Death of an Effendi
Page 18
He waited. Tobin merely turned his head away.
‘Did he know that you were searching for share certificates?’
‘Share certificates?’ said Fuad.
‘Yes, Prince, yours among them. And other things, too. Title deeds to land, that sort of thing. The Kfouris wanted to get hold of them, you see. It was part of their battle with Tvardovsky. But I don’t think the Consul knew that. I think he thought it was something to do with Strakhov. Okhrana business.’
‘Okhrana?’ said Natasha, stirring.
Owen turned to her.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Tobin worked for both. I don’t think the Consul knew that, either. He knew that Tobin worked for the Okhrana but he didn’t know he also worked, privately, for the Kfouris. I don’t think he’ll be too pleased about that.’
‘I’ll take my chance,’ said Tobin.
‘And what about your raid on Irena Kundasova’s house in the Fayoum? Was that done in your capacity as Okhrana agent? Or were you working for the Kfouris then?’
‘He raided Irena?’ said Natasha.
‘We needed the certificates,’ said Tobin. ‘We thought that Tvardovsky might have left them with her.’
‘That was your role, wasn’t it?’ said Owen. ‘Tracking down the certificates and getting hold of them. Not work the others could do. Unlike Tvardovsky’s killing. But even there you supplied the information.’
‘Okhrana swine!’ said Natasha.
Tobin looked away.
‘In fact, I suspect there’ll be quite a lot of things your Consul doesn’t know. And when he finds out about them, I don’t think he’s going to be very happy. Or your government, either.’
‘Why are you saying this?’
‘They might leave you on your own.’
Tobin was silent for quite some time. Then he said:
‘So?’
‘I thought we might do a deal.’
‘What kind of deal?’
‘You’re not going to let this bastard go!’ said Natasha incredulously.
‘From you, a signed statement about your dealings with the Kfouris.’
‘And from you?’
‘A guarantee that we will not make any difficulties about any application for your case to be heard in the Consular Courts.’
Tobin laughed.
‘That all?’ He heaved himself round so that he was facing Owen. ‘You don’t have any choice,’ he said. ‘I know my rights; and I know you can’t touch me.’
***
‘Can’t touch him?’ said Prince Fuad indignantly. ‘What is all this?’
‘I’m afraid it’s true, Prince. He’s got the law on his side.’
‘Law?’ said Prince Fuad. ‘Who makes the law around here? I do.’
‘That certainly used to be true, Prince, but these days there are all sorts of restrictions. The Capitulations—’
‘Capitulations?’ said the Prince. ‘Thought they were to do with money?’
‘Well, they are, Prince. But—’
‘You go to the bank and ask for a loan, and they put conditions on it. Ask for a palace or two as security. Nothing wrong with that. That’s the way it always has been and always will be. But what’s that got to do with this chap?’
‘Well, one thing leads to another, Prince, and the way things have ended up, foreigners have acquired certain privileges—’
‘You mean, you can’t touch them?’
‘I’m afraid that’s right, Prince.’
‘Dammit,’ said the Prince, ‘whose country is it? Mine or theirs?’
‘Well, Prince, I’m afraid that these days—’
***
The doctor arrived at last and with him the Mudir. Owen took the Mudir across to show him the bodies.
‘Two!’ said the Mudir.
‘That’s right,’ said Prince Fuad. ‘Got them both.’
The Mudir looked at him hesitantly.
‘Accident?’ he suggested tentatively.
‘No accident about it!’ said the Prince indignantly. ‘Just damned good shooting!’
‘Yes, Your Excellency,’ said the Mudir humbly. ‘Of course, Your Excellency!’
He looked a little worried, however.
‘Excellency—’
‘Yes?’
‘What shall I put in my report?’
‘Put what you damned well like!’
Owen intervened.
‘There’s no need for you to say anything. I’ll handle this.’
‘Thank you, Effendi!’ said the Mudir, grateful and relieved. Then, spirits reviving rapidly. ‘Of course, Effendi! What need is there to say anything? Such trash as this! Pooh! What is a mere fellah here or there? To one such as His Excellency? Quite right, Effendi! Best to forget all about it.’
