The Mamur Zapt & the Return of the Carpet

by Michael Pearce

  “Your high-handed action last night. The Khedive has received a formal complaint from the Syrian ambassador.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “That you forcibly and illegally entered premises belonging to a Syrian citizen—”

  “A brothel.”

  “—and abducted a guest present on the premises.”

  “A customer. A British subject.”

  “A British soldier. Characteristically engaged.”

  “But British. And therefore no concern of the ambassador’s.”

  Nor of the Khedive’s, he nearly added.

  “Syrian rights have been infringed. That is the concern of the ambassador.”

  Owen reflected. He could simply tell Guzman to go and jump in the Nile. Or he could be more politic. In Cairo it was nearly always best to be more politic. He adopted a reasonable tone.

  “At the time of entry the premises were not known to be foreign,” he said. “They were known only to be a particularly vicious brothel. I must say, I find it a little surprising that the ambassador should be defending the rights of someone engaged in conducting such a place!”

  “Perhaps,” said Guzman drily, “he was unaware of the use to which the premises were put.”

  Owen was not sure that the words were meant ironically. Guzman spoke as flatly as he usually did; but was there a glint of humour? If so, it did not survive long.

  “The fact remains,” said Guzman, “that Syrian rights have been infringed and the Khedive embarrassed.”

  Owen decided to be politic still.

  “If the Khedive has been embarrassed,” he said smoothly, “it was, of course, inadvertently on our part. I hope you will convey my personal apologies.”

  Guzman was taken aback by this; indeed he appeared slightly put out. He hesitated, as if uncertain about prolonging the interview, and then said, almost tentatively: “The soldier—?”

  “Will be dealt with by the Army,” said Owen heartily.

  He edged towards the door. Guzman, however, ignored the hint.

  “But will he?” he asked suddenly.

  “Will he—”

  “Be dealt with by the Army?”

  “Of course.”

  “Will it,” said Guzman meaningfully, “get the chance?”

  Owen was caught slightly off balance.

  “I don’t quite follow you.”

  “I understand,” said Guzman, “that the man is still in your custody.”

  “Ah yes,” said Owen, recovering, “but that is only temporarily.”

  “How temporary?”

  “Very temporary,” said Owen firmly. He was not going to be steam-rollered by Guzman.

  “May I ask why you are holding him?”

  “I just want to ask him a few questions.”

  “About—?”

  “Oh, military matters,” he said vaguely, edging further towards the door.

  “Military matters?” Guzman looked puzzled. “But surely that is the concern of the Army?”

  Owen realized that he had been cornered again.

  “Some are my concern,” he said off-handedly.

  “Ah! Security!”

  Owen smiled politely, and uninformatively. He took up a stance by the door. Guzman did not appear to notice. He seemed sunk in thought.

  “This man you are holding—”

  “Yes?”

  “What precisely—?”

  “I am afraid I am not at liberty to tell you that.”

  Guzman was still thinking.

  “Was he at the Kantara barracks?” he asked.

  Owen continued to smile politely but did not reply.

  Guzman thought again. Then he made up his mind.

  “I would like to see him,” he said abruptly.

  “That,” said Owen, “would not be possible.”

  ***

  After Guzman had gone, Nikos came back into the room.

  “That was odd,” he said. “Why is he so interested?”

  “In the sergeant, you mean? Don’t know. For the same reason as us, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” said Nikos, and went away again still looking thoughtful.

  Owen opened his file and worked steadily till lunch. Then he went to the club. In the cloakroom he ran into his friend John, the Sirdar’s aide.

  “I don’t want to be seen with you!” his friend said, pretending flight.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re always doing horrid things to the Army.”

  “What am I doing now?”

  “Kidnapping its soldiers. Or so I am informed.”

  Owen was surprised.

  “Christ! That’s quick!” he said. “Who informed you?”

  “Someone from the Khediviate.”

  “Really?” A nasty suspicion dawned in Owen’s mind. “You don’t, by chance, happen to know his name?”

  “He was unwilling to give it but I extracted it. Guzman.”

  “Guzman! The bastard!”

  “You do seem to be having trouble with your acquaintances,” said John.

  “When did you get the message?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “He must have rung as soon as he got out of my office. The bastard!”

  “I take it,” said John, drying his hands, “that the poor kidnapped soldier is a certain ex-sergeant from Kantara?”

  “You take it rightly.”

  “In that case,” said John, “I wish to know no more. What I can tell you in confidence is that unfortunately I was unable to pass the message on before lunch as I was so busy. Naturally I shall inform my superiors as soon as possible. However, it may be that I shall be detained at lunch by someone who insists on buying me a drink and so I shall miss the afternoon mail with my memo. In which case it would only reach them tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re a pal,” said Owen.

  “Would it help?”

  “It would. It really would.”

  “Mind! Till tomorrow only!”

  “That should be long enough.”

  “In any case,” said John, “it would be bad for the Sirdar’s digestion if he was told that sort of thing just after lunch.”

