The Gabriel Hounds

by Mary Stewart

  Hamid said slowly: ‘I’ve been thinking … he may be going south from Homs. Did you not say that this friend, this Mr Sifara, would be coming from Homs? It is possible that when your cousin telephoned Damascus he found this out, so he went to Homs instead.’

  ‘And spent last night there? I suppose so … but then why didn’t he come back to Beirut this morning? You’d have thought, even if he still had business in Damascus, he’d have come for me, or at least telephoned.’

  ‘He probably did. If he rang up from Homs this morning and heard you had gone, he may have decided to drive down this way instead of the desert road, and catch you at the frontier. If they told him you hadn’t yet passed here, then he would perhaps get himself through, and settle down to wait for you.’

  ‘I suppose so … or it may be pure chance, and he’s just come this way to avoid the desert road. And now this happens!’ I glared at the dusty road in an agony of frustration. ‘He may be gone at any moment, and I can’t even get through to tell him!’

  ‘No,’ said Hamid, ‘but I can.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t distress yourself, Miss Mansel, it’s very simple. I will go through now and see your cousin.’

  ‘You? Would you?’

  ‘Well of course. I’ll tell him you’re here and can’t get through the frontier. He may want to come back and take you to the Sûreté in Beirut himself, and if he does, I’ll go straight on to Damascus and pick up my return job there. If not, I’ll come back for you. You don’t mind being left here?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m terribly grateful. Yes, you’re right, let’s hurry in case he goes. I’ll take the rest of my lunch packet up the hill and wait.’

  ‘And your handbag – and the jacket in case you need it—’ He was already fishing for them in the car. ‘The coffee, yes? And fruit … so. If there is a crowd at the frontier, it may be a long wait.’

  ‘Please don’t worry about me. In any case I’ll be able to see from up there.’

  ‘Does he drive fast?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Only that if he doesn’t know you’re here, if it is just chance that he stopped there – he may be gone.’

  ‘Would you try to catch him.’

  ‘If it seemed possible. Now, can you carry these yourself? I think I should go straight away.’

  ‘Of course I can. Don’t wait for me, you go.’

  He got into his car and started the engine. ‘You said he was parked behind trees? Can I see him from the road, do you think? Exactly where?’

  ‘A quarter of a mile past the other frontier, some trees on the right, and just beyond them a humped-backed bridge. You can’t miss it. There, the way’s clear, you can get through. And thank you, Hamid, thank you—’

  ‘Please … at your service …’ A smile, a quick disclaiming wave of the hand, and he was off. I panted back to my perch above the road.

  The Porsche was still there. I dumped my things among the flowers and shaded my eyes to watch. Since he had not already gone, my fear that this was just a brief ‘comfort stop’ must be unfounded. He must either have paused to eat, or in fact be waiting for me.

  I peered down at the stretch of road immediately below me. The second Lebanese barrier was lifting to Hamid’s bribe, and the big car sailed, windows flashing, through the stretch of no-man’s-land. It checked at the Syrian barrier, and I saw Hamid jump out and hurry across to the buildings to show his papers. Since he was alone, and went this way frequently, they would surely let him go without more than a moment’s checking.

  I looked the other way at the Porsche.

  Just in time to see the white car break out of the trees like a greyhound out of the slips, wheel right-handed in a swirl of dust, and shoot off down the road towards Damascus. Seconds later I heard the snarl of a racing change as he whipped over the bridge.

  But by the time the sound reached me, the car was already out of sight.

  13

  As sure as heaven shall rescue me

  I have no thought what men they be …

  S. T. Coleridge: Christabel

  I DON’T know how long I must have stood there on the breezy hillside, staring at the empty stretch of road where the white car had been. It was as if I had been lifted up into the vacuum of its wake, and then dropped, dazed, into its dust.

  I pulled myself together, and looked to see how far Hamid had got.

  He was already at the second Syrian barrier, and showing papers – the car’s papers presumably – at the car window. The man on duty took them, glanced, and gave them back. A bribe passed. A few moments later the barrier was pulled open, and the car was through and had gathered speed down the road till it disappeared from my view behind the bluff.

  I suppose he cannot have missed the Porsche by much more than four minutes. In a matter of seconds he had reappeared on the stretch of road leading to the bridge, and I saw the dust mushroom up as he braked and brought the big car in to the verge by the clump of trees. He got out, must have seen straight away that the cover was not thick enough to hide the Porsche completely, and turned, hand to eyes, to stare south down the valley. He stood like that for only a second or two before he whipped back into the car, slammed the door, and was gone in his turn over the bridge and out of sight down the twisting road.

  It was a safe guess that he had glimpsed the white car on the road ahead. And it was anybody’s guess how long it would take for him to catch it. I reflected that a professional driver who must know the road like the palm of his hand might well be able to cancel out Charles’s start, and even the difference in performance between the town car and the Porsche. Four minutes is a long time on the road, but if Charles had really been in a hurry he would hardly have spent so much time in the grove. The racing start could only have been due to high spirits; by now Charles was probably idling happily along admiring the wild hollyhocks on the slopes of the Djebel Ech Sheikh Mandour.

  I sat down beside a patch of broom that smelled of wild honey, and ate my lunch. They had given me (besides the rolls stuffed with meat) a paper of black olives and some creamy white cheese and some little ravioli-like pastry envelopes filled with a kind of sausage mixed with herbs. By the time I had eaten as much as I wanted and started on a peach, the road below me was clear of traffic except for another bus – southbound this time – and the gatekeeper was obviously well away on his afternoon snooze. I glanced at my watch. Half past one. And the road still empty either of Hamid or the returning Charles.

  And at two o’clock it was still empty. And at half past two.

  Nor was there any question, even on the flowery hillside, of a peaceful siesta for me. Two of the Arab youths who had been lounging idly at the corner of the customs buildings had decided at length, after a grinning, nudging conference which I had pretended not to notice, to come up and talk to me. It was probably nothing more than curiosity which drove them, but they had only three or four words of American English, and I had no Arabic at all, so they hung around grinning and staring till my nerve broke and in sheer irritation I got to my feet and began to pick up my things.

  I thought I knew what must have happened. Hamid, misled by my outburst of exasperation at the delay, had construed it as acute anxiety for Charles, and imagined trouble where I only saw annoyance. Either he was still determinedly pursuing the Porsche, or there had been some sort of mishap delaying whichever car was on its way back to me. And if I waited much longer and neither of them came, there would be no possibility of my getting to Beirut in time to visit the Sûreté office about a visa, and that would be that.

  So when one of the Arab youths, leering, sat down a yard from me on a dusty boulder and said for the dozenth time, ‘New York? London? Miss?’ and then made some remark in Arabic which sent his companion off into fits of mirth, and at the same moment a bus labelled Baalbek ground to a halt below me. I picked up the last of my things, said ‘Goodbye’ politely and finally, walked downhill to the road.

  The thin dog was lying in the
shadow of a parked car. He watched me with recognition, but (I thought) without much hope. I dropped the last of the meat rolls beside him as I passed, and saw him snatch it and bolt out of the way of the youths who were following me downhill. The crowd of passengers from the bus were standing about in the heat, apathetically watching as the customs men rifled the household goods of what looked like the entire Exodus. Someone was half-heartedly checking their papers. The gatekeeper let another car through, then relapsed into sleep. Nobody was bothering very much about anything. Even the two youths had abandoned the chase.

  I went into the buildings, to be met by the slightly glazed and wholly unwelcoming stare of the olive-coloured gentleman behind the counter. It took a few minutes before I could find someone in the crowd with sufficient English to pass on what I wanted to ask, but I managed eventually.

  ‘The bus,’ I said, ‘what time does it get to Baalbek?’

  ‘Half past three.’

  ‘Is there one that goes from here to Beirut?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘Five.’ A shrug. ‘Perhaps a little later. It gets there at six.’

