***
Explaining to the Commission was easy. They arrived at the Palace looking somewhat bemused and after Paul had assembled them Owen had a word with them before they went in.
‘You mean,’ said Mrs. Oliphant, looking thoughtful, ‘there was a bomb in that car coming down the road toward us?’
‘Dynamite,’ said Owen, ‘and a slow burning fuse. Already lit.’
‘But was not that a small boy I saw driving the car?’
‘It was.’
‘Hum,’ said Mrs. Oliphant, looking even more thoughtful.
***
The Khedive, addressed privately at the end of the Reception, was thoughtful, too.
‘Hamid has always been a problem,’ he said.
‘I think, Your Highness, that it would be better if he were less in circulation.’
‘You know,’ said the Khedive, ‘that idea has occurred to me, too.’
‘I will look after his unpleasant friends, and I don’t think they’re likely to be a problem for quite some time. But Prince Hamid—’
The Khedive smiled.
‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I will see that he is less in circulation in future. Yes, very much less.’
He patted Owen familiarly on the shoulder.
‘Oh, and it has not escaped my notice, Mamur Zapt,’ he said, ‘that twice in the last month you have foiled assassination attempts, not least against my own person. I hope you are thinking of staying around?’
***
Zeid was waiting for Owen when he left. He had a message from Georgiades. Would Owen join him as soon as possible? Zeid had the address.
The house was a small one in the Ismailiya, a well-to-do quarter of Cairo. Georgiades was waiting; not directly outside but further up the street, under a tree, apparently contemplating the sparrows.
‘What about the back of the house?’ said Owen.
‘I’ve got a constable out there,’ said Georgiades.
All the same, Owen sent Zeid round, not trusting in ordinary constables.
Then he and Georgiades went up to the front door and rang the bell. No one came for some time and Owen was just about to force his way in when the door opened.
‘Who—?’ began a servant, but Owen pushed his way past and went on into the mandar’ah.
A man was lying on a divan. He smelt faintly of roses.
He looked up, without surprise, when they came in.
‘I know you,’ he said after a moment. ‘The Mamur Zapt.’
‘Who did you expect?’ said Owen.
The man smiled. ‘Not the police at any rate,’ he said.
‘Hamid is taken,’ said Owen.
The man shrugged.
‘The Khedive will look after him,’ he said.
‘The Khedive is looking after him,’ said Owen. ‘Although not, I think, in the way that you mean.’
‘Really?’ said the man. ‘He has always looked after him before.’
‘This time his luck has run out. As has yours.’
The man shrugged again.
‘We will see,’ he said.
‘Mr. Narwat will not be available to help you this time,’ said Owen.
‘No?’
‘No. He might even be helping us.’
‘He will not be able to help you very much.’
‘But the drivers, Hussein and Ahmet, will. They will testify that you approached them at the Water Cart Depot and asked them to do something for you. Collect a bomb, from the hammam, take it in their water-cart to the Sharia Nubar Pasha, and leave it so that it would explode at the right moment to kill the Khedive.’
‘It didn’t work,’ said the man. ‘I’d always had my doubts about whether it would. It seemed too chancy.’
‘Where did you get the idea from?’
‘Asif.’
‘And he got it from Miss Skiff. Although she didn’t know how he would use it.’
The man look surprised.
‘Well, yes,’ he said. As a matter of fact, he did. I thought it would be rather neat. To use English learning against the English. Although, in retrospect, we could have chosen a more reliable way of doing it. It struck me at the time, as I have said, as rather chancy. But Asif was keen. He was new and eager to show he could contribute.’
‘Which he wasn’t later.’
‘Has he been talking?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, well, you do seem to have been doing the rounds.’
‘I have. And I have talked to Yussef as well.’
‘To Yussef? He has been taken as well? Well, I suppose he was always likely to be taken.’
‘You thought Ziki might talk?’
‘I thought it was more likely. Much too likely, in fact.’
‘He was another like Asif, wasn’t he? He didn’t want to work with you any more.’
‘Well, you know, people get cold feet.’
‘Not Prince Hamid, though.’
He was silent for a moment. Then—
‘No, not Hamid,’ he said.
‘Did you go back to him, or did he get back to you? When the dust had settled after the last time you tried something like this?’
‘I went back to him. I was more committed. To tell the truth, I wanted to get rid of the whole Khedive family. Which would, of course, in the end have included Hamid.’
‘He was just a tool?’
‘A willing tool. We were both fired by the same ideals.’
‘And Sayed Ali? Another tool?’
‘So I hoped. But he was unreliable. In the end he backed out. I thought—people told me—that he was ga-ga. Well, so he was. But not quite ga-ga enough. Or, at least, not ga-ga all the time. He had lucid flashes. And, unfortunately, rather a sustained lucid flash at the end. I have great respect for Sayed Ali. A very astute man. As well as, of course, a devout religious leader. I think that in the end that got in the way.’
‘He backed out. And with him went the chance of a broader movement behind you.’
‘That would have been what I preferred. A broader movement, to thrust the Khedive from power and the British out of Egypt.’
