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  PASSENGER TO FRANKFURT

  Agatha Christie was born in Torquay of an English

  mother and an American father^ Her first novel was

  The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the

  end of the First World War, in which she served as a

  V.A.D. in France. It was in this book that she created

  the brilliant little Belgian detective with the egg

  shaped head and the impressive moustaches, Hercule

  Poirot, who was destined to become the most popular

  detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes.

  In 1926 she wrote what is still considered her

  masterpiece. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. This was

  the first of her books to be published by William

  Collins, who have been her publishers ever since.

  Her 73rd detective novel. Elephants Can Remember,

  appeared in November 1972.

  Agatha Christie, now in her eighties, is married

  to Sir Max Mallowan, a well-known archaeologist,

  and apart from her writing, her husband's subject,

  archaeology, remains her chief outside interest.

  They live in a beautiful house in Devon, overlooking

  the river Dart, and they also have a home in London.

  Hallowe'en Party

  Sad Cypress

  Cat Among the Pigeons

  Parker Pyne Investigates

  Dead Man's Folly

  Murder in Mesopotamia

  The Moving Finger

  A Pocket Full of Rye

  The Hollow

  The Body in the Library

  Third Girl

  Hercule Poirot's Christmas

  Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

  Appointment with Death

  Lord Edgware Dies

  The Hound of Death

  Towards Zero

  The A.B.C. Murders

  Hickory Diekory Dock

  Five Little Pigs

  and many others

  AGATHA CHBISTE

  Passenger to

  Frankfurt

  AN EXTRAVAGANZA

  FONTANA/CoUins

  First published by Wm. Collins 1970

  First issued in Pontana Books 1973

  Second Impression August 1973

  Third Impression September 1973

  � Agatha Christie Ltd., 1970

  Printed in Great Britain

  Collins Clear-Type Press London and Glasgow

  TO MARGARET GUILLAUME

  CONDITIONS OF SALE:

  This book is sold subject to the condition that

  it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

  re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without

  the publisher's prior consent in any form of

  binding or cover other than that in which it is

  published and without a similar condition

  including this condition being imposed on the

  subsequent purchaser

  CONTENTS

  Introduction 7

  BOOK 1: INTERRUPTED JOURNEY

  1Passenger to Frankfurt13

  2London21

  3The Man from the Cleaners28

  4Dinner with Eric36

  5Wagnerian Motif45

  6Portrait of a Lady50

  7Advice from Great-Aunt Matilda58

  8An Embassy Dinner63

  9The House near Godalming72

  BOOK 2: JOURNEY TO SIEGFRIED

  10The Woman in the Schloss89

  11The Young and the Lovely103

  12Court Jester109

  BOOK 3: AT HOME AND ABROAD

  13Conference in Paris117

  14Conference in London121

  15Aunt Matilda Takes a Cure131

  16Pikeaway Talks141

  17Herr Heinrich Spiess145

  18Pikeaway's Postscript156

  19Sir Stafford Nye Has Visitors158

  20The Admiral Visits an Old Friend 164

  21Project Benvo172

  22Juanita174

  23Journey to Scotland177

  Epilogue190

  'Leadership, besides being a great creative

  force, can be diabolical . . .'

  jan smuts

  INTRODUCTION

  The Author speaks:

  The first question put to an author, personally, or through

  the post, is:

  'Where do you get your ideas from?'

  The temptation is great to reply: 'I always go to Harrods,'

  or 'I get them mostly at the Army & Navy Stores,' or, snappily,

  'Try Marks and Spencer.'

  The universal opinion seems firmly established that there is

  a magic source of ideas which authors have discovered how to

  tap.

  One can hardly send one's questioners back to Elizabethan

  times, with Shakespeare's:

  Tell me, where is fancy bred,

  Or in the heart or in the head,

  How begot, how nourished?

  - Reply, reply.

  You merely say firmly: "My own head.'

  That, pf course, is no help to anybody. If you like the

  look of your questioner you relent^and go a little further.

