They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie Page B

women with unwashed necks, indeed! They sounded most unattractive…Still, Victoria reflected uneasily that men are less critical of dingy necks than middle-aged hygienic Englishwomen are—especially if the owners of the said necks were gazing with large eyes of admiration and adoration at the male subject in question.
    The evening passed rapidly. Victoria had an early meal in the dining room with Mrs. Hamilton Clipp, the latter talking nineteen to the dozen on every subject under the sun. She urged Victoria to come and pay a visit later—and Victoria noted down the address carefully, because, after all, one never knew…She accompanied Mrs. Clipp to Baghdad North Station, saw her safely ensconced in her compartment and was introduced to an acquaintance also travelling to Kirkuk who would assist Mrs. Clipp with her toilet on the following morning.
    The engine uttered loud melancholy screams like a soul in distress, Mrs. Clipp thrust a thick envelope into Victoria’s hand, said: “Just a little remembrance, Miss Jones, of our very pleasant companionship which I hope you will accept with my most grateful thanks.”
    Victoria said: “But it’s really too kind of you, Mrs. Clipp,” in adelighted voice, the engine gave a fourth and final supreme banshee wail of anguish and the train pulled slowly out of the station.
    Victoria took a taxi from the station back to the hotel since she had not the faintest idea how to get back to it any other way and there did not seem anyone about whom she could ask.
    On her return to the Tio, she ran up to her room and eagerly opened the envelope. Inside were a couple of pairs of nylon stockings.
    Victoria at any other moment would have been enchanted—nylon stockings having been usually beyond the reach of her purse. At the moment, however, hard cash was what she had been hoping for. Mrs. Clipp, however had been far too delicate to think of giving her a five-dinar note. Victoria wished heartily that she had not been quite so delicate.
    However, tomorrow there would be Edward. Victoria undressed, got into bed and in five minutes was fast asleep, dreaming that she was waiting at an aerodrome for Edward, but that he was held back from joining her by a spectacled girl who clasped him firmly round the neck while the aeroplane began slowly to move away….

Eleven
    V ictoria awoke to a morning of vivid sunshine. Having dressed, she went out onto the wide balcony outside her window. Sitting in a chair a little way along with his back to her was a man with curling grey hair growing down onto a muscular red brown neck. When the man turned his head sideways Victoria recognized, with a distinct feeling of surprise, Sir Rupert Crofton Lee. Why she should be so surprised she could hardly have said. Perhaps because she had assumed as a matter of course that a VIP such as Sir Rupert would have been staying at the Embassy and not at a hotel. Nevertheless there he was, staring at the Tigris with a kind of concentrated intensity. She noticed, even, that he had a pair of field glasses slung over the side of his chair. Possibly, she thought, he studied birds.
    A young man whom Victoria had at one time thought attractive had been a bird enthusiast, and she had accompanied him onseveral weekend tramps, to be made to stand as though paralysed in wet woods and icy winds, for what seemed like hours, to be at last told in tones of ecstasy to look through the glasses at some drab-looking bird on a remote twig which in appearance as far as Victoria could see, compared unfavourably in bird appeal with a common robin or chaffinch.
    Victoria made her way downstairs, encountering Marcus Tio on the terrace between the two buildings of the hotel.
    â€œI see you’ve got Sir Rupert Crofton Lee staying here,” she said.
    â€œOh yes,” said Marcus, beaming, “he is a nice man—a very nice man.”
    â€œDo you know him well?”
    â€œNo, this is the first time I