They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [74]
‘I expect I can manage until then,’ said Victoria. ‘In fact I shall have to.’
Dr Pauncefoot Jones chuckled.
‘Richard and I can’t lend you much. Toothbrush will be all right. There are a dozen of them in our stores – and cotton wool if that’s any good to you and – let me see – talcum powder – and some spare socks and handerchiefs. Not much else, I’m afraid.’
‘I shall be all right,’ said Victoria and smiled happily.
‘No signs of a cemetery for you,’ Dr Pauncefoot Jones warned her. ‘Some nice walls coming up – and quantities of potsherds from the far trenches. Might get some joins. We’ll keep you busy somehow or other. I forget if you do photography?’
‘I know something about it,’ said Victoria cautiously, relieved by a mention of something that she did actually have a working knowledge of.
‘Good, good. You can develop negatives? I’m old-fashioned – use plates still. The dark-room is rather primitive. You young people who are used to all the gadgets, often find these primitive conditions rather upsetting.’
‘I shan’t mind,’ said Victoria.
From the Expedition’s stores, she selected a toothbrush, toothpaste, a sponge and some talcum powder.
Her head was still in a whirl as she tried to understand exactly what her position was. Clearly she was being mistaken for a girl called Venetia Someone who was coming out to join the Expedition and who was an anthropologist. Victoria didn’t even know what an anthropologist was. If there was a dictionary somewhere about, she must look it up. The other girl was presumably not arriving for at least another week. Very well then, for a week – or until such time as the car or lorry went into Baghdad, Victoria would be Venetia Thingummy, keeping her end up as best she could. She had no fears for Dr Pauncefoot Jones who seemed delightfully vague, but she was nervous of Richard Baker. She disliked the speculative way he looked at her, and she had an idea that unless she was careful he would soon see through her pretences. Fortunately she had been, for a brief period, a secretary typist at the Archaeological Institute in London, and she had a smattering of phrases and odds and ends that would be useful now. But she would have to be very careful not to make any real slip. Luckily, thought Victoria, men were always so superior about women that any slip she did make would be treated less as a suspicious circumstance than as a proof of how ridiculously addlepated all women were!
This interval would give her a respite which, she felt, she badly needed. For, from the point of view of the Olive Branch, her complete disappearance would be very disconcerting. She had escaped from her prison, but what had happened to her afterwards would be very hard to trace. Richard’s car had not passed through Mandali so that nobody could guess she was now at Tell Aswad. No, from their point of view, Victoria would seem to have vanished into thin air. They might conclude, very possibly they would conclude, that she was dead. That she had strayed into the desert and died of exhaustion.
Well, let them think so. Regrettably, of course, Edward would think so, too! Very well, Edward must lump it. In any case he would not have to lump it long. Just when he was torturing himself with remorse for having told her to cultivate Catherine’s society – there she would be – suddenly restored to him – back from the dead – only a blonde instead of a brunette.
That brought her back to the mystery of why They (whoever they were) had dyed her hair. There must, Victoria thought, be some reason – but she could not for the life of her understand what the reason could be. As it was, she was soon going to look very peculiar when her hair started growing out black at the roots. A phony platinum blonde, with no face powder and no lipstick! Could any girl be more unfortunately placed? Never mind, thought Victoria, I’m alive, aren’t I? And I don’t see at all why I shouldn’t enjoy myself a good deal – at any rate for a week. It was really great fun to be on an archaeological expedition