Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [38]
‘You look just a little scared,’ he said humorously.
‘I think I am.’ She gave a short, breathless laugh. ‘Of course what Dr Barron said was quite true. I’m only a woman. I’m not a scientist, I don’t do research or surgery, or bacteriology. I haven’t, I suppose, much mental ability. I’m looking, as Dr Barron said, for happiness–just like any other fool of a woman.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’ said Peters.
‘Well, maybe I feel a little out of my depth in this company. You see, I’m just a woman who’s going to join her husband.’
‘Good enough,’ said Peters. ‘You represent the fundamental.’
‘It’s nice of you to put it that way.’
‘Well, it’s true.’ He added in a lower voice, ‘You care for your husband very much?’
‘Would I be here if I didn’t?’
‘I suppose not. You share his views? I take it that he’s a communist?’
Hilary avoided giving a direct answer.
‘Talking of being a communist,’ she said, ‘has something about our little group struck you as curious?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, that although we’re all bound for the same destination, the views of our fellow-travellers don’t seem really alike.’
Peters said thoughtfully:
‘Why, no. You’ve got something there. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way–but I believe you’re right.’
‘I don’t think,’ said Hilary, ‘that Dr Barron is politically-minded at all! He wants money for his experiments. Helga Needheim talks like a fascist, not a communist. And Ericsson–’
‘What about Ericsson?’
‘I find him frightening–he’s got a dangerous kind of single-mindedness. He’s like a mad scientist in a film!’
‘And I believe in the Brotherhood of Men, and you’re a loving wife, and our Mrs Calvin Baker–where would you place her?’
‘I don’t know. I find her more hard to place than anyone.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’d say she was easy enough.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’d say it was money all the way with her. She’s just a well-paid cog in the wheel.’
‘She frightens me, too,’ said Hilary.
‘Why? Why on earth does she frighten you? No touch of the mad scientist about her.’
‘She frightens me because she’s so ordinary. You know, just like anybody else. And yet she’s mixed up in all this.’
Peters said grimly:
‘The Party is realistic, you know. It employs the best man or woman for the job.’
‘But is someone who only wants money the best person for the job? Mightn’t they desert to the other side?’
‘That would be a very big risk to take,’ said Peters, quietly. ‘Mrs Calvin Baker’s a shrewd woman. I don’t think she’d take that risk.’
Hilary shivered suddenly.
‘Cold?’
‘Yes. It’s a bit cold.’
‘Let’s move around a little.’
They walked up and down. As they did so Peters stooped and picked up something.
‘Here. You’re dropping things.’
Hilary took it from him.
‘Oh, yes, it’s a pearl from my choker. I broke it the other day–no, yesterday. What ages ago that seems already.’
‘Not real pearls, I hope.’
Hilary smiled.
‘No, of course not. Costume jewellery.’
Peters took a cigarette case from his pocket.
‘Costume jewellery,’ he said; ‘what a term!’
He offered her a cigarette.
‘It does sound foolish–here.’ She took a cigarette. ‘What an odd cigarette case. How heavy it is.’
‘Made of lead, that’s why. It’s a war souvenir–made out of a bit of a bomb that just failed to blow me up.’
‘You were–in the war then?’
‘I was one of the backroom boys who tickled things to see if they’d go bang. Don’t let’s talk about wars. Let’s concentrate on tomorrow.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Hilary. ‘Nobody’s told me anything. Are we–’
He stopped her.
‘Speculations,’ he said, ‘are not encouraged. You go where you’re told and do what you’re told.’
With sudden passion Hilary said:
‘Do you like being dragooned, being ordered about, having no say of your own?’
‘I’m prepared to accept it if it’s necessary. And it is necessary. We’ve got to have World Peace, World Discipline, World Order.’
‘Is it possible? Can it be got?’
‘Anything’s better than the muddle we live in. Don’t you agree to that?’
For a moment, carried away by fatigue, by the loneliness of her surroundings and the strange beauty of the early