Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [40]
‘We must conquer,’ he said: ‘we must conquer the world. Then we can rule.’
‘We?’ she asked.
He nodded, his face strange and gentle with a deceptive mildness about the eyes.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we few who count. The brains. That is all that matters.’
Hilary thought, where are we going? Where is all this leading? These people are mad, but they’re not mad in the same way as each other. It’s as though they were all going towards different goals, different mirages. Yes, that was the word. Mirages. And from them she turned to a contemplation of Mrs Calvin Baker. Here there was no fanaticism, no hate, no dream, no arrogance, no aspiration. There was nothing here that Hilary could find or take notice of. She was a woman, Hilary thought, without either heart or conscience. She was the efficient instrument in the hands of a big unknown force.
It was the end of the third day. They had come to a small town and alighted at a small native hotel. Here, Hilary found, they were to resume European clothing. She slept that night in a small, bare white-washed room, rather like a cell. At early dawn Mrs Baker woke her.
‘We’re going off right now,’ said Mrs Baker. ‘The plane’s waiting.’
‘The plane?’
‘Why yes, my dear. We’re returning to civilized travelling, thank the Lord.’
They came to the airfield and the plane after about an hour’s drive. It looked like a disused army airfield. The pilot was a Frenchman. They flew for some hours, their flight taking them over mountains. Looking down from the plane Hilary thought what a curious sameness the world has, seen from above. Mountains, valleys, roads, houses. Unless one was really an aerial expert all places looked alike. That in some the population was denser than in others, was about all that one could say. And half of the time one saw nothing owing to travelling over clouds.
In the early afternoon they began to lose height and circle down. They were in mountainous country still, but coming down in a flat plain. There was a well-marked aerodrome here and a white building beside it. They made a perfect landing.
Mrs Baker led the way towards the building. Beside it were two powerful cars with chauffeurs standing by them. It was clearly a private aerodrome of some kind, since there appeared to be no official reception.
‘Journey’s end,’ said Mrs Baker cheerfully. ‘We all go in and have a good wash and brush up. And then the cars will be ready.’
‘Journey’s end?’ Hilary stared at her. ‘But we’ve not–we haven’t crossed the sea at all.’
‘Did you expect to?’ Mrs Baker seemed amused. Hilary said confusedly:
‘Well, yes. Yes, I did. I thought…’ She stopped.
Mrs Baker nodded her head.
‘Why, so do a lot of people. There’s a lot of nonsense talked about the Iron Curtain, but what I say is an iron curtain can be anywhere. People don’t think of that.’
Two Arab servants received them. After a wash and freshening up they sat down to coffee and sandwiches and biscuits.
Then Mrs Baker glanced at her watch.
‘Well, so long, folks,’ she said. ‘This is where I leave you.’
‘Are you going back to Morocco?’ asked Hilary, surprised.
‘That wouldn’t quite do,’ said Mrs Calvin Baker, ‘with me being supposed to be burnt up in a plane accident! No, I shall be on a different run this time.’
‘But someone might still recognize you,’ said Hilary. ‘Someone, I mean, who’d met you in hotels in Casablanca or Fez.’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Baker, ‘but they’d be making a mistake. I’ve got a different passport now, though it’s true enough that a sister of mine, a Mrs Calvin Baker, lost her life that way. My sister and I are supposed to be very alike.’ She added, ‘And to the casual people one comes across in hotels one travelling American woman is very like another.’
Yes, Hilary thought, that was true enough. All the outer, unimportant characteristics were present in Mrs Baker. The neatness, the trimness, the carefully arranged blue hair, the highly monotonous, prattling voice. Inner characteristics, she realized, were carefully masked or, indeed, absent. Mrs Calvin Baker presented to the world and to her companions,