‘Of course I know about the policy!’ he said huffily. ‘Keep foreigners out! And a good thing, too. But do you know what? You’ll hardly believe this. The damned fools have classed British as foreigners! “Look,” I said to the Consul-General. “You were born in Stow-on-the-Wold and I was born in Egham. How can anyone born in Egham be a foreigner? We’re British, British as they come, so how can we be foreigners?” “Yes,” he said, “but to the Egyptians we’re foreigners!” “Look,” I said, “who’s making the laws? Us or the Egyptians? We’re making them, aren’t we? So how can we be so daft as to make ourselves foreign? Especially when it’s the Fayoum at stake.”’
‘Rules us out, doesn’t it?’ said Owen.
‘Yes. From one of the provinces with the biggest economic potential. Crazy!’
‘What makes it worse,’ said Owen, ‘is that the other people don’t play fair.’
‘That’s it! You’d be amazed at the tricks they get up to. Buying shares under false names, entering into alliances with all sorts of unlikely people who claim to be Egyptians!’
‘The Kfouri Brothers?’
‘Notorious! Wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole. Tried it once but they skin you alive. Fifty-fifty, you’d think, wouldn’t you? But no, it had to be seventy-thirty, with them getting the seventy. “Nothing doing, old chap!” I said. “Fair is fair, and unless you give me a decent crack of the whip, you won’t see my money!”’
‘The trouble is, other people are not so scrupulous.’
‘That’s exactly it.’
‘Tvardovsky, for instance?’
‘Who knows what he got up to!’
‘Especially in the Fayoum. In fact, I was wondering about that. He used to bank with you, didn’t he?’
‘He did,’ said the Chairman, putting on his other tarboosh as Manager of the British Bank of the Levant.
‘A bit of a surprise, that.’
‘Not really. “I always bank with the best,” he said. “Then people ask fewer questions.”’
‘Yes. He used to say other things as well. What I was wondering was whether your records could tell us anything about his dealings in the Fayoum.’
‘What are you after?’
‘Nature and extent.’
‘Extent considerable, but we wouldn’t have a complete picture. He used to bank with other people as well. As to nature—’
He looked doubtful.
‘You might be able to get some idea, I suppose.’
‘What I was particularly interested in,’ said Owen, ‘was his dealings through other people.’
‘Such as?’
‘The Kfouris?’
‘He dealt with them, not through them. They are not the sort of people you deal through. And that was all a year or so ago. At one time he was very thick with them, but then they fell out.’
‘Any idea why?’
The Chairman shrugged.
‘Same reason as I fell out with them, I imagine,’ he said. ‘They tried to cut too deep. But that kind of thing doesn’t show up in bank statements.’
‘All right, not the Kfouris, then. But other people. Whose names he used. Might not the statements give a clue to them? Cheques made out to them, banker’s drafts?’
‘It would be a lot of work,’ said the Chairman doubtfully.
‘It might be worth it. If it led to foreigners being kept out.’
‘Ah, well, in that case—’
***
All through the day Owen kept expecting to hear from Mahmoud. No message came, however. Owen suspected that he had a fight on his hands. Ministries did not move. They didn’t move much for Mamur Zapts with privileged access to the top; they didn’t move at all for relatively junior Parquet officers.
Mahmoud would need all the help he could get, so it was a little surprising that he had not contacted Owen. Some help, though, was coming from the Nationalists. The newspapers that morning were full of the Strakhov case. Al-Liwa had spread it all over the front page. The other Arabic newspapers, all of whom were Nationalist, had given it almost equal prominence. If you were a Nationalist—and most of the officials, certainly in the Ministry of Justice were—it would be hard to miss it, which might give Mahmoud some of the support he needed.
The trouble was, the support would have to be mobilized. They had only forty-eight hours, of which nearly twenty-four had now elapsed. Perhaps that was what Mahmoud was doing—using his political contacts with the Nationalist Party to marshal support.
***
Owen was taking Zeinab out that evening. They had seen the opera at the main opera house, the Khedivial, so went to the smaller Abbas Theatre instead. It was a huge wooden barn of a building with benches at the front and boxes at the back, separated from each other by low, four-foot-high partitions. Many had harem grilles.
In the box next to theirs a dinner-jacketed man was sitting by himself.
‘Hello, Owen,’ said Prince Fuad.
‘Hello, Prince! I didn’t realize you were an opera devotee.’
‘I’m not,’ said Fuad, ‘but I am a devotee of the donna.’
The prima donna, newly arrived in Cairo, was young and slim—unusual, this, in prima donnas—and strikingly beautiful.
‘And can she sing, too?’
‘Don’t know about that,’ said Fuad indifferently.
He looked at Zeinab curiously. Owen introduced her.
‘Nuri Pasha’s daughter? Well, I know Nuri, of course, but I never knew—’
A waiter arrived bringing champagne.
‘Two more glasses,’ said the Prince. ‘Oh, and don’t forget: a bottle afterwards in the dressing room.’
He took a sip and then put the glass down on the little table beside him.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘how goes the hunt?’
