They Came to Baghdad
Page 23
Then Mr. Dakin took up the tale. In a gentle tired voice he told the saga of Henry Carmichael, of his belief in certain rumours and wild tales of vast installations and underground laboratories functioning in a remote valley beyond the bounds of civilization. Of his search—and of the success of his search. Of how that great traveller, Sir Rupert Crofton Lee, the man who had believed Carmichael because of his own knowledge of those regions, had agreed to come to Baghdad, and of how he had died. And of how Carmichael had met his own death at the hands of Sir Rupert’s impersonator.
“Sir Rupert is dead, and Henry Carmichael is dead. But there is a third witness who is alive and who is here today. I will call upon Miss Anna Scheele to give us her testimony.”
Anna Scheele, as calm and composed as if she were in Mr. Morganthal’s office, gave lists of names and figures. From the depths of that remarkable financial brain of hers, she outlined the vast financial network that had drained money from circulation, and poured it into the financing of activities that should tend to split the civilized world into two opposing factions. It was no mere assertion. She produced facts and figures to support her contention. To those who listened she carried a conviction that was not as yet fully accorded to Carmichael’s wild tale.
Dakin spoke again:
“Henry Carmichael is dead,” he said. “But he brought back with him from that hazardous journey tangible and definite proofs. He did not dare to keep those proofs on him—his enemies were too close on his track. But he was a man of many friends. By the hands of two of those friends, he sent the proofs to the safekeeping of another friend—a man whom all Iraq reveres and respects. He has courteously consented to come here today. I refer to Sheikh Hussein el Ziyara of Kerbela.”
Sheikh Hussein el Ziyara was renowned, as Dakin had said, throughout the Moslem world, both as a Holy Man and a poet of renown. He was considered by many to be a Saint. He stood up now, an imposing figure with his deep brown hennaed beard. His grey jacket edged with gold braid was covered by a flowing brown cloak of gossamer fineness. Round his head he wore a green cloth headdress which was bound with many strands of heavy gold agal and which gave him a patriarchal appearance. He spoke in a deep sonorous voice.
“Henry Carmichael was my friend,” he said. “I knew him as a boy and he studied with me the verses of our great poets. Two men came to Kerbela, men who travel the country with a picture show. They are simple men, but good followers of the Prophet. They brought me a packet which they said they had been told to deliver into my hands from my friend the Englishman Carmichael. I was to keep this in secrecy and security and to deliver it only to Carmichael himself, or to a messenger who would repeat certain words. If in truth you are the messenger, speak, my son.”
Dakin said, “Sayyid, the Arabic poet Mutanabbi, ‘the Pretender to prophecy,’ who lived just one thousand years ago, wrote an Ode to Prince Sayfu ’l-Dawla at Aleppo in which those words occur: Zid hashshi bashshi tafaddal adni surra sili.”*
With a smile Sheikh Hussein el Ziyara held out a packet to Dakin.
“I say as Prince Sayfu ’l-Dawla said: ‘You shall have your desire…’”
“Gentlemen,” said Dakin. “These are the microfilms brought back by Henry Carmichael in proof of his story….”
One more witness spoke—a tragic broken figure: an old man with a fine domed head who had once been universally admired and respected.
He spoke with a tragic dignity.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “I shall shortly be arraigned as a common swindler. But there are somethings that even I cannot countenance. There is a band of men, mostly young men, so evil in their hearts and aims that the truth would hardly be believed.”
He lifted up his head and roared out:
“Antichrist! I say this thing must be stopped! We have got to have peace—peace to lick our wounds and make a new world—and to do that we must to try to understand each other. I started a racket to make money—but, by God, I’ve ended in believing in what I preach—though I don’t advocate the methods I’ve used. For God’s sake, gentlemen, let’s start again and try to pull together….”
There was a moment’s silence, and then a thin official voice, with the bloodless impersonality of bureaucracy said:
“These facts will be put forthwith before the President of the United States of America and the Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics….”
Twenty-five
I
“What bothers me,” said Victoria, “is that poor Danish woman who got killed by mistake in Damascus.”
“Oh! she’s all right,” said Mr. Dakin cheerfully. “As soon as your plane had taken off, we arrested the French woman and took Grete Harden to hospital. She came round all right. They were going to keep her drugged for a bit until they were sure the Baghdad business went off all right. She was one of our people of course.”
“Was she?”
“Yes, when Anna Scheele disappeared, we thought it might be as well to give the other side something to think about. So we booked a passage for Grete Harden and carefully didn’t give her a background. They fell for it—jumped to the conclusion that Grete Harden must be Anna Scheele. We gave her a nice little set of faked papers to prove it.”
“Whilst the real Anna Scheele remained quietly in the nursing home till it was time for Mrs. Pauncefoot Jones to join her husband out here.”
