They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [40]
She must get some money – or get a job –any job. Look after children, stick stamps on in an office, serve in a restaurant…Otherwise they would send her to a Consul and she would be repatriated to England and never see Edward again…
At this point, worn out with emotion, Victoria fell asleep.
II
She awoke some hours later and deciding that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, went down to the restaurant and worked her way solidly through the entire menu – a generous one. When she had finished, she felt slightly like a boa constrictor, but definitely heartened.
‘It’s no good worrying any more,’ thought Victoria. ‘I’ll leave it all till tomorrow. Something may turn up, or I may think of something, or Edward may come back.’
Before going to bed she strolled out on to the terrace by the river. Since in the feelings of those living in Baghdad it was arctic winter nobody else was out there except one of the waiters, who was leaning over a railing staring down into the water, and he sprang away guiltily when Victoria appeared and hurried back into the hotel by the service door.
Victoria, to whom, coming from England, it appeared to be an ordinary summer night with a slight nip in the air, was enchanted by the Tigris seen in the moonlight with the farther bank looking mysterious and Eastern with its fringes of palms.
‘Well, anyway, I’ve got here,’ said Victoria, cheering up a good deal, ‘and I’ll manage somehow. Something is bound to turn up.’
With this Micawber-like pronouncement, she went up to bed, and the waiter slipped quietly out again and resumed his task of attaching a knotted rope so that it hung down to the river’s edge.
Presently another figure came out of the shadows and joined him. Mr Dakin said in a low voice:
‘All in order?’
‘Yes, sir, nothing suspicious to report.’
Having completed the task to his satisfaction, Mr Dakin retreated into the shadows, exchanged his waiters’ white coat for his own nondescript blue pin-stripe and ambled gently along the terrace until he stood outlined against the water’s edge just where the steps led up from the street below.
‘Getting pretty chilly in the evenings now,’ said Crosbie, strolling out from the bar and down to join him. ‘Suppose you don’t feel it so much, coming from Tehran.’
They stood there for a moment or two smoking. Unless they raised their voices, nobody could overhear them. Crosbie said quietly:
‘Who’s the girl?’
‘Niece apparently of the archaeologist, Pauncefoot Jones.’
‘Oh well – that should be all right. But coming on the same plane as Crofton Lee –’
‘It’s certainly as well,’ said Dakin, ‘to take nothing for granted.’
The men smoked in silence for a few moments.
Crosbie said: ‘You really think it’s advisable to shift the thing from the Embassy to here?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘In spite of the whole thing being taped down to the smallest detail.’
‘It was taped down to the smallest detail in Basrah – and that went wrong.’
‘Oh, I know. Salah Hassan was poisoned, by the way.’
‘Yes – he would be. Were there any signs of an approach to the Consulate?’
‘I suspect there may have been. Bit of a shindy there, Chap drew a revolver.’ He paused and added, ‘Richard Baker grabbed him and disarmed him.’
‘Richard Baker,’ said Dakin thoughtfully.
‘Know him? He’s –’
‘Yes, I know him.’
There was a pause and then Dakin said:
‘Improvisation. That’s what I’m banking on. If we have, as you say, got everything taped – and our plans are known, then it’s easy for the other side to have got us taped, too. I very much doubt if Carmichael would even so much as get near the Embassy – and even if he reached it –’ He shook his head.
‘Here, only you and I and Crofton Lee are wise to what’s going on.’
‘They’ll know Crofton Lee moved here from the Embassy.’
‘Oh of course. That was inevitable. But don’t you see, Crosbie, that whatever show they put up against our improvisation