by Sax Rohmer
Avalon's voice remained low and clear, but not entirely steady. “Take your time, my dear,” said the bimbashi. “It would be pleasant to sit down, but ruinous to your frock, I'm afraid.”
“I am all right, Major. You are very kind. Because, really, I deserve no sympathy. As you know, I was packed out here to my Aunt Elfie and I had quite determined to make a clean breast of it and leave the result to Dick. Unfortunately, in a way, Dick is like no other man I know; he is early Victorian in some respects, and I have just been putting off the evil moment. I have been a wretched coward—because, you see, I adore Dick, and I dare not think—”
She was silent for nearly a minute.
“Imagine my feelings when Larry Bard rang me up and said he had just arrived in Cairo! He wanted to come along, but I definitely refused to see him. He was so insistent, though, that I knew I should have to see him sooner or later; and I made up my mind it should be for the last time. Since I had, well, come to my senses, I had heard a lot of things about Lawrence that I ought to have known before. He lived like a millionaire and had already squandered a considerable fortune brought to him by his wife. There were worse rumors, too.”
“And so you put off Cardew and met Bard?”
“Yes. Nan Etherton had invited me but I hadn't meant to come. I thought I might safely see him here, among such a crowd, and meet no one who knew him. He had dashed up from Alexandria, where his firm has an office, and said he would have to borrow dress clothes. I called Nan, and she arranged to let us meet in the study as her husband was away; she gave me the key when I arrived.”
“What time was that?”
“It must have been some time after eleven. He didn't phone me till about ten. I told him to come in by the garden gate down there—I described the way—and walk straight up to the house.”
“You met him out here, then?”
“No. I waited on the terrace and let him in through a french window to the study. He told me that the divorce decree had gone through, and seemed to think that as no obstacle remained I should fall into his arms. When I made him understand, finally, that everything between us was finished, he began to behave like a madman. I was terrified that someone would overhear him, and so I insisted that we should go out into the garden. Then, I fancied that someone was watching us, and I had to bring him in again. But at last he left me no choice. I ran out, and he followed me.”
“Your last interview was in the garden?”
“Near the gate. It is at the end of this path. He made the most urgent appeals. For some reason they used to touch me, once. When I come to think of it, now, I can't imagine why I ever listened to him. I simply could not induce him to leave. He didn't realize how I had changed. He said if I turned him down he was going to shoot himself.
“Then khamsin broke like fury. I tore myself away and bolted up to the house. The trench window was open, just as I had left it, and I slipped in. The key was in the door, which was locked. I opened it and looked out; Peter Malmsey was just passing by!”
“Did he see you?”
“No. But I jumped back and forgot to close the door. I decided to risk the dust, to go out onto the terrace and to run around to the main entrance. While I stood there, hesitating, I heard someone stumbling up towards me. He must have seen me, for he gasped, 'Avalon!' I half stepped back; I was nearly suffocated. Then I saw him.”
“Where?”
“Just where he was found. He was—ghastly white, blood streaming down. Then he fell.”
“And you?”
“I screamed, and cried out before I could stop myself.”
“And then?”
“I thought I heard someone coming in. I ran onto the terrace and right around the house. It was pitch dark and people were hurrying away. I tried to find my car, but someone had moved it. Then Hassan came out to bring everyone back—and I knew that Larry had been found.”
“You are sure that no one saw you down here with Bard?”
“Practically sure. That is, there was no one in sight.”
“In short, this is absolutely all you know about the matter?”
“Absolutely.”
“You know nothing about Miss Arlen?”
“I never saw her in my life before the inquiry tonight.”
Bimbashi Baruk was satisfied.
“Keep out of Cardew's way for the present. Go and make your peace with Hatton. He will understand.”
BIMBASHI BARUK watched the slender faery figure melt into shadow; then, he set to work, his task lightened by a clear moon, while a bullfrog in a stone pond jeered discordantly. Without much difficulty he found the spot at which that final interview had taken place. He read there evidence of just such a scuffle as Avalon had described, for the wall here, mantled in bougainvillea, swept up to a height of six feet and had protected the soft sand from the wind.
With his eye he measured the distance to the gate. It was a half-gate embowered in flowers; and, as he stared toward it, something focused his attention. Two large terra-cotta pots from which cascaded floral vines, marked the end of a narrow bypath leading up to the house. A native gardener —as is the way of native gardeners—had left a spade, its haft upright, driven into soft soil just at the corner of this path, and some sudden blow had jerked it violently sideways. Touched by moonlight, the tilted edge of the blade glittered evilly. Closer inspection—he avoided contact with die implement—confirmed conjecture.
The blade was wet with blood.
A number of other indications enabled him to reconstruct the scene; and as he did so his expression grew grimly apprehensive. It is hard to believe a man one has liked and respected to be a liar; yet here, written in blood and sand, was circumstantial evidence pointing plainly to the culprit.
Cardew, on his own admission, had seen the pair going into the garden. When Avalon had run back to the house he had confronted Bard, struck him (that would explain the cut on his jaw), and Bard, falling onto the pointed corner of the blade, had sustained that deep head wound. Wounded, but still conscious, he had staggered back and collapsed. So ran the bimbashi's facile reasoning—when, magically, his expression changed. With infinite care, using a leaf and a corner of his pocket handkerchief, he took up from the sandy path a small blue object. It was a beautifully carved scarab of lapis lazuli.
