They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [69]
It disappeared for a few minutes in a depression of landscape, then reappeared surmounting a rise not very far away. There was an Arab driver and beside him was a man in European dress.
‘Now,’ thought Victoria, ‘I’ve got to decide.’ Was this her chance? Should she run down to the road and hail the car to stop?
Just as she was getting ready to do so, a sudden qualm stopped her. Suppose, just suppose, that this was the Enemy?
After all, how could she tell? The track was certainly a very deserted one. No other car had passed. No lorry. Not even a train of donkeys. This car was making, perhaps for the village she had left last night…
What should she do? It was a horrible decision to have to make at a moment’s notice. If it was the Enemy, it was the end. But if it wasn’t the Enemy, it might be her only hope of survival. Because if she went on wandering about, she would probably die of thirst and exposure. What should she do?
And as she crouched paralysed with indecision, the note of the approaching car changed. It slackened speed, then, swerving, it came off the road and across the stony ground towards the mound on which she squatted.
It had seen her! It was looking for her!
Victoria slithered down the gully and crawled round the back of the mound away from the approaching car. She heard it come to a stop and the bang of the door as someone got out.
Then somebody said something in Arabic. After that, nothing happened. Suddenly, without any warning, a man came into view. He was walking round the mound, about half-way up it. His eyes were bent on the ground and from time to time he stooped and picked something up. Whatever he was looking for, it did not seem to be a girl called Victoria Jones. Moreover, he was unmistakably an Englishman.
With an exclamation of relief Victoria struggled to her feet and came towards him. He lifted his head and stared in surprise.
‘Oh please,’ said Victoria. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come.’
He still stared.
‘Who on earth,’ he began. ‘Are you English? But –’
With a spurt of laughter, Victoria cast away the enveloping aba.
‘Of course I’m English,’ she said. ‘And please, can you take me back to Baghdad?’
‘I’m not going to Baghdad. I’ve just come from it. But what on earth are you doing all alone out here in the middle of the desert?’
‘I was kidnapped,’ said Victoria breathlessly. ‘I went to have my hair shampooed and they gave me chloroform. And when I woke up I was in an Arab house in a village over there.’
She gesticulated towards the horizon:
‘In Mandali?’
‘I don’t know its name. I escaped last night. I walked all through the night and then I hid behind this hill in case you were an Enemy.’
Her rescuer was staring at her with a very odd expression on his face. He was a man of about thirty-five, fair-haired, with a somewhat supercilious expression. His speech was academic and precise. He now put on a pair of pince-nez and stared at her through them with an expression of distaste. Victoria realized that this man did not believe a word of what she was saying.
She was immediately moved to furious indignation.
‘It’s perfectly true,’ she said. ‘Every word of it!’
The stranger looked more disbelieving than ever.
‘Very remarkable,’ he said in a cold tone.
Despair seized Victoria. How unfair it was that whilst she could always make a lie sound plausible, in recitals of stark truth she lacked the power to make herself believed. Actual facts she told badly and without conviction.
‘And if you haven’t got anything to drink with you, I shall die of thirst,’ she said. ‘I’m going to die of thirst anyway, if you leave me here and go on without me.’
‘Naturally I shouldn’t dream of doing that,’ said the stranger stiffly.