They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [84]
‘Yes, I dumped it with the porter.’
‘Because when one hasn’t had a change of clothes for a fortnight –’
‘Victoria, what has been happening? I know – I’ve got the car here. Let’s go out to Devonshire. You’ve never been there, have you?’
‘Devonshire?’ Victoria stared in surprise.
‘Oh, it’s just a name for a place not far out of Baghdad. It’s rather lovely this time of year. Come on. I haven’t had you to myself for years.’
‘Not since Babylon. But what will Dr Rathbone and the Olive Branch say?’
‘Blast Dr Rathbone. I’m fed up with the old ass anyway.’
They ran down the stairs and out to where Edward’s car was parked. Edward drove southwards through Baghdad, along a wide avenue. Then he turned off from there; they jolted and twisted through palm groves and over irrigation bridges. Finally, with a strange unexpectedness they came to a small wooded copse surrounded and pierced by irrigation streams. The trees of the copse, mostly almond and apricot, were just coming into blossom. It was an idyllic spot. Beyond the copse, at a little distance, was the Tigris.
They got out of the car and walked together through the blossoming trees.
‘This is lovely,’ said Victoria, sighing deeply. ‘It’s like being back in England in spring.’
The air was soft and warm. Presently they sat down on a fallen tree trunk with pink blossom hanging down over their heads.
‘Now, darling,’ said Edward. ‘Tell me what’s been happening to you. I’ve been so dreadfully miserable.’
‘Have you?’ she smiled dreamily.
Then she told him. Of the girl hairdresser. Of the smell of chloroform and her struggle. Of waking up drugged and sick. Of how she had escaped and of her fortuitous meeting with Richard Baker, and of how she had claimed to be Victoria Pauncefoot Jones on her way to the Excavations, and of how she had almost miraculously sustained the part of an archaeological student arriving from England.
At this point Edward shouted with laughter.
‘You are marvellous, Victoria! The things you think of – and invent.’
‘I know,’ said Victoria. ‘My uncles. Dr Pauncefoot Jones and before him – the Bishop.’
And at that she suddenly remembered what it was she had been going to ask Edward at Basrah when Mrs Clayton had interrupted by calling them in for drinks.
‘I meant to ask you before,’ she said. ‘How did you know about the Bishop?’
She felt the hand that held hers stiffen suddenly. He said quickly, too quickly:
‘Why, you told me, didn’t you?’
Victoria looked at him. It was odd, she thought afterwards, that that one silly childish slip should have accomplished what it did.
For he was taken completely by surprise. He had no story ready – his face was suddenly defenceless and unmasked.
And as she looked at him, everything shifted and settled itself into a pattern, exactly as a kaleidoscope does, and she saw the truth. Perhaps it was not really sudden. Perhaps in her subconscious mind that question: How did Edward know about the Bishop? had been teasing and worrying, and she had been slowly arriving at the one, the inevitable, answer…Edward had not learned about the Bishop of Llangow from her, and the only other person he could have learned it from, would have been Mr or Mrs Hamilton Clipp. But they could not possibly have seen Edward since her arrival in Baghdad, for Edward had been in Basrah then, so he must have learned it from them before he himself left England. He must have known all along, then, that Victoria was coming out with them – and the whole wonderful coincidence was not, after all, a coincidence. It was planned and intended.
And as she stared at Edward’s unmasked face, she knew, suddenly, what Carmichael had meant by Lucifer. She knew what he had seen that day as he looked along the passage to the Consulate garden. He had seen that young beautiful face that she was looking at now – for it was a beautiful face:
Lucifer, Son of the Morning, how art thou fallen?
Not Dr Rathbone –Edward! Edward, playing a minor part, the part of the secretary, but controlling and planning and directing,