Strangers in Company (23 page)

“And where would I have been?” said Marian dryly. “But, Stella, you admit it? You take it for granted? That they were trying to kill the professor?”

“I don't take it for granted.” Angrily. “But I don't know what else to think. I've not had a chance to talk to Mike about it, and I don't mean to. Not now. The less he thinks I suspect, the better.”

“I do so agree. That's why you told him—the professor—to be careful today.” Which surely—Marian clung to it—meant that Stella, too, refused to believe that the professor was one of the enemy.

“Yes. I do hope he is. And safe. I did the best I could to freeze him off, but how could I? Not when he'd taken such a fancy to you. Unless—Mrs. F., you don't think he's just pretending?”

“God knows.” Marian faced her with it bleakly. “I certainly don't.” Having been fooled so horribly once, how could she ever trust her judgement again?

“That's what I was afraid of. You can read it so clearly either way. If he's not one of them, he's in horrible danger. If he is, he's keeping an eye on us. He easily could be. Which would have made Andreas' mistake yesterday worse still. You can see it's the risk of their cell system. Andreas might actually not have known, not if they were in different cells. But what should we
do,
Mrs. F.? Ought we to warn him?”

“I don't know.” Marian was looking back over the disastrous history of the tour. “Poor Mrs. Hilton, just because she wanted to be friendly. And Miss Gear … and Mrs. Duncan.”

“I'm afraid so.” Stella was white now, and twitching uncontrollably. “Mrs. F., is it any use saying how sorry I am?”

“Well, not much. What we need to do now is use our
brains. You've done nothing to make them think you're going to tell me?”

“No, thank God. That's when I did start to use my head. I wanted to tell you yesterday morning at Olympia, but there was no chance—not after he'd drugged you. And last night there was Charles— But when Mike came back without Andreas, I knew I had to do something. They're dangerous, Mrs. F.”

“Yes, I was rather getting that impression.” Marian looked anxiously up at the soaring mountain above them, tipped now with the colours of the setting sun. “You shouldn't have let the professor go up there.” She would not believe him implicated in the plot; but, if not, there was no doubt he was in appalling danger.

“How could I stop him?”

“We must go back.” Anxiety crawled through her veins. “If we stay here too long, they'll begin to wonder.” There was something particularly horrible about this featureless “they.” “And what about the Esmonds?” Another grim thought had struck her.

“Oh, they're all right. They were Mike's idea. He says Charles will notice nothing but me, and his mother's blind as a bat. But what are we going to
do
?”

“I don't know,” Marian said. “Think, I suppose. At least we know nothing can happen to the two of us until we get to Aegina. It's the professor I'm worried about. I hope.”

“Yes,” said Stella. She was crying helplessly now. “Mrs. F., can you forgive me?”

“If he's safe,” said Marian.

“And if he's on our side,” said Stella.

Tht light was failing. The boys had stopped playing serious football and were idly kicking the ball towards the upper exit. The guard from there appeared at the top of the stadium and shouted something in Greek.

“It can't be closing time yet,” said Marian.

“Perhaps they close earlier up here. Anyway, we ought to be going. I wish someone else had come up so we could all go down together. We don't want Mike getting ideas.”

“No indeed.” Marian looked towards the end of the stadium where the Americans had been, saw a familiar figure there and felt her heart give a great leap of relief. “There's the professor.”

“Thank God,” said Stella. “And with luck we'll pick up someone else on the way down.” They both waved and moved one way to meet Edvardson as the boys went the other to join the guard and, presumably, leave by the upper gate.

“Well,” called Marian as they came within earshot, “did you find your bearded vulture?” Incredible to manage so nearly normal a tone.

“No.” The professor looked shamefaced. “As a matter of deplorable fact, I fell asleep. I've only just come out, and I reckon it's too late for sighting anything. I've left the Esmonds down in the theatre.” He gave them his pleasantly conspiratorial grin. “She wouldn't let him leave her there all alone, or he'd be up here practising racing starts on the line.” It was there at their feet, surprisingly clear, the stone marker, worn by the feet of athletes long forgotten. And curiously moving, Marian thought; real in a sense that much they had seen was not.

