down to the house to see some of the things in the Antika Room there.’
‘He went to the house with Richard Baker. They talked together?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Victoria. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t look at things in absolute silence, would you?’
‘Lefarge,’ murmured Edward.‘Who
Victoria longed to say, ‘He’s brother to Mrs Harris,’ but refrained. She was pleased with her invention of M. Lefarge. She could see him quite clearly now in her mind’s eye – a thin rather consumptive-looking young man with dark hair and a little moustache. Presently, when Edward asked her, she described him carefully and accurately.
They were driving now through the suburbs of Baghdad. Edward turned off down a side street of modern villas built in a pseudo-European style, with balconies and gardens round them. In front of one house a big touring car was standing. Edward drew up behind it and he and Victoria got out, and went up the steps to the front door.
A thin dark woman came out to meet them and Edward spoke to her rapidly in French. Victoria ’s French was not sufficiently good to understand fully what was said, but it seemed to be to the effect that this was the young lady and that the change must be effected at once.
The woman turned to her and said politely in French:
‘Come with me, please.’
She led Victoria into a bedroom where, spread out on a bed, was the habit of a nun. The woman motioned to her, and Victoria undressed and put on the stiff wool undergarment and the voluminous medieval folds of dark stuff. The Frenchwoman adjusted the head-dress. Victoria caught a glimpse of herself in the glass. Her small pale face under the gigantic (was it a wimple?) with the white folds under her chin, looked strangely pure and unearthly. The Frenchwoman threw a Rosary of wooden beads over her head. Then, shuffling in the over-large coarse shoes Victoria was led out to rejoin Edward.
‘You look all right,’ he said approvingly. ‘Keep your eyes down, particularly when there are men about.’
The Frenchwoman rejoined them a moment or two later similarly apparelled. The two nuns went out of the house and got into the touring car which now had a tall dark man in European dress in the driver’s seat.
‘It’s up to you now, Victoria,’ said Edward. ‘Do exactly as you are told.’
There was a slight steely menace behind the words.
‘Aren’t you coming, Edward?’ Victoria sounded plaintive.
He smiled at her.
‘You’ll see me in three days’ time,’ he said. And then, with a resumption of his persuasive manner, he murmured, ‘Don’t fail me, darling. Only you could do this – I love you, Victoria. I daren’t be seen kissing a nun – but I’d like to.’
Victoria dropped her eyes in approved nun-like fashion, but actually to conceal the fury that showed for a moment.
‘Horrible Judas,’ she thought.
Instead she said with an assumption of her usual manner:
‘Well, I seem to be a Christian Slave all right.’
‘That’s the girl!’ said Edward. He added, ‘Don’t worry. Your papers are in perfect order – you’ll have no difficulty at the Syrian frontier. Your name in religion, by the way, is Sister Marie des Anges. Sister Thйrиse who accompanies you has all the documents and is in full charge, and for God’s sake obey orders – or I warn you frankly, you’re for it.’
He stepped back, waved his hand cheerfully, and the touring car started off.
Victoria leaned back against the upholstery and gave herself up to contemplation of possible alternatives. She could, as they were passing through Baghdad, or when they got to the frontier control, make an agitation, scream for help, explain that she was being carried off against her will – in fact, adopt one or other variants of immediate protest.
What would that accomplish? In all probability it would mean the end of Victoria Jones. She had noticed that Sister Thйrиse had slipped into her sleeve a small and businesslike automatic pistol. She could be given no chance of talking.
Or she could wait until she got to Damascus? Make her protest there? Possibly the same fate would be meted out, or her statements might be overborne by the evidence of the driver and her fellow nun. They might be able to produce papers saying that she was mentally afflicted.
The best alternative was to go through with things – to acquiesce in the plan. To come to Baghdad as Anna Scheele and to play Anna Scheele’s part. For, after all, if she did so, there would come a moment, at the final climax, when Edward could no longer control her tongue or her actions. If she could continue to convince Edward that she would do anything he told her, then the moment would come when she was standing with her forged documents before the Conference – and Edward would not be there.
And no one could stop her then from saying, ‘I am not Anna Scheele and these papers are forged and untrue.’
She wondered that Edward did not fear her doing just that. But she reflected that vanity was a strangely blinding quality. Vanity was the Achilles heel. And there was also the fact to be considered that Edward and his crowd had more or less got to have an Anna Scheele if their scheme was to succeed. To find a girl who sufficiently resembled Anna Scheele – even to the point of having a scar in the right place – was extremely difficult. In The Lyons Mail, Victoria remembered, Dubosc having a scar above one eyebrow and also of having a distortion, one by birth and one by accident, of the little finger of one hand. These coincidences must be very rare. No, the Supermen needed Victoria Jones, typist – and to that extent Victoria Jones had them in her power – not the other way round.
The car sped across the bridge. Victoria watched the Tigris with a nostalgic longing. Then they were speeding along a wide dusty highway. Victoria let the beads of her Rosary pass through her fingers. Their click was comforting.
‘After all,’ thought Victoria with sudden comfort. ‘I
Chapter 23
I
The big Skymaster swooped down from the air and made a perfect landing. It taxied gently along the runway and presently came to a stop at the appointed place. The passengers were invited to descend. Those going on to Basrah were separated from those who were catching a connecting plane to Baghdad.
Of the latter there were four. A prosperous-looking Iraqi business man, a young English doctor and two women. They all passed through the various controls and questioning.
A dark woman with untidy hair imperfectly bound in a scarf and a tired face came first.
‘Mrs Pauncefoot Jones? British. Yes. To join your husband. Your address in Baghdad, please? What money have you…?’
It went on. Then the second woman took the first one’s place.
‘Grete Harden. Yes. Nationality? Danish. From London. Purpose of visit? Masseuse at hospital? Address in Baghdad? What money have you?’
Grete Harden was a thin, fair-haired young woman wearing dark glasses. Some rather blotchily applied cosmetic concealed what might have been a blemish on her upper lip. She wore neat but slightly shabby clothes.