  'If one idea in particular seems attractive, and you feel

  you could do something with it, then you toss it around,

  play tricks with it, work it up, tone it down, and gradually

  get it into shape. Then, of course, you have to start writing

  it. That's not nearly such fun--it becomes hard work. Alternatively,

  you can tuck it carefully away, in storage, for perhaps

  using in a year or two years' time.'

  A second question--or rather a statement--is then likely

  to be:

  'I suppose you take most of your characters from real life?'

  An indignant denial to that monstrous suggestion.

  'No, I don't. I invent them. They are mine. They've got

  to be my characters--doing what I want them to do, being

  what I want them to be--coming alive for me, having then- own ideas sometimes, but only because I've made them

  become real.'

  So the author has produced the ideas, and the characters

  --but now comes the third necessity--the setting. The first

  two come from inside sources, but the third is outside--

  7

  'Leadership, besides being a great creative

  force, can be diabolical . . .'

  JAN SMUTS

  INTRODUCTION

 

  The Author speaks:

  The first question put to an author, personally, or through

  the post, is:

  'Where do you get your ideas from?'

  The temptation is great to reply: 'I always go to Harrods,'

  or 'I get them mostly at the Army & Navy Stores,' or, snappily,

  Try Marks and Spencer.'

  The universal opinion seems firmly established that there is

  a magic source of ideas which authors have discovered how to

  tap.

  One can hardly send one's questioners back to Elizabethan

  times, with Shakespeare's:

  Tell me, where is fancy bred,

  Or in the heart or in the bead,

  How begot, how nourished?

  Reply, reply.

  You merely say firmly: "My own head.'

  That, of course, is no help to anybody. If you like the

  look of your questioner you relent_and go a little further.

  'If one idea in particular seems attractive, and you
feel

  you could do something with it, then you toss it around,

  play tricks with it, work it up, tone it down, and gradually

  get it into shape. Then, of course, you have to start writing

  it. That's not nearly such fun--it becomes hard work. Alternatively,

  you can tuck it carefully away, in storage, for perhaps

  using in a year or two years' time.'

  A second question--or rather a statement--is then likely

  to be:

  'I suppose you take most of your characters from real life?'

  An indignant denial to that monstrous suggestion.

  'No, I don't. I invent them. They are mine. They've got

  to be my characters--doing what I want them to do, being

  what I want them to be--coming alive for me, having their

  own ideas sometimes, but only because I've made them

  become reed.'

  So the author has produced the ideas, and the characters

  --but now comes the third necessity--the setting. The first

  two come from inside sources, but the third is outside--

  7

  it must be there--waiting--in existence already. You don't

  invent that--it's there--it's real.

  You have been perhaps for a cruise on the Nile--you

  remember it all--just the setting you want for this particular

  story. You have had a meal at a Chelsea cafe. A quarrel

  was going on--one girl pulled out a handful of another

  girl's hair. An excellent start for the book you are going

  to write next. You travel on the Orient Express. What fun

  to make it the scene for a plot you are considering. You go to

  tea with a friend. As you arrive her brother closes a book he

  is reading--throws it aside, says: 'Not bad, but why on

  earth didn't they ask Evans?'

  So you decide immediately a book of yours shortly to be

  written will bear the title. Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

  You don't know yet who Evans is going to be. Never

  mind. Evans will come in due course--the title is fixed.

  So, in a sense, you don't invent your settings. They

  are outside you, all around you, in existence--you have only to'lstretch out your hand and pick and choose. A railway

  train, a hospital, a London hotel, a Caribbean beach,

  a country village, a cocktail party, a girls' school.

  But one thing only applies--they must be there--in existence.

  Real people, real places. A definite place in time and

  space. If here and now--how shall you get full information--

  apart from the evidence of your own eyes and ears? The

  answer is frighteningly simple.

  It is what the Press brings to you every day, served up

  in your morning paper under the general heading of News.

  Collect it from the front page. What is going on in the world

  today? What is everyone saying, thinking, doing? Hold up

  a mirror to 1970 in England.

  Look at that front page every day for a month, make

  notes, consider and classify.

  Every day there is a killing.

  A girl strangled.

