I don’t think she realised then that she was naked as she lay quite placidly in my embrace; but I realised it and knew that I must do something about it as quickly as I could to save her feelings when she fully regained consciousness.
‘I won’t be a second,’ I said, propping her up against the wall, but a sudden look of stark terror came into her blue eyes. With surprising strength she grabbed my hand and moaned:
‘Don’t! Don’t leave me!’
Knowing what I was up to I paid no heed but shook off her grip with a reassuring smile and ran out across the passage into the black girl’s room. She probably had a number of garments in her wardrobe and her trunk but as nothing suitable was visible I just grabbed her bedclothes.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ I said with an apologetic grin. ‘But I want these. You can get some of your own clothes on. The police will be up here in a moment.’
She let out a falsetto screech as I ripped the blankets off her bed and sliding out of the other side spat at me furiously, but I took no further notice of her and hurried back to Sylvia.
Evidently she had realised why I had left her by then as she was sitting up cross-legged with her head in her hands and her back turned towards me.
‘Here, cover up with these,’ I said, draping the bedclothes round her. ‘I’ll get you some proper clothes as soon as I can.’
With a little shiver she huddled into the blankets and extended a hand over her shoulder. ‘Please, may I have some more brandy?’
I was perspiring from my exertions but I realised that it must have been pretty chilly up there, lying about without any clothes on. Thrusting the flask into her hand I left her again and hurried down the corridor to the French girl. She was still sitting on the edge of her bed quietly smoking.
‘Well, where are the police?’ she smiled. ‘I believe Monsieur was only fooling and that they’ve given him the run of the place to pick whom he likes up here. But why make such a fuss about it? I’ll show you a better time than any of these coloured women. Come over here and talk to me, cheri.’
‘The police are here all right,’ I assured her grimly. ‘If you listen you can hear them working on that steel door at the top of the stairs. In the meantime I want the loan of some of your clothes.’
‘My clothes!’ she echoed. ‘Why? For some special funnibizznes?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘But give me some of the things in that trunk. A suit of undies and a coat and skirt if you’ve got one.’
‘Monsieur is a little mad, I think,’ she sniffed.
‘Thanks, I’m quite sane,’ I retorted. ‘But I’ve found the girl I was looking for and the swine who runs this place had locked her up stripped to the skin.’
Her hard little face softened immediately. ‘Pauvre petite,’ she murmured, standing up. ‘So she is a new girl and unwilling. Such treatment is the first step and most of us go through it. Of course I will find things for her.’
As she spoke she went to the wardrobe and fished out a pair of step-ins, a silk dress and a little coatee. ‘Here, take these. I will bring stockings and other things in a moment.’
‘Thank you ever so much,’ I smiled as I received the garments from her. ‘I’ll see to it that you get an easy deal from the police for this.’
She shrugged disdainfully. ‘The police! I am not afraid of them. But when one is in trouble, one is in trouble; and it is for that reason only I lend my clothes to your little friend.’
Her attitude left me awkward and abashed but I had no time to bother about that and quickly took the things along to Sylvia. Giving them to her I asked if she felt strong enough to get into them.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just go outside for a moment, will you?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Some shoes and stockings will be along in a minute.’
As I stepped out into the corridor I noticed that the banging on the steel door had ceased and I wondered what had become of the rest of the raiding party; but when I thought of it I realised that all my smashing-in of doors and swift questions to these women had happened so quickly that it could be barely five minutes since I had chased O’Kieff upstairs. The police would have had plenty to occupy them during so short a time; the probability was that only a stray member of the party had followed me and, finding the door too much for him alone, he had now gone to get help. I was anxious to get Sylvia out of the place and into Clarissa’s care as quickly as possible but it was clear that we were cooped up there with the ‘Angels’ until our friends could release us.
It was just then that I first noticed the smell of smoke. I was still sniffing uncertainly when the door of the room next to Sylvia’s was flung open and another young woman came dashing out. She was shouting something in a tongue that I did not understand but a billow of smoke that followed her as she ran from the room told its own story. O’Kieff must have fired the place on his way out and we were trapped up there in the top storey.
14
Heru-Tem; the Man Who Came Back
On each of my dashes along the passage several of the doors in it had been opened a crack but on my appearance they had shut each time with the rapidity of a row of tickled oysters.
The piercing shrieks of the girl meant that, one by one, the other doors opened and, altogether, eight girls emerged.
With a familiarity which some say breeds contempt I thrust them hastily aside and pushed my way into the room of a young red-head, from which the smoke was now swirling in big billows. It was next to the hidden stairs down which O’Kieff had disappeared and the seat of the trouble was at the foot of the wall abutting on to the staircase. Evidently he had had a special store of incendiary material already prepared there and the explosion I had heard was the bomb with which he had ignited it, otherwise the fire could not have got a hold so quickly. Dense clouds of smoke were welling up from the crack between the floor-boards and the skirting and through them I could see the red flames flickering as they ate hungrily into the well-seasoned wood.
