No—he had made no mistake, Sir Denis was in that strange old house hidden in the heart of the Oriental city.
Why?
Getting back at last, hot, tired and dusty, he paused in the lobby of the hotel, to talk to the all-knowing hall-porter. He had consulted him on many matters and tipped him liberally. He described his unpleasant experience with the rioters.
The uniformed Egyptian smiled.
“You should take a good dragoman with you, sir. He would see to it that you avoided such things.”
“Very likely,” Brian agree. “Maybe I’m too independent. But perhaps you can tell me something. I got lost, and wandered on into another quarter, ‘way beyond the Khan Khalil. It wasn’t far from a city gate—and there was a mosque.”
“There are many!”
“It was near a street where they sold cotton goods, pottery and that sort of thing.”
“The Ghuriyeh! But I understand, sir.”
“Well, in a narrow street leading to what you call the Ghuriyeh there’s a fine old mansion with a high wall around it. Most unlikely spot for such a house. There’s a courtyard, and——”
“I know what you have seen, sir. It is the house of the Sherif
Mohammed Ibn el-Ashraf.”
“And who is he?”
“A very holy man, sir. A descendant of the Prophet—and the greatest physician in Cairo… .”
Brian was more hopelessly mystified than ever. What possible connection could there be between Sir Denis and the Sherif Mohammed?
He called Mr Ahmad’s number, but failed to get a reply.
What to do next was the problem. But the more he thought about it the more completely it baffled him …
*
He went into the cocktail bar fairly early in the evening, and saw that he had it to himself. He had made several further attempts to call Mr.
Ahmad, but could get no reply. He ordered Scotch-on-the-rocks and sat there sipping his drink and feeling very puzzled and very lonely.
It was a perfect night, a half-moon sailing in a jewelled sky, and he would have liked to go somewhere, do something; get away from himself.
He smoked two cigarettes and then ordered another drink. He had made up his mind to take it out on to the terrace. When the bartender served it, Brian picked up the glass, slipped down from the high stool and turned to go.
How it happened he could never quite make out. He had heard no sound, had no idea anybody was there. But a girl wearing a strapless gown which displayed her creamy arms and shoulders had apparently been standing just behind him.
She raised her hand too late. He had spilled most of the whisky (and some of the ice) all over her!
She stifled a squeal. Reproachful eyes were raised to him. Brian grew hot all over. He called to the bartender: “Quick! A napkin or something!”
A napkin was produced. The girl took it from his hand, looking aside, and began to try to dry her frock and her bare shoulders.
“What can I say?” he fumbled. “Of course I shall replace your dress, which is ruined. But there’s no excuse for my clumsiness!”
She glanced at him. “You are right about my dress.” She had a quaint, fascinating accent. “But truly I think I was to blame. I was looking for someone, and how could you know I was right behind you.”
“ I should have known! I shall never forgive myself, but say that you forgive me. You must let me drive you to wherever you live, so that you can change.” He detected the dawning of a smile stealing across her face. “Then, as I guess you have a dinner date, just allow me to see you
tomorrow and fix up everything for a new dress.”
“I live in this hotel. I arrive only today. I can go to my room and change my dress. It will clean quite well. But it is very sweet of you to offer to buy another.”
“That isn’t an offer. It’s a promise!”
She really smiled now. And Brian realized with a sort of shock that she was a very pretty girl indeed.
“Perhaps I won’t hold you to it.” She spoke softly. “It would not be fair.”
“We’ll leave that for the moment. Maybe, when you’re changed, you’ll find time to have a cocktail with me before you go?”
“Thank you. I am going nowhere. I meant to dine here, in the hotel.”
“Then you’ll dine with me?”
“Yes—if you really want it so.”
When she had gone, Brian had his glass refilled.
“Do you know that lady’s name?” he asked the Egyptian barman.
“No, sir. I never see her before.” He displayed rows of perfect white teeth. “She is a beautiful young lady.”
