Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [2]
‘It’s the only way,’ said Wharton. ‘I couldn’t do it, though. Haven’t got the patience.’ He got up. ‘Well, I won’t keep you. We’ve not got much further, have we?’
‘Unfortunately, no. You might do a special check-up on that Oslo report. It’s a likely spot.’
Wharton nodded and went out. The other man raised the receiver by his elbow and said:
‘I’ll see Mrs Betterton now. Send her in.’
He sat staring into space until there was a tap on the door and Mrs Betterton was shown in. She was a tall woman, about twenty-seven years of age. The most noticeable thing about her was a magnificent head of auburn-red hair. Beneath the splendour of this, her face seemed almost insignificant. She had the blue-green eyes and light eyelashes that so often go with red hair. She was wearing no make-up, he noticed. He considered the significance of that whilst he was greeting her, settling her comfortably in a chair near the desk. It inclined him very slightly to the belief that Mrs Betterton knew more than she had said she knew.
In his experience, women suffering from violent grief and anxiety did not neglect their make-up. Aware of the ravages grief made in their appearance, they did their best to repair those ravages. He wondered if Mrs Betterton calculatingly abstained from make-up, the better to sustain the part of the distracted wife. She said now, rather breathlessly:
‘Oh, Mr Jessop, I do hope–is there any news?’
He shook his head and said gently:
‘I’m so sorry to ask you to come up like this, Mrs Betterton. I’m afraid we haven’t got any definite news for you.’
Olive Betterton said quickly:
‘I know. You said so in your letter. But I wondered if–since then–oh! I was glad to come up. Just sitting at home wondering and brooding–that’s the worst of it all. Because there’s nothing one can do!’
The man called Jessop said soothingly:
‘You mustn’t mind, Mrs Betterton, if I go over the same ground again and again, ask you the same questions, stress the same points. You see it’s always possible that some small point might arise. Something that you hadn’t thought of before, or perhaps hadn’t thought worth mentioning.’
‘Yes. Yes, I understand. Ask me all over again about everything.’
‘The last time you saw your husband was on the 23rd of August?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was when he left England to go to Paris to a Conference there.’
‘Yes.’
Jessop went on rapidly:
‘He attended the first two days of the Conference. The third day he did not turn up. Apparently he had mentioned to one of his colleagues that he was going instead for a trip on a bateau mouche that day.’
‘A bateau mouche? What’s a bateau mouche?’
Jessop smiled.
‘One of those small boats that go along the Seine.’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Does that strike you as unlike your husband?’
She said doubtfully:
‘It does, rather. I should have thought he’d be so keen on what was going on at the Conference.’
‘Possibly. Still the subject for discussion on this particular day was not one in which he had any special interest, so he might reasonably have given himself a day off. But it doesn’t strike you as being quite like your husband?’
She shook her head.
‘He did not return that evening to his hotel,’ went on Jessop. ‘As far as can be ascertained he did not pass any frontier, certainly not on his own passport. Do you think he could have had a second passport, in another name perhaps?’
‘Oh, no, why should he?’
He watched her.
‘You never saw such a thing in his possession?’
She shook her head with vehemence.
‘No, and I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for a moment. I don’t believe he went away deliberately as you all try to make out. Something’s happened to him, or else–or else perhaps he’s lost his memory.’
‘His health had been quite normal?’
‘Yes. He was working rather hard and sometimes felt a little tired, nothing more than that.’
‘He’d not seemed worried in any way or depressed?’
‘He wasn’t worried or depressed about anything!’ With shaking fingers she opened her bag and took out her handkerchief. ‘It’s all so awful.’ Her voice shook. ‘I can’t believe it. He’d