  “We wouldn’t want that to happen. But now, about your own digestion—?”

  “A drink would go down very nicely. Yes, please.”

  ***

  Owen called in at the office after his swim. Nikos was still there. “I don’t understand it,” he said when Owen told him about Guzman’s message. “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “Because he’s a nasty bastard, that’s why!” said Owen with feeling.

  Nikos shook his head. “That wouldn’t be the only reason.”

  “What other reason could there be?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nikos.

  Owen left him thinking and went on into his own room. Nikos hated things to be untidy, unexplained. He would worry at this like a terrier with a bone.

  Some time later he came into Owen’s room.

  “Maybe he’s afraid,” he said.

  “Afraid? What of?”

  “You. Talking to the sergeant. He thinks you might find out something.”

  “But why tip off the Army?”

  “So that you get less time to talk.”

  He collected the papers from Owen’s out-tray and went back into the main office. When Owen looked in half an hour later he had gone home.

  Owen himself worked on till well after midnight. Then he called for the sergeant. The sergeant had been in the caracol for over twenty-four hours now; and this time he gave Owen the name he wanted.

  Chapter Eight

  “I think we ought to go in,” said McPhee.

  “There’s no real evidence,” Garvin obje
cted. “Nothing to link him with the grenades.”

  “There’s plenty to link him with other stuff.”

  “Plenty?”

  “That sergeant said it was a recognized route. They’ve been using that chap for years.”

  “If what the sergeant says is true,” said Garvin, “and we know him to be a liar.”

  “He wasn’t lying this time,” said Owen.

  “It’s the lead we wanted,” said McPhee. “What are we waiting for?”

  “We’re waiting for something real,” said Garvin.

  “Isn’t the box something real?”

  “There are boxes going in and out of that place all the time.”

  “Ali says he knows those and it wasn’t one of them,” said Owen.

  “How can he know all the boxes? What about a new supplier?”

  “He was sure.”

  “Might be anything,” said Garvin dismissively. “A new hat for his wife, goods for the shop. We can’t go in just on the word of a street beggar.”

  “And of a sergeant,” said McPhee.

  “A convicted criminal. Lying to save his skin.”

  “Not to save his skin,” Owen pointed out.

  “All right, then,” said Garvin. “Lying because he’s been terrified out of his wits. And that’s something else I want to speak to you about.”

  “We wouldn’t have found out any other way,” said McPhee loyally, and bore without flinching the look Garvin gave him.

  “The question is,” said Garvin, “now that we’ve got some real information—”

  Owen did not like the way Garvin kept emphasizing the word “real” today.

  “—how do we use it? Wouldn’t it be best simply to put a man on the shop and keep it under surveillance?”

  “We don’t have the time,” said Owen. “The Carpet’s next week.”

  “Suppose the grenades are still on their way?” asked Garvin. “Suppose they haven’t got there yet? Don’t we just scare whoever-it-is off?”

  “Suppose they’ve already passed through?” said Owen.

  “Well,” said Garvin, “in that case we’ve lost them already. Going in wouldn’t help.”

  “We might pick up something,” said McPhee.

  “And at least we’d know,” said Owen.

  “Suppose they’re there all the time,” said McPhee, “while we’re mucking around.”

  “And suppose they’ll soon be not there,” added Owen, “if we go on mucking around. Boxes come out as well as go in.”

  “Yes,” said Garvin. “I’ll admit that’s a worry.”

  He rested his chin on his hand and thought.

  “All the same,” he said, “it’s not much to go on. If it wasn’t grenades I wouldn’t look at it.”

  “But it is grenades,” said McPhee, “and the Carpet is next week.”

  “We don’t know—” Garvin began, and then stopped. He thought for a little longer and then he looked at Owen.

  “OK,” he said, “you can go in. But on your head be it.”

  It was a typical Garvin ending and Owen wanted to ask what he meant, though he had an uneasy feeling that he knew what was meant. McPhee, however, was pleased.

  “Good, sir,” he said. “When?”

  “This afternoon,” said Owen, “when everybody’s asleep.”

  “Not tonight?” asked Garvin.

  “You can see better in the day,” said Owen.

  Garvin shrugged.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Only you’ll have to move fast. He’s a Syrian and he’ll have someone round from the consulate in a flash of lightning. You won’t even get a chance to question him.”

  “I’ll see I get a chance to question him,” said Owen.

  ***

  Soon after two, when the sun had driven people from the streets and most Cairenes were settling deeply into their siesta, Owen’s men went in.

  The shutters had been half drawn across the front of the shop to give shade and to symbolize recess but there was a gap in the middle through which the men stepped. An assistant was asleep on the floor, curled up among the brassware. He opened his eyes as the men came in, blinked and then sat bolt upright. One of the men picked him up by the scruff of the neck and put him in a corner, where he was soon joined by two other startled and sleepy assistants brought through from the separate servants’ quarters at the rear of the house.