“Yes. Simple—but effective. Acting on the assumption that in times of stress the only people you can really trust are your own family. She’s an exceedingly clever young woman.”
“I really thought I was for it,” said Victoria. “Were your people really keeping tabs on me?”
“All the time. Your Edward wasn’t really quite so clever as he thought himself, you know. Actually we’d been investigating the activities of young Edward Goring for some time. When you told me your story, the night Carmichael was killed, I was frankly very worried about you.”
“The best thing I could think of was to send you deliberately into the setup as a spy. If your Edward knew that you were in touch with me, you’d be reasonably safe, because he’d learn through you what we were up to. You’d be too valuable to kill. And he could also pass on false information to us through you. You were a link. But then you spotted the Rupert Crofton Lee impersonation, and Edward decided you’d better be kept out of it until you were needed (if you should be needed) for the impersonation of Anna Scheele. Yes, Victoria, you’re very very lucky to be sitting where you are now, eating all those pistachio nuts.”
“I know I am.”
Mr. Dakin said:
“How much do you mind—about Edward?”
Victoria looked at him steadily.
“Not at all. I was just a silly little fool. I let Edward pick me up and do his glamour act. I just had a thoroughly school-girl crush on him—fancying myself Juliet and all sorts of silly things.”
“You needn’t blame yourself too much. Edward had a wonderful natural gift for attracting women.”
“Yes, and he used it.”
“He certainly used it.”
“Next time I fall in love,” said Victoria, “it won’t be looks that attract me, or glamour. I’d like a real man—not one who says pretty things to you. I shan’t mind if he’s bald or wears spectacles or anything like that. I’d like him to be interesting—and know about interesting things.”
“About thirty-five or fifty-five?” asked Mr. Dakin.
Victoria stared.
“Oh thirty-five,” she said.
“I am relieved. I thought for a moment you were proposing to me.”
Victoria laughed.
“And—I know I mustn’t ask questions—but was there really a message knitted into the scarf?”
“There was a name. The tricoteuses of whom Madam Defarge was one, knitted a register of names. The scarf and the ‘chit’ were the two halves of the clue. One gave us the name of Sheikh Hussein el Ziyara of Kerbela. The other when treated with iodine vapour gave us the words to induc
e the Sheikh to part with his trust. There couldn’t have been a safer place to hide the thing, you know, than in the sacred city of Kerbela.”
“And it was carried through the country by those two wandering cinema men—the ones we actually met?”
“Yes. Simple well-known figures. Nothing political about them. Just Carmichael’s personal friends. He had a lot of friends.”
“He must have been very nice. I’m sorry he’s dead.”
“We’ve all got to die sometime,” said Mr. Dakin. “And if there’s another life after this which I myself fully believe, he’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that his faith and his courage have done more to save this sorry old world from a fresh attack of blood-letting and misery than almost anyone that one can think of.”
“It’s odd, isn’t it,” said Victoria meditatively, “that Richard should have had one half of the secret and I should have had the other. It almost seems as though—”
“As though it were meant to be,” finished Mr. Dakin with a twinkle. “And what are you going to do next, may I ask?”
“I shall have to find a job,” said Victoria. “I must start looking about.”
“Don’t look too hard,” said Mr. Dakin. “I rather think a job is coming towards you.”
He ambled gently away to give place to Richard Baker.
“Look here, Victoria,” said Richard. “Venetia Savile can’t come out after all. Apparently she’s got mumps. You were quite useful on the Dig. Would you like to come back? Only your keep, I’m afraid. And probably your passage back to En gland—but we’ll talk about that later. Mrs. Pauncefoot Jones is coming out next week. Well, what do you say?”
“Oh, do you really want me?” cried Victoria.
For some reason Richard Baker became very pink in the face. He coughed and polished his pince-nez.
“I think,” he said, “we could find you—er—quite useful.”
“I’d love it,” said Victoria.
“In that case,” said Richard, “you’d better collect your luggage and come along back to the Dig now. You don’t want to hang about Baghdad, do you?”
“Not in the least,” said Victoria.
II
“So there you are, my dear Veronica,” said Dr. Pauncefoot Jones. “Richard went off in a great state about you. Well, well—I hope you’ll both be very happy.”
“What does he mean?” asked Victoria bewildered, as Dr. Pauncefoot Jones pottered away.
“Nothing,” said Richard. “You know what he’s like. He’s being—just a little—premature.”
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About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions t
o countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.
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THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
Parker Pyne Investigates
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Murder Is Easy
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
Crooked House
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Ordeal by Innocence
Double Sin and Other Stories
The Pale Horse
Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories
Endless Night
Passenger to Frankfurt
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
The Mousetrap and Other Plays
The Harlequin Tea Set
The Hercule Poirot Mysteries
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds