They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [90]
The car sped across the bridge. Victoria watched the Tigris with a nostalgic longing. Then they were speeding along a wide dusty highway. Victoria let the beads of her Rosary pass through her fingers. Their click was comforting.
‘After all,’ thought Victoria with sudden comfort. ‘I am a Christian. And if you’re a Christian, I suppose it’s a hundred times better to be a Christian Martyr than a King in Babylon – and I must say, there seems to me a great possibility that I am going to be a Martyr. Oh! well, anyway, it won’t be lions. I should have hated lions!’
Chapter 23
I
The big Skymaster swooped down from the air and made a perfect landing. It taxied gently along the runway and presently came to a stop at the appointed place. The passengers were invited to descend. Those going on to Basrah were separated from those who were catching a connecting plane to Baghdad.
Of the latter there were four. A prosperous-looking Iraqi business man, a young English doctor and two women. They all passed through the various controls and questioning.
A dark woman with untidy hair imperfectly bound in a scarf and a tired face came first.
‘Mrs Pauncefoot Jones? British. Yes. To join your husband. Your address in Baghdad, please? What money have you…?’
It went on. Then the second woman took the first one’s place.
‘Grete Harden. Yes. Nationality? Danish. From London. Purpose of visit? Masseuse at hospital? Address in Baghdad? What money have you?’
Grete Harden was a thin, fair-haired young woman wearing dark glasses. Some rather blotchily applied cosmetic concealed what might have been a blemish on her upper lip. She wore neat but slightly shabby clothes.
Her French was halting – occasionally she had to have the question repeated.
The four passengers were told that the Baghdad plane took off that afternoon. They would be driven now to the Abbassid Hotel for a rest and lunch.
Grete Harden was sitting on her bed when a tap came on the door. She opened it and found a tall dark young woman wearing BOAC uniform.
‘I’m so sorry, Miss Harden. Would you come with me to the BOAC office? A little difficulty has arisen about your ticket. This way, please.’
Grete Harden followed her guide down the passage. On a door was a large board lettered in gold – BOAC office.
The air hostess opened the door and motioned the other inside. Then, as Grete Harden passed through, she closed the door from outside and quickly unhooked the board.
As Grete Harden came through the door, two men who had been standing behind it passed a cloth over her head. They stuffed a gag into her mouth. One of them rolled her sleeve up, and bringing out a hyperdermic syringe gave her an injection.
In a few minutes her body sagged and went limp.
The young doctor said cheerfully, ‘That ought to take care of her for about six hours, anyway. Now then, you two, get on with it.’
He nodded towards two other occupants of the room. They were nuns who were sitting immobile by the window. The men went out of the room. The elder of the two nuns went to Grete Harden and began to take the clothes off her inert body. The younger nun, trembling a little, started taking off her habit. Presently Grete Harden, dressed in a nun’s habit, lay reposefully on the bed. The younger nun was now dressed in Grete Harden’s clothes.
The older nun turned her attention to her companion’s flaxen hair. Looking at a photograph which she propped up against the mirror, she combed and dressed the hair, bringing it back from the forehead and coiling it low on the neck.
She stepped back and said in French:
‘Astonishing how it changes you. Put on the dark spectacles. Your eyes are too deep a blue. Yes – that is admirable.’
There was a slight tap on the door and the two men came in again. They were grinning.
‘Grete Harden is Anna Scheele all right,’ one said. ‘She’d got the papers in her luggage, carefully camouflaged between the leaves of a Danish