  The family lived above the shop. The first floor contained the dining-room and a surprisingly luxurious living-room, with a tiled floor and heavy, rich carpets on the walls. Above these were the bedrooms, where the man whose name Owen had been given slept with his wife and their five children. Above this again was the room at the front with five latticed windows where the wife’s mother slept and spent most of her days, together with a warren of small storerooms.

  Georgiades went straight to these, reasoning that the grenades would most likely be stored in the private part of the house and in a room rarely used by the family. Abdul Kassem, one of his most experienced men, went through to the back of the shop where goods awaiting unpacking or despatch were stored and began to search meticulously through the boxes.

  The other men fanned out through the house. The first thing was to station a man at every intersection, where one floor gave on to another, or one set of rooms to an independent suite. In that way if anyone made a panic move in one particular direction he would be remarked and intercepted. After that the men began to move efficiently through each room.

  McPhee, nominally under Owen’s orders for the occasion, since the police did not possess right of entry without a warrant but the Mamur Zapt did, began to ferret around the shop itself, poking his stick particularly under the heavy shelving which supported the goods.

  The shop was half way along the Musky and catered for both native Egyptians and tourists. The Egyptians came for the fine brassware: the elegant ewers called ibreek, which the Arabs used for pouring water over the hands, the little basins and water-strainers which went with them, old brass coffee-pots, coffee saucepans, coffee-trays, coffee-cups and coffee-mills, fine brasswork for the nargileh pipes, chased brass lantern-ends, brass open-work toilet boxes, incense-burners, inkpots, scales—all of good old patterns and workmanship. The tourists came for the brass boxes and bowls inlaid with silver, the spangled Assiut shawls, the harem embroideries, the cloisonné umbrella handles—a special attraction—Persian pottery, enamel and lacquer, silver-gilt parodies of jewels from the graves of Pharaohs, old, illuminated Korans and pieces of Crusader armour.

  Plenty of capital tied up here, thought Owen, and plenty of money to buy other things as well.

  He heard raised voices on the floor above, and a moment later flat slippers descending the stairs.

  A man appeared. A Syrian.

  “Qu’est-ce que vous faîtes ici, monsieur?” he began hotly as soon as he saw McPhee. The Scot waved him on to Owen and continued searching.

  The Syrian was in a blue silk dressing-gown and red leather slippers. Although his house had been broken into in the middle of his siesta and interlopers were downstairs he had taken the time to smooth himself down and make himself presentable.

  He repeated the question to Owen and then, registering the nationality, switched to English.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “I am a Syrian citizen. This is an outrage.”

  He was thin, middle-aged, grey-haired. The hair was brushed very flat and oiled. There were grey shadows under his eyes, not so much, Owen thought, because he had been disturbed in the middle of his sleep, as that it was a permanent feature of his face, which would always look haggard, worried.

  “Where is your authority?” he demanded. “Have you a warrant?”

  Owen noticed that he had understood at once that this was a police raid.

  “I am the Mamur
Zapt,” he said. “I do not need a warrant.”

  “The Mamur Zapt!”

  Owen caught the momentary flash of concern.

  “I demand that a member of my consul’s staff be present! I am a Syrian citizen.”

  “In time,” said Owen, and turned away. He did not want to talk to the Syrian until he had something with which to shake him. Like the grenades, for example. But there was no sign yet of any success in the search.

  He thought it likely that the Syrian had already succeeded in getting a message out of the house to whatever consular representative it was that he had in his pocket. Owen had posted a couple of men outside to guard against this happening but guessed that the Syrian had made provision for such an eventuality. It would take some time, however, for the man from the consulate to arrive. He could wait a few minutes.

  “Let us go upstairs,” he said.

  The Syrian looked puzzled and then suddenly acquiesced. Perhaps he thought Owen was going to ask for a bribe. That was probably the way the previous Mamur Zapt had done things.

  As they went upstairs Owen said to McPhee: “If anyone comes from the consulate keep him busy as long as you can. Ask him to prove his status. Ask him if he’s got the right place. You know.”

  McPhee knew. He was less good at these things, however, than Owen, and a resolute official would soon brush his way past him. It would earn Owen a few minutes, though.

  The Syrian went ahead of him into the living-room. Owen deliberately held back.

  “I shall be with you in a moment,” he said, and then continued upstairs to the next floor.

  “Keep him down there,” he instructed his man on the stairs.

  Georgiades came out of one of the doors wiping the sweat from his face. He shook his head as he saw Owen.

  “Nothing yet,” he said.

  He went into another room.

  Owen lingered on the small landing. He knew better than to interfere with the search. Georgiades and his people were all experienced at that sort of thing and there was a pattern to it which he would only disrupt. Georgiades had once told him, too, that there were cultural differences in the way people hid things. Greeks hid things in one sort of place, Arabs in another. Obviously he had not yet found out where Syrians hid things.

  Owen could hear the Syrian’s voice raised in protest. He knew he would have to go down and talk to him. The man from the consulate might soon be here.