His investigation had taken longer than he had realized, and when he returned to the study, Hatton was just hanging up the phone.
“I have seen Lady Avalon,” he said shortly. “However, panic excuses her behavior, I suppose. Paul Ferez, one of the dead man's partners, happens to be in Cairo with his wife, and I have just established contact. He's on his way out here. Bard was in a financial jam. Ferez had a cable from England earlier tonight, and it seems that Bard has been swindling the Government for over two years. You see his game? He knew he had come to the end of the rope and he got official consent to visit their Alexandria office with the idea, first of all, of getting out before the crash. Also, if he could compromise Lady Avalon, he reckoned by blackmail to get the necessary funds from her family to save himself. He was a good-looker of sorts, and he dramatized his personality. She isn't the first to fall for him.”
He paused, staring at the bimbashi.
“But none of this makes the case any better for Cardew. Now that we have had the truth from Lady Avalon I suppose I might as well release Miss Arlen. Clearly, she is not concerned. Many people give wrong names to the police, unfortunately.”
But Bimbashi Baruk was staring into space, and when he spoke his voice sounded far off.
“I should not dream of intruding, Hatton, in the ordinary way; but this case involves the honor of a brother officer. Could you possibly allow me five minutes' private conversation with Miss Arlen before you let her go?”
Adrienne Arlen was a slenderly graceful woman who might have been twenty-seven. Dark and perfectly groomed, she had gray-green eyes which lent beauty to a face otherwise no more than ordinarily pretty. She was engaginglydegagee. Over her white f
rock she wore a short ermine cape. She had a blue suede bag under her arm.
“My dear Miss Arlen,” said the bimbashi in his pleasant voice, “this interference in a matter which really doesn't concern me must seem impertinent. But I am wondering if you can help to clear up a small point?”
“I shall be happy to do so, Major Baruk.”
Her voice was low-pitched and oddly soothing.
“Thank you. In the first place, then, how long have you known Lady Avalon Westry?”
“I don't know her at all. I met her tonight for the first time. We decided at that very moment to change our dressmakers.”
“Change your dressmakers?”
Miss Arlen laid her bag, face downward, on a chair and slipped the cape from her shoulders.
“Jane Watkin of Bruton Street sold me this gown as an exclusive model. She sold another, an exact replica, to Lady Avalon just before she left London.”
Bimbashi Baruk smiled. His mood had changed entirely—for swift enlightenment had come.
“Might I ask you to raise the hood?”
She did so, drawing the cowl over her hair. “Perhaps you don't realize what it means to two women to meet wearing identical gowns!”
“I appreciate its importance more keenly than you suppose. Jane Watkin of Bruton Street has made a pretty mess of things. By the way, Miss Arlen, do I understand that you came here alone?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I came quite late, too. You see, one day recently I met Nan Etherton—I used to know her before her marriage—and she asked me to come to her party. I don't think I should have done so, but during the evening I had a fit of the blues; so at last I found a cab and came along, hoping that company might cheer me up.”
“What time was that—roughly?”
“Well, it must have been going on for midnight. The storm broke soon after I arrived. Nan had disappeared, and I didn't know a soul. I was just preparing to go, when—”
“You were caught up in the meshes of the law?” Bimbashi Baruk suggested.
“Yes, that was bad luck. But I am wondering”—he carefully placed something on a pad immediately under the lamp— “if this formed part of your white and blue ensemble.”
Adrienne Arlen stepped forward, looked down at the lapis lazuli scarab, and turned so pale that the bimbashi grew alarmed. He sprang forward, but she shook her head and recovered her remarkable composure.
“Where—did you find it?”
“Is it yours?”
“No.”
“It has evidently fallen out of a ring—and there are specks of blood on it. I am sincerely reluctant to pain you, but were you out in the garden tonight?”
“I have never left the house.”
He challenged the gray-green eyes, and knew that this was true.
“I found it near the spot where Lawrence Bard was attacked. Whoever struck him down wore a ring from which this scarab was knocked out by the violence of the blow.” Adrienne Arlen sank slowly back into the chair from which she had stood up. “You see, Miss Arlen, I am in your hands, and so I can only ask you—do you recognize this scarab?”
Adrienne Arlen avoided the searching gaze of Bimbashi Baruk; she retained her composure with obvious difficulty, and when she answered it was in a murmur.
“No—I don't.”
He shook his head reprovingly. “I am sorry that you felt it necessary to reply in that way,” he said, and the words were spoken quite gently. “I had hoped for your confidence, and I believe you would have done well to give it to me. However, in the circumstances, I am afraid I shall have to ask you to remain a little longer; I am truly sorry. Are you sure you would not like to reconsider the matter?”
She extended her hands in a pathetic gesture. The last shreds of self-confidence were slipping from her. “How can I?” she whispered. “How can I?”
Less than ten minutes later Hassan announced Paul Ferez. Hatton opened the door of an adjoining room and watched Ferez closely as he gave formal evidence of identification. Then all three returned and sat down.
“A great shock to you, Mr. Ferez?” Hatton suggested.
Ferez shook his head. Swarthy, thick-set, he had a mass of wavy black hair, bright dark eyes and a sort of restless alertness.
“He was a bad lot,” he replied simply. Ferez used short sentences with a queerly staccato effect.
“This was sure to come. It was probably his heart. He had lived too rapidly.”
“I agree,” Hatton replied; “but in order to avoid misunderstandings, I think I should ask you a question, Mr. Ferez.” He pulled aside a sheet of paper and uncovered a small object which lay under it. “Is this lapis lazuli scarab your property?”
Paul Ferez rested broad sun-browned hands on the desk and looked down at the scarab. Bimbashi Baruk looked at Paul Ferez' hands; and on the third finger of the left he saw a white circle, where a ring had habitually been worn. At which moment Ferez glanced up, and met the gaze of those accusing eyes; they were of the same blue as the scarab. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled, revealing a set of regularly and attractively white teeth. One might almost have described his smile as one of relief.
“It is, sir. Where did you find it?”
“I found it at the spot where you attacked Bard,” the bimbashi replied. “It has some of his blood on it. Suppose you were to explain what occurred.”
“I must warn you,” Hatton interpolated, “that anything you say may be used in evidence.”
“That's fair enough. I have been trying to make up my mind all the way along. I see that you gentlemen had already made it up for me. It's pretty simple, too. First, here and now, I want to make one thing clear. I had no intention of killing Bard. I'm not a killer. But in doing what I did I had gross provocation, as I'm going to prove to you, quite frankly. I'm a Spanish-American by birth and maybe hot-tempered. You can judge for yourselves.
“I discovered sometime back—this is a very painful revelation to make—that my wife had been running an affair with Lawrence Bard. Well—I got over it, but I brought her out here and I took charge of the Alexandria office. A few days back I had to come to Cairo on business, and while Jean— that's my wife—and I were at dinner tonight I had a message from our Alexandria manager, to say that Bard had arrived in Egypt. Maybe I jumped to conclusions; it's quite likely I said too much. But we quarreled, and Jean went out. Soon after that came a cable—and I knew that Bard was a common crook.”
The words of Paul Ferez had a ring of honesty which Bimbashi Baruk did not fail to recognize.
“This was going on for midnight, but I knew where I could find my attorney—and I knew I needed him. I was just driving off from the Continental when another car passed—and Bard was in it!”
“'The fate of every man have we hung around his neck,'“ murmured the bimbashi. “So you followed?”
“Sure I followed. I followed him right here. But he didn't come in at the front; he came in by a gate at the bottom of the garden. Now, I know this villa; I know Mrs. Etherton, and I know she and Jean used to be friends. What would any man have thought? That it was a rendezvous. Jean had come here too—come to meet Bard. Well, I lost his trail. I was scouting around the garden, wondering whether to go up to the house or not, when I saw him—and Jean was with him!”
“Where was this?” asked the bimbashi.
“Near the point where he came in. They didn't see me; I was ten paces away, but I could see them well enough, although it was getting black as hell. I just watched and listened. I couldn't hear Jean's words, only a murmur, but I heard most of Bard's. Then he grabbed her, and I closed in nearer. The storm broke. She wriggled free and ran. He turned to follow—and found himself face to face with me.”
Paul Ferez stood up and began to pace the carpet, his dark eyes gleaming, the gestures of brown hands giving a Spanish interpretation of his English speech.
“It was very dark by this time, but I could read his expression. He knew what was coming to him. I hit him, just once, left him lying t
here, and went out to my car. When I got back, I found I had broken my ring—and Jean wasn't home. She hasn't come home. Those are the facts, gentlemen, and I have nothing to add except to repeat that Bard's death was accidental. It was my fault, but not my intention.”
As Ferez dropped back into an armchair, bending forward and resting his chin on clenched fists,. Bimbashi Baruk and Hatton exchanged glances; and the bimbashi went out.
“You have my sincere sympathy, Mr. Ferez,” said Hatton. “I believe a charge of manslaughter may be reduced to one of assault and battery. I am all the more sorry for you because of the mistake you have made—”
“What mistake?”
“We have a lady here who has already made a statement regarding what occurred in the garden tonight. As we hope to keep her name out of the matter, should this be possible, excuse me if I don't introduce you. Come in, B.B.”
Bimbashi Baruk opened the door and ushered Avalon into the dimly lighted study. She had the cowl of her white frock drawn over her fair hair; but as she entered Paul Ferez came to his feet like one electrified.
“This lady,” exclaimed Bimbashi Baruk, “is she whom you saw with the late Lawrence Bard. With the hood raised, since she is probably of similar figure—and possibly wears a similar dress —even a woman's husband might be deceived— during khamsin. I don't believe Mr. Hatton will wish to detain you tonight, although the facts must naturally be made the subject of further inquiry. You will probably find your wife at home when you return, and I should advise you, Mr. Ferez, for the present, to say nothing whatever to her about your movements this evening—and to ask her no questions about her own.”