His eye fell on Tobin.
‘Another!’
He reeled.
‘And an effendi, too!’
He looked more closely.
‘A foreign effendi! Excellency—’
‘Well?’ said Prince Fuad.
The Mudir swallowed.
‘Accident?’ he said feebly. ‘Another one?’
‘Accident?’ said Prince Fuad thoughtfully, looking at Tobin. ‘No. Not yet.’
***
‘Here,’ said Tobin, looking first at Fuad and then at Natasha, whose eyes had never left him, ‘you’re not going to leave me with those two!’
‘No,’ said Owen regretfully. ‘But someone will have to take charge of you while we go after the Kfouris.’
‘What was that you said about a statement?’ said Tobin.
***
The statement was useful later in securing a conviction for the Kfouris. To their indignation—even when supplemented by a host of details which, in their fury, they were only too ready to supply—it did not secure as much for Tobin. This was because he elected to go, as Owen and Mahmoud had supposed, for trial in a Consular Court. The case was heard in Odessa; or would have been heard had it not been transferred to Sebastopol; whereupon it was transferred—And the last Owen heard was that it was being transferred still.
There was, however, some relief for Mahmoud over the Capitulations. The appeal in the De Vries and Boutigny case was not sustained; and this success turned out to herald the end of the entire system.
***
‘A quiet weekend in the Fayoum?’ said the Financial Adviser, sipping his whisky, a few days after their return to Cairo.
‘Actually, it wasn’t so quiet,’ Owen objected mildly.
After Tobin had handed him his statement, he and Mahmoud had gone immediately to call on the Kfouris. They had found them just on the brink of departing. Depart, later, they did, but in handcuffs and accompanied by Mahmoud and the Mudir, and bound for a jail in Cairo; but what this meant was that by the time Owen got back to the hotel, it was well into the evening and he was saved from Zeinab’s wrath only by Savinkov hurriedly inviting them to join him in a late but splendid supper.
Even this had not been plain sailing, for the company had naturally included Natasha. Fortunately, it had also included Prince Fuad. The Prince was much taken by Natasha (‘You’ve got to allow for the reeds, Owen: another two inches and she’d have got him bang through the middle. I call that very respectable.’) and the compliments he paid her, each of which, Zeinab fondly imagined, was like a dagger through Owen’s heart, had brightened her mood considerably.
Her cheerfulness was further increased the next day when they went to lunch at Irena Kundasova’s and she found that there really was an eighty-year-old lady. Moreover, reminded by Natasha’s affection for her of the mother that she herself had somehow mislaid on her passage through life, she was unaccountably touched; and she and Natasha ended up by exchanging tearful embraces on the platform at Medinet.
Medinet itself, however, had fallen short of her expectations. Venice it was not. Here, though, the prospect of improvement happily unveiled itself, for Savinkov, who had a place in the real Venice, invited them to join him there.
At once, though, to Zeinab’s fury, the prospect was dashed by Owen remarking, somewhat huffily in Zeinab’s opinion, that a British government official could not accept favours. If that was so, Zeinab inquired, what was the point of being an official?
She had gone on, in the train on their way back to Cairo, to link this to the general state of his finances. When, she had asked, would he be in a position to support her in the style of life to which she would like to be accustomed? And if, as seemed more than likely given government levels of pay, the answer was, ‘Never’, what was he going to do about it?
Owen, considering how he might reply, found himself plunging for a moment into a world of Tvardovskean financial chimera, a world in which, while the distant horizon was bright and clear, the ground between was dark and obscure.
It was at times like this that one needed advice. Prince Fuad had been right; what he needed was a sympathetic banker. But the sympathetic banker, alas, was dead, as they always are, and he knew that if he went to the ordinary sort, to Jarvis, say, he would be fobbed off with some remark about a formula; and he, sadly, had no palaces to offer.
The thought came to him that there was a difference between low finance and high finance. In the world of low finance you couldn’t get away with anything. In the world of high finance you could—sometimes—get away with murder.
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