by Talbot Mundy
“Not indefinitely, my dear captain! And this time there will really be a deed that will please even such a rigorous lover of action as Mustapha Kemal!”
Grim shrugged his shoulders again.
“I leave for Damascus at dawn,” he said cynically. “I don’t care to be mocked there for bringing news of promises. We have had too many of those barren mares. I shall say that I have found everything here is sterile — the talk abortive — the men mere windy bellies without hearts in them!”
Chapter Fifteen
“I’ll have nothing to do with it!”
Noureddin Ali was pained and upset. Grim had pricked his conceit — had sent thrust home where he kept his susceptibilities. He blinked, peered this and that way, exchanged glances with the alligator person, and then tucked his legs up under him.
“In me you see a doer!” he announced. He looked the part. His lean, pointed nose and beady little eyes were of the interfering, meddling type. You could not imagine him, like the yellow-eyed ruminant next to him, sitting and waiting ruthlessly for things to happen. Noureddin Ali looked more likely to go out and be ruthless.
“So they all say!” Grim retorted.
“Some one should forewarn them in Damascus what a deed will occur here presently. Above all, word should reach Mustapha Kemal, in Anatolia, as soon as possible, so that he may be ready to act.”
“All day long,” said Grim, “I have wandered about Jerusalem, listening to this and that rumour of something that may happen. But I have not found one man who can tell me a fact.”
“That is because you did not meet me. I am — hee-hee! I am the father of facts. You say you leave for Damascus at dawn? You are positive? I could tell you facts that would put a sudden end to my career if they were spread about Jerusalem!”
“That is the usual boast of men who desire credit in the eyes of the Nationalist Party,” Grim retorted.
“I see you are skeptical. That is a wise man’s attitude, but I must be cautious, for my life is at stake. Now — how do you propose to leave Jerusalem? There is no train for Damascus at dawn tomorrow.”
“I am on a diplomatic mission,” answered Grim. “The Administration have placed a car at my disposal to take me as far as the border.”
“Ah! And tonight? Where will you be tonight?”
“Why?”
“Because I propose to make a disclosure. And — ah — hee-hee! — you would like to live, I take it, and not be sent back to Damascus in a coffin? I have — ah — some assistants who — hee-hee! — would watch your movements. If you were to betray me afterwards to the Administration, there would remain at least — the satisfaction — of — you understand me? — the certainty that you would suffer for it!”
Grim laughed dryly.
“I shall be at the hotel,” he answered. “In bed. Asleep. The car comes before dawn.”
“That is sufficient. I shall know how to take essential precautions. Now — you think I am a man of words, not deeds? You were near the Jaffa Gate this morning, for I saw you there. You saw a man killed — a policeman, name Bedreddin. That was an unwise underling, who stumbled by accident on a clue to what I shall tell you presently. He had the impudence to try to blackmail me — me, of all people! You saw him killed. But did you see who killed him? I — I killed him, with this right hand! You do not believe? You think, perhaps, I lack the strength for such a blow? Look here, where the force of it broke my skin on the handle of the knife! Now, am I a man of words, not deeds?”
“You want me to report to Mustapha Kemal that all the accomplishment in Jerusalem amounts to one policeman killed?”
“No, no! You mistake my meaning. My point is that having proved to you I am a ruthless man of action, I am entitled to be believed when I tell you what next I intend to do.”
“Well — I listen.”
“There is going to be — hee-hee! — an explosion!”
“Where? When? Of what?”
“In Jerusalem, within a day or two, and of what? Why, of high explosive, what else?”
“Much good an explosion in this city will do Mustapha Kemal!” Grim grumbled. “You may kill a few beggars and break some windows. The British will double the guards afterward at all the city gates, and that will be the end of it; except that some of you, who perhaps may escape being thrown into jail, will apply to Mustapha Kemal for high commissions in his army on the strength of it! Great doings! Mustapha Kemal will have no bastinadoed.”
