'I know. I should have been on that plane. I actually had reservations for it.'
'Interesting,' said Jessop. 'Well, Mrs. Betterton was on that plane. She wasn't killed. She was taken out of the wreckage still alive, and she is in hospital now. But according to the doctor, she won't be alive tomorrow morning.'
A faint glimmer of light came to Hilary. She looked at him enquiringly.
'Yes,' said Jessop, 'perhaps now you see the form of suicide I'm offering you. I'm suggesting that Mrs. Betterton goes on with her journey. I'm suggesting that you should become Mrs. Betterton.'
'But surely,' said Hilary, 'that would be quite impossible. I mean, they'd know at once she wasn't me.'
Jessop put his head on one side.
'That, of course, depends entirely on who you mean by 'they.' It's a very vague term. Who is or are 'they'? Is there such a thing, are there such persons as 'they'? We don't know. But I can tell you this. If the most popular explanation of 'they' is accepted, then these people work in very close, self-contained cells. They do that for their own security. If Mrs. Betterton's journey had a purpose and is planned, then the people who were in charge of it here will know nothing about the English side of it. At the appointed moment they will contact a certain woman at a certain place, and carry on from there. Mrs. Betterton's passport description is five-feet-seven, red hair, blue eyes, mouth medium, no distinguishing marks. Good enough.'
'But the authorities here. Surely they -'
Jessop smiled. 'That part of it will be quite all right. The French have lost a few valuable young scientists and chemists of their own. They'll co-operate. The facts will be as follows. Mrs. Betterton, suffering from concussion, is taken to hospital. Mrs. Craven, another passenger in the crashed plane will also be admitted to hospital. Within a day or two Mrs. Craven will die in hospital, and Mrs. Betterton will be discharged, suffering slightly from concussion, but able to proceed on her tour. The crash was genuine, the concussion is genuine, and concussion makes a very good cover for you. It excuses a lot of things like lapses of memory and various unpredictable behaviour.'
Hilary said:
'It would be madness!'
'Oh, yes,' said Jessop, 'it's madness, all right. It's a very tough assignment and if our suspicions are realised, you'll probably cop it. You see, I'm being quite frank, but according to you, you're prepared and anxious to cop it. As an alternative to throwing yourself in front of a train or something like that. I should think you'd find it far more amusing.'
Suddenly and unexpectedly Hilary laughed.
'I do believe,' she said, 'that you're quite right.'
'You'll do it?'
'Yes. Why not.'
'In that case,' said Jessop, rising in his seat with sudden energy, 'there's absolutely no time to be lost'
Chapter 4
I
It was not really cold in the hospital but it felt cold. There was a smell of antiseptics in the air. Occasionally in the corridor outside could be heard the rattle of glasses and instruments as a trolley was pushed by. Hilary Craven sat in a hard iron chair by a bedside.
In the bed, lying flat under a shaded light with her head bandaged, Olive Betterton lay unconscious. There was a nurse standing on one side of the bed and the doctor on the other. Jessop sat in a chair in the far corner of the room. The doctor turned to him and spoke in French.
'It will not be very long now,' he said. 'The pulse is very much weaker.'
'And she will not recover consciousness?'
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
'That I cannot say. It may be, yes, at the very end.'
'There is nothing you can do – no stimulant?'
The doctor shook his head. He went out. The nurse followed him. She was replaced by a nun who moved to the head of the bed, and stood there, fingering her rosary. Hilary looked at Jessop and in obedience to a glance from him came to join him.
'You heard what the doctor said?' he asked in a low voice.
'Yes. What is it you want to say to her?'
'If she regains consciousness I want any information you can possibly get, any password, any sign, any message, anything. Do you understand? She is more likely to speak to you than to me.'
Hilary said with sudden emotion:
'You want me to betray someone who is dying?'
Jessop put his head on one side in the birdlike manner which he sometimes adopted.
'So it seems like that to you, does it?' he said, considering.
'Yes, it does.'
He looked at her thoughtfully.
'Very well then, you shall say and do what you please. For myself I can have no scruples! You understand that?'
'Of course. It's your duty. You'll do whatever questioning you please, but don't ask me to do it.'
'You're a free agent.'
'There is one question we shall have to decide. Are we to tell her that she is dying?'
'I don't know. I shall have to think it out.'
She nodded and went back to her place by the bed. She was filled now with a deep compassion for the woman who lay there dying. The woman who was on her way to join the man she loved. Or were they all wrong? Had she come to Morocco simply to seek solace, to pass the time until perhaps some definite news could come to her as to whether her husband were alive or dead? Hilary wondered.
Time went on. It was nearly two hours later when the click of the nun's beads stopped. She spoke in a soft impersonal voice.
'There is a change,' she said. 'I think, Madame, it is the end that comes. I will fetch the doctor.'
She left the room. Jessop moved to the opposite side of the bed, standing back against the wall so that he was out of the woman's range of vision. The eyelids flickered and opened. Pale incurious blue eyes looked into Hilary's. They closed, then opened again. A faint air of perplexity seemed to come into them.
'Where…?'
The word fluttered between the almost breathless lips, just as the doctor entered the room. He took her hand in his, his finger on the pulse, standing by the bed looking down on her.
'You are in hospital, Madame,' he said. 'There was an accident to the plane.'
'To the plane?'
The words were repeated dreamily in that faint breathless voice.
'Is there anyone you want to see in Casablanca, Madame? Any message we can take?'
Her eyes were raised painfully to the doctor's face. She said:
'No.'
She looked back again at Hilary.
'Who – who -'
Hilary bent forward and spoke clearly and distinctly.
'I came out from England on a plane, too – if there is anything I can do to help you, please tell me.'
'No – nothing – nothing – unless -'
'Yes?'