‘Slowly. We keep meeting obstacles.’
‘Like a steeplechase,’ said the Prince with relish. ‘Damned good fun!’
He took another sip.
‘Still, you need to get a move on,’ he said, frowning. ‘I can’t go for too long without my certificates. I hope you’re remembering?’
‘I certainly am. I regard them as very important.’
‘Good,’ said the Prince, slightly surprised but pleased. ‘Good! Let me fill you up.’
He put down the bottle.
‘What about these obstacles? Anything I can do? A boot up somebody’s backside? Glad to help.’
‘No backsides need booting just at the moment, thanks,’ said Owen.
A thought suddenly struck him.
‘Except—’
‘Yes?’
‘There is something you might possibly be able to help on. But I hardly like to ask. It’s very, very tricky.’
‘A challenge, eh?’ said Fuad, getting interested.
‘It certainly is. The fact is, there’s a man we’re very anxious to talk to. Only we can’t gain access to him.’
‘Soon see about that!’ said Fuad.
‘He’s in prison. And he’s being deported tomorrow.’
‘Undesirable, is he?’
‘Very probably. But he might know something that would help us in getting hold of your certificates.’
‘Name?’ said Fuad.
‘Strakhov. But, look, there are powerful bodies involved. Ministries—’
‘Ministers?’ said Fuad. ‘I eat them.’
‘Foreign countries—’
‘Kick them in the balls.’
‘Russia—’
‘Especially.’
‘Only it’s got to be done tomorrow.’
‘Sure, sure. First thing.’ The Prince suddenly looked anxious. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘possibly not first thing. I’ll be with Silvie until eleven.’
‘Does that leave you enough time?’
; ‘Oh, yes. She’s got to go to rehearsals then anyway.’
***
As soon as he saw Mahmoud, Owen knew that something had happened.
‘You’ve not got anywhere?’
‘No. It’s not that. Not exactly.’
Mahmoud sat down in the seat opposite. He had rung Owen about halfway through the morning asking to see him.
‘What is it, then?’
‘They’ve explained,’ said Mahmoud, ‘why they wouldn’t act.’
‘Well?’
‘They’ve got bigger fish to fry.’
‘Such as?’
‘The Capitulations.’
‘The Capitulations!’
‘Part of them, at least.’
‘What is this?’
‘There’s a case coming up,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It’s to do with where a company is registered.’
‘De Vries and Boutigny,’ said Owen.
‘You know about it?’ said Mahmoud, surprised.
‘Well, I wouldn’t say I entirely understand it—’
‘It’s very important. At the moment, you see, a company which is to all intents and purposes Egyptian—all its business is in Egypt, its board meetings are held in Egypt, and so on—can register abroad and so escape the obligations of Egyptian company law. In particular it escapes a requirement to deposit a quarter of its proposed capital before it can be allowed to operate—a necessary requirement at this stage in Egypt’s economic development. Well, the Court of First Instance has just ruled that any company formed in this way for the purpose of evading Egyptian company law is null and nonexistent. It is a major ruling,’ said Mahmoud enthusiastically, ‘a tremendous assertion of Egyptian sovereignty!’
‘And the Ministry supports it?’
‘It certainly does!’
‘But why should that affect the Strakhov case?’
‘Because they don’t want to rock the boat. It’s still got to go to appeal and there could be a lot of pressure, from the Capitulatory Powers especially, to reverse it. They can’t afford to antagonize Russia just at this point.’
‘It’s so important that everything else has to be sacrificed to it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Strakhov?’
Mahmoud nodded.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is just the point.’
He sat silently for a moment. Then he said:
‘I knew about the case, of course. I knew that it was important. But what I had not seen was this angle.’ He looked at Owen. ‘In the Ministry,’ he said, ‘they believe that policy and politics are not for juniors. So I hadn’t taken it in.’
Owen was silent, too. It was certainly something that he had not taken in, either. But then, law, like finance, was an area he tended to leave to specialists.
‘You think they’re right?’ he said.
‘I think it makes sense, yes, to try not to antagonize the Powers in the run-up to the appeal.’
He was silent again.
‘This is very important, you see,’ he said, after a moment. ‘We don’t want to run any risk of it going wrong.’
‘No.’
‘Besides,’ he said, looking at Owen as if he was expecting—indeed, provoking—him to disagree, ‘Strakhov is not even an Egyptian.’
‘True.’
‘The general good must take priority over the individual good.’
‘I daresay,’ said Owen.
Mahmoud sighed.
‘But—’ he said.
Chapter Ten
‘De Vries and Boutigny: know about it?’
‘Only too well. If for no other reason,’ said Paul, ‘than that Jarvis rings me up about it at least every other day. It’s coming up for appeal on the twenty-ninth.’
‘Paul, what is our attitude towards it? As an Administration, I mean?’
‘All for it.’
‘Really?’
‘What do you mean: “really”?’
‘Well, I thought the Old Man might not be—that he might want the appeal to succeed. British interests and all that.’
‘The Old Man’s all for it. Been lobbying for it ever since he got here.’
‘Really?’