“It's a wonderful place.” Her eyes had misted with tears.

“Even without bearded vultures.” He turned to lead the way down the steep little path, and Stella, beside Marian, hesitated a moment to put a finger on her lips in warning. She was right, Marian thought. They dared not risk saying anything to him. Besides, they were to spend the next day travelling. He should be safe enough. If he needed safety. It was all horrible and she turned, almost with relief, to wonder what she and Stella were going to do. But at least they had a whole day to think and plan, and, tonight, the privacy of their rooms in the annexe in which to confer. And, curiously, even through her terror, she was beginning to recognise that Stella's story had given her a most extraordinary
psychological boost. She had realised, suddenly, as they walked across the close grass of the stadium to meet the professor, that she had never suffered from delusions at all. When she had thought she was being watched, back there in London, she had been quite right. Stella's friends had doubtless been studying her for the likeness to the unknown woman, whose place of danger she was to take.

Could that be it? She stumbled and caught a pine branch to steady herself. Suppose, as well as getting the unknown woman out of prison, they meant to get her in? What chance would she have then of proving that she was, in fact, Mrs. Marian Frenche? In solitary confinement, visited by guards and interrogators, and a doctor, whom Stella had described as not a bad man, but not a good one. Suppose they simply decided she had gone mad? Which would suit them very well. Or what if they tortured her for information she could not reveal?

“Are you all right?” She had stopped in her tracks, and the professor turned to hold out a helping hand. It was warm, firm and, somehow, enormously reassuring. The temptation to tell him, to ask his help, his advice, was almost too strong to be resisted. But they were down to the level of the theatre, and Charles Esmond was coming eagerly forward to greet them.

“Was it worth the climb?” he asked the professor.

“Well worth it.” Edvardson belatedly let go of Marian's hand.

By agreement, quickly arrived at in Marian's bedroom, Stella and she made sure of sharing a table with the Esmonds that night, though Marian felt, with a pang, that the manoeuvre earned her a quick glance of enquiry from the professor, who was sitting with Cairnthorpe and two hopeful empty places. It was, for Marian, an extraordinary meal. She looked at the other members of the party with painful new eyes. She had realised, more and more, as they came down through the Temple of Apollo, through all those grey bones of history, that there must, inevitably, be other members of the conspiracy in the party besides
Mike and Andreas. Not, please God, the professor. But who? But which?

Who, of their very ordinary party had seemed, in any way, unusual? She looked about the room. The Esmonds, with whom they were dining, were most painfully normal, but Mike had urged their company on Stella. Were they perhaps involved? Was Charles' devotion to Stella a careful pretence? Had she merely imagined a family likeness between mother and son?

And then there were that curious honeymoon couple, the Adamses. They had always struck her as an ill-assorted pair. Could they be merely professionally linked? She peeled her orange with deft, cold fingers. Perhaps safer not to let her mind wander like this. Besides, it kept nagging at her with the worst suggestion of all. Impossible to get away from the professor. Suppose Stella had not told all she knew? Suppose she had had more reason than leapt to the eye for that gesture of silence this afternoon? Because, face it, the professor had had some miraculous escapes. If they were miraculous, and escapes.

She was, suddenly, glad not to be sharing a table with him but, just the same, could not help pausing by him and David as she and Stella left the dining room. “Any news of Andreas?” It was, after all, a reasonable question to ask.

“No.” Cairnthorpe looked both anxious and angry. “Mike and I have been on the telephone all afternoon. There's no sign of him in Itea. We've got a relief driver to take us to Athens tomorrow. A local man, but Mike says he's reliable.” He gave Marian an engaging boyish grin. “I vow to Apollo, I'm going to learn Greek before I take on another job like this.”

“I think you've done splendidly,” said Marian. She and Stella had agreed that they must make not the slightest change in their usual routine, so they sat for a while, over thimblefuls of medium coffee that was almost too sweet to drink, before Marian rose and pleaded fatigue.