  I thought for a moment. Baalbek was well off the direct road home, but there would be a good chance of getting a car there, and taking the shorter route back to Beirut through the mountains. That way I should be there long before the problematic five o’clock bus. In any case I had no desire to sit here for another two hours or so. Even the bus would be preferable.

  ‘Will there be a taxi to hire, or a self-drive car, in Baalbek?’

  ‘Surely.’ But he qualified it with a shrug. ‘Well, you must understand, it is late in the day, but possibly …’

  ‘Where do I find the taxis?’

  ‘At the temples, or in the main street. Or ask at the Adonis Hotel, just where the bus stops.’

  I remembered the Adonis Hotel. It was where the group had gone for lunch on Friday, and the manager, I remembered, had spoken reasonably good English.

  I asked: ‘Where is the Sûreté in Beirut?’

  ‘In the Rue Badaro.’

  ‘What time does it close?’

  But here we stuck. ‘One o’clock’ was the first, dismaying answer. Then, from someone else, ‘Five o’clock.’ Then again, ‘It opens again at five o’clock till eight.’ ‘No, no, till seven.’ Then, with shrugs all round, ‘Who knows?’

  Since the last guess was obviously the most accurate of the lot, I abandoned the questions, to add my postscript. ‘If my driver, or anyone else, comes back asking about me, tell him I’ve gone back to the Sûreté office in the Rue Badaro in Beirut, and then to my hotel, the Phoenicia. I’ll wait there. Comprise.’

  They admitted it was compris, so I left them to it, said a thank you all round, and went out.

  The bus’s engine was roaring, and a cloud of black smoke poured from the exhaust. There was no time to do more than look quickly up the road for a white Porsche or a black taxi and to get in. Six seconds later, with a horrible shaking roar and a smell of soot, we were heading for Bar Elias and the Bk’aa road to Baalbek.

  It was a horrible journey, and it ended perforce where the bus finished its run, in some dirty hot street within shouting distance of the ruined temples, and just in front of the portals of the Adonis Hotel.

  I got out of the bus, shaking the creases from my skirt with a strong feeling that I was dislodging fleas from it in clouds. The bus went off to turn, the other passengers dispersed, and the filthy black fumes slowly cleared from the air. The street was empty except for a big, sleek black car parked at the kerb, and just beyond it, incongruously, a white camel with a ragged Arab holding the head-rope.

  He bore down on me now, with a shrill stream of Arabic interspersed with a few English words, from which I gathered that I was being offered a ride on his camel for the paltry sum of five English pounds or more. I beat him off with some difficulty, parried off his offer to pose for a snapshot for only ten shillings, and ran up the steps into the hotel.

  I was lucky to find the manager himself was still around, and not absent, as might have been expected, on siesta. I found him in the little gravelled court that did duty as a restaurant garden, sitting with a companion at one of the small tables under the pines, drinking beer. He was a smallish, round-faced Arab with a thin line of moustache and various chunks of Beiruti gold about his person. His companion, whom at first I barely noticed, looked English.

  The manager rose and came hurrying to meet me. ‘Madame – mademoiselle? You are back again? But I thought your party had left the Lebanon?’

  ‘Good heavens, you recognised me?’ I exclaimed. He was bowing over my hand with every appearance of joy. You’d have thought I’d spent a month in the hotel’s best suite with all found, not merely bought a drink to take with the group’s packed lunch a few days ago. ‘What a memory you’ve got! I’d have thought you had so many tourists here that you wouldn’t even see them any more!’

  ‘How could I forget you, mademoiselle?’ The bow, the gallant look, assured me without a hint of offence that he meant it. He added, frankly: ‘As to that, I have only been here since the beginning of the season. So far, I remember all my guests. Please – will you sit down? Will you join us, it will be a pleasure?’

  But I hung back. ‘No, thank you very much – there was something I wanted to ask you. I’m here on my own today, and I wanted some help so I thought I would come to you.’

  ‘Of course. Please tell me. Anything. Of course.’

  He obviously meant it, but to my dismay, as soon as I began to explain my difficulty and mentioned a car, he made a moue of doubt, and spread his hands.

