Agatha Christie - Passenger to Frankfurt

"The boys and girls come out to play

The moon doth shine as bright as day —

Leave your supper and leave your sleep

And shoot your playfellow in the street."'

'The Children's Crusade а la mode.'

'Not that I really know much about it. I only know the one that Richard Coeur de Lion went to. But in a way this whole business is rather like the Children's Crusade. Starting with idealism, starting with ideas of the Christian world delivering the holy city from pagans, and ending with death, death and again, death. Nearly all the children died. Or were sold into slavery. This will end the same way unless we can find some means of getting them out of it…'

'Thought you must all be dead here,' said Admiral Blunt with a snort.

His remark was addressed not to the kind of butler which he would have liked to see opening this front door, but to the young woman whose surname he could never remember but whose Christian name was Amy.

'Rung you up at least four times in the last week. Gone abroad, that's what they said.'

'We have been abroad. We've only just come back.'

'Matilda oughtn't to go rampaging about abroad. Not at her time of life. She'll die of blood pressure or heart failure or something in one of these modern airplanes. Cavorting about, full of explosives put in them by the Arabs or the Israelis or somebody or other. Not safe at all any longer.'

'Her doctor recommended it to her.'

'Oh well, we all know what doctors are.'

'And she has really come back in very good spirits.'

'Where's she been, then?'

'Oh, taking a Cure. In Germany or — I never can quite remember whether it's Germany or Austria . That new place, you know, the Golden Gasthaus.'

'Ah yes, I know the place you mean. Costs the earth, doesn't it?'

'Well, it's said to produce very remarkable results.'

'Probably only a different way of killing you quickly,' said Admiral Blunt. 'How did you enjoy it?'

'Well, not really very much. The scenery was very nice, but –'

An imperious voice sounded from the floor above.

'Amy. Amy! What are you doing, talking in the hall all this time? Bring Admiral Blunt up here. I'm waiting for him.'

'Gallivanting about,' said Admiral Blunt, after he had greeted his old friend. That's how you'll kill yourself one of these days. You mark my words –'

'No, I shan't. There's no difficulty at all in travelling nowadays.'

'Running about all those airports, ramps, stairs, Buses.'

'Not at all. I had a wheelchair.'

'A year or two ago when I saw you, you said you wouldn't hear of such a thing. You said you had too much pride to admit you needed one.'

'Well, I've had to give up some of my pride, nowadays, Philip. Come and sit down here and tell me why you wanted to come and see me so much all of a sudden. You've neglected me a great deal for the last year.'

'Well, I've not been so well myself. Besides, I've been looking into a few things. You know the sort of thing. Where they ask your advice but don't mean in the least to take it. They can't leave the Navy alone. Keep on wanting to fiddle about with it, drat them.'

'You look quite well to me,' said Lady Matilda.

'You don't look so bad yourself, my dear. You've got a nice sparkle in your eye.'

'I'm deafer than when you saw me last. You'll have to speak up more.'

'All right. I'll speak up.'

'What do you want, gin and tonic, or whisky or rum?'

'You seem ready to dispense strong liquor of any kind. If it's all the same to you, I'll have a gin and tonic.'

Amy rose and left the room.

'And when she brings it,' said the Admiral, 'get rid of her again, will you? I want to talk to you. Talk to you particularly is what I mean.'

Refreshment brought, Lady Matilda made a dismissive wave of the hand and Amy departed with the air of one who is pleasing herself, not her employer. She was a tactful young woman.

'Nice girl,' said the Admiral, 'very nice.'

'Is that why you asked me to get rid of her and see she shut the door? So that she mightn't overhear you saying something nice about her?'

'No. I wanted to consult you.'

'What about? Your health or where to get some new servants or what to grow in the garden?'

'I want to consult you very seriously. I thought perhaps you might be able to remember something for me.'

'Dear Philip, how touching that you should think I can remember anything. Every year my memory gets worse. I've come to the conclusion one only remembers what's called the "friends of one's youth". Even horrid girls one was at school with one remembers, though one doesn't want to. That's where I've been now, as a matter of fact.'

'Where've you been now? Visiting schools?'

'No, no, no, I went to see an old school friend whom I haven't seen for thirty — forty — fifty — that sort of time.'

'What was she like?'

'Enormously fat and even nastier and horrider than I remembered her.'

'You've got very queer tastes, I must say, Matilda.'

'Well, go on, tell me. Tell me what it is you want me to remember?'

'I wondered if you remembered another friend of yours. Robert Shoreham.'

'Robbie Shoreham? Of course I do.'

'The scientist feller. Top scientist.'

'Of course. He wasn't the sort of man one would ever forget. I wonder what put him into your head.'

'Public need.'

'Funny you should say that,' said Lady Matilda. 'I thought the same myself the other day.'

'You thought what?'

'That he was needed. Or someone like him — if there is anyone like him.'

'There isn't. Now listen, Matilda. People talk to you a bit. They tell you things. I've told you things myself.'

'I've always wondered why, because you can't believe that I'll understand them or be able to describe them. And that was even more the case with Robbie than with you.'

'I don't tell you naval secrets.'

'Well, he didn't tell me scientific secrets. I mean, only in a very general way.'

'Yes, but he used to talk to you about them, didn't he?'

'Well, he liked saying things that would astonish me sometimes.'

'All right, then, here it comes. I want to know if he ever talked to you, in the days when he could talk properly, poor devil, about something called Project B.'

'Project B.' Matilda Cleckheaton considered thoughtfully.

'Sounds vaguely familiar,' she said. 'He used to talk about Project this or that sometimes, or Operation that or this. But you must realize that none of it ever made any kind of sense to me, and he knew it didn't. But he used to like — oh, how shall I put it? — astonishing me rather, you know. Sort of describing it the way that a conjuror might describe how he takes three rabbits out of a hat without your knowing how he did it. Project B? Yes, that was a good long time ago… He was wildly excited for a bit. I used to say to him sometimes "How's Project B going on?"'

'I know, I know, you've always been a tactful woman. You can always remember what people were doing or interested in. And even if you don't know the first thing about it you'd show an interest. I described a new kind of naval gun to you once and you must have been bored stiff. But you listened as brightly as though it was the thing you'd been waiting to hear about all your life.'

'As you tell me, I've been a tactful woman and a good listener, even if I've never had much in the way of brains.'

'Well, I want to hear a little more what Robbie said about Project B.'

'He said — well, it's very difficult to remember now. He mentioned it after talking about some operation that they used to do on people's brains. You know, the people who were terribly melancholic and who were thinking of suicide and who were so worried and neurasthenic that they had awful anxiety complexes. Stuff like that, the sort of thing people used to talk of in connection with Freud. And he said that the side effects were impossible. I mean, the people were quite happy and meek and docile and didn't worry any more, or want to kill themselves, but they — well I mean they didn't worry enough and therefore they used to get run over and all sorts of things like that because they weren't thinking of any danger and didn't notice it. I'm putting it badly but you do understand what I mean. And anyway, he said, that was going to be the trouble, he thought, with Project B.'