The Donkey-Vous mz-3

by Michael Pearce

  “So you might be able to see something.”

  “You might. You’d be able to tell if someone left the tripot and went to the cloakroom. But my guess is that’s not how it will happen, anyway. I’ve been checking on the attendants in the cloakroom. There are two of them. One of them goes off duty at about one-thirty and another man comes in. I reckon that the one who goes off duty will be carrying the money with him. The timing fits. Berthelot gets there at about midnight and stays till two. By then there will have been time to count the money and the attendant will have been gone half an hour-long enough for him to be able to pass over the money.”

  “How does he leave the building?”

  “Through a side door. I’ll have him tailed.”

  “He might not go that way this time.”

  “I think he will. They’ll want to keep it as normal as possible. In any case, though, I’ll put people all around the building. And on the roof.”

  “It’s a block of flats. There’ll be people coming and going all the time.”

  “At one o’clock in the morning? Carrying something? You’d have to have a bag or a case to carry that amount of money.”

  “I wish we could watch the cloakroom all the time.”

  “Can’t be done.”

  “What’s on the next floor up? Directly above the cloak-room:

  “A sewing shop. Try moving all those girls.”

  “Why don’t we bribe one of Anton’s people and ask them to keep an eye on the cloakroom?”

  “They’ve got their jobs to do. They wouldn’t be able to watch all the time.”

  “All the same…”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Nikos, “I already have.”

  Owen had men watching Monsieur Berthelot. The following afternoon they reported that Berthelot had been to the bank twice. The second time he had come away carrying a small leather case. On both occasions he had been accompanied by a member of the staff of the French Consulate.

  On a hunch Owen checked steamer bookings. Two passages had been reserved under the name of Berthelot on a boat leaving Alexandria in thirty-six hours’ time.

  Mahmoud had heard nothing of any deal. Unlike Owen, he was dead against it.

  “Do it once and you’ll soon be doing it all the time,” he said.

  “But people are doing it all the time,” said Owen.

  He could get Mahmoud not to intervene only by telling him what he himself was proposing to do.

  He went back to his office and worked late. Soon after ten he went home and changed into evening dress. He put a tarboosh on his head and slipped some dark glasses into his pocket. He would not be the only one wearing them. Others besides himself would have reasons for wishing to preserve their anonymity.

  It was still relatively early in the evening in Cairo terms and there were only about thirty people around the table. Berthelot was at the far end intent on the play. The table was brilliantly lit up. All the rest of the room was in shadow.

  Owen played standing up, reaching an arm in when it was necessary. In that way he could keep out of the light. He wasn’t sure how effective his disguise was. He was still relatively new in Cairo and thought his face generally unknown. Still, it was the doorman’s job to know these things and he might well have spotted him. Owen thought it probably wouldn’t matter if he had. He would tell Anton and Anton would worry; but so long as Anton himself was not involved in the plot he would probably keep his worries to himself. Even if he knew what was going on in the cloakroom he would probably stay out of it. He might have received an inducement to turn a blind eye, but a blind eye was what he would turn, especially with the Mamur Zapt there. Owen doubted if he would warn them.

  The important thing was that Berthelot shouldn’t recognize him. Owen didn’t think he would. He thought the disguise and the darkness was proof against that. Anyway, Berthelot was concentrating on the play.

  “ Faites vos jeux, messieurs,” the croupier said. “ Faites vos jeux. ”

  Berthelot hesitated, then added to his stake.

  “ Rien ne va plus.”

  The croupier spun the wheel. There was a sudden intentness, a catch of the breath. The wheel slowed and came to a halt. Berthelot shrugged and turned away. The croupier began to rake in the chips.

  “It’s Anton’s lucky night tonight,” said a Greek standing beside Berthelot.

  “It’s Anton’s lucky night every night,” said someone from across the table.

  There was a general stirring and one or two people left the table, either to refresh themselves from the jugs of iced lemonade which stood on a shelf behind them or simply to ease their backs.

  Berthelot and the Greek turned at the same time.

  “ Pardon, monsieur.”

  “ Pardon! ”

  Berthelot made way for the Greek, who went over to the shelf and poured himself a glass of lemonade.

  “ Monsieur? ”

  He offered to pour for Berthelot.

  “ Merci, monsieur.”

  They stood sipping the lemonade together.

  “It’s a hot night,” said the Greek.

  “Is it always as hot as this?”

  There were fans working but since the room had no windows they merely moved the hot air round.

  “It’s been hot all day. Monsieur is new to Cairo?”

  “We’ve been here just over a month.”

  “Ah. Not long enough to get used to it.”

  “How long does it take to get used to it?”

  The Greek spread his hands. “A lifetime. And then it’s no use!”

  They went back to the table. The play began again.

  The room was long and thin with deep luxurious carpets and heavy wood panelling. A door led off into an inner room, out of which waiters emerged regularly with drinks. They brought the drinks to the players. There was no bar as such. Drink was incidental at Anton’s. Besides, most of the players were Moslem.

