by Talbot Mundy
“Who are these?” asked the man in bed, speaking hoarsely as he stared first at Jeremy and then at me.
“Jmil Ras, a friend of mine,” Grim answered.
“And that one?”
He didn’t like the look of me at all. Western clothes and a shaven face spell nothing reassuring to the Arab when in trouble; he has been “helped” by the foreigner a time or two too often.
“An American named Ramsden. Also a friend of mine.”
“Oh! An Amirikani? A hakim?”
“No. Not a doctor. Not a man to fear. He is a friend of Faisal.”
“On whose word?”
“Mine,” Grim answered.
Sidi bin Tagim nodded. He seemed willing to take Grim’s word for anything.
“Why did you say a Jew stabbed you?” Grim asked suddenly.
“So that they might hang a Jew or two. W’Allah! Are the Jews not at the bottom of all trouble? If a Greek should kill a Maltese it would be a Jew who planned it! May the curse of Allah change their faces and the fire of Eblis† consume them!”
“Did you see the man who stabbed you?”
“Yes.”
And was he a Jew?”
“Jimgrim, you know better than to ask that! A Jew always hires another to do the killing. He who struck me was a hireling, who shall die by my hand, as Allah is my witness. But may Allah do more to me and bring me down into the dust unburied unless I make ten Jews pay for this!”
“Any one Jew in particular?” Grim asked, and the man in bed closed up like a clam that has been touched.
He was a strange-looking fellow — rather like one of those lean Spaniards whom Goya used to paint, with a scant beard turning grey, and hollow cheeks. He had thrown off the grey army blanket because fever burned him, and his lean, hard muscles stood out as if cast in bronze.
“But for the Jews, Faisal would be king of all this land this minute!” he said suddenly, and closed up tight again.
Grim smiled. He nearly always does smile when apparently at a loose end. At moments when most cross-examiners would browbeat he grows sympathetic — humors his man, and, by following whatever detour offers, gets back on the trail again.
“How about the French?” he asked.
“May Allah smite them! They are all in the pay of Jews!”
“Can you prove it?”
“W’Allah! That I can!”
Grim looked incredulous. Those baffling eyes of his twinkled with quiet amusement, and the man in bed resented it.
“You laugh, Jimgrim, but if you would listen I might tell you something.”
But Grim only smiled more broadly than ever.
“Sidi bin Tagim, you’re one of those fanatics who think the world is all leagued against you. Why should the Jews think you sufficiently important to be murdered?”
“W’Allah! There are few who hold the reins of happenings as I do.”
“If they’d killed you they’d have stopped the clock, eh?”
“That is as Allah may determine. I am not dead.”
“Have you friends in Jerusalem?”
“Surely.”
“Strange that they haven’t been to see you.”
“W’Allah! Not strange at all.”
“I see. They regard you as a man without authority, who might make trouble and leave other men to face it, eh?”
“Who says I have no authority?”
“Well, if you could prove you have—”
“What then?” the man in bed demanded, trying to sit up. “Faisal, for instance, is a friend of mine, and these men with me are his friends too. You have no letter, of course, for that would be dangerous ...”
“Jimgrim, in the name of the Most High, I swear I had a letter! He who stabbed me took it. I—”
“Was the letter from Faisal?”
“Malaish — no matter. It was sealed, and bore a number for the signature. If you can get that letter for me, Jimgrim — but what is the use! You are a servant of the British.”
“Tell me who stabbed you and I’ll get you the letter.”
“No, for you are clever. You would learn too much. Better tell the doctor of this place to hurry up and heal me; then I will attend to my own affairs.”
“I’d like to keep you out of jail, if that’s possible,” Grim answered. “You and I are old acquaintances, Sidi bin Tagim. But of course, if you’re here to sow sedition, and should there be a document at large in proof of it, which document should fall into the hands of the police — well, I couldn’t do much for you then. You’d better tell me who stabbed you, and I’ll get after him.”
“Ah! But if you get the letter?”
“I shall read it, of course.”
“But to whom will you show it?”
“Perhaps to my friends here.”
“Are they bound by your honor?”