  Elderly woman attacked and robbed of her meagre savings.

  Young men or boys--attacking or attacked.

  Buildings and telephone kiosks smashed and gutted.

  Drug smuggling. .""" .

  Robbery and assault.

  Children missing and children's murdered bodies found not

  far from their homes.

  Can this be England? Is England really like this? One feels--no--not yet, but it could be.

  Fear is awakening--fear of what may be. Not so much

  because of actual happenings but because of the possible

  causes behind them. Some known, some unknown, but felt. And not only in our own country. There are smaller paragraphs

  on other pages--giving news from Europe--from Asia

  --from the Americas--Worldwide News.

  Hi-jacking of planes.

  Kidnapping.

  Violence,

  Riots.

  Hate.

  Anarchy--aD growing stronger.

  All seeming to lead to worship of destruction, pleasure

  in cruelty.

  What does it all mean? An Elizabethan phrase echoes

  from the past, speaking of Life:

  < .. it is a tale

  Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

  , Signifying nothing.

  And yet one knows--of one's own knowledge--how much

  goodness there is in this world of ours--the kindnesses done,

  the goodness of heart, the acts of compassion, the kindness of

  neighbour to neighbour, the helpful actions of girls and boys.

  Then why this fantastic atmosphere of daily news--of

  things that happen--that are actual facts?

  To write a story in this year of Our Lord 1970--you must

  come to terms with your background. If the background is

  fantastic, then the story must accept its background. It, too,

  must be a fantasy--an extravaganza. The setting must include

  the fantastic facts of daily life.

  Can one envisage a fantastic cause? A secret Campaign

  for Power? Can a maniacal desire for destruction create a

  new world? Can one go a step further and suggest deliverance

  by fantastic and impossible-sounding means?

  Nothing is impossible, science has taught us that.

  This story is in essence a fantasy. It pretends to be nothing

  more.

  But most of the things that happen in it are happening, or giving promise of happening in the world of today.

  It is not an impossible story--it is only a fantastic one.

  Book I

  i;INTERRUPTED JOURNEY

  Chapter 1

  PASSENGER TO FRANKFURT

  Fasten your seat-belts, please.' The diverse passengers in

  the plane were slow to obey. There was a general feeling

  that they couldn't possibly be arriving at Geneva yet. The

  drowsy groaned and yawned. The more than drowsy had

  to be gently roused by an authoritative stewardess.

  "Your seat-belts, please.'

  The dry voice came authoritatively over the Tannoy. It explained in German, in French, and in English that a short

  period of rough weather would shortly be experienced. Sir

  Stafford Nye opened his mouth to its full extent, yawned and

  pulled himself upright in his seat. He had been dreaming

  very happily of fishing an English river.

  He was a man of forty-five, of medium height, with a

  smooth, olive, clean-shaven face. In dress he rather liked to

  affect the bizarre. A man of excellent family, he felt fully

  at ease indulging any such isartorial whims. If it made the

  more conventionally dressed of his colleagues wince occasionally,

  that was merely a source of malicious pleasure to

  him. There was something about him of the eighteenthcentury

  buck. He liked to be noticed.

  His particular kind of affectation when travelling was a

  kind of bandit's cloak which he had once purchased in

  Corsica. It was of a very dark purply-blue, had a scarlet

  lining and had a kind of burnous hanging down behind

  which he could draw up over his head when he wished to,

  so as to obviate draughts.

  Sir Stafford Nye had been a disappointment in diplomatic

  circles. Marked out in early youth by his gifts for great

  things, he had singularly failed to fulfil his early promise.

  A pec
uliar and diabolical sense of humour was wont to

  afflict him in what should have been his most serious moments.

  When it came to the point, he found that he always

  preferred to indulge his delicate Puckish malice to boring

  himself. He was a well-known figure in public life without

  ever having reached eminence. It was felt that Stafford Nye,

  though definitely brilliant, was not--and presumably never

  would be--a safe man. In these days of tangled politics and

  tangled foreign relations, safety, especially if one were to

  reach ambassadorial rank, was preferable to brilliance. Sir

  Stafford Nye was relegated to the shelf, though he was occa13

  sionally entrusted with such missions as needed the art of

  intrigue, but were not of too important or public a nature.

