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story, I mean. Shall I go ahead?”
    “I suppose so.”
    Jessop paid no attention to the grudgingness of the assent. He started off in his most owl-like manner.
    “You're the sort of woman who reads the papers and keeps up with things generally, I expect,” he said. “You'll have read about the disappearance of various scientists from time to time. There was that Italian chap about a year ago, and about two months ago a young scientist called Thomas Betterton disappeared.”
    Hilary nodded. “Yes, I read about that in the papers.”
    “Well, there's been a good deal more than has appeared in the papers. More people, I mean, have disappeared. They haven't always been scientists. Some of them have been young men who were engaged in important medical research. Some of them have been research chemists, some of them have been physicists, there was one barrister. Oh, quite a lot here and there and everywhere. Well, ours is a so-called free country. You can leave it if you like. But in these peculiar circumstances we've got to know why these people left it and where they went, and, also important, how they went. Did they go of their own free will? Were they kidnapped? Were they blackmailed into going? What route did they take - what kind of organisation is it that sets this in motion and what is its ultimate aim? Lots of questions. We want the answer to them. You might be able to help get us that answer.”
    Hilary stared at him.
    “Me? How? Why?”
    “I'm coming down to the particular case of Thomas Betterton. He disappeared from Paris just over two months ago. He left a wife in England. She was distracted - or said she was distracted. She swore that she had no idea why he'd gone or where or how. That may be true, or it may not. Some people - and I'm one of them - think it wasn't true.”
    Hilary leaned forward in her chair. In spite of herself she was becoming interested. Jessop went on.
    “We prepared to keep a nice, unobtrusive eye on Mrs. Betterton. About a fortnight ago she came to me and told me she had been ordered by her doctor to go abroad, take a thorough rest and get some distraction. She was doing no good in England, and people were continually bothering her - newspaper reporters, relations, kind friends.”
    Hilary said drily: “I can imagine it.”
    “Yes, tough. Quite natural she would want to get away for a bit.”
    “Quite natural, I should think.”
    “But we've got nasty, suspicious minds in our department, you know. We arranged to keep tabs on Mrs. Betterton. Yesterday she left England as arranged, for Casablanca.”
    “Casablanca?”
    “Yes - en route to other places in Morocco, of course. All quite open and above board, plans made, bookings ahead. But it may be that this trip to Morocco is where Mrs. Betterton steps off into the unknown.”
    Hilary shrugged her shoulders.
    “I don't see where I come into all this.”
    Jessop smiled.
    “You come into it because you've got a very magnificent head of red hair, Mrs. Craven.”
    “Hair?”
    “Yes. It's the most noticeable thing about Mrs. Betterton - her hair. You've heard, perhaps, that the plane before yours today crashed on landing.”
    “I know. I should have been on that plane. I actually had reservations for it.”
    “Interesting,” said Jessop. “Well, Mrs. Betterton was on that plane. She wasn't killed. She was taken out of the wreckage still alive, and she is in hospital now. But according to the doctor, she won't be alive tomorrow morning.”
    A faint glimmer of light came to Hilary. She looked at him enquiringly.
    “Yes,” said Jessop, “perhaps now you see the form of suicide I'm offering you. I'm suggesting that Mrs. Betterton goes on with her journey. I'm suggesting that you should become Mrs. Betterton.”
    “But surely,” said Hilary, “that would be quite impossible. I mean, they'd know at once she wasn't me.”
    Jessop put his head on one side.
    “That, of course, depends entirely on who you mean by 'they.' It's a very