“I shall hold them so.”
There was the glint in Grim’s eye now that should warn anyone who knew him that the scent was hot; added to the fact that the rest of his expression suggested waning interest, that look of his forebode fine hunting.
“There’s one other I might consult,” he admitted casually. “On my way here I saw one of Faisal’s staff captains driving in a cab toward the Jaffa Gate.”
The instant effect of that remark was to throw the wounded man into a paroxysm of mingled rage and fear. He almost threw a fit. His already bloodless face grew ashy grey and livid blue alternately, and he would have screamed at Grim if the cough that began to rack his whole body would have let him. As it was, he gasped out unintelligible words and sought to make Grim understand by signs. And Grim apparently did understand.
“Very well,” he laughed, “tell me who stabbed you and I won’t mention your name to Staff-Captain Abd el Kadir.”
“And these men? Will they say nothing?”
“Not a word. Who stabbed you?”
“Yussuf Dakmar! May Allah cut him off from love and mercy!”
“Golly!” exploded Jeremy, forgetting not to talk English. “There’s a swine for you! Yussuf Dakmar’s the son of a sea-cook who used to sell sheep to the Army four times over — drive ’em into camp and get a receipt — drive ’em out again next night — bring ’em back in the morning — get a receipt again — drive ’em off — bring ’em back — us chaps too busy shifting brother Turk to cotton on. He’ll be the boy I kicked out of camp once. Maybe remembers it too. I’ll bet his backbone’s twanging yet! Lead me to him, Grim, old cock, I’d like another piece of him!”
But Grim was humming to himself, playing piano on the bed-sheet with his fingers.
“Is that man not an Arab?” asked the fellow in bed, taking alarm all over again.
“Arab your aunt!” laughed Jeremy: “I eat Arabs! I’m the only original genuine wooly bad man from way back! I’m the plumber who pulled the plug out of Arabia! You know English? Good! You know what a dose of salts is then? You’ve seen it work? Experienced it, maybe? Hah! You’ll understand me. I’m a grain of the Epsom Salt that went through Beersheba, time the Turks had all the booze in sight and we were thirsty. Muddy booze it was too — oozy booze — not fit for washing hogs! Ever heard of Anzacs? Well, I’m one of ’em. Now you know what the scorpion who stung you’s up against! You lie there and think about it, cocky; I’ll show you his shirt tomorrow morning.”
“Suppose we go now,” suggested Grim. “I’ve got the drift of this thing. Get the rest elsewhere.”
“You can fan that Joskins for a lot more yet,” Jeremy objected. “The plug’s pulled. He’ll flow if you let him.”
Grim nodded.
“Sure he would. Don’t want too much from him. Don’t want to have to arrest him. Get me?”
“Come on then,” answered Jeremy, “I’ve promised him a shirt!”
Beyond the screen Narayan Singh stood like a statue, deaf, dumb, immovable. Even his eyes were fixed with a blank stare on the wall opposite.
“How much did you hear?” Grim asked him.
“I, sahib?
I am a sick man. I have been asleep.”
“Dream anything?”
“As your honor pleases!”
“Hospital’s stuffy, isn’t it? Think you could recover health more rapidly outdoors? Sick-leave continued of course, but — how about a little exercise?”
The Sikh’s eyes twinkled.
“Sahib, you know I need exercise!”
“I’ll speak to the doctor for you. In case he signs a new certificate, report to me tonight.”
“Atcha, Jimgrim sahib! Atcha!”
CHAPTER 3. “Hum Dekta hai”
Like most of the quarters occupied by British officers, the house occupied by Major Roger Ticknor and his wife Mabel was “enemy property,” and its only virtue consisted in its being rent free. Grim, Jeremy, little Ticknor and his smaller wife, and I sat facing across a small deal table with a stuttering oil-lamp between us. In a house not far away some Orthodox Jews, arrayed in purple and green and orange, with fox-fur around the edges of their hats, were drunk and celebrating noisily the Feast of Esther; so you can work out the exact date if you’re curious enough. The time was nine p.m. We had talked the Anzac hurricane-drive through Palestine all over again from the beginning, taking world-known names in vain and doing honor to others that will stay unsung for lack of recognition, when one of those unaccountable pauses came, and for the sake of breaking silence, Mabel Ticknor asked a question. She was a little, plucky, pale-faced thing whom you called instinctively by her first name at the end of half an hour — a sort of little mother of loose-ended men, who can make silk purses out of sows’ ears, and wouldn’t know how to brag if she were tempted.
