"Journey's end?" Hilary stared at her. "But we've not - we haven't crossed the sea at all."
"Did you expect to?" Mrs. Baker seemed amused. Hilary said confusedly,
"Well, yes. Yes, I did. I thought..." She stopped.
Mrs. Baker nodded her head.
"Why, so do a lot of people. There's a lot of nonsense talked about the iron curtain, but what I say is an iron curtain can be anywhere. People don't think of that."
Two Berber servants received them. After a wash and freshening up they sat down to coffee and sandwiches and biscuits. Then Mrs. Baker glanced at her watch.
"Well, so long, folks," she said. "This is where I leave you."
"Are you going back to Morocco?" asked Hilary, surprised.
"That wouldn't quite do," said Mrs. Calvin Baker, "with me being supposed to be burnt up in a plane accident! No, I shall be on a different run this time."
"But someone might still recognise you," said Hilary. "Someone, I mean, who'd met you in hotels in Casablanca or Fez."
"Ah," said Mrs. Baker, "but they'd be making a mistake. I've got a different passport now, though it's true enough that a sister of mine, a Mrs. Calvin Baker, lost her life that way. My sister and I are supposed to be very alike." She added, "And to the casual people one comes across in hotels one travelling American woman is very like another."
Yes, Hilary thought, that was true enough. All the outer, unimportant characteristics were present in Mrs. Baker. The neatness, the trimness, the carefully arranged blue hair, the highly monotonous, prattling voice. Inner characteristics, she realised, were carefully masked or, indeed, absent. Mrs. Calvin Baker presented to the world and to her companions a façade, but what was behind the facade was not easy to fathom. It was as though she had deliberately extinguished those tokens of individuality by which one personality is distinguishable from another.
Hilary felt moved to say so. She and Mrs. Baker were standing a little apart from the rest.
"One doesn't know," said Hilary, "in the least what you're really like?"
"Why should you?"
"Yes. Why should I? And yet, you know, I feel I ought to. We've travelled together in rather intimate circumstances and it seems odd to me that I know nothing about you. Nothing, I mean, of the essential you, of what you feel and think, of what you like and dislike, of what's important to you and what isn't."
"You've such a probing mind, my dear," said Mrs. Baker. "If you'll take my advice, you'll curb that tendency."
"I don't even know what part of the United States you come from."
"That doesn't matter either. I've finished with my own country. There are reasons why I can never go back there. If I can pay off a grudge against that country, I'll enjoy doing it."
For just a second or two malevolence showed both in her expression and in the tone of her voice. Then it relaxed once more into cheerful tourist tones.
"Well, so long, Mrs. Betterton, I hope you have a very agreeable reunion with your husband."
Hilary said helplessly,
"I don't even know where I am, what part of the world, I mean."
"Oh, that's easy. There needs to be no concealment about that now. A remote spot in the High Atlas my dear. That's near enough -"
Mrs. Baker moved away and started saying good-bye to the others. With a final gay wave of her hand she walked out across the tarmac. The plane had been refueled and the pilot was standing waiting for her. A faint cold chill went over Hilary. Here, she felt, was her last link with the outside world. Peters, standing near her, seemed to sense her reaction.
"The place of no return," he said softly. "That's us, I guess."
Dr. Barron said softly,
"Have you still courage, Madame, or do you at this moment want to run after your American friend and climb with her into the plane and go back - back to the world you have left?"
"Could I go if I wanted to?" asked Hilary.
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
"One wonders."
"Shall I call to her?" asked Andy Peters.
"Of course not," said Hilary sharply.
Helga Needheim said scornfully,
"There is no room here for women who are weaklings."
"She is not a weakling," said Dr. Barron softly, "but she asks herself questions as any intelligent woman would do." He stressed the word "intelligent" as though it were a reflection upon the German woman. She, however, was unaffected by his tone. She despised all Frenchmen and was happily assured of her own worth. Ericsson said, in his high nervous voice,
"When one has at last reached freedom, can one even contemplate going back?"
Hilary said,
"But if it is not possible to go back, or to choose to go back, then it is not freedom!"
One of the servants came to them and said,
"If you please, the cars are ready now to start."
They went out through the opposite door of the building. Two Cadillac cars were standing there with uniformed chauffeurs. Hilary indicated a preference for sitting in front with the chauffeur. She explained the swinging motion of a large car occasionally made her feel car sick. This explanation seemed to be accepted easily enough. As they drove along Hilary made a little desultory conversation from time to time. The weather, the excellence of the car. She spoke French quite easily and well, and the chauffeur responded agreeably. His manner was entirely natural and matter of fact.
"How long will it take us?" she asked presently.
"From the aerodrome to the hospital? It is a drive of perhaps two hours, Madame."