“Hee-hee! You are going to be surprised. What would you say to an explosion, for instance, that destroyed the Dome of the Rock?”
“That might accomplish results.”
“Hee-hee! You admit it! An explosion to be blamed on the Zionists, who must afterward be protected by the British from the mob! Would that not set India on fire?”
“It might help. But who is to do it?”
“You see the doer before you! I will do it.”
“If I thought such a thing was really going to take place—”
“You would think that news worth carrying, eh? You would hurry to Damascus, wouldn’t you? And let me assure you, my dear captain, speed is essential. There are reasons why the explosion has not yet occurred — reasons of detail and difficulties to be overcome. But now there is little further prospect of delay. Everything is nearly ready. The explosive is not yet in place, but is at hand. The authorities suspect nothing. There remains only a little excavation work, and then — hee-hee! — nothing to do but choose the hour when hundreds are in the mosque. Houp-la! Up she goes. Does not the idea appeal to you?”
“Sensational — very,” Grim admitted.
“Ah! But the utmost must be made of the sensation. Men must be ready in Damascus to stir public feeling on the strength of it. Word must go to Mustapha Kemal to strike hard while the iron is hot. There must be reprisals everywhere. Blood must flow.
“The Europeans, French as well as British, must be goaded into making rash mistakes that will further inflame the populace. It must be shouted from the house-tops that the Jews have blown up a Moslem sacred place, and that the British are protecting them. There must be a true jihad* proclaimed against all non-Moslems almost simultaneously everywhere. Do you understand now how swiftly you must travel to Damascus?” [*Holy war.]
Grim nodded. “Yet these foreigners are cunning,” he said doubtfully. “Are you sure your plan is not suspected?”
“Quite sure. There was one man — a cursed interfering jackanapes of an American, whom they all call Jimgrim, of whom I was afraid. He is clever. He goes snooping here and there, and knows how to disguise himself. But he fell downstairs this morning and broke his thigh in two places. If anything could make me religious, that would! If I were not a nationalist, I would say ‘Glory to God, and blessed be His Prophet, who has smitten him whom we feared!”’
“That broken leg might be a trick to put you off your guard,”
Grim suggested pleasantly.
“No. I made secret enquiries. He is in great pain. He may lose the leg. The doctor who has charge of the case is a Major Templeton, an irritable person and, like most of the English, too big a fool to deceive anybody. No, luckily for Mister Jimgrim it is not a trick. Otherwise he would have shared the fate today of Bedreddin Shah the constable. The trap was all ready for him. With the inquisitive and really clever out of the way there is nothing to be feared. Now — pardon me, Captain Ali Mirza, but that letter you received just now; would you like to show it to me?”
“Why?” Grim demanded, frowning, and bridling all over.
“Hee-hee! For the sake of reciprocity. I have told you my secret. If it were not that I am more than usually circumspect, and accustomed to protect myself, one might say that my life is now in your hands, captain. Besides — hee-hee! — I might add that Jerusalem is my particular domain. I would have no difficulty in seeing that letter in any case. But there should be no need for — hee-hee! — shall we call them measures? — between friends.”
“I see you are a man of r
esource,” said Grim.
“Of great resource, with picked lieutenants. May I see the letter now?”
Grim produced it. Noureddin Ali took it between spidery fingers and examined it like a schoolmaster conning a boy’s composition. But the expression of his face changed as he took in the contents, holding the paper so that alligator-eyes could read it, too.
“Who wrote this?” he asked.
“Can’t you read the signature? Enver Eyub.”
“Who is he?”
“One of Mustapha Kemal’s staff.”
“So. ‘In pursuing your mission you will also take steps to ascertain whether or not Noureddin Ali Bey is a person worthy of confidence.’ Aha! That is excellent! So Mustapha Kemal Pasha has heard of me?”
Grim nodded.
“And the rest of your mission?”
“Is confidential.”
“And are you satisfied that I am to be trusted?”
“I think you mean business.”