“Say, Jim,” she asked, turning her head quickly like a bird toward Grim on my left, “what’s your verdict about that man from Syria that Roger took in a cab to the Sikh hospital? I’m out a new pair of riding breeches if Roger has to pay the bill for him. I want my money’s worth. Tell me his story.”
“Go ahead and buy the breeches, Mabel. I’ll settle that bill,” he answered.
“No, you won’t, Jim! You’re always squandering money. Half your pay goes to the scalawags you’ve landed in jail. This one’s up to Roger and me; we found him.”
Grim laughed.
“I can charge his keep under the head of ‘information paid for.’ I shall sign the voucher without a qualm.”
“You’d get blood out of a stone, Jim! Go on, tell us!”
“I’m hired to keep secrets as well as discover them,” Grim answered, smiling broadly.
“Of course you are,” she retorted. “But I know all Roger’s secrets, and he’s a doctor, mind you! Am I right, Roger? Come along! There are no servants — no eavesdroppers. Wait. I’ll put tea on the table, and then we’ll all listen.”
She made tea Australian fashion in a billy, which is quick and simple, but causes alleged dyspepsia cures to sell well all the way from Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
“You’ll have to tell her, Jim,” said Jeremy.
“Mabel’s safe as an iron roof,” put in her husband. “Noisy in the rain, but doesn’t leak.”
But neither man nor woman could have extracted a story from James Schuyler Grim unless it suited him to tell it. Mabel Ticknor is one of those honest little women who carry men’s secrets with them up and down the world. Being confided in by nearly every man who met her was a habit. But Grim tells only when the telling may accomplish something, and I wondered, as he laid his elbow on the table to begin, just what use he meant to make of Mabel Ticknor. He uses what he knows as other level-headed men use coin, spending thriftily for fair advantage.
“That is secret,” he began, as soon as Mabel had dumped the contents of the billy into a huge brown teapot. “I expect Narayan Singh here presently. He’ll have a letter with him, taken from the Syrian who stabbed that man in the hospital.”
“Whoa, hoss!” Jeremy interrupted. “You mean you’ve sent that Sikh to get the shirt of Yussuf Dakmar?”
Grim nodded.
“That was my job,” Jeremy objected.
“Whoa, hoss, yourself, Jeremy!” Grim answered. “You’d have gone down into the bazaar like a bull into a china-shop. Narayan Singh knows where to find him. If he shows fight, he’ll be simply handed over to the Sikh patrol for attacking a man in uniform, and by the time he reaches the lock-up that letter will be here on the table between us.”
“All the same, that’s a lark you’ve done me out of,” Jeremy insisted. “That Yussuf Dakmar’s a stinker. I know all about him. Two whole squadrons had to eat lousy biscuit for a week because that swab sold the same meat five times over. But I’ll get him yet!”
“Well, as I was saying,” Grim resumed, “there’s a letter in Jerusalem that’s supposed to be from Faisal. But when Faisal writes anything he signs his name to it, whereas a number is the signature on this. Now that fellow Sidi bin Tagim in the hospital is an honest old kite in his way. He’s a great rooter for Faisal. And the only easy way to ditch a man like Faisal, who’s as honest as the day is long, and no man’s fool, is to convince his fanatical admirers that for his own sake he ought to be forced along a certain course. The game’s as old as Adam. You fill up a man like Sidi bin Tagim with tales about Jews — convince him that Jews stand between Faisal and a kingdom — and he’ll lend a hand in any scheme ostensibly directed against Jews. Get me?”
“So would I!” swore Jeremy. “I’m against ’em too! I camped alongside the Jordan Highlanders one time when—”
But we had had that story twice that evening with variations. He was balancing his chair on two legs, so I pushed him over backward, and before he could pick himself up again Grim resumed.