‘Gareth, why all this “really”?’
‘Well, it’s bound up with the Capitulations, isn’t it? I know that we’re not, as an Administration, all that keen on the Capitulations but I thought that was only because we didn’t want the other powers to have the privileges. It never occurred to me that we might not want them for ourselves.’
‘Ah, but you’re forgetting the point of the whole exercise. What the British are here for, why a British Administration was set up in the first place, was to sort out Egypt’s finances.’
‘But I thought—?’
‘I know. The last thing you would have thought was that they actually would try and sort out Egypt’s finances. But look at it this way: what, at bottom, is the Old Man?’
‘Well—’
‘Apart from being a bastard. I’ll tell you. He’s a banker. So was Cromer before him. And once a banker, always a banker. So when they got put here they behaved like bankers. They cut this and they chopped that, raised this and increased that. They actually did what they were supposed to do. We British are like that. Sometimes. Other countries never know where they are with us. That’s why they call us the perfidious British.’
‘But—’
‘Anyway, they were as happy as sandboys, cutting this and raising that, until they came up against the Capitulations and found that they were stopping them from doing these fine things. So Cromer said: “The Capitulations have got to go!” In fact, it wasn’t the Capitulations that went, but him. And then the Old Man came out here and he’s been saying the same thing.’
‘But, Paul, what’s all that got to do with De Vries and Boutigny? Surely they’re not strictly part of the Capitulations. I know they’re bound up with it somehow, but surely, strictly—’
‘But that is precisely the point. Does it come under the Capitulations or does it not? That’s exactly what the Court of Appeal has to decide. There are some Powers that think it does. We think it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, the Egyptian courts are free to rule on businesses operating under Egyptian company law.’
‘So in this the Old Man’s following Egyptian interests not British interests?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Well, I’m damned! You mean that in this we’re on the side of the Nationalists?’
‘I am sure that, with your usual elasticity, you will be able to cope.’
Owen was silent for a minute, reflecting. Then he said:
‘So that’s why the Old Man was unwilling to twist arms over Strakhov?’
‘You’d think that when you were twisting so many, a few more wouldn’t make much difference; but, broadly, yes. Russia is one of the powers that are being difficult and he sees no point in making things worse just at the moment. Once the appeal is out of the way, then, yes, he’d be only too delighted to refuse Russia extradition or, indeed, anything else.’
‘By that time, though, Strakhov will be back in Russia.’
Paul shrugged.
‘Little things, I’m afraid, have to give way to big. I’ve done what I could. Mahmoud has forty-eight hours’ grace, thanks to the Admiralty. It’s up to him now. If he can persuade the Ministries, the Old Man won’t intervene.’
‘But, Paul, they’re all behind the Old Man on a thing like this.’
‘What do you expect? This is important to Egypt.’
***
‘The Ministries won’t budge,’ said Mahmoud wearily. ‘Even my own Ministry. They say, we’ve been fighting for this for years. Now, at last, unless something goes wrong, it’s going to happen. We’re going to make damned sure that nothing goes wrong.’
<
br /> ‘You can understand their point of view.’
‘Of course I can understand their point of view!’ exploded Mahmoud. ‘I share it. I ask myself why I am bothering about Strakhov at all. Or about Tvardovsky, come to that. They’re just individual cases. But this—this question of the Capitulation is something much bigger. It touches on the whole question of the standing of Egypt, it is about Egypt, Egypt! So why am I holding back? Why, why?’
‘You’re not holding back! You’re as keen as they are. It’s just that at the same time you’re also pursuing—’
‘I know, I know! That is what I say to myself. What I say to them. But do you know what they say to me? Or if they do not say it, they think it: Mahmoud, you are a traitor!’
‘No, no, come on—’
‘Yes!’
Mahmoud beat his chest dramatically.
‘That is what they think. This man, they say, when all should be pulling together, goes off and chases butterflies! Because that is what it is. Strakhov is a butterfly, a mere butterfly, compared to this. Worse; because of this, this mere butterfly, things could go wrong.’
‘Oh, come. Look, the Russians are not going to let their attitude towards De Vries and Boutigny be affected by a tiny sideshow like Strakhov!’
‘You think so? But, let me tell you, these powers are jealous of their privileges. For Strakhov as a man they care nothing. Pah! He is a mere insect. But for their privileges, yes, they care a lot. And one privilege is bound up with another. That is what the Capitulations system is!’
He stared fiercely at Owen; as if, for a moment, he was the personal embodiment of the Capitulations system. Which, of course, in a sense, he was.
‘That is why Strakhov is important. They will say, this is an attack on our privileges. And this De Vries and Boutigny business is another one. The De Vries and Boutigny we could perhaps put up with. We can see there are arguments. But now this Strakhov business comes along and it is like—it is like a last straw! And what my friends say is this: “Mahmoud,” they said, “why have you got to lay on this last straw? Why is this Strakhov so important to you?” And, I, too, I ask myself, why is Strakhov so important to me, why?’
He looked at Owen dramatically.
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Owen. ‘It is because you are a good lawyer.’
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