  An arch behind Owen led back into the entrance vestibule. Through it he could see one end of the cloakroom counter. Since Berthelot had arrived one player had left and four more had entered. The one who had left had departed soon after Berthelot had appeared and, Owen thought, had gone straight past the cloakroom. It was a hot evening and very few people had brought coats. A number had brought walking sticks which they deposited.

  No one, Owen was pretty sure, left the playing room during the evening to visit the cloakroom. The obvious pretext would have been to use the toilets but they were off the main room next to the door through which the waiters came and went. He had watched the waiters particularly carefully. He was sure that none of them had gone out into the entrance vestibule. There might, of course, be a door from the inner room into the entrance vestibule. If there was, it would be at the far end and he had seen no one walk past the arch from that direction. As the evening wore on, the possibilities narrowed down.

  Although he took short breaks from time to time, for most of the evening he had to play. He found himself worrying about the money he was losing. It was Departmental money but he would still be held to account for it. The Ministry’s accountants would allow a certain amount of expenditure of this kind in view of the peculiar nature of the Mamur Zapt’s operations but the amount was, in Owen’s view, ridiculously low. It must have been much easier being Mamur Zapt in the days before Cromer, the previous Consul-General, had introduced a stringent financial regime. In those more relaxed days Anton would probably have been on the payroll. The Mamur Zapt himself might even have taken a cut.

  At last Berthelot looked at his watch.

  “You’re probably right,” said his neighbor, the talkative Greek. “The only person who’s going to do well tonight is Anton.”

  He stepped back from the table with Berthelot but only to pour himself some more lemonade. The Frenchman went on out of the room and made for the cloakroom. One of the attendants came forward with his case.

  “Can I leave that here?” Berthelot asked. “I’ve got to go on to
another place.”

  “Of course, Monsieur,” said the attendant. “We are open till four. There will be someone here after that but we shall have gone off duty. Perhaps I should give Monsieur a receipt. Then he has but to hand it in and there will be no complication.”

  “That seems a good idea,” said Berthelot.

  The attendant produced a receipt, which Berthelot pocketed without looking at it. As he went out of the door Owen moved unhurriedly after him.

  “I am just going out for some fresh air,” he told the porter.

  Berthelot was just stepping into an arabeah. As the carriage moved off into the night another arabeah drew out of a side street and set off after it.

  There was a man standing in the shadows.

  “OK?” asked Owen.

  “OK,” said the man.

  Owen went back inside. The Greek had taken his place at the table but made room for him.

  “There’s still time to lose a fortune,” he said cheerfully. After a little while, seeing how circumspectly Owen was playing, he added: “Though if you want to do it tonight you’ll have to hurry up.”

  “Why hurry?” asked Owen.

  They had been playing for about half an hour when a suffragi came in.

  “A letter,” he said, “for Mr. Stefanopoulos.”

  The Greek put up his hand, though without taking his eyes off the play. The bearer stuck the letter in it. The Greek waited until the croupier began to rake in the chips before he opened the envelope.

  “It’s from my wife,” he said to the croupier. “She says she forgot to tell me before I left this evening that the house is already sold.”

  The croupier smiled mechanically.

  “That being so,” said the Greek, “I shall have to earn some more money before making a present of it to Monsieur Anton.”

  “ A bientot,” said the croupier as the Greek left the table.

  “Such domestic fidelity is an example to us all,” said Owen, and got up too.

  Owen and the Greek went down the stairs together. Not until they were outside did the Greek speak. Then he stepped aside into the shadows and said familiarly:

  “Which way did he use?”

  “The side door.”

  “As expected. Good. Who’s following him?”

  “Abou and Sadiq. Sadiq is here.”

  A man came out of the shadows.

  “You are Sadiq?”

  “Yes, effendi.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He is at the Mosque of El Hakim. Waiting.”

  “Take us there,” said the Greek, whose name was not Stefanopoulos but Georgiades, and who was one of the Mamur Zapt’s most experienced agents, “and we will wait too.

  Chapter 4

  At the end of the street was a large, ruined mosque. It was solid and fortresslike, possessing the grandeur but lacking the grace of the other great Cairo mosques. Everything about it was square and formidable. Even its minarets were not true minarets but mabkharas, structures like the pylons of the ancient Egyptian temples. It grew out of Saladin’s old city walls, sharing with them secret rooms and hidden defensive passages. It was the mosque of El Hakim, the fourth oldest of all the mosques of Cairo, one of the few remaining from the former city of El Kahira.

  Although it was ruined it was not deserted. The ordinary poor had come to live in it, and now wherever there was an arch intact or a few bricks to give a patch of shade an assembly of cooking utensils and a fire announced the hearth of a household.

  There were even, among the ruins, workshops and small factories. Space was scarce in Cairo and enterprising entrepreneurs took it where they could find it.

  The Egyptologists, thought Owen, spoke of Egypt’s traditional preoccupation with death and pointed to the Pyramids. But the Pyramids had been built by workmen from the villages roundabout and from those villages also had come generations of grave robbers who had not been afraid to pillage the tombs. The Egyptologists spoke of the Pyramids and not of the grave robbers; but it was the grave robbers with their need and their greed, with their anarchic rejection of the dead hand of authority and with their obstinate instinct for life, who were in the end characteristic of Egyptian society.

