Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [61]
She wished she could talk of all this to the man beside her. If only she could say: ‘Tom Betterton isn’t my husband. I know nothing about him. I don’t know what he was like before he came here and so I’m in the dark. I can’t help him, for I don’t know what to do or say.’ As it was she had to pick her words carefully. She said:
‘Tom seems like a stranger to me now. He doesn’t–tell me things. Sometimes I think the confinement, the sense of being penned up here, is driving him mad.’
‘It’s possible,’ said Peters, drily; ‘it could act that way.’
‘But tell me–you speak so confidently of getting away. How can we get away–what earthly chance is there?’
‘I don’t mean we can walk out the day after tomorrow, Olive. The thing’s got to be thought out and planned. People have escaped, you know, under the most unpromising conditions. A lot of our people, and a lot your side of the Atlantic, too, have written books about escape from fortresses in Germany.’
‘That was rather different.’
‘Not in essence. Where there’s a way in there’s a way out. Of course tunnelling is out of the question here, so that knocks out a good many methods. But as I say, where there’s a way in, there’s a way out. With ingenuity, camouflage, playing a part, deception, bribery and corruption, one ought to manage it. It’s the sort of thing you’ve got to study and think about. I’ll tell you this. I shall get out of here. Take it from me.’
‘I believe you will,’ said Hilary, then she added, ‘but shall I?’
‘Well, it’s different for you.’
His voice sounded embarrassed. For a moment she wondered what he meant. Then she realized that presumably her own objective had been attained. She had come here to join the man she had loved, and having joined him her own personal need for escape should not be so great. She was almost tempted to tell Peters the truth–but some instinct of caution forbade that.
She said good night and left the roof.
Chapter 16
I
‘Good evening, Mrs Betterton.’
‘Good evening, Miss Jennson.’
The thin, spectacled girl was looking excited. Her eyes glinted behind the thick lenses.
‘There will be a Reunion this evening,’ she said. ‘The Director himself is going to address us!’
She spoke in an almost hushed voice.
‘That’s good,’ said Andy Peters, who was standing close by. ‘I’ve been waiting to catch a glimpse of this Director.’
Miss Jennson threw him a glance of shocked reproof.
‘The Director,’ she said austerely, ‘is a very wonderful man.’
As she went away from them down one of the inevitable white corridors, Andy Peters gave a low whistle.
‘Now did I, or did I not, catch a hint of the Heil Hitler attitude there?’
‘It certainly sounded like it.’
‘The trouble in this life is that you never really know where you’re going. If I’d known when I left the States all full of boyish ardour for the good old Brotherhood of Man that I was going to land myself in the clutches of yet another heavenborn Dictator–’ he threw out his hands.
‘You don’t know that yet,’ Hilary reminded him.
‘I can smell it–in the air,’ said Peters.
‘Oh,’ cried Hilary. ‘How glad I am that you’re here!’ She flushed, as he looked at her quizzically.
‘You’re so nice and ordinary,’ said Hilary desperately.
Peters looked amused.
‘Where I come from,’ he said, ‘the word ordinary doesn’t have your meaning. It can stand for being just plain mean.’
‘You know I didn’t mean it that way. I mean you’re like everybody else. Oh dear, that sounds rude, too.’
‘The common man, that’s what you’re asking for? You’ve had