by Sax Rohmer
The youth with a rose in his mouth was Raschid Azem's jackal. In some way the Negress had aroused his suspicion. He had followed those to whom she had talked at the Marwan fountain. The Armenian had been seized with a message in his possession. Later, Madden had suffered a similar fate. And, visualizing one of these messages, the bimbashi experienced a new thrill of admiration for the genius of A 14. They were designed to convey just such an impression—that they were love letters.
Written in Arabic—which is read from right to left—they invariably opened with the phrase, “O my beloved.” Poetic, rapturous, at times they became slightly incomprehensible, for the good reason that, read fromleft to right, discarding alternate words and selecting only certain letters of those which remained, they embodied reports of inestimable value to His Majesty's Government! On what charges the Armenian and Madden had been detained did not matter. Evidently Raschid Azem did as he liked in his own neighborhood. What did matter was that they were not suspected of espionage, and so at the worst would suffer but light sentences.
Bimbashi Baruk fondled his ear speculatively. “Good old Pop,” he muttered.
THE WELL OF SEVEN PALMS was half a mile from the nearest road. It stood in the midst of acres of poppies and enshrined the tomb of a Moslem saint—a cracked and time-stained dome touched by moon magic to the semblance of a gigantic egg on a scarlet tablecloth. In a grove beside it there was a spring. Some distance away, on a mound, one saw an extensive walled property, in part of great age, overlooking the small town to el-Kasr. The town, and rich lands for miles around it, belonged to the Sheikh Ismail ed-Din.
Now, Bimbashi Baruk, who could stalk like a stoat and whose sense of hearing was keen as that of a desert fox, had been lying concealed at the well since shortly after dusk. His coat of many colors and dark green turban merged perfectly with the floral carpet. A punishing wind from the Lebanon Mountains had sprung up, and it pleased him to listen to the complaints of a party which had arrived more recently. Its members were hidden in the shadows of the palm grove.
“I am frozen to the liver.” The reedy voice was that of the porter. “I shall be very ill. I do not believe that the murderous fakir has any connection with this affair.”
“But I tell you, O bag of lard, that I saw him with the Negress.” The poet spoke. “He eluded me while my hurts were being dressed, but I am sure he will come tonight. Our Lord Raschid Azem must be convinced that the woman is a wanton.”
“Otherwise”—the third speaker, Bimbashi Baruk decided, was a secretary—“you will be compelled to work for your living, Ahmed. No wife of delicacy and refinement would tolerate you about the house.”
An angry snarl was the poet's only reply. An interval of some minutes followed.
“I cannot understand,” said the fat porter, whose teeth were chattering, “why we have not seized this old witch who brings the love messages. From her we might learn who sends them, since the men refuse to speak.”
“Since she comes from the direction of Ismail ed-Din's house,” the secretary replied, “we might also learn what the jail at el-Kasr is like. No, the woman must not be molested.”
“She might be followed, master.”
“Who, unseen, could follow her across a poppy field in bright moonlight?”
(“Icould,” the bimbashi said to himself; “in fact, I am going to do so.”)
“And stop thy teeth chattering,” snarled Ahmed.
So A 14 employed a woman in this vitally important matter, the bimbashi reflected. He considered the point long and deeply. He was still considering it, noting that the wind had dropped, when a low hiss from the palm grove prompted him to raise his head slightly. No sound disturbed the silence, save that of the porter's teeth. A figure approached through the poppies; the figure of a woman enveloped from head to foot in a black voluminous garment. Bimbashi Baruk, who had been watching the moon, knew that three hours had elapsed since sunset.
The woman drew nearer slowly, stooping, and sometimes turning to look behind her. Clearly, she feared no danger at the well, but only from el-Kasr. Skirting the group of trees, she walked to the ancient shrine and seated herself on a stone bench beside the door overgrown by wild flowering vines. Stillness reigned unbroken. The bimbashi wondered if the poet had removed the porter's teeth. Some night-scented plant among the poppies perfumed the air.
For half an hour the shapeless figure remained, a bundle of blackness among the shadows; then, the woman stood up and walked away in the direction from which she had come. Moving slowly as before, but now glancing back at the well from time to time, as if in doubt, she crossed the red carpet spread before el-Kasr, mounted a winding path, and paused before a door set in a high wall. She had just turned the key when a dimly visible figure confronted her.