  Journalists sometimes referred to him as the dark horse of

  diplomacy.

  _ Whether Sir Stafford himself was disappointed with his own career, nobody ever knew. Probably not even Sir Stafford

  himself. He was a man of a certain vanity, but he was also

  a man who very much enjoyed indulging his own proclivities

  for mischief.

  He was returning now from a commission of inquiry in

  Malaya. He had found it singularly lacking in interest.

  His colleagues bad, in his opinion, made up their minds

  beforehand what their findings were going to be. They saw

  and they listened, but their preconceived views were not

  affected. Sir Stafford had thrown a few spanners into the

  works, more for the hell of it than from any pronounced

  convictions. At all events, he thought, it had livened things up. He wished there were more possibilities of doing that

  sort of thing. His fellow members of the commission had

  been sound, dependable fellows, and remarkably dull. Even

  the well-known Mrs Nathaniel Edge, the only woman member,

  well known as having bees in her bonnet, was no fool when

  it came down to plain facts. She saw, she listened and she

  played safe.

  He had met her before on the occasion of a problem to

  be solved in one of the Balkan capitals. R was there that

  Sir Stafford Nye had not been able to refrain from embarking

  on a few interesting -suggestions. In that scandalloving

  periodical Inside News it was insinuated that Sir

  Stafford Nye's presence in that Balkan capital was intimately

  connected with Balkan problems, and that his mission was a

  secret one of the greatest delicacy. A kind friend had sent

  Sir Stafford a copy of this with the relevant passage marked.

  Sir Stafford was not taken aback. He read it with a delighted

  grin. It amused him very much to reflect how ludicrously far

  from the truth the journalists were on this occasion. His

  presence in Sofiagrad had been due entirely to a blameless

  interest in the rarer wild flowers and to the urgencies of an

  elderly friend of his. Lady Lucy Cleghorn, who was indefatigable

  in her quest for these shy floral rarities, and who at any

  moment would scale a rock cliff or leap joyously into a bog

  at the sight of some flowerlet, the length of whose Latin

  name was in inverse proportion to its size.

  A small band of enthusiasts had been pursuing this

  botanical search on the slopes of mountains for about ten

  14

  days when it occurred to Sir Stafford that it was a pity the

  paragraph was not true. He was a little--just a little--

  tired of wild flowers and, fond as he was of dear Lucy, her

  ability despite her sixty-odd years to race up hills at top

  speed, easily outpacing him, sometimes annoyed him. Always

  just in front of him he saw the seat of those bright

  royal blue trousers and Lucy, though scraggy enough elsewhere,

  goodness knows, was decidedly too broad in the beam

  to wear royal blue corduroy trousers. A nice little international

  pie, he had thought, in which to dip his fingers, in

  which to play about . . .

  In the aeroplane the metallic Tannoy voice spoke again.

  It told the passengers that owing to heavy fog at Geneva,

  the plane would be diverted to Frankfurt airport and proceed

  from there to London. Passengers to Geneva would

  be re-routed from Frankfurt as soon as possible. It made

  no difference to Sir Stafford Nye. If there was fog in London,

  he supposed they would re-route the plane to Prestwick.

  He hoped that would not happen. He had been to Prestwick

  once or twice too often. Life, he thought, and journeys by

  air, were really excessively boring. If only--he didn't know

  --if only--what?

  It was warm in the Transit Passenger Lounge at Frankfurt,

  so Sir Stafford Nye slipped back his cloak, allowing its crimson

  lining to drape itself spectacularly round his shoulders. He

  was drinking a glass of beer and listening with half an ear

  to the various announcements as they were made.

  'Flight 4387. Flying to Moscow. Flight 2381 bound for

  Egypt and Calcutta.' <._

  Journeys all over the globe. How romantic it ought to be.

  But there was something about the atmosphere of a Passengers'

  Lounge in an airport that chilled romance. It was

  too full of people, too full of things to buy, too full of similarly