“I'm tired, too,” said Stella. “I'll come down with you, Mrs. F.” And, safe in Marian's room, “So far, so good.”

“Yes.” Marian looked about her doubtfully. “I suppose they can't have—what's the word—bugged this room?”

It was reassuring to hear Stella laugh. “Come now,” she said. “Remember”—but she kept her voice down—“we're not dealing with the secret police, but with their enemies.”

“Yes.” It was, to an extent, consoling. And it led, inevitably, to another thought. “You don't think.” She put it almost apologetically. “You don't think, Stella, that we ought to go to the police?”

“No!” Explosively. And then, more quietly, “You must see, Mrs. F., that I can't? Can't do that to them. There's still that poor woman on Aegina. You see, don't you?”

“I suppose so. Well then?”

“I've been thinking. Suppose, at the last moment, we say we don't want to go to Aegina? And then keep close to the rest of the party for the last day? After all, we fly out late that night. I don't see what could go wrong.”

“Of course. How clever of you. It's the answer. But they'll be terribly angry with you, Stella. Are you sure we oughtn't to go to the police?”

“Only if they try anything,” said Stella, and stuck to it. through all Marian's attempts at persuasion.

Left alone at last, Marian lay sleepless for a long time. Should she have given in to Stella on this? Was it not her duty to take some positive action? But then, the thought of that unknown woman, alone in a desolate cell on Aegina, stopped her. They must save themselves, but without risking her. Perhaps, somehow, she could be got away without recourse to the dangerous substitution. Perhaps even now, if the conspirators were to come to her, Marian, openly, and explain the situation, she might agree to help. It was intolerable to think of someone her age—and like her; this made it oddly worse—helpless in the hands of the colonels' men. But on the other side, there was that frightening tale of violence. Would ordinary fighters for freedom, for democracy—would they resort so freely to murder? If the unknown woman on Aegina was to be pitied, what about Mrs. Hilton and Mrs. Duncan, who were beyond pity?

She did not sleep much that night and woke heavyeyed and wretched with indecision. Stella, calling to go up the hill to breakfast with her, noticed at once. “You look terrible, Mrs. F. As if the Furies were after you.” She kept her voice low. “It won't do, not without an explanation. We don't dare let Mike think you've anything on your mind. He frightens me, Mike.”

“I thought you were a little in love with him.”

“Me?” Stella threw back her head and laughed naturally, an extraordinarily reassuring sound. “In love with Mike. Lord, darling Mrs. F., what an innocent you are. Do you really not know that Mike's one of them?”

“Them?”

“The queers. The homosexuals. Oh, yes, he's tried to keep me happy with his advances, but poor Mike!” She lowered her voice again on the word. “You really haven't seen that it's the professor he's after? Well.” Once again that surprisingly full-bodied laugh. “I suppose you wouldn't, would you? But it's true, just the same. I still haven't decided whether he was trying to save you for the cause, at Itea, or the professor for love.”

“You can't be serious.”

“Oh, can't I? Haven't you seen how he watches the professor while he's saying his piece. He minds horribly when Edvardson gives one of those dismissive grunts of his. Well, even I can see that your professor's quite something. Mr. Rochester to the life.” She laughed. “Poor Mike. And not a hope in hell for him. It's lucky for you that they need you alive. Honestly, if looks could kill.…” Her voice changed. She had frightened herself as well as Marian. “A pity, really”—she went off quickly at a tangent—“that he got no change out of David.”

“Cairnthorpe?”

“Of course. Haven't you noticed how they bristle at each other? I'm sure Mike made a hopeful pass early on—maybe a double-purpose one.”

“Double-purpose?”

“Business and pleasure. David adoring him and noticing nothing. Don't you see?”

“Goodness,” said Marian inadequately. “But it didn't work?”

“Of course it didn't work!” Angrily. “With David! Mike should have had more sense, but then how would he understand an Englishman? David looks such a boy. That blush of his! But I tell you, Mrs. F., if it comes to real trouble, I'll be glad to have him on our side.”

“And he will be?”