What about it?” “Well, I do not understand very well. It is an acid, they say? An acid like sulphuric acid?” “Not like sulphuric acid, no,” said Sally.
“It is not something for laboratory experiment only?” “I shouldn’t imagine they ever did any experiments in laboratories with it. It’s something quite mild and harmless.” “You mean, even, you could put it in your eyes?” “That’s right. That’s just what one uses it for.” “Ah, that explains that then. Mr. Chandra Lal, he have little white bottle with white powder, and he puts powder in hot water and bathes his eyes with it.
He keeps it in bathroom and then it is not there one day and he is very angry. That would be the bor-ac-ic, yes?” “What is all this about boracic?” “I tell you by and by. Please not now. I think some more.” “Well, don’t go sticking your neck out,” said Sally.
“I don’t want yours to be the next corpse, Akibombo.” “Valerie, do you think you could give me some advice?” “Of course I could give you advice, Jean, though I don’t know why anyone ever wants advice. They never take it.” “It’s really a matter of conscience,” said Jean.
“Then I’m the last person you ought to ask. I haven’t got any conscience to speak of.” “Oh, Valerie, don’t say things like that!” “Well, it’s quite true,” said Valerie. She stubbed out a cigarette as she spoke. “I smuggle clothes in from Paris aDd tell the most frightfullies about their faces to the hideous women who come to the salon. I even travel on buses without paying my fare when I’m hard up. But come on, tell me. What’s it all about?” “It’s what Nigel said at breakfast. If one knows something about someone else, do you think one ought to tell?” “What an idiotic question! You can’t put a thing like that in general terms. What is it you want to tell, or don’t want to tell?” “It’s about a passport.” “A passport?” Valerie sat up, surprised. “Whose passport?” “Nigel’s. He’s got a false passport.” “Nigel?” Valerie sounded disbelieving. “I don’t believe it. It seems most improbable.” “But he has. And you know, Valerie, I believe there’s some question-I think I beard the police saying that Celia had said something about a passport. Supposing she’d found out about it and he killed her?” “Sounds very melodramatic,” said Valerie.
“But frankly, I don’t believe a word of it.
What is this story about a passport?” “I saw it.” “How did you see it?” “Well, it was absolutely an accident,” said Jean. “I was looking for something in my despatch case a week or two ago, and by mistake I must have looked in Nigel’s attache case instead. They were both on the shelf in the Common Room.” Valerie laughed rather disagreeably.
“Tell that to the marines!” she said. “What were you really doing? Snooping?” “No, of course not!” Jean sounded justly indignant. “The one thing I’d never do is to look among anybody’s private papers. I’m not that sort of person. It was just that I was feeling rather absent-minded, so I opened the case and I was just sorting through it . . .” “Look here, Jean, you can’t get away with that.
Nigel’s attache case is a good deal larger than yours and it’s an entirely different colour.
While you’re admitting things you might just as well admit that you are that sort of person. All right. You found a chance to go through some of Nigel’s things and you took it.” Jean rose.
“Of course, Valerie, if you’re going to be so unpleasant and so very unfair and unkind, I shall . .
.” “Oh, come back, child!” said Valerie. “Get on with it. I’m getting interested now. I want to know.” “Well, there was this passport,” said Jean. “It was down at the bottom and it had a name on it.
Stanford or Stanley or some name like that, and I thought, “How odd that Nigel should have somebody else’s passport here.” I opened it and the photograph inside was Nigel!
So don’t you see, he must be leading a double life?
What I wonder is, ought I tell the police?