Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [66]
‘You mean–one can get used to anything?’
‘Well, some people feel it more than others. Tom, now, seems to take it hard. Where’s old Tom tonight? Oh yes, I see, over there with Torquil. Quite inseparable, those two.’
‘I wish they weren’t. I mean, I shouldn’t have thought they had very much in common.’
‘Young Torquil seems fascinated by your husband. He follows him round everywhere.’
‘I’ve noticed it. I wondered–why?’
‘Well, he’s always got some outlandish theory to get off his chest–it’s beyond my power to follow him–his English isn’t too good, as you know. But Tom listens and manages to take it all in.’
The dance ended. Andy Peters came up and claimed Hilary for the next one.
‘I observed you suffering in a good cause,’ he said. ‘How badly did you get trampled?’
‘Oh, I was fairly agile.’
‘You noticed me doing my stuff?’
‘With the Jennson?’
‘Yes. I think I may say without undue modesty that I have made a hit, a palpable hit in that quarter. These plain, angular, short-sighted girls respond immediately when given the treatment.’
‘You certainly gave the impression of having fallen for her.’
‘That was the idea. That girl, Olive, properly handled, can be very useful. She’s in the know about all the arrangements here. For instance, tomorrow there’s a party of various V.I.P.s due here. Doctors and a few Government officials and a rich patron or two.’
‘Andy–do you think there might be a chance…’
‘No, I don’t. I bet that’s going to be taken care of. So don’t cherish false hopes. But it will be valuable because we’ll get an idea of the procedure. And on the next occasion–well, there might be something doing. So long as I can keep the Jennson eating out of my hand, I can get a lot of miscellaneous information out of her.’
‘How much do the people who are coming know?’
‘About us–the Unit, I mean–nothing at all. Or so I gather. They just inspect the settlement and the medical research laboratories. This place has been deliberately built like a labyrinth, just so that nobody coming into it can possibly guess its extent. I gather there are kinds of bulkheads that close, and that shut off our area.’
‘It all seems so incredible.’
‘I know. Half the time one feels one must be dreaming. One of the unreal things here is never seeing any children about. Thank goodness there aren’t. You must be thankful you haven’t got a child.’
He felt the sudden stiffening of her body.
‘Here–I’m sorry–I said the wrong thing!’ He led her off the dance floor and to a couple of chairs.
‘I’m very sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I hurt you, didn’t I?’
‘It’s nothing–no, really not your fault. I did have a child–and it died–that’s all.’
‘You had a child?–’ he stared, surprised. ‘I thought you’d only been married to Betterton six months?’
Olive flushed. She said quickly:
‘Yes, of course. But I was–married before. I divorced my first husband.’
‘Oh, I see. That’s the worst of this place. One doesn’t know anything about people’s lives before they came here, and so one goes and says the wrong thing. It’s odd to realize sometimes that I don’t know anything about you at all.’
‘Or I anything about you. How you were brought up–and where–your family–’
‘I was brought up in a strictly scientific atmosphere. Nourished on test-tubes, you might say. Nobody ever thought of anything else. But I was never the bright boy of the family. Genius lay elsewhere.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘A girl. She was brilliant. She might have been another Madame Curie. She could have opened up new horizons.’
‘She–what happened to her?’
He said shortly:
‘She was killed.’
Hilary guessed at some war-time tragedy. She said gently:
‘You cared for her?’
‘More than I have ever cared for anybody.’
He roused himself suddenly.
‘What the heck–we’ve got enough troubles in the present, right here and now. Look at our Norwegian friend. Apart from his eyes, he always looks as though he were made from wood. And that wonderful little stiff bow of his–as though