Destination Unknown by Agatha Christie Page B

when you arrive. When you arrive! That's a good laugh, isn't it? Look! Look there now! Up she goes.”
    They had been driving rapidly away across the desert, and now as Hilary craned forward to look through the little window, she saw a great glow behind them. A faint sound of an explosion came to her ears. Peters threw his head back and laughed. He said:
    “Six people die when plane to Marrakesh crashes!”
    Hilary said almost under her breath:
    “It's - it's rather frightening.”
    “Stepping off into the unknown?” It was Peters who spoke. He was serious enough now. “Yes, but it's the only way. We're leaving the Past and stepping out towards the Future.” His face lit up with sudden enthusiasm. “We've got to get quit of all the bad, mad old stuff. Corrupt governments and the warmongers. We've got to go into the new world - the world of science, clean away from the scum and the driftwood.”
    Hilary drew a deep breath.
    “That's like the things my husband used to say,” she said, deliberately.
    “Your husband?” He shot her a quick glance. “Why, was he Tom Betterton?”
    Hilary nodded.
    “Well that's great. I never knew him out in the States, though I nearly met him more than once. ZE Fission is one of the most brilliant discoveries of this age - yes, I certainly take my hat off to him. Worked with old Mannheim, didn't he?”
    “Yes,” said Hilary.
    “Didn't they tell me he'd married Mannheim's daughter. But surely you're not -”
    “I'm his second wife,” said Hilary, flushing a little. “He - his - Elsa died in America.”
    “I remember. Then he went to Britain to work there. Then he riled them by disappearing.” He laughed suddenly. “Walked slap out of some Paris Conference into nowhere.” He added, as though in further appreciation, “Lord, you can't say they don't organise well.”
    Hilary agreed with him. The excellence of their organisation was sending a cold pang of apprehension through her. All the plans, codes, signs that had been so elaborately arranged were going to be useless now, for now there would be no trail to pick up. Things had been so arranged that everyone on the fatal plane had been fellow travellers bound for the Unknown Destination where Thomas Betterton had gone before them. There would be no trace left. Nothing. Nothing but a burnt-out plane. Could they - was it possible that Jessop and his organisation could guess that she, Hilary, was not one of those charred bodies? She doubted it. The accident had been so convincing, so clever - there would even be charred bodies in the plane.
    Peters spoke again. His voice was boyish with enthusiasm. For him there were no qualms, no looking back, only eagerness to go forward.
    “I wonder,” he said, “where do we go from here?”
    Hilary, too, wondered, because again much depended on that. Sooner or later there must be contacts with humanity. Sooner or later, if investigation was made, the fact that a station wagon with six people in it resembling the description of those who had left that morning by plane, might possibly be noted by someone. She turned to Mrs. Baker, and asked, trying to make her tone the counterpart of the childish eagerness of the young American beside her,
    “Where are we going - what happens next?”
    “You'll see,” said Mrs. Baker, and for all the pleasantness of her voice, there was something somehow ominous in those words.
    They drove on. Behind them the flare of the plane still showed in the sky, showed all the more clearly because the sun was now dropping below the horizon. Night fell. Still they drove. The going was bad since they were obviously not on any main road. Sometimes they seemed to be on field tracks, at other times they drove over open country.
    For a long time Hilary remained awake, thoughts and apprehensions turning round in her head excitedly. But at last, shaken and tossed from side to side, exhaustion had its way and she fell asleep. It was a broken sleep. Various ruts and jars in