Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [82]
They reached the end of the terrace. There was a small side door there through the wall which led out on to a narrow road which curved down the hill to the port.
‘I shall slip out this way,’ Betterton said; ‘nobody’s watching. So long.’
‘Good luck to you,’ said Hilary slowly.
She stood there watching Betterton as he went to the door and turned its handle. As the door opened he stepped back a pace and stopped. Three men stood in the doorway. Two of them entered and came towards him. The first spoke formally.
‘Thomas Betterton, I have here a warrant for your arrest. You will be held here in custody whilst extradition proceedings are taken.’
Betterton turned sharply, but the other man had moved quickly round the other side of him. Instead, he turned back with a laugh.
‘It’s quite all right,’ he said, ‘except that I’m not Thomas Betterton.’
The third man moved in through the doorway, came to stand by the side of the other two.
‘Oh yes, you are,’ he said. ‘You’re Thomas Betterton.’
Betterton laughed.
‘What you mean is that for the last month you’ve been living with me and hearing me called Thomas Betterton and hearing me call myself Thomas Betterton. The point is that I’m not Thomas Betterton. I met Betterton in Paris. I came on and took his place. Ask this lady if you don’t believe me,’ he said. ‘She came to join me, pretending to be my wife, and I recognized her as my wife. I did, didn’t I?’
Hilary nodded her head.
‘That,’ said Betterton, ‘was because, not being Thomas Betterton, naturally I didn’t know Thomas Betterton’s wife from Adam. I thought she was Thomas Betterton’s wife. Afterwards I had to think up some sort of explanation that would satisfy her. But that’s the truth.’
‘So that’s why you pretended to know me,’ cried Hilary. ‘When you told me to play up–to keep up the deception!’
Betterton laughed again, confidently.
‘I’m not Betterton,’ he said. ‘Look at any photograph of Betterton and you’ll see I’m speaking the truth.’
Peters stepped forward. His voice when he spoke was totally unlike the voice of the Peters that Hilary had known so well. It was quiet and implacable.
‘I’ve seen photographs of Betterton,’ he said, ‘and I agree I wouldn’t have recognized you as the man. But you are Thomas Betterton all the same, and I’ll prove it.’
He seized Betterton with a sudden strong grasp and tore off his jacket.
‘If you’re Thomas Betterton,’ he said, ‘you’ve got a scar in the shape of a Z in the crook of your right elbow.’
As he spoke he ripped up the shirt and bent back Betterton’s arm.
‘There you are,’ he said, pointing triumphantly. ‘There are two lab assistants in the U.S.A. who’ll testify to that. I know about it because Elsa wrote and told me when you did it.’
‘Elsa?’ Betterton stared at him. He began to shake nervously. ‘Elsa? What about Elsa?’
‘Ask what the charge is against you?’
The police official stepped forward once more.
‘The charge,’ he said, ‘is murder in the first degree. Murder of your wife, Elsa Betterton.’
Chapter 22
‘I’m sorry, Olive. You’ve got to believe I’m sorry. About you, I mean. For your sake I’d have given him one chance. I warned you that he’d be safer to stay in the Unit and yet I’d come halfway across the world to get him, and I meant to get him for what he did to Elsa.’
‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything. Who are you?’
‘I thought you knew that. I’m Boris Andrei Pavlov Glydr, Elsa’s cousin. I was sent over to America from Poland, to a University there to complete my education. And the way things were in Europe my uncle thought it best for me to take out American citizenship. I took the name of Andrew Peters. Then, when the war came, I went back to Europe. I worked for the Resistance. I got my uncle and Elsa out of