They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [89]
‘You look all right,’ he said approvingly. ‘Keep your eyes down, particularly when there are men about.’
The Frenchwoman rejoined them a moment or two later similarly apparelled. The two nuns went out of the house and got into the touring car which now had a tall dark man in European dress in the driver’s seat.
‘It’s up to you now, Victoria,’ said Edward. ‘Do exactly as you are told.’
There was a slight steely menace behind the words.
‘Aren’t you coming, Edward?’ Victoria sounded plaintive.
He smiled at her.
‘You’ll see me in three days’ time,’ he said. And then, with a resumption of his persuasive manner, he murmured, ‘Don’t fail me, darling. Only you could do this – I love you, Victoria. I daren’t be seen kissing a nun – but I’d like to.’
Victoria dropped her eyes in approved nun-like fashion, but actually to conceal the fury that showed for a moment.
‘Horrible Judas,’ she thought.
Instead she said with an assumption of her usual manner:
‘Well, I seem to be a Christian Slave all right.’
‘That’s the girl!’ said Edward. He added, ‘Don’t worry. Your papers are in perfect order – you’ll have no difficulty at the Syrian frontier. Your name in religion, by the way, is Sister Marie des Anges. Sister Thérèse who accompanies you has all the documents and is in full charge, and for God’s sake obey orders – or I warn you frankly, you’re for it.’
He stepped back, waved his hand cheerfully, and the touring car started off.
Victoria leaned back against the upholstery and gave herself up to contemplation of possible alternatives. She could, as they were passing through Baghdad, or when they got to the frontier control, make an agitation, scream for help, explain that she was being carried off against her will – in fact, adopt one or other variants of immediate protest.
What would that accomplish? In all probability it would mean the end of Victoria Jones. She had noticed that Sister Thérèse had slipped into her sleeve a small and businesslike automatic pistol. She could be given no chance of talking.
Or she could wait until she got to Damascus? Make her protest there? Possibly the same fate would be meted out, or her statements might be overborne by the evidence of the driver and her fellow nun. They might be able to produce papers saying that she was mentally afflicted.
The best alternative was to go through with things – to acquiesce in the plan. To come to Baghdad as Anna Scheele and to play Anna Scheele’s part. For, after all, if she did so, there would come a moment, at the final climax, when Edward could no longer control her tongue or her actions. If she could continue to convince Edward that she would do anything he told her, then the moment would come when she was standing with her forged documents before the Conference – and Edward would not be there.
And no one could stop her then from saying, ‘I am not Anna Scheele and these papers are forged and untrue.’
She wondered that Edward did not fear her doing just that. But she reflected that vanity was a strangely blinding quality. Vanity was the Achilles heel. And there was also the fact to be considered that Edward and his crowd had more or less got to have an Anna Scheele if their scheme was to succeed. To find a girl who sufficiently resembled Anna Scheele – even to the point of having a scar in the right place – was extremely difficult. In The Lyons Mail, Victoria remembered, Dubosc having a scar above one eyebrow and also of having a distortion, one by birth and one by accident, of the little finger of one hand. These coincidences must be very rare. No, the Supermen needed