“There are fourteen reasons,” said a voice which spoke in English, “why I should come in.”
By lamplight the studio in the kiosk was mysteriously charming. On an easel rested a delicate water-color composition—a flower subject. Fragments of intricate inlay, fretsaws, tiny chisels and little brass trays holding pieces of jade, lapis and other semiprecious stones, were strewn on a wide table. There was a bookcase filled with volumes, many in Arabic MS. and some that were very rare. The owner of this kiosk, the bimbashi decided, loved old Arabic script (perhaps the most beautiful in the world) and had some good examples on the shelves.
Having locked the door, the messenger discarded her vast black garment, disclosing the pale face and slender figure of a girl dressed in white overalls. Her beautiful eyes studied the ragged visitor unfalteringly.
“Please tell me who you are.” She spoke perfect English. “You frightened me dreadfully.”
Bimbashi Baruk was staring, amazed.
“Naturally,” he replied, “I cannot expect you to recognize me, nor indeed to remember me.” But Yasmina's heart was beginning to act like a captive hare. “I have never forgottenyou since the day I saw you in an old omnibus in Beirut.”
Smiling, he clicked his heels together and raised his hand to the green turban in salute.
Some little time elapsed before Pool-o'-the-Moon grew sufficiently composed to relate the strange story of the cedarwood cupboard; for it was this cupboard in her apartment overlooking the kiosk which had brought A 14 into existence. While selecting a dress one day, more than a year before, she had been surprised to hear the voice of Raschid Azem raised in anger in the adjoining room—her father's office.
“I tell you, Ismail ed-Din, that you are mad! The British are defeated. Colonel Roden-Pyne, their Cairo Director of Intelligence, has been outwitted at every move by Dr. Rosener. They are finished. The French we control. In two months, in a month, I shall be Reich Governor of Lebanon! You must compel Yasmina to consent to an immediate marriage. Otherwise I shall begin to wonder. I have means of information, and there are rumors—”
At an angry word from Ismail ed-Din, Raschid Azem had abated his tones, and Yasmina had heard no more. Ismail ed-Din was away from home the next day. A delicate operation with the tools Yasmina handled so skillfully soon removed a square piece of cedarwood and revealed thin paneling—all that remained between the wardrobe and her father's office.
On his return, Ismail ed-Din had to thank his daughter for a framed flower study painted on silk which she had screwed to the wall immediately above his chair. She omitted reference to the fact that she had removed the panel behind it. But Yasmina had to remember to hang a heavy garment at the back of her cupboard and to keep the door closed.
A week later, Aida, her confidential companion, obtained permission to visit a sister in Cairo, and Colonel Roden-Pyne received a letter which surprised him. It contained particulars of an ingenious Arabic code, together with an offer to supply accurate information from time to time relating to Nazi plans for the future of Turkey, Irak, Syria and Palestine. “Get in touch with Fatimah, a Negro woman who sells vegetables in the Damascus market and make arrangements for letters to be exchanged.” The writer's signature c
onsisted of an Arabic A written fourteen times.
Fatimah, formerly Yasmina's nurse, had married a worthy man of her own complexion owning a small market garden in the fertile area of the Ghutah. The colonel's arrangements involved Abu Hassan (already in British employ); and from the day that A 14 was incorporated in the underground system, Colonel Roden-Pyne had had good reason to congratulate himself upon taking the chance. In his anxiety to impress Ismail ed-Din, Raschid Azem frequently confided to the Sheikh details of brilliant intrigues which he assisted Dr. Rosener to carry out.
“But the cipher, Yasmina—did you invent it?”
“No, I am not clever enough.”
“That I dispute.”
Yasmina took a faded volume from her bookshelf. It dealt with alchemy, a subject of which she knew nothing; but in studying the text, which was in classical Cufic exquisitely penned, she had discovered the hidden cipher: a method by means of which some of the old alchemists had buried in their writings, for the benefit of brother adepts, the secret of transmuting metals.
