Agatha Christie - They Came to Baghdad

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 Thйrиse 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 Thйrиse 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 Victoria Jones, typist – and to that extent Victoria Jones had them in her power – not the other way round.

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!’

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 publication on “Hospital Massage”. Now then, Miss Harden,’ he bowed with mock ceremony to Victoria, ‘you will do me the honour to have lunch with me.’

Victoria followed him out of the room and along to the hall. The other woman passenger was trying to send off a telegram at the desk.