Snatching up a pitcher of water from the washstand I sprinkled its contents over the blankets on the bed and piled them on the place where the fire was fiercest but the heat was so intense that they only served as a temporary check. Coughing and sneezing from the smoke I made my way to the window and shut it, then staggered back out of the room pulling the door shut behind me.
‘Silence!’ I yelled in stentorian tones to the alarmed beauty chorus; after which I repeated in every language I could muster, ‘Don’t be afraid. The police are below and there are plenty of them to rescue them. Get your clothes on as quickly as you can.’
As Sylvia turned back into the room I hurried to a solitary window at the extreme end of the passage and, reaching it, thanked all my gods to find that it was not barred. Throwing it open I thrust out my head. I could see figures moving in the garden but it was clear that the fire had spread with great rapidity as flames, smoke and sparks were issuing from the window immediately below me. I hailed the people in the garden and Longdon’s voice came back.
‘That you, Day? We thought you had been scuppered. How many others are up there?’
‘Sylvia Shane and eight of the “Angels”,’ I yelled back. ‘We’re trapped up here by a steel door at the top of the stairs. Can’t you manage to force it?’
‘No!’ he cried. ‘We’ve been trying to for the last ten minutes, but nothing short of dynamite will shift it. There are no ladders here so you’ll have to make a rope of sheets.’
‘Right ho!’ I bawled and shut the window, but I was none too happy about the task before me. It would take time to do as he suggested and get all nine women safely to the ground, and a steady stream of smoke was already percolating into the corridor.
Sylvia was the first out as she had already been partially dressed when the alarm of fire was given. She looked sick and ill but not frightened although she again glanced quickly away from me which, seeing the state I had found her in, made me dread more than ever hearing even a vague reference to what she ha
d been through.
Immediately I had told her what we had to do she set to work knotting together the bedclothes I had got for her, while I ran from room to room collecting others.
The girls responded gamely, once they understood what was wanted of them, and with so many willing hands we soon had a thirty-foot rope of sheets stretched out along the corridor. I tested each knot myself while they pulled a bed out of the nearest room to which I firmly secured one end of the rope.
As the young black girl was becoming hysterical I decided to get rid of her first, and tied the other end of the life-line twice round her body.
She was in such a state of terror that in spite of our efforts to persuade her she flatly refused to go out of the window; but the situation was becoming too serious to waste much time in arguing with her so, getting the other girls to take the strain on the rope, I picked her up bodily and pushed her out feet first.
I wanted Sylvia to go next as she was so weak from the ordeal she had been through but she wouldn’t hear of it and, once again, I dared not waste time arguing. The flames were now licking under the door of the bedroom where the fire had first appeared and the whole corridor was so thick with smoke that we could no longer see the full length of it.
As Sylvia wouldn’t go I sent down the red-head since her wide staring eyes showed an abject fear although she had remained dumb the whole time like some frightened animal. After her, we lowered three more but each operation took several minutes and I was still left with three more, besides Sylvia.
By that time our eyes were smarting so badly that we could hardly see; while fifteen feet behind us we could hear the roar and crackle of the flames as they ate up the door and licked at the wall opposite. I’m not exactly a panicky person but I was getting distinctly worried at the rapid way the fire was gaining.
As Sylvia still refused to go down, I sent the another and, on turning to select the next, found that the beautiful Chinese girl had fainted. Gasping and stumbling we hurriedly tied the lifeline round her and pushed her inanimate body out of the window.
The heat was simply appalling; sweat was running down our faces in streams and as we staggered about half-blinded I began to fear that the rest of us would never get out in time. To us, waiting there, panting for breath in the stifling atmosphere, it seemed that each time we lowered the life-line it was longer before it came up again. While I attended to the rope and took the strain when each of the girls was lowered, I made the others keep their heads thrust out of the window so that they could get as much fresh air as possible, but I was feeling near the end of my tether.
I cursed myself for not having had the foresight to tie a damp towel over my mouth and nose, but I had had no time to think of that and now I was paying the penalty. With every breath I drew the acrid smoke tore at my lungs until it seemed that my chest would burst with the frightful pain that racked it. Behind us now there was one solid sheet of flame and I knew that it would take another six minutes at least for the remaining three of us to reach safety. My movements had become slow and clumsy and although I fought with all my will it seemed as though my brain was going. I doubted if I could stave off unconsciousness even for another two minutes.
It was Sylvia who saved us. She saw how things were with me as I staggered and nearly fell in my effort to tie the life-line round Miss France. Leaning out of the window she called down that we were done unless someone could come up to help us. At that moment Miss France fainted and fell on to me but somehow or other we managed to bundle her out and keep some sort of check on the life-line as it jerked through our hands; after which I remember nothing until I came to in the garden.
It was Longdon who had swarmed up the line and got out Sylvia and myself both of whom were unconscious by the time he reached us.
We were all so done-in that it was as much as we could do to stumble into the cars and, a few minutes later, the beds that Hanbury provided for us; so it was not until the following morning that I had a chance to talk things over with any of my friends.