“Pool-o'-the-Moon,” said Bimbashi Baruk, “you are strangely and beautifully wonderful.”
COLONEL RODEN-PYNE was called up on the private line from Haifa. “Is that Major Baruk?”
“Baruk here, sir. There's a man named Raschid Azem—do you know him?”
“Of course I know him, B.B. But what's happened?”
“Well—what do you knowabout him?”
“About him? Big businessman. Has interests all over the place. Nazi tendencies, but nothing against him. Why?”
“He's visiting Alexandria next week.”
“What about it?”
“Well—make his stay as pleasant, and as long as you can.”
“Why?”
“He's the lad you call Z.”
“What!”
“Positive fact. Rig up any charge you like, but hold him. I have this direct from A 14.”
Now, the annoying evasions to which Colonel Roden-Pyne had resorted with the bimbashi touching the identity of that invaluable agent had merely masked ignorance; for this was something which Colonel Roden-Pyne had never succeeded in finding out.
“Did you see A 14?”
“Yes.”
“In person?” The colonel was hard hit, but he concealed the fact.
“Did he give you the missing report?” he asked.
“Yes. That was it: Hold Raschid Azem.”
“What's become of Madden and the Armenian?”
“In jail.”
“What! Where?”
“At Raschid Azem's house: They are not suspected. There is no serious charge against them.”
“But—I mean, good heavens! How is—er, A 14? Is he well?”
“He flourishes like the bay tree.He grows wiser and more beautiful day by day. He is one of the most wonderful creatures God ever created.”
Colonel Roden-Pyne cleared his throat horsily.
“I agree,” he said. “Report back to headquarters at once.”
3. Murder Strikes in Lychgate
IT WAS DURING the first uneasy lull in Libya that Bimbashi Baruk found himself back in England, not, this time, on sick leave, but charged with a somewhat unusual mission—of which more later. His uneasy spirit was forever leading him into dark places, and this fact is illustrated well by the strange affair at Lychgate. Indeed, those mysterious circumstances which attended the death of Major de Maura might never have been explained, nor the true story of why the White Hart on Lychgate Heath became so uncomfortably crowded one night in September never have been told, if two men who had nothing to do with the matter had not chanced to meet there.
On the night in question, a man who wore a rough tweed suit and carried an ash stick, made his way into the bar. He was deeply tanned and his rather sleepy eyes looked almost startlingly blue in their dark setting. Immediately inside the door he paused for a moment, surprised by a fog of tobacco smoke and boom of conversation created by an unusual number of customers who crowded the place. He derived an impression that his entrance had caused a sudden lull, that many glances were directed upon him, but that apparently he was not the person looked for.
Joe Porter, the landlord, beckoned to him and, “Would you care to step into the Sergeants' Mess, sir?” he suggested. “It's getting pretty fuggy in the bar.”
The Sergeants' Mess was a tiny coffee room in which might be seen a print of “Ye White Harte, Lychgate Heath, 1743,” and another of the fight between Sayers and Heenan, while over the mantel was displayed a stuffed mongoose in a glass case.
This sanctum gained and two pints being served, the customer asked: “What exactly has happened? Have you got a Lodge of the Ancient Order of Foresters or what?”
“Not at all, sir. It's clean beyond me. That crowd out there are shoemakers.”
“Shoemakers?”
“Yes. There's over twenty of 'em.”
“But why have they all decided to come here tonight?”
Joe Porter took up a copy of theCounty Mirror and indicated a paragraph. This was the paragraph:
To Cobblers and Working Shoemakers
A Cobbling match for the Champion's Cup and a purse of One Hundred Pounds. Entries between 9 and 9.30 p.m. on Thursday September the eighteenth at the White Hart, Lychgate Heath.
“That's the explanation,” said Joe Porter. “It's filled my house with cobblers from miles around. Even old Jerry Stickle is here tonight. Won't go out after dark for nobody as a rule. Not,” he added, “as anybody's going to work overtime to persuade him.”
“H'm,” murmured the visitor. “Queer business. Practical joke?”
“I suppose so. Anyway, nobody's come forward to explain it.”
Voices from the bar grew louder at this moment, and Joe Porter raised the hatch so that the man in tweeds, looking through, could both see and hear the disputants.