Brian sipped his whisky; lighted another cigarette. He was trying to figure out why her wonderful eyes seemed to awaken a memory.
She returned much sooner than he had expected. She wore, now, a green dress which sheathed her lithe figure to the hips like a second skin… .
They dined in the terrace of an hotel overlooking the Nile. Brian’s friend said her name was Zoe Montero, that her family lived in Spanish Morocco. She was on a visit to an aunt and uncle who had a business in Luxor but who had arranged to meet her in Cairo. She had just received a message to say that her aunt had been taken ill and so they were detained.
“I shall know tomorrow if they can come or if they want me to go up to Luxor,” she told Brian.
They danced in the moonlight, and the dark beauty of his graceful partner stirred Brian’s pulses dangerously. He had decided that she was partly of Arab blood. Zoe’s voice, her quaint accent, her natural gaiety, fascinated him. Sometimes, when he looked into her eyes, that dormant memory awoke. He tried to grab it—and it was gone.
But he enjoyed the evening. There was no word from Lola… .
*
It was quite early next morning when Mr. Ahmad called and found Brian having a smoke on the terrace.
“I have good news,” he announced. “Sir Denis expects to reach Cairo
late this afternoon.”
Mr. Ahmad turned at that moment to bow to a passing acquaintance, or he could hardly have failed to note Brian’s change of expression. All his suspicions had been justified. He had become enmeshed in a cunning plot, a most mysterious plot. If Lola had any part in it he couldn’t be sure. But Peter Wellingham was one of the conspirators—and Mr. Ahmad was another! He was no diplomat and he spoke impetuously: “But I saw Sir Denis right here in Cairo yesterday.”
The effect of those few words upon Mr. Ahmad was miraculous. He changed colour alarmingly, clutched at the edge of the table and stared like a man who has been struck a body blow.
“You saw … him … in Cairo …”
Words failed Mr. Ahmad, and Brian could have kicked himself; knew he had played the fool. He had had the game in his hands and had thrown his chance away. If, as he now had fresh reason to believe, Wellingham and Ahmad were conspiring against Nayland Smith, were no more than spies of the enemy (whoever the enemy might be), he could perhaps have exposed their game by the use of a little tact.
Brian wondered if he had left it too late. He could try.
“Yes.” He spoke easily. “Coming back here last night with a friend, our taxi passed a smart English sports car. (I think it was a Jaguar.) There were two men in it. And one of them was Sir Denis.”
Mr. Ahmad moistened his lips with his tongue.
“Where was this?”
“I asked the driver as it happens, and he told me we had just passed the British Consulate.”
“The British Consulate,” Mr. Ahmad echoed mechanically, his expression ghastly. “You alarm me, Mr. Merrick. I must make immediate inquiries. Sir Denis’s mission is a vital and a dangerous one. He has powerful enemies. It is possible that he has returned secretly for some reason of his own.”
He left soon afterwards, a man badly confused; and Brian settled down to try to puzzle out the truth. Mr. Ahmad had behaved like a crook unmasked, but on the other hand there could be a different explanation.
If Ahmad was on the level, he had done the wrong thing …
*
Dr. Fu Manchu was writing at a large desk of Arab manufacture, most cunningly inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl and semi-precious stones. It was loaded with books, racks of test tubes, manuscripts and certain queer objects not easy to define. Peko, the tiny marmoset, a companion of Fu
Manchu’s travels, crouched on the doctor’s shoulder, beady eyes moving from point to point restlessly.
There was a faint buzzing. A voice spoke.
“Abdul Ahmad is here.”
“I will see him.”
Dr. Fu Manchu continued to make notes in small, neat characters in the margin of a bulky, faded volume until a door opened and Mr. Ahmad came in. He bowed obsequiously, then stood still. Fu Manchu glanced up.
“Yes? You wish to report something?”
“Excellency!” Ahmad stammered. “It is that Brian Merrick claims to have seen Nayland Smith last night!”
Dr. Fu Manchu closed the large volume and fixed a glance upon Mr.
Ahmad which seemed to freeze that gentleman to the floor.
“Tell me what he said, exactly—exactly—and also what you said.”
Mr. Ahmad evidently had a phenomenal memory, for he repeated the conversation practically word for word under the barely endurable gaze of those strange green eyes.
Dr. Fu Manchu looked down at the emerald signet ring he wore and there was silence. The marmoset broke this silence by uttering one of his whistling cries and leaping to the top of a tall cabinet behind the Chinese doctor, where he sat chattering wickedly at Mr. Ahmad. Fu Manchu spoke.
“Merrick is lying for some reason of his own. There has been bungling. He suspects something. He did not see Nayland Smith where he claims to have seen him. But he may have seen him—elsewhere. This we must learn. Vast issues are at stake. Order Zobeida to report to me, here, immediately.”
Mr. Ahmad went out, and shortly afterwards Zobeida came in. Brian would have recognized Zobeida as Zoe Montero …
*
The memory which had been dodging Brian like a will-o’-the-wisp, came out into the open that evening. He was waiting on the hotel terrace for Zoe. He stood up when he saw her coming. Dusk had fallen and she moved gracefully through shadows, into the light of the moon, and out again. Once, when she was quite near, in shadow, a stray moonbeam touched her, briefly, lighted up her eyes.
And he knew where he had seen those beautiful eyes before . . . She had been in the shop of old Achmed es-Salah, wearing native dress and veiling her face! She had followed him when he left!
He was entangled in an invisible web! Every move he made was
covered. Someone who had known he was going to Achmed’s shop had planted the girl there. She was infernally clever, too. That trick in the cocktail bar had been done beautifully!
And he could no longer doubt that Lola also was in the plot. …
What did it all mean?
Why had no word come from Sir Denis? And why was he hiding in that old house in the native quarter?
Zoe smiled and gave him both her hands. She looked very lovely tonight.
“If I keep you waiting I am sorry, Brian. But an old friend of my father’s, an Englishman, hears I am in Cairo and calls me. He talks for so long. Yes. I am thirsty with talking. Please get me a big, cool drink.”
Brian clapped his hands for a waiter and gave the necessary orders.
“Does this old friend of yours live here in Cairo?” he ventured cautiously.
“Oh, no! He comes only yesterday and from my uncle in Luxor he finds I am here. He is very quick to find things out. He was for many years of the English police.”
“Is that right? I guess he’s here on some investigation?”
Zoe shook her head. A waiter brought two tall glasses.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me. But I know from my father that Sir Denis now belongs to the British Secret Service.”
She took a long drink; sighed contentedly. Brian tried to tell himself that her remark hadn’t stupefied him.
“What’s the rest of his name?”
“Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”
“Well I’ll be damned!” Brian breathed; and met the regard of wide-open amber eyes.
“What so much surprise you, Brian?” And even now the way she said “Brian” fascinated him. But he knew he must step warily.
“Just that I happen to know him, too.”
Zoe smiled delightedly.
“That is wonderful! And you don’t know he is here?”
“Wel!”—he spoke very slowly—”maybe he doesn’t know I’m here.”
He was doing some hard thinking. In that first startling moment of revelation, when he became suddenly convinced that Zoe and the girl in the bazaar were one and the same, which seemed to reveal this bewitching little tramp for an impostor, a spy set to watch him, he had decided what he would do. But this new development threw the whole plan out of gear.
Could he possibly have been wrong all along? Prejudiced by his dislike for Peter Wellingham, he might have jumped to the conclusion that the girl he had seen with him in Hyde Park was Lola—for he had never actually caught even a glimpse of her face. Still hag-ridden by his
suspicions, he might also have assumed, wrongly, that Zoe and the veiled lady of the bazaar were identical, for no better reason than that both had amber eyes! Amber eyes were not uncommon in the East.
Zoe’s claim that she knew Nayland Smith couldn’t very well be bogus, or she would have reacted very differently when he told her that he, too, knew Sir Denis.
Where did he stand? Had he misjudged Mr. Ahmad as well?
“You are very thoughtful,” Zoe whispered softly. “Don’t you like me tonight?”
“My dear Zoe!” They sat side by side on a cushioned cane divan. “I was so surprised that I forgot to tell you how lovely you are.”
He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. She smiled, raising pouting lips. And Brian didn’t even try to resist the sweet temptation… .
*
Dawn was not so far away when Brian finally turned in that night, and he slept late into the morning. He sent for his mail when he ordered coffee, but again there was nothing from Lola.
He was a man who once his suspicion had been aroused could never let the matter rest, but must leave no stone unturned to prove or disprove his doubts. If indeed he had become involved in a conspiracy against Nayland Smith, a conspiracy in which Wellingham, Lola, Ahmed, and Zoe were concerned, a love affair with Zoe was the best, and by far the most pleasant, way to find it out. So he argued.
And he had wasted no time.
Zoe, who, for all her youth, he suspected to be far from unsophisticated in love and the ways of lovers, had responded to the point of unconditional surrender. And it was then that Brian began to distrust himself. Never once, even while he caressed her, mingling kisses with what he believed to be artful leading questions, had she breathed one word that he wanted to hear. He had been equally reticent.
She didn’t know if she would see Nayland Smith. She hadn’t seen him since she was a child. He hadn’t told her where he was staying in Cairo.
Sir Denis had met her uncle when he was in Egypt with Sir Lionel Barton, the famous archaeologist, many years ago. Sir Lionel had been excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
And Brian remembered that Nayland Smith had spoken of this very expedition when he had visited their home in Washington!
Brian, being no roue, began to reproach himself. If Zoe was really not a conspirator sent to trap him, he was behaving rather like a cad. He must
not pretend to himself that the zeal of the investigator and not the fact that Zoe was very desirable inspired his love-making. It wouldn’t be true.
If he had known, beyond all doubt, that she was a spy of the enemy he might have scrapped his scruples. But he didn’t know.
He pondered the situation over his morning coffee and smoked a number ofAchmed es-Sala
h’s cigarettes. Then he called Mr. Ahmad’s number, but failed, as usual, to get a reply. He began to feel like a man lost in a maze.
Two things he made up his mind to do. First, he would call at the address which appeared on top of Ahmad’s letter. Second, he would return to the house hidden away in the native town, ring the bell (if there was one) and ask for Sir Denis Nayland Smith.
This prospect of even a little action cheered him while he took his bath; and going down to the dining-room he made a good, if late, breakfast.
He took a cab to the address in Sharia Abdin, which he saw to be a modern office building only a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. This made him feel a fool, and he asked the man to wait; went in. He found a list of tenants just inside the door and read all the names carefully.
But Mr. Ahmad’s was not one of them.
More mystery! Until it occurred to him that Ahmad might be a member of a firm which didn’t bear his name at all. As there seemed to be no hall porter, he stepped into the nearest office (“The Loofah Product Coy”) and found a smart young Jewess seated before a typewriter.
She greeted him with a brilliant smile. Many women greeted Brian in that way.
“Excuse me,” Brian began, “but I’m looking for someone called Mr.
Ahmad——”
The smile was wiped out. Dark eyes challenged him.
“I’m sorry. There’s no one of that name here.” It was final; a plain rebuff.
“I’m sorry, too, for troubling you. But, you see, I have a letter from him here”—he produced Ahmad’s letter—”and it has this address on it.”
The dark eyes melted a little. “There are many offices in the building.
Perhaps someone else could help you.”
“I’ll try.” He turned to go; when the girl said, more softly: “Try the Aziza Cigarette Corporation, third floor. They have been here longer than we have. They may know. But don’t say I sent you.”
Brian swung around, and met the brilliant smile again.
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