Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [58]
Leblanc shrugged his shoulders.
‘It could not be seen in daylight.’
‘No, but if there was a halt and they alighted from the car in the darkness–’
‘Even then–it is a notable Arab superstition. It is painted often on carts and wagons. It would only be thought that some pious Muslim had painted it in luminous paint on his vehicle.’
‘True enough. But we must be on our guard. For if our enemies did notice it, it is highly possible that they will lay a false trail marked for us, of hands of Fatima in phosphorus paint.’
‘Ah, as to that I agree with you. One must indeed be on one’s guard. Always, always on one’s guard.’
On the following morning Leblanc had another exhibit of three false pearls arranged in a triangle, stuck together by a little piece of chewing-gum.
‘This should mean,’ said Jessop, ‘that the next stage of the journey was by plane.’
He looked inquiringly at Leblanc.
‘You are absolutely right,’ said the other. ‘This was found on a disused army airfield, in a remote and desolate place. There were signs that a plane landed and left there not long ago.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘An unknown plane,’ he said; ‘and once again they took off for a destination unknown. That brings us once more to a halt and we do not know where next to take up the trail–’
Chapter 15
‘It’s incredible,’ thought Hilary to herself, ‘incredible that I’ve been here ten days!’ The frightening thing in life, Hilary thought, was how easily you adapted yourself. She remembered once being shown in France some peculiar torture arrangement of the Middle Ages, an iron cage wherein a prisoner had been confined and in which he could neither lie, stand nor sit. The guide had recounted how the last man imprisoned there had lived in it for eighteen years, and had been released and had lived for another twenty after that, before dying, an old man. That adaptability, thought Hilary, was what differentiated man from the animal world. Man could live in any climate and on any food and under any conditions. He could exist slave or free.
She had felt first, when introduced into the Unit, a blinding panic, a horrible feeling of imprisonment and frustration, and the fact that the imprisonment was camouflaged in circumstances of luxury had somehow made it seem all the more horrible to her. And yet now, already, even after a week here, she had begun insensibly to accept the conditions of her life as natural. It was a queer, dream-like existence. Nothing seemed particularly real, but already she had the feeling that the dream had gone on a long time and would go on for a long time more. It would, perhaps, last forever…She would always live here in the Unit; this was life, and there was nothing outside.
This dangerous acceptance, she thought, came partly from the fact that she was a woman. Women were adaptable by nature. It was their strength and their weakness. They examined their environment, accepted it, and like realists settled down to make the best of it. What interested her most were the reactions of the people who had arrived here with her. Helga Needheim she hardly ever saw except sometimes at meals. When they met, the German woman vouchsafed her a curt nod, but no more. As far as she could judge, Helga Needheim was happy and satisfied. The Unit obviously lived up to the picture she had formed in her mind of it. She was the type of woman absorbed by her work, and was comfortably sustained by her natural arrogance. The superiority of herself and her fellow-scientists was the first article of Helga’s creed. She had no views of a brotherhood of man, of an era of peace, of liberty of mind and spirit. For her the future was narrow but all-conquering. The super-race, herself a member of it; the rest of the world in bondage, treated, if they behaved, with condescending kindness. If her fellow-workers expressed different views, if their ideas were Communist rather than Fascist, Helga took little notice. If their work was good they were necessary, and their ideas would change.
Dr Barron was more intelligent