Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [19]
Chapter 5
I
In the small formal salon of the Hôtel St Louis, three ladies were sitting, each engaged in her particular occupation. Mrs Calvin Baker, short, plump, with well-blued hair, was writing letters with the same driving energy she applied to all forms of activity. No one could have mistaken Mrs Calvin Baker for anything but a travelling American, comfortably off, with an inexhaustible thirst for precise information on every subject under the sun.
In an uncomfortable Empire-type chair, Miss Hetherington, who again could not have been mistaken for anything but travelling English, was knitting one of those melancholy shapeless-looking garments that English ladies of middle age always seem to be knitting. Miss Hetherington was tall and thin with a scraggy neck, badly arranged hair, and a general expression of moral disappointment in the universe.
Mademoiselle Jeanne Maricot was sitting gracefully in an upright chair looking out of the window and yawning. Mademoiselle Maricot was a brunette dyed blonde, with a plain but excitingly made-up face. She was wearing chic clothes and had no interest whatsoever in the other occupants of the room whom she dismissed contemptuously in her mind as being exactly what they were! She was contemplating an important change in her sex life and had no interest to spare for these animals of tourists!
Miss Hetherington and Mrs Calvin Baker, having both spent a couple of nights under the roof of the St Louis, had become acquainted. Mrs Calvin Baker, with American friendliness, talked to everybody. Miss Hetherington, though just as eager for companionship, talked only to English and Americans of what she considered a certain social standing. The French she had no truck with unless guaranteed of respectable family life as evidenced by little ones who shared the parental table in the dining-room.
A Frenchman looking like a prosperous business man glanced into the salon, was intimidated by its air of female solidarity, and went out again with a look of lingering regret at Mademoiselle Jeanne Maricot.
Miss Hetherington began to count stitches sotto voce.
‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine–now what can I have–Oh, I see.’
A tall woman with red hair looked into the room and hesitated a moment before going on down the passage towards the dining-room.
Mrs Calvin Baker and Miss Hetherington were immediately alert. Mrs Baker slewed herself round from the writing-table and spoke in a thrilled whisper.
‘Did you happen to notice that woman with red hair who looked in, Miss Hetherington? They say she’s the only survivor of that terrible plane crash last week.’
‘I saw her arrive this afternoon,’ said Miss Hetherington, dropping another stitch in her excitement. ‘In an ambulance.’
‘Straight from the hospital, so the manager said. I wonder now if it was wise–to leave hospital so soon. She’s had concussion, I believe.’
‘She’s got strapping on her face, too–cut, perhaps, by the glass. What a mercy she wasn’t burnt. Terrible injuries from burning in these air accidents, I believe.’
‘It just doesn’t bear thinking about. Poor young thing. I wonder if she had a husband with her and if he was killed?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Miss Hetherington shook her yellow-grey head. ‘It said in the paper, one woman passenger.’
‘That’s right. It gave her name, too. A Mrs Beverly–no, Betterton, that was it.’
‘Betterton,’ said Miss Hetherington reflectively. ‘Now what does that remind me of? Betterton. In the papers. Oh, dear, I’m sure that was the name.’
‘Tant pis pour Pierre,’ Mademoiselle Maricot said to herself. ‘Il est vraiment insupportable! Mais le petit Jules, lui il est bien gentil. Et son père est très bien placé dans les affairs. Enfin, je me décide!’
And with long graceful steps Mademoiselle Maricot walked out of the small salon and out of the story.
II
Mrs Thomas Betterton had left the hospital that afternoon five days after the accident. An ambulance had