  It was typical of Egyptians to take over something dead and make it a place for living. The mosque might have been an empty shell; instead, it hummed with life. Even now at night there were pinpricks of light beneath its arches.

  Sadiq led them toward one of these, threading his way through a grove of still intact pillars, some of them still supporting arches. They were going through the liwan, the deep central space or room which served as the sanctuary. In the old days, when El Hakim was still functioning as a mosque, the faithful would have gathered round the pillars in the shade of the arches to hear the Holy Word expounded. At the far end of the pillars there was a light.

  Sadiq stopped. A second figure appeared beside him. The two figures merged together for a moment and then the second figure detached itself and came across to Owen.

  “He is still there, effendi,” a voice whispered in his ear. “No one has come. He sits with the watchman. He has a case with him.”

  He put his hand on Owen’s arm and guided him forward. Ahead of him was a deeper darkness, something screening off the light, a wall perhaps.

  Abou brought him up to the wall and then stopped. There was a gap through which Owen could see. In front of him two Arabs were sitting on the ground with an oil lamp between them. One of them was an old man in a torn, dirty galabeah, the night watchman presumably. The other was a suffragi in a spruce gown. Owen thought he recognized one of the attendants from the cloakroom. On the ground beside him was Berthelot’s case.

  Owen shifted his position and something flashed in his eyes, dazzling him. Involuntarily he jerked his head back and was dazzled again. For a moment he could not work out what was happening. Then he realized. There was some glass opposite him which was catching the light from the oil lamp. Several bits of glass, because as he moved there were different flashes.

  He looked more closely. At first he could not make out what it was. Then he saw and could not believe his eyes. The space in front of him was piled deep with lanterns. That was what the “wall” consisted of: lanterns, hundreds of them. They stood in heaps and piles all around this part of the liwan, bright, colored lanterns with gaudy paper and flashy dangling beads.

  Then he remembered. The mosque was used to store the lanterns used on feast days to decorate the city’s streets and squares.

  The two Arabs went on talking quietly. From time to time the watchman looked at the case. The other man did not stir.

  At one point the watchman got to his feet and shuffled off into the night. Owen tensed expectantly but the suffragi did not move nor did anyone come. Eventually the watchman shuffled back, this time with a dirty black can. He produced two small enamel cups from the folds of his galabeah, set them on the ground and filled them from the can. The suffragi drank with appropriately polite smacking of lips.

  They resumed their conversation. Owen could follow it only in parts. It was purely trivial in nature. They were just passing the time. Owen felt sure the suffragi was waiting for somebody.

  Georgiades had slipped away. Owen knew what he was doing. He was making his way ’round to the other side to cut off possible escape routes.

  If the man was coming, though, it would have to be soon. The sky was beginning to lighten.

  The watchman produced some bread and an onion and offered to share it with the suffragi. The suffragi refused politely.

  Owen was beginning to get bothered now. It was getting light so quickly that a man coming through the liwan would be able to see the watchers. He signalled to Abou, who was standing beside him and they moved in front of two pillars to be less visible from behind.

  Still no one came.

  In the strange gray light that came before the dawn in Egypt things stood out as clearly as if it were day but with a gentle softness which lacked the harsh clarity
of the sun. Owen always woke early. He would be awaking now if this were an ordinary day.

  Any moment now the sun would come over the horizon. The watchman leaned forward and extinguished the lamp.

  The suffragi rose from his squat and picked up the case. He bade the watchman the usual extended, ceremonious, Arab farewell and then walked off down the colonnaded arcade.

  Abou looked at Owen questioningly.

  Owen nodded and the tracker slipped off through the pillars. Owen followed a long way behind. Tracking by daylight, when it was so much easier to be seen, was far harder than tracking by night. It was best left to those who knew how to do it.

  He could not see Sadiq. Georgiades, he knew, would be doing the same as he was.

  They followed the line of the old city wall. The houses in this poor quarter were made of mud. Every year when the heavy rain came it washed away some of the mud and left the houses slightly shapeless, their corners blurred. Then the sun came and dried the mud until it cracked. Little by little it would crumble and then be washed away when the rain came again. Many of the houses were little better than ruins.

  The suffragi went into one of the most ruined of these. There was not even a proper door, just a gap in the wall.

  The trackers waited at a discreet distance. Georgiades and Owen came up with them. Georgiades looked at Owen and made a face.

  “Nothing else for it!” Owen said resignedly. He waved the trackers in.

  They were holding the suffragi when Owen stepped into the room. The suffragi was putting up no resistance; indeed, there was a smile on his face.

  Owen went across to the case and snapped it open.

  It was empty.

  “It was a decoy,” said Owen bitterly, “just a decoy.”

  “And you fell for it,” said Garvin, with a certain grim satisfaction.

  “You’ve got the man, though,” said McPhee, loyal to the last.

  “Yes, but I can’t hold him. What’s he done?”

  “He has deceived us,” said McPhee stiffly.