They Came to Baghdad Read online

  He added:

  “Her plane will touch down at Damascus the day after tomorrow.”

  “And then?”

  Edward’s eyes looked suddenly into hers.

  “That’s up to you, Victoria.”

  “To me?”

  “You’ll take her place.”

  Victoria said slowly:

  “Like Rupert Crofton Lee?”

  It was almost a whisper. In the course of that substitution Rupert Crofton Lee had died. And when Victoria took her place, presumably Anna Scheele, or Grete Harden, would die.

  And Edward was waiting—and if for one moment Edward doubted her loyalty, then she, Victoria, would die—and die without the possibility of warning anyone.

  No, she must agree and seize a chance to report to Mr. Dakin.

  She drew a deep breath and said:

  “I—I—oh, but Edward, I couldn’t do it. I’d be found out. I can’t do an American voice.”

  “Anna Scheele has practically no accent. In any case you will be suffering from laryngitis. One of the best doctors in this part of the world will say so.”

  “They’ve got people everywhere,” thought Victoria.

  “What would I have to do?” she asked.

  “Fly from Damascus to Baghdad as Grete Harden. Take to your bed immediately. Be allowed up by our reputable doctor just in time to go to the Conference. There you will lay before them the documents which you have brought with you.”

  Victoria asked: “The real documents?”

  “Of course not. We shall substitute our version.”

  “What will the documents show?”

  Edward smiled.

  “Convincing details of the most stupendous Communist plot in America.”

  Victoria thought: “How well they’ve got it planned.”

  Aloud she said:

  “Do you really think I can get away with it, Edward?”

  Now that she was playing a part, it was quite easy for Victoria to ask it with every appearance of anxious sincerity.

  “I’m sure you can. I’ve noticed that your playing of a part affords you such enjoyment that it’s practically impossible to disbelieve you.”

  Victoria said meditatively:

  “I still feel an awful fool when I think of the Hamilton Clipps.”

  He laughed in a superior way.

  Victoria, her face still a mask of adoration, thought to herself viciously. “But you were an awful fool, too, to let slip that about the Bishop at Basrah. If you hadn’t I’d never have seen through you.”

  She said suddenly: “What about Dr. Rathbone?”

  “What do you mean ‘What about him?’”

  “Is he just a figurehead?”

  Edward’s lips curved in cruel amusement.

  “Rathbone has got to toe the line. Do you know what he’s been doing all these years? Cleverly appropriating about three-quarters of the subscriptions which pour in from all over the world to his own use. It’s the cleverest swindle since the time of Horatio Bottomley. Oh yes, Rathbone’s completely in our hands—we can expose him at anytime and he knows it.”

  Victoria felt a sudden gratitude to the old man with the noble domed head, and the mean acquisitive soul. He might be a swindler—but he had known pity—he had tried to get her to escape in time.

  “All things work towards our New Order,” said Edward.

  She thought to herself, “Edward, who looks so sane, is really mad! You get mad, perhaps, if you try and act the part of God. They always say humility is a Christian virtue—now I see why. Humility is what keeps you sane and a human being….”

  Edward got up.

  “Time to be moving,” he said. “We’ve got to get you to Damascus and our plans there worked out by the day after tomorrow.”

  Victoria rose with alacrity. Once she was away from Devonshire, back in Baghdad with its crowds, in the Tio Hotel with Marcus shouting and beaming and offering her a drink, the near persistent menace of Edward would be removed. Her part was to play a double game—continue to fool Edward by a sickly dog-like devotion, and counter his plans secretly.

  She said: “You think that Mr. Dakin knows where Anna Scheele is? Perhaps I could find that out. He might drop some hint.”

  “Unlikely—and in any case, you won’t be seeing Dakin.”

  “He told me to come to see him this evening,” said Victoria mendaciously, a slightly chilly feeling attacking her spine. “He’ll think it odd if I don’t turn up.”

  “It doesn’t matter at this stage what he thinks,” said Edward. “Our plans are made.” He added, “You won’t be seen in Baghdad again.”

  “But Edward, all my things are at the Tio! I’ve booked a room.”

  The scarf. The precious scarf.

  “You won’t need your things for some time to come. I’ve got a rig out waiting for you. Come on.”

  They got in the car again. Victoria thought, “I ought to have known that Edward would never be such a fool as to let me get in touch with Mr. Dakin after I’d found him out. He believes I’m besotted about him—yes, I think he’s sure of that—but all the same he isn’t going to take any chances.”

  She said: “Won’t there be a search for me if I—don’t turn up?”

  “We’ll attend to that. Officially you’ll say good-bye to me at the bridge and go off to see some friends on the West Bank.”