“Then you should tell me what is the nature of your secret mission to Jerusalem. Possibly I can give you needed information. If you have obtained information of value, you should confide in me. I can be most useful when I know most.”
Grim frowned. He began to look uneasy. And the more he did that, the more delight Noureddin Ali seemed to take in questioning him, but be pleaded his own case, too.
“The trouble with the Nationalist movement,” he insisted, “is lack of unity. There is no mutual confidence — consequently no combination. There are too many intellects working at cross purposes. You should tell me what is being done, so that I may fit in my plans accordingly. When the Dome of the Rock has been blown up there will be ample opportunity for putting into execution a combined plan. You must confide in me.”
“Suppose I get rid of that messenger and the boy first,”
Grim suggested.
Grim felt in his pocket and produced a purse full of bank notes.
But they were all big ones.
“Never mind, I have change,” said Noureddin Ali. “How much will you give him?”
“No,” said Grim. “The boy can take him to the hotel. Let him wait for me there. He has no further business here. He should return to Damascus. He had better travel with me in the car tomorrow morning. Take him to the hotel, and wait for me there, you,” he added in Arabic to Suliman.
Yussuf came and opened the door. Suliman took my hand and led me out. The door slammed shut behind me, and a great Sikh, leaning on his rifle at a corner thirty feet away, came to life just sufficiently to follow me up-street with curious brown eyes.
“That is Narayan Singh,” announced Suliman when we had passed him. “He is Jimgrim’s friend.”
There was another Sikh just in sight of him at the next corner, and another beyond him again, all looking rather bored but awfully capable. None except the first one took the slightest notice of us.
It was some consolation to know that “Jimgrim’s friend” was on guard outside Yussuf’s. I had no means of knowing what weapons Grim carried, if any, but was positive of one thing: if either Noureddin Ali or the man with alligator eyes should get an inkling of his real identity his life would not be worth ten minutes’ purchase. Including Yussuf, who would likely do as he was told, there would be three to one between those silent walls, and it seemed to me that Narayan Singh might as well be three miles away as thirty feet. However, there was nothing I could do about it.
It was late afternoon already, and the crowd was swarming all one way, the women carrying the baskets and the men lording it near enough to keep an eye on them. If Suliman and I were followed, whoever had that job had his work cut out, for we were swallowed up in a noisy stream of home-going villagers, whose baskets and other burdens made an effectual screen behind us as well as in front.
The hotel stands close by the Jaffa Gate, and there the crowd was densest, for the outgoing swarm was met by another tide, of city- folk returning. In the mouth of the hotel arcade stood an officer whom I knew well enough by sight — Colonel Goodenough, commander of the Sikhs, a quiet, gray little man with a monocle, and that air of knowing his own mind that is the real key to control of Indian troops. Up a side-street there were a dozen troop-horses standing, and a British subaltern was making himself as inconspicuous as he could in the doorway of a store. It did not need much discernment to judge that those in authority were ready to deal swiftly with any kind of trouble.
But the only glimpse I had of any mob-spirit stirring was when three obvious Zionist Jews were rather roughly hustled by some Hebron men, who pride themselves on their willingness to brawl with any one. Two Sikhs interfered at once, and Goodenough, who was watching, never batted an eyelash.
I was tired, wanted a whiskey and soda and a bath more than anything else I could imagine at the moment. I was eager to get to my room in the hotel. Suliman, being not much more than a baby after all, wanted to go to sleep. We went past Goodenough, who eyed me sharply but took no further notice, and we entered the hotel door. But there we were met by Cerberus in the shape of an Arab porter, who cursed our religion and ordered us out again, threatening violence if we did not make haste.
Suliman argued with him in vain, and even whimpered. There was nothing for it but to return to the arcade, where I sat down on a step, from which a native policeman drove me away officiously. I had about made up my mind to go and speak to Goodenough in English, when Grim appeared. Not even Goodenough recognized him, his Syrian stride was so well acted. He saluted, and the salute was returned punctiliously but with that reserve toward a foreigner that the Englishman puts on unconsciously. When Grim spoke to him in Arabic Goodenough answered in the same language. I did not hear what was said at first, but as I drew closer I heard the sequel, for Grim changed suddenly to English.