“What I says is,” remarked one who had a voice like a macaw, “and I says it firm, is this: Who done it?”
The speaker was a small man whose triumphantly bald crown had cast out the last invader, so that his retreating but unconquerable hair had dug itself in lower down. Here it had resumed the offensive in the form of a vigorous and violent red beard. He wore spectacles with uncommonly thick rims, was attired in riding breeches, green stockings and a sort of khaki tunic, while his shoes had been built for alpine occasions. On his back he carried a steel helmet and a gas mask.
“There's twenty-four of us here,” he announced, “includin' six from Uphill. I have been a-countin' of 'em.”
A heated dispute thereupon arising, Joe Porter excused himself and went to restore order. As he retired by way of one door, a customer entered by the other. He was a big blond man with that in his bearing which suggested the soldier.
“B.B., by all that's wonderful!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were on Afric's burning shore!”
“So I was ten days ago.” B.B. sprang up, a light of welcome in his eyes. “But I have established an unfortunate reputation as a Bow Street runner or something. So now I'm back in England. Delighted to see you, Colonel.”
Colonel Dawney, commandant of a military hospital in the neighborhood, smiled into the blue eyes of Bimbashi Baruk. Although still young, Mohammed Ibrahim Brian Baruk of the Camel Corps had—entirely contrary to his wishes—become an almost legendary figure among those who served in Africa.
“You haven't looked me up,” said Dawney, as Joe Porter's face appeared behind the hatch. “I sometimes drop in here, because it's the only pub I know where one can get a decent glass of beer.”
“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Joe. “Two pints?”
“I didn't know you were here,” the bimbashi replied. “I am billeted on some worthy people out Kinton way, where I share a small bedroom with a large bust of W. E. Gladstone which frightens me.”
“You look fit,” commented the medical officer, running an appraising glance over Baruk's spare, athletic figure. “Quite recovered from that nasty one you stopped in Libya?”<
br />
“Quite. In fact, I think it did me good to let some daylight into my dark interior.”
“Well—what about dining with me tomorrow night?”
And so this was arranged, as Joe Porter's parade-ground tones reached them: “Final orders, please!” But when at closing time, four and twenty cobblers reluctantly faced the blackness of Lychgate Heath, they did not disperse until Sam Jollet, the constable, had pointed out that they were creating a public disturbance.
FOLLOWING quite a sound dinner, Colonel Dawney and Bimbashi Baruk were lingering over excellent port—the colonel was a connoisseur— when an urgent phone message called the colonel away to one of the wards. The bimbashi emptied his glass—he didn't care for port, even when it was super—and filled his pipe. He was lounging in an armchair-island surrounded by a sea of tobacco smoke when Dawney returned.
“Sorry to leave you, B.B. It was that chap I mentioned—Major de Maura. Came in at eight, and now it's”—he glanced at his watch—“nine forty-one.”
“Well?”
“Finished. He's gone.”
“Sorry. Very sudden, surely?”
“Yes.” Colonel Dawney helped himself to a stiff brandy and soda; he was clearly upset, because he failed to note that his guest was not drinking. “Heart, I think; at the end. Phew! I'm bothered.”
“Let me see, Dawney. This was the man who was working as a linguist for the War Office people on the Hill. Born in the Argentine, you said, and had served in Morocco and elsewhere?”
“That's the fellow. Unique at languages, they say. He was billeted at the house of a Mrs. Saunders near Hayland Common. She called the police when he was seized with this attack. The M.O. on duty diagnosed tetanus, but it was difficult to see how it had occurred. They found a small scar, certainly, on the side of his calf—probably caused by brambles; healed and unlikely to have led to such violent infection. There was also, I should add, a tiny pinprick, quite recent, on his right forefinger. A thorn, again, might have done it. From what little I have learned—believe I told you—I gather that de Maura was by way of being a Don Juan. Normally, I should say he was a good-looker of his type. Lorkin, the medical officer who went to collect him, didn't like his heart. He picked up some story from Mrs. Saunders about a woman who used to visit him secretly. However, that's neither here nor there. It appears that a phone message came through for him—female voice, foreign accent—just before they called me.”