The words struck Hilary with faintly disagreeable surprise. She had noted, without thinking much about it, that Helga Needheim had changed at the rest house and was now wearing a hospital nurse's kit. This fitted in.
"Tell me something about the hospital," she said to the chauffeur.
His reply was enthusiastic.
"Ah, Madame, it is magnificent. The equipment, it is the most up-to-date in the world. Many doctors come and visit it! and all of them go away full of praise. It is a great thing that is being done there for humanity."
"It must be," said Hilary, "yes, yes, indeed it must."
"These miserable ones," said the chauffeur, "they have been sent in the past to perish miserably on a lonely island. But here this new treatment of Dr. Kolini's cures a very high percentage. Even those who are far gone."
"It seems a lonely place to have a hospital," said Hilary.
"Ah, Madame; but you would have to be lonely in the circumstances. The authorities would insist upon it. But it is good air here, wonderful air. See, Madame, you can see now where we are going." He pointed.
They were approaching the first spurs of a mountain range, and on the side of it, set flat against the hillside, was a long gleaming white building.
"What an achievement," said the chauffeur, "to raise such a building out here. The money spent must have been fantastic. We owe much, Madame, to the rich philanthropists of this world. They are not like governments who do things always in a cheap way. Here money has been spent like water. Our patron, he is one of the richest men in the world, they say. Here truly he has built a magnificent achievement for the relief of human suffering."
He drove up a winding track. Finally they came to rest outside great barred iron gates.
"You must dismount here, Madame," said the chauffeur. "It is not permitted that I take the car through these gates. The garages are a kilometre away."
The travellers got out of the car. There was a big bell pull at the gate, but before they could touch it the gates swung slowly open. A white-robed figure with a black, smiling face bowed to them and bade them enter. They passed through the gate; at one side screened by a high fence of wire, there was a big courtyard where men were walking up and down. As these men turned to look at the arrivals, Hilary uttered a gasp of horror.
"But they're lepers!" she exclaimed. "Lepers!"
A shiver of horror shook her entire frame.
Chapter 11
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The gates of the leper colony closed behind the travellers with a metallic clang. The noise struck on Hilary's startled consciousness with a horrible note of finality. Abandon hope, it seemed to say, all ye who enter here... This, she thought, was the end... really the end. Any way of retreat there might have been was now cut off.
She was alone now amongst enemies, and in, at most, a very few minutes, she would be confronted with discovery and failure. Subconsciously, she supposed, she had known that all day, but some undefeatable optimism of the human spirit, some persistence in the belief that that entity oneself could not possibly cease to exist, had been masking that fact from her. She had said to Jessop in Casablanca "And when do I reach Tom Betterton?" and he had said then gravely that that was when the danger would become acute. He had added that he hoped that by then he might be in a position to give her protection, but that hope, Hilary could not but realise, had failed to materialise.
If "Miss Hetherington" had been the agent on whom Jessop was relying, "Miss Hetherington" had been outmanoeuvred and left to confess failure at Marrakesh. But in any case, what could Miss Hetherington have done?
The party of travellers had arrived at the place of no return. Hilary had gambled with death and lost. And she knew now that Jessop's diagnosis had been correct. She no longer wanted to die. She wanted to live. The zest of living had come back to her in full strength. She could think of Nigel, of the little mound that was Brenda's grave, with a sad wondering pity, but no longer with the cold lifeless despair that had urged her on to seek oblivion in death. She thought: "I'm alive again, sane, whole... and now I'm like a rat in a trap. If only there were some way out..."
It was not that she had given no thought to the problem. She had. But it seemed to her, reluctantly, that once confronted with Betterton, there could be no way out...
Betterton would say: "But that's not my wife -" And that would be that! Eyes turning towards her... realisation... a spy in their midst...
Because what other solution could there be? Supposing she were to get in first? Supposing she were to cry out, before Tom Betterton could get in a word - "Who are you? You're not my husband!" If she could simulate indignation, shock, horror, sufficiently well - might it, just credibly, raise a doubt? A doubt whether Betterton was Betterton - or some other scientist sent to impersonate him. A spy, in other words. But if they believed that, then it might be rather hard on Betterton! But, she thought, her mind turning in tired circles, if Betterton was a traitor, a man willing to sell his country's secrets, could anything be 'hard on him'? How difficult it was, she thought, to make any appraisement of loyalties - or indeed any judgments of people or things... At any rate it might be worth trying. To create a doubt -
With a giddy feeling, she returned to her immediate surroundings. Her thoughts had been running underground with the frenzied violence of a rat caught in a trap. But during that time her surface stream of consciousness had been playing its appointed part.
The little party from the outside world had been welcomed by a big handsome man - a linguist, it would seem, since he had said a word or two to each person in his or her own language.