“Faisal is in Damascus, and the Syrian Convention has proclaimed him king. That don’t suit the French, who detest him. The feeling’s mutual. When Faisal went to Paris for the Peace Conference, the French imagined he was easy. They thought, here’s another of these Eastern princes who can be taken in the old trap. So they staged a special performance at the Opera for him, and invited him to supper afterward behind the scenes with the usual sort of ladies in full war-paint in attendance.”
“Shall we cut that too?” suggested Mabel.
“Sure. Faisal did! He’s not that kind of moth. Ever since then the French have declared he’s a hypocrite; and because he won’t yield his rights they’ve been busy inventing wrongs of their own and insisting on immediate adjustment. The French haven’t left one stone unturned that could irritate Faisal into making a false move.”
“To hell with them!” suggested Jeremy, reaching for more tea.
“But Faisal’s not easy to irritate,” Grim went on. “He’s one of those rare men, who get born once in an epoch, who force you to believe that virtue isn’t extinct. He’s almost like a child in some things — like a good woman in others — and a man of iron courage all the time, who can fire Arabs in the same way Saladin did five centuries ago.”
“He looks like a saint,” said Jeremy. “I’ve seen him.”
“But he’s no soft liver,” continued Grim. “He was brought up in the desert among Bedouins, and has their stoical endurance with a sort of religious patience added. Gets that maybe from being a descendant of the Prophet.”
“Awful sort to have to fight, that kind are,” said Jeremy. “They wear you down!”
“So the French decided some time ago to persuade Faisal’s intimates to make a bad break which he couldn’t repudiate.”
“Why don’t he cut loose with forty or fifty thousand men and boot the French into the sea?” demanded Jeremy. “I’ll make one to help him! I knew a Frenchman once, who—”
“We’ll come to that presently,” said Grim. “I dare say you didn’t hear of Verdun.”
“Objection sustained. Hand it to ’em. They’ve got guts,” grinned Jeremy. “Fire away, old top.”
“Well, they ran foul of an awkward predicament, which is that there are some darned decent fellows among the officers of their army of occupation. There’s more than a scattering of dec
ent gentlemen who don’t like dirt. I won’t say they tell Faisal secrets, or disobey orders; but if you want to give a man a square deal there are ways of doing it without sending him telegrams.”
Mabel put the tea back on the kerosene stove to stew, with an extra handful of black leaves in it. Grim continued:
“Another thing: The French are half afraid that if they take the field against Faisal on some trumped-up pretext, he’ll get assistance from the British. They could send him things he needs more than money, and can’t get. Ninety-nine per cent of the British are pro-Faisal. Some of them would risk their jobs to help him in a pinch. The French have got to stall those men before they can attack Faisal safely.”
“How d’you mean — stall ’em?” demanded Jeremy. “Not all the British are fools — only their statesmen, and generals, and sixty percent of the junior officers and rank and file. The rest don’t have to be fed pap from a bottle; they’re good men. Takes more than talk to stall that kind off a man they like.”
“You’ve got the idea, Jeremy. You have to show them. Well, why not stir up revolution here in Palestine in Faisal’s name? Why not get the malcontents to murder Jews wholesale, with propaganda blowing full blast to make it look as if Faisal’s hand is directing it all? It’s as simple as falling off a log. French agents who look like honest Arabs approach the most hairbrained zealots who happen to be on the inside with Faisal, and suggest to them that the French and British are allies; therefore the only way to keep the British from helping the French will be to start red-hot trouble in Palestine that will keep the British busy protecting themselves and the Jews.
“The secret agents point out that although Faisal is against anything of the sort, he must be committed to it for his own sake. And they make great capital out of Faisal’s promise that he will protect the Jews if recognized as king of independent Syria. Kill all the Jews beforehand, so there won’t be any for him to protect when the time comes — that’s the argument.”
Mabel interrupted.
“Haven’t you warned Faisal?”
She had both elbows on the table and her chin between her hands, and I dare say she had listened in just that attitude to fifty inside stories that the newspapers would scatter gold in vain to get.