‘And you into power?’
‘Oh, that would have been too much to hope for. It could perhaps have fallen to Zaghlul and the Wafd. I think, eventually, it probably will fall to Zaghlul and the Wafd. But I thought I would speed it along.’
‘But when the movement collapsed, you had to try something else?’
‘I don’t like being defeated.’
‘And so you decided to try and blow up the Commission?’
‘Even better, in some respects, than the Khedive, don’t you think? More likely to lead to the right result. The British would be bound to retaliate. Almost certainly they would over-retaliate. That would provoke Egyptians. And with luck we would get the uprising I hoped for.’
‘Was it necessary to use Salah?’
‘Salah? The boy? Well, why not? Think of him as a martyr. In a just cause. Do martyrs have to consciously choose martyrdom in order to count as martyrs? I don’t know. It would be a good question to put to Sayed Ali.’
‘I think he would probably call it murder.’
***
One result of the attempt to blow up the Commission was that it speeded up the work of the Commission no end. Its members sensibly decided that the sooner they got out of Egypt, the better. But it had also sharpened up their thinking about political realities, and in the interval between their completing of the hearing of the evidence and their writing up of their conclusions there came surprising reports (leaked, of course, by Paul Trevelyan) that while the Commission might not go all the way in the direction Egyptians wanted, it would go quite a bit of the way. One of its likely recommendations was for complete internal independence on Egypt’s part, includi
ng the right to dismiss English officials. It was that, of course, that gave rise to some discussion in the Sporting Club.
‘Serve under an Egyptian? Not me!’ said Carstairs, of the Sanitary Department. ‘I’m off!’
And several other Carstairs felt the same.
But others wondered why not?
‘Abu Gamal’—the No. 2 in the Department of Municipal Works—‘has always done the work anyway,’ said Blackett, the Senior Engineer in the Department. ‘I think he’d be an improvement on Hambleby-Jones.’
‘So how do you feel about it, Owen?’ asked Zaghlul.
‘Me? I’ve always worked under an Egyptian,’ said Owen. ‘The Khedive.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Zaghlul, ‘But—’
‘His Highness has particularly asked me to stay on.’
‘And the British?’
‘Ah, well, that’s more doubtful.’
Zaghlul smiled.
‘I’ll put in a word for you,’ he said, patting Owen on the shoulder.
***
Zaghlul was seeing quite a lot of Owen just at the moment. Party politics had come to Egypt and Zaghlul as Leader of the Opposition, was a prominent part of the politicking. That was rather an exposed position and Zaghlul demanded official protection. Now that the Commission had left, it was judged, wrongly, that the Mamur Zapt had time on his hands so he took over responsibility for the candidates’ safety. This turned out to be no less onerous than responsibility for the safety of the members of the Commission but it did build rapid bonds between protector and protected. Owen, looking ahead, thought he might be able to ride the surf.
***
The trial of Rashid, The Man of Roses, was not long protracted. Mahmoud, who was prosecuting, had it buttoned up in no time. The chief problem was the protection of witnesses. But that was always the case in Egypt and Owen, whose responsibility it was, was used to it.
Hussein and Ahmet, who were at first inclined to deny that they had been on the planet during the period in question, were persuaded to give evidence again Rashid, and this led to some mitigation of their own sentences.
Yussef, who had never made any secret of his own misdoings anyway, cheerfully provided further evidence against Rashid. Not that it helped his own case much.
The difficult one might have been Hamid. He had always worked through other people: Rashid, and Ziki, and Asif, and, of course, Salah, and it might have been difficult to pin things on him. However, he fell ill and, sadly, died. Which was, as the Khedive told Owen, a much more reliable way of doing things.
***
Asif served a comparatively short term in prison. While he was there he did a lot of thinking and when he was released told Miriam that much of it had been about her. He had come to the conclusion that he would leave the question of her marriage to her. She could certainly go on working at the hospital if she wished, but, after much reflection, he had decided that it should be supplemented by more education. Since it was not possible for her to follow exactly in his footsteps and go to college, he wondered if she would consider another possibility: going privately to Miss Skiff. This, in fact, turned out rather well, suiting both the intellectually hungry Miriam and the newly self-doubting Miss Skiff.
***
Zeinab, expecting her end, at almost any moment, continued to work at the hospital. Even when the Commission reported, things remained in a state of flux in Egypt and the new Government, advisedly for a while, had more important things on its mind than Zeinab.
She was, in any case, reviewing her own future independently. Suppose that a baby came along? How much time would it take? Would she be able to continue working at the hospital? Would she be able to continue working? Should she, as a matter of principle, continue working?
Miriam said yes. Aisha, whom Zeinab was consulting more and more frequently these days, thought she ought to wait and see. The baby might have a view of its own, she said.
In any case, said Zeinab, the question was purely theoretical.
Owen, left out of these deliberations, as he was out of most of the weighty deliberations of the universe, continued with his work. It might not be glorious but it kept the world ticking. And that, in the Middle East, then as now, was something.
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