In the confusion resulting from the fire O’Kieff had escaped and the dozen prisoners, including the ‘Madame’ of the place that Hanbury had captured were small fry, mainly consisting of Arab servants and strong-arm men. Three of their people had been killed in the scrap and five others dangerously wounded; while our party had sustained six serious casualties including two dead and Mustapha, whose right arm had been broken by a bullet. As the ‘Angels’ were nearly all apprentices at their trade it was hoped that they were not beyond permanent rescue and they were being sent to Cairo where arrangements would be made for their transport to the countries of their origin when relatives, who would be responsible for them, had been duly contacted.
Harry seemed to have enjoyed the scrap, in spite of the fact that he had been temporarily knocked out and had a bump on his forehead the size of a hen’s egg; at all events he certainly enjoyed basking in Clarissa’s obvious hero-worship when she came down to join us for lunch.
She told us that, all things considered, Sylvia seemed better than might have been expected; and when she had been asked if she would like to remain in Ismailia for a few days to recover she had declared she would much rather go back to Cairo that afternoon where she could have her own things about her.
The doctor who had been called in the night before to look after us had given her a sleeping draught, so she had slept well and her main complaint, apart from the fact that she was stiff and sore, seemed to be that she had developed a violent cold. So far she had given no account of what had happened during the time she had been a prisoner but, whatever had occurred it was cheering to know that she hadn’t broken down under it and was apparently putting a brave face on the matter.
After lunch she came downstairs in clothes that Hanbury had borrowed for her. They fitted badly and she was looking very groggy but she declared that she was ready to make her statement to the police. We suggested that we should retire but she said she had no objection to our remaining while she told her story.
Under the impression that she was being taken to Police Headquarters she had driven off with the bogus police officer and, just as Essex Pasha had postulated, the car had turned off from the main road into the courtyard of a private house where the gates were immediately closed behind it. Directly she had started to enquire the reason, several people had come out of the house and dragged her into it; holding her down they had pulled up her skirt and given her an injection in the thigh. After a few minutes she had lapsed into unconsciousness and she remembered nothing else until she found herself, dressed in native garments, lying back in the seat of an aeroplane.
Hanbury nodded at that point and remarked, ‘It was the information from the Air Port Police in Cairo which enabled us to trace you. We had never heard of the House of the Angels here and were completely baffled; but the suspect ’plane with the sick woman on board had not arrived in Alexandria, which made it look pretty fishy. It occurred to me then that there’s only one man here who runs a private ’plane and that’s Suliman Taufik. He doesn’t use the Ismailia Air Port but keeps it in a private ground near his residence. On enquiry I found that it had flown over and landed there at a little before four in the afternoon. The time of the flight tallied with the trip from Cairo and so did the description of his ’plane when I got on to the Air Port Police there. That more or less settled the matter in my mind but I checked up afterwards that Suliman’s place was the House of the Angels by pulling in some of his servants.’
Sylvia nodded. ‘Thank God you did. Anyhow, that’s what happened; by the time they got me to the house the dope was beginning to wear off a bit. In a room downstairs I was confronted by a man whom I recognised at once, from Ju—Mr. Day’s description, as O’Kieff.’
She shivered slightly and went on quickly, ‘He’s a horrid person; cold as a fish and with eyes like a snake. He threatened me with all sorts of pains and penalties unless I would sign an authority to my bank for them to hand over the lower half of the tablet—the
one I’ve had ever since it was discovered—to his representative.
‘At first I refused, of course, so they took me upstairs for a little gentle persuasion. I decided then that discretion was the better part of valour and signed the letter they wanted. Afterwards they took my clothes and locked me up so that I couldn’t get away, and it was like that Mr. Day found me.’
‘You’ve, er—got nothing else to charge them with?’ Hanbury enquired a little awkwardly.
‘How d’you mean?’ she asked calmly.
‘Well—er—so far we have abduction, illegally administering a dangerous drug with criminal intentions and enforcing the signing of a document under pressure of threats. As they beat you up I think we ought to add assault and, er …’ he looked away in embarrassment. ‘I don’t want to press you now but perhaps the assault charge might need some special qualification which you would rather prefer through a Police Matron.’
‘Oh no,’ said Sylvia looking him straight in the eye. ‘You’re quite mistaken about that. Nobody even laid a hand on me.’
I saw at once the line she was taking and quickly came to her assistance.
‘What’s more,’ I said, ‘Miss Shane told me when I found her last night that the bogus police officer who took her off in the car didn’t accompany them in the ’plane to Ismailia. I feel quite certain, too, that it won’t be the least use your holding any identity parades of your prisoners because, owing to the state she was in, Miss Shane would not be able to recognise the women or the other two men who did accompany her in the ’plane from Cairo.’
Hanbury turned and gave me an angry look. ‘Thank you, Day, but I’m not questioning you, and I should be obliged if you would keep your views to yourself.’ But Sylvia smiled and remarked quietly:
‘He’s quite right. Actually it’s a fact that the bogus policeman wasn’t on the ’plane and I do feel quite convinced that I should never be able to identify any of the others.’
The Quest of Julian Day Page 21