most owl-like manner, 'for not providing you with the desired end of your experience.'
Hilary looked puzzled. 'What end?'
'A more sporting form of suicide,' he said.
'Oh, that!' She shook her head incredulously. 'That seems just as unreal as anything else. I've been Olive Betterton so long now that I'm feeling quite confused to be Hilary Craven again.'
'Ah,' said Jessop, 'there is my friend, Leblanc. I must go and speak to him.'
He left them and walked along the terrace. Tom Betterton said, quickly,
'Do one more thing for me, will you Olive? I call you Olive still – I've got used to it.'
'Yes, of course. What is it?'
'Walk along the terrace with me, then come back here and say that I've gone up to my room to lie down.'
She looked at him questioningly.
'Why? What are you -'
'I'm off, my dear, while the going's good.'
'Off, where?'
'Anywhere.'
'But why?'
'Use your head, my dear girl. I don't know what the status is here. Tangier is an odd sort of place not under the jurisdiction of any particular country. But I know what'll happen if I come with the rest of you to Gibraltar. The first thing that'll happen when I get there, I shall be arrested.'
Hilary looked at him with concern. In the excitement of their escape from the Unit, she had forgotten Tom Betterton's troubles.
'You mean the Official Secrets Act, or whatever they call it? But you can't really hope to get away can you, Tom? Where can you go?'
'I've told you. Anywhere.'
'But is that feasible nowadays? There's money and all sorts of difficulties.'
He gave a short laugh.
'The money's all right. It's salted away where I can get at it under a new name.'
'So you did take money?'
'Of course I took money.'
'But they'll track you down.'
'They'll find it hard to do that. Don't you realise, Olive, that the description they'll have of me is quite unlike my present appearance. That's why I was so keen on this plastic surgery business. That's been the whole point, you see. To get away from England, bank some money, have my appearance altered in such a way that I'm safe for life.'
Hilary looked at him doubtfully.
'You're wrong,' she said. 'I'm sure you're wrong. It'd be far better to go back and face the music. After all, it's not war time. You'd only get a short term of imprisonment, I expect. What's the good of being hounded for the rest of your life?'
'You don't understand,' he said. 'You don't understand the first thing about it all. Come on, let's get going. There's no time to lose.'
'But how are you going to get away from Tangier?'
'I'll manage. Don't you worry.'
She got up from her seat and walked with him slowly along the terrace. She felt curiously inadequate and tongue-tied. She had fulfilled her obligations to Jessop and also to the dead woman, Olive Betterton. Now there was no more to do. She and Tom Betterton had shared weeks of the closest association and yet she felt they were still strangers to each other. No bond of fellowship or friendship had grown up between them.
They reached the end of the terrace. There was a small side door there through the wall which led out on to a narrow road which curved down the hill to the port.
'I shall slip out this way,' Betterton said, 'nobody's watching. So long.'
'Good luck to you,' said Hilary slowly.
She stood there watching Betterton as he went to the door and turned its handle. As the door opened he stepped back a pace and stopped. Three men stood in the doorway. Two of them entered and came towards him. The first spoke formally.
'Thomas Betterton, I have here a warrant for your arrest. You will be held here in custody whilst extradition proceedings are taken.'
Betterton turned sharply, but the other man had moved quickly round the other side of him. Instead, he turned back with a laugh.
'It's quite all right,' he said, 'except that I'm not Thomas Betterton.'
The third man moved in through the doorway, came to stand by the side of the other two.
'Oh yes, you are,' he said. 'You're Thomas Betterton.'
Betterton laughed.
'What you mean is that for the last month you've been living with me and hearing me called Thomas Betterton and hearing me call myself Thomas Betterton. The point is that I'm not Thomas Betterton. I met Betterton in Paris, I came on and took his place. Ask this lady if you don't believe me,' he said. 'She came to join me, pretending to be my wife, and I recognised her as my wife. I did, didn't I?'
Hilary nodded her head.
'That,' said Betterton, 'was because not being Thomas Betterton, naturally I didn't know Thomas Betterton's wife from Adam. I thought she was Thomas Betterton's wife. Afterwards I had to think up some sort of explanation that would satisfy her. But that's the truth.'
'So that's why you pretended to know me,' cried Hilary. 'When you told me to play up – to keep up the deception!'
Betterton laughed again, confidently.
'I'm not Betterton,' he said. 'Look at any photograph of Betterton and you'll see I'm speaking the truth.'
Peters stepped forward. His voice when he spoke was totally unlike the voice of the Peters that Hilary had known so well. It was quiet and implacable.
'I've seen photographs of Betterton,' he said, 'and I agree I wouldn't have recognised you as the man. But you are Thomas Betterton all the same, and I'll prove it.'
He seized Betterton with a sudden strong grasp and tore off his jacket.
'If you're Thomas Betterton,' he said, 'you've got a scar in the shape of a Z in the crook of your right elbow.'
As he spoke he ripped up the shirt and bent back Betterton's arm.
'There you are,' he said, pointing triumphantly. 'There are two lab assistants in the U.S.A. who'll testify to that. I know about it because Elsa wrote and told me when you did it.'
'Elsa?' Betterton stared at him. He began to shake nervously. 'Elsa? What about Elsa?'
'Ask what the charge is against you?'
The police official stepped forward once more.
'The charge,' he said, 'is murder in the first degree. Murder of your wife, Elsa Betterton.'
Chapter 22
'I'm sorry, Olive. You've got to believe I'm sorry. About you, I mean. For your sake I'd have given him one chance. I warned you that he'd be safer to stay in the Unit and yet I'd come half way across the world to get him, and I meant to get him for what he did to Elsa.'
'I don't understand. I don't understand anything. Who are you?'
