all sorts of unpleasant things happen. Stomach pump. Castor oil, hot coffee, slapping and pushing. All very undignified, I assure you.'
Hilary leaned back in her chair, her eyelids narrowed. She clenched her hands slightly. She forced herself to smile.
'What a ridiculous person you are,' she said. 'Do you imagine that I was committing suicide, or something like that?'
'Not only imagine it,' said the young man called Jessop, 'I'm quite sure of it. I was in that chemist, you know, when you came in. Buying toothpaste, as a matter of fact. Well, they hadn't got the sort I like, so I went to another shop. And there you were, asking for sleeping pills again. Well, I thought that was a bit odd, you know, so I followed you. All those sleeping pills at different places. It could only add up to one thing.'
His tone was friendly, offhand, but quite assured. Looking at him Hilary Craven abandoned pretence.
'Then don't you think it is unwarrantable impertinence on your part to try and stop me?'
He considered the point for a moment or two. Then he shook his head.
'No. It's one of those things that you can't not do – if you understand.'
Hilary spoke with energy. 'You can stop me for the moment. I mean you can take the pills away – throw them out of the window or something like that – but you can't stop me from buying more another day or throwing myself down from the top floor of the building, or jumping in front of a train.'
The young man considered this.
'No,' he said. 'I agree I can't stop you doing any of those things. But it's a question, you know, whether you will do them. Tomorrow, that is.'
'You think I shall feel differently tomorrow?' asked Hilary, faint bitterness in her tone.
'People do,' said Jessop, almost apologetically.
'Yes, perhaps,' she considered. 'If you're doing things in a mood of hot despair. But when it's cold despair, it's different. I've nothing to live for, you see.'
Jessop put his rather owlish head on one side, and blinked.
'Interesting,' he remarked.
'Not really. Not interesting at all. I'm not a very interesting woman. My husband, whom I loved, left me, my only child died very painfully of meningitis. I've no near friends or relations. I've no vocation, no art or craft or work that I love doing.'
'Tough,' said Jessop appreciatively. He added, rather hesitantly: 'You don't think of it as – wrong?'
Hilary said heatedly: 'Why should it be wrong? It's my life.'
'Oh yes, yes,' Jessop repeated hastily. 'I'm not taking a high moral line myself, but there are people, you know, who think it's wrong.'
Hilary said,
'I'm not one of them.'
Mr. Jessop said, rather inadequately,
'Quite.'
He sat there looking at her, blinking his eyes thoughtfully. Hilary said:
'So perhaps now, Mr. – er -'
'Jessop,' said the young man.
'So perhaps now, Mr. Jessop, you will leave me alone.'
But Jessop shook his head.
'Not just yet,' he said. 'I wanted to know, you see, just what was behind it all. I've got it clear now, have I? You're not interested in life, you don't want to live any longer, you more or less welcome the idea of death?'
'Yes.'
'Good,' said Jessop, cheerfully. 'So now we know where we are. Let's go on to the next step. Has it got to be sleeping pills?'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, I've already told you that they're not as romantic as they sound. Throwing yourself off a building isn't too nice, either. You don't always die at once. And the same applies to falling under a train. What I'm getting at is that there are other ways.'
'I don't understand what you mean.'
'I'm suggesting another method. Rather a sporting method, really. There's some excitement in it, too. I'll be fair with you. There's just a hundred to one chance that you mightn't die. But I don't believe under the circumstances, that you'd really object by that time.'
'I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.'
'Of course you haven't,' said Jessop. 'I've not begun to tell you about it yet. I'm afraid I'll have to make rather a thing about it – tell you a story, I mean. Shall I go ahead?'
'I suppose so.'
Jessop paid no attention to the grudgingness of the assent. He started off in his most owl-like manner.
'You're the sort of woman who reads the papers and keeps up with things generally, I expect,' he said. 'You'll have read about the disappearance of various scientists from time to time. There was that Italian chap about a year ago, and about two months ago a young scientist called Thomas Betterton disappeared.'
Hilary nodded. 'Yes, I read about that in the papers.'
'Well, there's been a good deal more than has appeared in the papers. More people, I mean, have disappeared. They haven't always been scientists. Some of them have been young men who were engaged in important medical research. Some of them have been research chemists, some of them have been physicists, there was one barrister. Oh, quite a lot here and there and everywhere. Well, ours is a so-called free country. You can leave it if you like. But in these peculiar circumstances we've got to know why these people left it and where they went, and, also important, how they went. Did they go of their own free will? Were they kidnapped? Were they blackmailed into going? What route did they take – what kind of organisation is it that sets this in motion and what is its ultimate aim? Lots of questions. We want the answer to them. You might be able to help get us that answer.'
Hilary stared at him.
'Me? How? Why?'
'I'm coming down to the particular case of Thomas Betterton. He disappeared from Paris just over two months ago. He left a wife in England. She was distracted – or said she was distracted. She swore that she had no idea why he'd gone or where or how. That may be true, or it may not. Some people – and I'm one of them – think it wasn't true.'
Hilary leaned forward in her chair. In spite of herself she was becoming interested. Jessop went on.
'We prepared to keep a nice, unobtrusive eye on Mrs. Betterton. About a fortnight ago she came to me and told me she had been ordered by her doctor to go abroad, take a thorough rest and get some distraction. She was doing no good in England, and people were continually bothering her – newspaper reporters, relations, kind friends.'
Hilary said drily: 'I can imagine it.'
'Yes, tough. Quite natural she would want to get away for a bit.'
'Quite natural, I should think.'
'But we've got nasty, suspicious minds in our department, you know. We arranged to keep tabs on Mrs. Betterton. Yesterday she left England as arranged, for Casablanca.'
' Casablanca?'
'Yes – en route to other places in Morocco, of course. All quite open and above board, plans made, bookings ahead. But it may be that this trip to Morocco is where Mrs. Betterton steps off into the unknown.'
Hilary shrugged her shoulders.
'I don't see where I come into all this.'
Jessop smiled.
'You come into it because you've got a very magnificent head of red hair, Mrs. Craven.'
'Hair?'
'Yes. It's the most noticeable thing about Mrs. Betterton – her hair. You've heard, perhaps, that the plane before yours today crashed on landing.'
