Passenger to Frankfurt

‘Does it matter?’

‘Not to me.’

‘You can believe me if you wish to believe me. I am speaking the truth. I want help. Help to get to London safely.’

‘And why should you select me to help you?’

‘Because I think that you know something about death. You have known of death, perhaps seen death happen.’

He looked sharply at her and then away again.

‘Any other reason?’ he said.

‘Yes. This.’ She stretched out her narrow olive-skinned hand and touched the folds of the voluminous cloak. ‘This,’ she said.

For the first time his interest was aroused.

‘Now what do you mean by that?’

‘It’s unusual—characteristic. It’s not what everyone wears.’

‘True enough. It’s one of my affectations, shall we say?’

‘It’s an affectation that could be useful to me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I am asking you something. Probably you will refuse but you might not refuse because I think you are a man who is ready to take risks. Just as I am a woman who takes risks.’

‘I’ll listen to your project,’ he said, with a faint smile.

‘I want your cloak to wear. I want your passport. I want your boarding ticket for the plane. Presently, in twenty minutes or so, say, the flight for London will be called. I shall have your passport, I shall wear your cloak. And so I shall travel to London and arrive safely.’

‘You mean you’ll pass yourself off as me? My dear girl.’

She opened a handbag. From it she took a small square mirror.

‘Look there,’ she said. ‘Look at me and then look at your own face.’

He saw then, saw what had been vaguely nagging at his mind. His sister, Pamela, who had died about twenty years ago. They had always been very alike, he and Pamela. A strong family resemblance. She had had a slightly masculine type of face. His face, perhaps, had been, certainly in early life, of a slightly effeminate type. They had both had the high-bridged nose, the tilt of eyebrows, the slightly sideways smile of the lips. Pamela had been tall, five foot eight, he himself five foot ten. He looked at the woman who had tendered him the mirror.

‘There is a facial likeness between us, that’s what you mean, isn’t it? But my dear girl, it wouldn’t deceive anyone who knew me or knew you.’

‘Of course it wouldn’t. Don’t you understand? It doesn’t need to. I am travelling wearing slacks. You have been travelling with the hood of your cloak drawn up round your face. All I have to do is to cut off my hair, wrap it up in a twist of newspaper, throw it in one of the litter-baskets here. Then I put on your burnous, I have your boarding card, ticket, and passport. Unless there is someone who knows you well on this plane, and I presume there is not or they would have spoken to you already, then I can safely travel as you. Showing your passport when it’s necessary, keeping the burnous and cloak drawn up so that my nose and eyes and mouth are about all that are seen. I can walk out safely when the plane reaches its destination because no one will know I have travelled by it. Walk out safely and disappear into the crowds of the city of London.’

‘And what do I do?’ asked Sir Stafford, with a slight smile.

‘I can make a suggestion if you have the nerve to face it.’

‘Suggest,’ he said. ‘I always like to hear suggestions.’

‘You get up from here, you go away and buy a magazine or a newspaper, or a gift at the gift counter. You leave your cloak hanging here on the seat. When you come back with whatever it is, you sit down somewhere else—say at the end of that bench opposite here. There will be a glass in front of you, this glass still. In it there will be something that will send you to sleep. Sleep in a quiet corner.’

‘What happens next?’

‘You will have been presumably the victim of a robbery,’ she said. ‘Somebody will have added a few knock-out drops to your drink, and will have stolen your wallet from you. Something of that kind. You declare your identity, say that your passport and things are stolen. You can easily establish your identity.’

‘You know who I am? My name, I mean?’

‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen your passport yet. I’ve no idea who you are.’

‘And yet you say I can establish my identity easily.’

‘I am a good judge of people. I know who is important or who isn’t. You are an important person.’

‘And why should I do all this?’

‘Perhaps to save the life of a fellow human being.’

‘Isn’t that rather a highly coloured story?’

‘Oh yes. Quite easily not believed. Do you believe it?’

He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You know what you’re talking like? A beautiful spy in a thriller.’

‘Yes, perhaps. But I am not beautiful.’

‘And you’re not a spy?’

‘I might be so described, perhaps. I have certain information. Information I want to preserve. You will have to take my word for it, it is information that would be valuable to your country.’

‘Don’t you think you’re being rather absurd?’

‘Yes I do. If this was written down it would look absurd. But so many absurd things are true, aren’t they?’

He looked at her again. She was very like Pamela. Her voice, although foreign in intonation, was like Pamela’s. What she proposed was ridiculous, absurd, quite impossible, and probably dangerous. Dangerous to him. Unfortunately, though, that was what attracted him. To have the nerve to suggest such a thing to him! What would come of it all? It would be interesting, certainly, to find out.

‘What do I get out of it?’ he said. ‘That’s what I’d like to know.’

She looked at him consideringly. ‘Diversion,’ she said. ‘Something out of the everyday happenings? An antidote to boredom, perhaps. We’ve not got very long. It’s up to you.’

‘And what happens to your passport? Do I have to buy myself a wig, if they sell such a thing, at the counter? Do I have to impersonate a female?’

‘No. There’s no question of exchanging places. You have been robbed and drugged but you remain yourself. Make up your mind. There isn’t long. Time is passing very quickly. I have to do my own transformation.’

‘You win,’ he said. ‘One mustn’t refuse the unusual, if it is offered to one.’

‘I hoped you might feel that way, but it was a toss-up.’