  “And actually?”

  “Wait and see.”

  Victoria sat silent as they bumped over the rough track and twisted round palm gardens and over the little irrigation bridges.

  “Lefarge,” murmured Edward. “I wish we knew what Carmichael meant by that.”

  Victoria’s heart gave a leap of anxiety.

  “Oh,” she said. “I forgot to tell you. I don’t know if it means anything. A M. Lefarge came to the Excavations one day at Tell Aswad.”

  “What?” Edward almost stalled the car in his excitement. “When was this?”

  “Oh! About a week ago. He said he came from some Dig in Syria. M. Parrot’s, would it be?”

  “Did two men called André and Juvet come while you were there?”

  “Oh yes,” said Victoria. “One of them had a sick stomach. He went to the house and lay down.”

  “They were two of our people,” said Edward.

  “Why did they come here? To look for me?”

  “No—I’d no idea where you were. But Richard Baker was in Basrah at the same time as Carmichael. We had an idea Carmichael might have passed something on to Baker.”

  “He said his things had been searched. Did they find anything?”

  “No—now think carefully, Victoria. Did this man Lefarge come before the other two or afterwards?”

  Victoria reflected in a convincing manner, as she decided what movements to impute to the mythical M. Lefarge.

  “It was—yes, the day before the other two came,” she said.

  “What did he do?”

  “Well,” said Victoria, “he went over the Dig—with Dr. Pauncefoot Jones. And then Richard Baker took him down to the house to see some of the things in the Antika Room there.”

  “He went to the house with Richard Baker. They talked together?”

  “I suppose so,” said Victoria. “I mean, you wouldn’t look at things in absolute silence, would you?”

  “Lefarge,” murmured Edward. “Who is Lefarge? Why have we got no line on him?”

  Victoria longed to say, “He’s brother to Mrs. Harris,” but refrained. She was pleased with her invention of M. Lefarge. She could see him quite clearly now in her mind’s eye—a thin rather consumptive-looking young man with dark hair and a little moustache. Presently, when Edward asked her, she described him carefully and accurately.

  They were driving now through the suburbs of Baghdad. Edward turned off down a side street of modern villas built in a pseudo-European style, with balconies and gardens round them. In front of one house a big touring car was standing. Edward drew up behind it and he and Victoria got
out, and went up the steps to the front door.

  A thin dark woman came out to meet them and Edward spoke to her rapidly in French. Victoria’s French was not sufficiently good to understand fully what was said, but it seemed to be to the effect that this was the young lady and that the change must be effected at once.

  The woman turned to her and said politely in French:

  “Come with me, please.”

  She led Victoria into a bedroom where, spread out on a bed, was the habit of a nun. The woman motioned to her, and Victoria undressed and put on the stiff wool undergarment and the voluminous medieval folds of dark stuff. The Frenchwoman adjusted the headdress. Victoria caught a glimpse of herself in the glass. Her small pale face under the gigantic (was it a wimple?) with the white folds under her chin, looked strangely pure and unearthly. The Frenchwoman threw a Rosary of wooden beads over her head. Then, shuffling in the over-large coarse shoes Victoria was led out to rejoin Edward.

  “You look all right,” he said approvingly. “Keep your eyes down, particularly when there are men about.”

  The Frenchwoman rejoined them a moment or two later similarly apparelled. The two nuns went out of the house and got into the touring car which now had a tall dark man in European dress in the driver’s seat.

  “It’s up to you now, Victoria,” said Edward. “Do exactly as you are told.”

  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 Thérèse 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 Thérèse 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!”

  Twenty-three

  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 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.

  “No,” she was saying, “P A U N C E foot. Dr. Pauncefoot Jones. Arriving today Tio Hotel, Good journey.”

  Victoria looked at her with sudden interest. This must be Dr. Pauncefoot Jones’ wife, coming out to join him. That she was a week earlier than expected did not seem to Victoria at all extraordinary since Dr. Pauncefoot Jones had several times lamented that he had lost her letter giving the date of arrival but that he was almost certain it was the 26th!

  If only she could somehow or other send a message through Mrs. Pauncefoot Jones to Richard Baker….

  Almost as though he read her thoughts, the man accompanying her steered her by the elbow away from the desk.

  “No conversation with fellow travellers, Miss Harden,” he said. “We don’t want that good woman to notice that you’re a different person from the one she came out from En gland with.”

  He took her out of the hotel to a restaurant for lunch. As they came back, Mrs. Pauncefoot Jones was coming down the steps of the hotel. She nodded without suspicion at Victoria.

  “Been sightseeing?” she called. “I’m just going to the bazaars.”

  “If I could slip something into her luggage…” thought Victoria.