"Enchanté de faire votre connaisance, mon cher doctor," he was murmuring to Dr. Barron, and then turning to her:
"Ah, Mrs. Betterton, we're very pleased to welcome you here. A long confusing journey, I'm afraid. Your husband's very well and, naturally, awaiting you with impatience."
He gave her a discreet smile; it was a smile, she noticed, that did not touch his cold pale eyes.
"You must," he added, "be longing to see him."
The giddiness increased - she felt the group round her approaching and receding like the waves of the sea. Beside her, Andy Peters put out an arm and steadied her.
"I guess you haven't heard," he said to their welcoming host. "Mrs. Betterton had a bad crash at Casablanca - concussion. This journey's done her no good. Nor the excitement of looking forward to meeting her husband. I'd say she ought to lie down right now in a darkened room."
Hilary felt the kindness of his voice, of the supporting arm. She swayed a little more. It would be easy, incredibly easy, to crumple at the knees, to drop flaccidly down... to feign unconsciousness - or at any rate near unconsciousness. To be laid on a bed in a darkened room - to put off the moment of discovery just a little longer... But Betterton would come to her there - any husband would. He would come there and lean over the bed in the dim gloom and at the first murmur of her voice, the first dim outline of her face as his eye became accustomed to the twilight he would realise that she was not Olive Betterton.
Courage came back to Hilary. She straightened up. Colour came into her cheeks. She flung up her head.
If this were to be the end, let it be a gallant end! She would go to Betterton and when he repudiated her, she would try out the last lie, come out with it confidently, fearlessly:
"No, of course I'm not your wife. Your wife - I'm terribly sorry, it's awful - she's dead. I was in hospital with her when she died. I promised her I'd get to you somehow and give you her last messages. I wanted to. You see, I'm in sympathy with what you did - with what all of you are doing. I agree with you politically. I want to help..."
Thin, thin, all very thin... And such awkward trifles to explain - the faked passport - the forged letter of credit. Yes, but people did get by sometimes with the most audacious lies - if one lied with sufficient confidence - if you had the personality to put a thing over. One could at any rate go down fighting.
She drew herself up, gently freeing herself from Peters' support.
"Oh, no. I must see Tom," she said. "I must go to him - now - at once - please."
The big man was hearty about it. Sympathetic. (Though the cold eyes were still pale and watchful.)
"Of course, of course, Mrs. Betterton. I quite understand how you are feeling. Ah, here's Miss Jennsen."
A thin spectacled girl had joined them.
"Miss Jennsen, meet Mrs. Betterton, Fraulein Needheim. Dr. Barron, Mr. Peters, Dr. Ericsson. Show them into the Registry, will you? Give them a drink. I'll be with you in a few minutes. Just take Mrs. Betterton along to her husband. I'll be with you again shortly."
He turned to Hilary again, saying:
"Follow me, Mrs. Betterton."
He strode forward, she followed. At a bend in the passage, she gave a last look over her shoulder. Andy Peters was still watching her. He had a faintly puzzled unhappy look - she thought for a moment he was going to come with her. He must have realised, she thought, that there's something wrong, realised it from me, but he doesn't know what it is.
And she thought, with a slight shiver: "It's the last time, perhaps, that I'll ever see him..."
And so, as she turned the corner after her guide, she raised a hand and waved a goodbye...
The big man was talking cheerfully.
"This way, Mrs. Betterton. I'm afraid you'll find our buildings rather confusing at first, so many corridors, and all rather alike."
Like a dream. Hilary thought, a dream of hygienic white corridors along which you pass forever, turning, going on, never finding your way out...
She said:
"I didn't realise it would be a - a hospital."
"No, no, of course. You couldn't realise anything, could you?"
There was a faint sadistic note of amusement in his voice.
"You've had, as they say, to 'fly blind.' My name's Van Heidem, by the way. Paul Van Heidem."
"It's all a little strange - and rather terrifying," said Hilary. "The lepers..."
"Yes, yes, of course. Picturesque - and usually so very unexpected. It does upset newcomers. But you'll get used to them - oh yes, you'll get used to them in time."
He gave a slight chuckle.
"A very good joke, I always think myself."
He paused suddenly.
"Up one flight of stairs - now don't hurry. Take it easy. Nearly there now."
Nearly there - nearly there... so many steps to death... up - u
p - deep steps, deeper than European steps. And now another of the hygienic passages and Van Heidem was stopping by a door. He tapped, waited, and then opened it.
"Ah, Betterton - here we are at last. Your wife!"
He stood aside with a slight flourish.
Hilary walked into the room. No holding back. No shrinking. Chin up. Forward to doom.
A man stood half turned from the window, an almost startlingly good-looking man. She noted that, recognising his fair handsomeness with a feeling almost of surprise. He wasn't, somehow, her idea of Tom Betterton. Surely, the photograph of him that she had been shown wasn't in the least -