  ‘I will do all I can, naturally … but at this time of day most of the local cars are already hired and gone. It is possible you may find one at the temples – do you speak Arabic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I will send someone with you to help you. There may be a car still there. If not – perhaps I can find one – perhaps one of my friends, even … It is urgent?’

  ‘Well, I do rather want to get to Beirut as soon as possible.’

  ‘Then please do not worry, mademoiselle. Of course I will do for you whatever I can. I am glad that you felt you could come here for help. I would offer to telephone for you now, but as it happens I had to get a car only ten minutes ago for one of my guests, and I had difficulty. But in another twenty minutes, perhaps, or half an hour, it will be worth trying again.’

  ‘Forgive me.’ It was his companion who spoke. I had forgotten all about him, and turned in surprise as he set down his beer glass and rose. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing. If you really are anxious to get to Beirut, and there’s any difficulty at all, I’m going that way and would be delighted to offer you a lift.’

  ‘Why, thank you—’ I was slightly taken aback, but the manager intervened quickly, sounding relieved and pleased.

  ‘Of course, that would be excellent! An excellent idea! May I perhaps introduce you? This is Mr Lovell, mademoiselle. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Mansel. Miss Mansel. How do you do, Mr Lovell?’

  ‘How do you do?’ His voice was English and cultured. He was a man of rather less than middle height, somewhere in his forties, with a face made Arab-olive by the sun, and dark hair receding from a high forehead. He was well-dressed in a lightweight grey suit and silk shirt, and wore heavy-rimmed dark glasses. Something about him was faintly familiar, and I thought I must have met him somewhere before.

  Even as the thought crossed my mind he smiled and confirmed it. ‘As a matter of fact we’ve met before, though without an introduction, and I don’t suppose you remember it.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t, but I did have a feeling I’d met you. Where?’

  ‘In Damascus, last week. Was it Wednesday – or perhaps Thursday? Yes, it was Thursday, in the morning in the Great Mosque. You were with a group then, weren’t you? I’d been talking to your guide while you ladies were admiring the carpets, and then
he had to intervene in some minor international incident, and we exchanged a word or two while it was going on. You wouldn’t remember, why should you? But do tell me, did the stout lady allow herself to be parted from her shoes in the end?’

  I laughed. ‘Oh, that’s what you meant by an “international incident”! Yes, she did, and even admitted she wouldn’t have wanted all that crowd walking on her carpets in outdoor shoes. There was a bit of a scene, wasn’t there? I thought I knew your voice. That’s it, then.’

  ‘You’re on your own today?’

  ‘Yes. In fact, I won’t make a story of it now, but that’s the reason why I’m stranded here today looking for a car. Do you mean you’re really going straight to Beirut?’

  ‘Certainly.’ He moved one square, well-kept hand to indicate the car parked at the edge of the road below the garden wall. I saw now that it was a black Renault with an Arab impassive at the wheel in native dress and white kaffiyeh. ‘If I can be of any help to you, I’ll be delighted. I was intending to leave within a few minutes anyway. Of course, if you want to stay and see the sights here first, then you might prefer to take a chance of getting a taxi later, and Mr Najjar will probably be able to help you.’ He smiled. ‘Any other day I’d have been delighted to show you the place myself, but as it happens I have an engagement in the city that I daren’t cry off, so I’m driving straight down now.’

  ‘It’s terribly good of you, and I’d love to come with you,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen Baalbek before – I was here with the group on Friday – but in any case I’m anxious to get back to the city as soon as I can.’

  ‘Then shall we go?’

  The manager came with us to the car, the Arab driver whipped round to open the rear door, and Mr Lovell handed me in, spoke to the man in Arabic, and settled beside me. We said our goodbyes to the manager, and the car moved off.

  We threaded the narrow streets quickly and skilfully, then gathered speed along the road to Beirut. In a few minutes we had passed the last of the houses crouching among their gardens, and on our right the great sweep of hill and valley stretched brilliant in the afternoon sun. The air through the open window was fresh and cool. I leaned back gratefully.