Agatha Christie: Passenger to Frankfurt

Mr Sidney Cook, passenger to South Africa , was urged to come to the flight desk where there was a message for him.

Daphne Theodofanous was called for again.

'This is the last call before the departure of Flight 309.'

In a corner of the lounge a little girl was looking up at a man in a dark suit who was fast asleep, his head resting against the cushion of the red settee. In his hand he held a small woolly panda.

The little girl's hand stretched out towards the panda. Her mother said:

'Now, Joan, don't touch that. The poor gentleman's asleep.'

'Where is he going?'

'Perhaps he's going to Australia too,' said her mother, 'like we are.'

'Has he got a little girl like me?'

'I think he must have,' said her mother.

The little girl sighed and looked at the panda again. Sir Stafford Nye continued to sleep. He was dreaming that he was trying to shoot a leopard. A very dangerous animal, he was saying to the safari guide who was accompanying him.

'A very dangerous animal, so I've always heard. You can't trust a leopard.'

The dream switched at that moment, as dreams have a habit of doing, and he was having tea with his Great-Aunt Matilda, and trying to make her hear. She was deafer than ever! He had not heard any of the announcements except the first one for Miss Daphne Theodofanous. The little girl's mother said:

'I've always wondered, you know, about a passenger that's missing. Nearly always, whenever you go anywhere by air, you hear it. Somebody they can't find. Somebody who hasn't heard the call or isn't on the plane or something like that. I always wonder who it is and what they're doing, and why they haven't come. I suppose this Miss What's-a-name or whatever it is will just have missed her plane. What will they do with her then?'

Nobody was able to answer her question because nobody had the proper information.

Sir Stafford Nye's flat was a very pleasant one. It looked out upon Green Park . He switched on the coffee percolator and went to see what the post had left him this morning.

It did not appear to have left him anything very interesting. He sorted through the letters, a bill or two, a receipt and letters with rather uninteresting postmarks. He shove them together and placed them on the table where some mail was already lying, accumulating from the last days. He'd have to get down to things soon, he supposed. His secretary would be coming in some time or other this afternoon.

He went back to the kitchen, poured coffee into a cup and brought it to the table. He picked up the two or three letters that he had opened late last night when he arrived. One of them he referred to, and smiled a little as he read it.

'Eleven-thirty,' he said. 'Quite a suitable time. I wonder now. I expect I'd better just think things over, and get prepared for Chetwynd.'

Somebody pushed something through the letter-box. He went out into the hall and got the morning paper. There was very little news in the paper. A political crisis, an item of foreign news which might have been disquieting, but he didn't think it was. It was merely a journalist letting off steam and trying to make things rather more important than they were. Must give the people something to read. A girl had been strangled in the park. Girls were always being strangled. One a day, he thought callously. No child had been kidnapped or raped this morning. That was a nice surprise. He made himself a piece of toast and drank his coffee.

Later, he went out of the building, down into the street, and walked through the park in the direction of Whitehall . He was smiling to himself. Life, he felt, was rather good this morning. He began to think about Chetwynd. Chetwynd was a silly fool if there ever was one. A good faзade, important-seeming, and a nicely suspicious mind. He'd rather enjoy talking to Chetwynd.

He reached Whitehall a comfortable seven minutes late. That was only due to his own importance compared to that of Chetwynd, he thought. He walked into the room. Chetwynd was sitting behind his desk and had a lot of papers on it and a secretary there. He was looking properly important, as he always did when he could make it.

'Hullo, Nye,' said Chetwynd, smiling all over his expressively handsome face. 'Glad to be back? How was Malaya ?'

'Hot,' said Stafford Nye.

'Yes. Well, I suppose it always is. You meant atmospherically, I suppose, not politically?'

'Oh, purely atmospherically,' said Stafford Nye.

He accepted a cigarette and sat down.

'Get any results to speak of?'

'Oh, hardly. Not what you'd call results. I've sent in my report. All a lot of talky-talky as usual. How's Lazenby?'

'Oh, a nuisance as he always is. He'll never change,' said Chetwynd.

'No, that would seem too much to hope for. I haven't served on anything with Bascombe before. He can be quite fun when he likes.'

'Can he? I don't know him very well Yes. I suppose he can.'

'Well, well, well. No other news, I suppose?'

'No, nothing. Nothing I think that would interest you.'

'You didn't mention in your letter quite why you wanted to see me.'

'Oh, just to go over a few things, that's all. You know, in case you'd brought any special dope home with you. Anything we ought to be prepared for, you know. Questions in the House. Anything like that.'

'Yes, of course.'

'Came home by air, didn't you? Had a bit of trouble, I gather.'

Stafford Nye put on the face he had been determined to put on beforehand. It was slightly rueful, with a faint tinge of annoyance.

'Oh, so you heard about that, did you?' he said. 'Silly business.'

'Yes. Yes, must have been.'

'Extraordinary,' said Stafford Nye, 'how things always get into the press. There was a paragraph in the stop press this morning.'

'You'd rather they wouldn't have, I suppose?'

'Well, makes me look a bit of an ass, doesn't it?' said Stafford Nye. 'Got to admit it. At my age too!'

'What happened exactly? I wondered if the report in the paper had been exaggerating.'

'Well, I suppose they made the most of it, that's all. You know what these journeys are. Damn boring. There was fog at Geneva so they had to re-route the plane. Then there was two hours' delay at Frankfurt .'

'Is that when it happened?'

'Yes. One's bored stiff in these airports. Planes coming, planes going. Tannoy going full steam ahead. Flight 302 leaving for Hong Kong, Flight 109 going to Ireland . This, that and the other. People getting up, people leaving. And you just sit there yawning.'

'What happened exactly?' said Chetwynd.

'Well, I'd got a drink in front of me, Pilsner as a matter of fact, then I thought I'd got to get something else to read. I'd read everything I'd got with me so I went over to the counter and bought some wretched paperback or other. Detective story, I think it was, and I bought a woolly animal for one of my nieces. Then I came back, finished my drink, opened my paperback and then I went to sleep.'

'Yes, I see. You went to sleep.'

'Well, a very natural thing to do, isn't it? I suppose they called my flight but if they did I didn't hear it. I didn't hear it apparently for the best of reasons. I'm capable of going to sleep in an airport any time but I'm also capable of hearing an announcement that concerns me. This time I didn't. When I woke up, or came to, however you like to put it, I was having a bit of medical attention. Somebody apparently had dropped a Mickey Finn or something or other in my drink. Must have done it when I was away getting the paperback.'

'Rather an extraordinary thing to happen, wasn't it?' said Chetwynd.

'Well, it's never happened to me before,' said Stafford Nye. 'I hope it never will again. It makes you feel an awful fool, you know. Besides having a hangover. There was a doctor and some nurse creature, or something. Anyway, there was no great harm done apparently. My wallet had been pinched with some money in it and my passport. It was awkward of course. Fortunately, I hadn't got much money. My travellers' cheques were in an inner pocket. There always has to be a bit of red tape and all that if you lose your passport. Anyway, I had letters and things and identification was not difficult. And in due course things were squared up and I resumed my flight.'