“If you can’t recognize me through that magnifying-glass of yours, colonel, I must be one leopard who can really change his spots. I’m Grim. Don’t change your expression. Quick: look around and tell me if I’m followed.”
“Hard to say. Such a crowd here. There’s a Syrian over the way with a bulbous nose, who came along after you; he’s leaning with his back to the wall now, watching us.”
“He’s the boy.”
“I see Narayan Singh has left his post. Did you give him orders?”
“Yes. Told him to follow any one who followed me. I don’t want that fellow interfered with. He may stay there, or more likely he’ll call others to take his place; they’ll watch all night, if they’re allowed to; let them. Wish you’d give orders they’re to be left alone. Then, please let Narayan Singh go off duty and get some sleep; I’m going to want him all day tomorrow.”
“All right, Grim; anything else?”
“First opportunity, I wish you’d come to Davey’s room upstairs. Now — long distance stuff again, sir — if any Syrian asks you about me, you might say I was making sure the car would come for me at dawn.”
They exchanged salutes again as one suspicious alien to another. Grim looked suitably surprised at sight of me, and led me and Suliman back to the hotel, where Suliman wanted him to wreak dire vengeance on the porter; he grew sulky when he discovered that his influence with Grim was not sufficient for the purpose, but forgot it, small boy fashion, ten minutes later, when he fell asleep on the floor in a corner of Davey’s room.
Davey did not look exactly pleased to see us, although he seemed to like Grim personally, and was the first that day to see through Grim’s disguise at the first glance. Mrs. Davey, on the other hand, was radiant with smiles — thrilled at the prospect of learning secrets. She produced drinks and pushed the armchairs up. When she learned who I was, her husband could hardly keep her from putting on a costume too, to make a party of it.
Davey was reserved. He asked no questions. A gray-headed, gray- eyed, stocky, sturdy-looking man, who had made impossibilities come true on three continents, he waited for trouble to come to him instead of seeking it. There was silence for several minutes over the cigars and whiskey befo
re Grim opened fire at last. He talked straight out in front of Mrs. Davey, for she had mothered Cosmopolitan Oil men in a hundred out-of-the-way places. She knew more sacred secrets than the Sphinx.
“Any news about your oil concessions, Davey?”
“No. Not a word. We’ve got every prospect in the country marked out. Nothing to do now but wait for the mandate, while the Zionists go behind our backs to the Foreign Office and scheme for the concessions. It’s my belief the British mean to favor the Zionists and put us in the ditch. The fact that we were first on the ground, and lodged our applications with the Turks before the war seems to make no difference in their lives.”
“Well, old man, I’ve arranged for you to change your policy,” said Grim.
“What in thunder do you mean?”
Mrs. Davey giggled with delight, but her husband frowned ominously.
“I’m supposed to be Staff-Captain Ali Mirza of the
Shereefian army.”
“I’ve heard of him. He’s a bad one, Jim. He is one of those Syrian Arabs who will accept any one’s money, but who never stays bought. Why masquerade as a scoundrel?”
“I was in a place just now with a bunch of murderers, who’d have made short work of me if I couldn’t give them a sound reason for being in Jerusalem just now.”
“Why not have ’em all arrested?”
“For the same reason, Davey, that your Oil Company isn’t piping ten thousand barrels a day from Jericho. The time is not yet. Things haven’t reached that stage. I told them your Oil Company gave up hope long ago of getting a concession from the British, and has decided to finance Mustapha Kemal.”
Davey flung his cigar out of the window, and laid both hands on his knees. His face was a picture of baffled indignation. But his wife laughed.
“They were tickled to death,” Grim continued. “I’m supposed to be going to Damascus tomorrow morning with a hundred thousand dollars in U.S. gold, obtained from you in ten small bags. We’ve got to find some bags and pack them full of something heavy.”
