by Talbot Mundy
“Cohen didn’t tell,” said Grim.
“Then, if you are not the devil, Jimgrim, he is your father and patron saint! How did you find out?”
“Easily. Cohen resold the gold-dust to the bank. The bank was obliged to report the purchase. It was known that Cohen had been to El-Kalil, and took a lot of cash with him; and there hasn’t been gold-dust in El-Kalil for generations. He returned without the cash, but with the gold-dust. It was known that your son Mujrim had been away, and in which direction. There has been gold in Arabia ever since Solomon’s time. Two and two make four. Go on, tell me the rest of it.”
“Mashallah! To tell you things is like repeating the day’s lesson to a m’allim! Tell me how much you know, Jimgrim, and I will answer whether it’s true or false.”
“Uh-uh! You came here to ask me a favor. State your case, O father of evasion.”
“Well; that gold-dust was given as a trust to Mujrim. We are known far and wide as honorable thieves. A man can have confidence in our promises.”
“Which man in this instance?”
“Jmil Ras.”
Grim nodded. “Is he as handsome as his name implies?”
“I haven’t seen him, Jimgrim. Mujrim tells me he is a wonder to behold. Surely he pays handsomely, and knows a trustworthy fellow when he sees him. After deducting a percentage for profit and expenses — half and half was the condition named, but the Jew cheated us about the price of gold-dust and it would not have been fair to charge the loss against our portion — the remainder was to be spent for certain goods, which we were to deliver by camel to a place beyond Abu Lissan.
“Now we have kept faith; we have laid out his share of the money with great care having sent even as far as Egypt for some of the things; and because Jmil Ras’s share of the money was not sufficient, we invested some of ours, trusting to his fairness to make it good with interest. We are ready to do our part in full, Jimgrim, but a puppy of a governor prevents — may Allah cause his bowels to burn seven days and seven nights a week! Unless you help us, Jimgrim, we must fail; and who then can repay that money to Jmil Ras?”
“And if I help you?”
“Name your own terms, Jimgrim! Speak, and I agree!”
“All right. You may make the trip, but I’m coming with you.”
“Il hamdulillah! May Allah bless your sons and grandsons and give you old age to enjoy them, Jimgrim! I swore no friend of yours could appeal to you in vain!”
“But as you suggested, it is I who name the terms,” Grim continued, and Ali Baba peered at him once more like a fox.
“Whatever is possible, Jimgrim. Whatever is possible. There were things that even the Prophet could not do.”
“You supply me and my friends with camels and escort as far as I choose to go. You and your sons obey me first, last, and all the time. My business comes first, but I pay no wages, and nothing for camel-hire. On those conditions, I will help you to deliver the goods to Jmil Ras, and we start tomorrow night. Do you agree?”
“In the name of Him who never sleeps, it is a bargain, Jimgrim! Allah makes all things easy!”
CHAPTER V. “Suppose we stage an accident!”
“THERE are a thousand ways to anywhere, but only one will serve,” says the Arab proverb; so we took our former road by way of El-Kalil, although the simplest course would have been to let Ali Baba and his men come to us and then ride straight eastward from Jerusalem, crossing the Jordan by the iron bridge. We might have saved a day’s march that way, but should undoubtedly have loosed a thousand tongues.
Ali Baba, like many another old man, needed little sleep and preferred that little in the afternoon; so back he went that night to El-Kalil to muster his sons and make all ready. He had told us the camels were in training, which means they had been kept without water for constantly increasing periods; they had now gone five days without a drink, and his most important business was to water them at dawn, superintending with experienced eye to make sure that each beast took its fill; for they will fool you if not watched, and lie down to die of drought the third day out from home.
We silenced the tongues of Jerusalem by changing into disguise next morning before we started. It’s easy for Grim, who simply changes clothes and is an Arab; but to fix me up as an Indian, which is my only chance of being mistaken for a Moslem, takes time and trouble.
My head had to be shaved, for one thing; fortunately for the purpose I have a dark beard, which grows fast, and by removing all hair from where a white man grows it and allowing it to bristle and curl on my jaws instead, I can pass muster as a rather respectable-looking Indian darwaish — which is a fanatical person with a taint of learning, who wanders at the prick of religious fanaticism.
Being a big man, I naturally look enormous in the narrowlegged cotton pantaloons and straight smock under a sort of frock-coat thing that well-to-do Indians affect. But that doesn’t matter if I pose as from Lahore, where the giants of the North have left their physical stamp on more than one conquered race. The shaved head offsets the normal Arab contempt for Indians by creating the suggestion of religious authority, and a necklace of prayer-beads does the rest. The costume is comfortable enough, but when you put one of those great brown Bedouin cloaks on top of it, you’re likely to sweat the fat off before riding many miles. Grim and I rode horseback as far as Hebron, cantering the first few miles because of the risk of my being recognized until the dark whiskers should conceal a jawbone such as — so Grim tells me — might have been used by Samson when he slew the thousand Philistines.
If a thing is made known in Jerusalem it is multiplied a thousand-fold in Baghdad ten days afterward; Damascus passes it on by way of Beirut to the Golden Horn, and in about a month there is a question asked about it by a labor member in the House of Commons.
A little later, New York prints a paragraph about it in between the murders and divorces, and someone on the Stock Exchange sells the whole list short and starts rumors of war. It isn’t a bad plan to avoid observation when you’re off on secret business.
But there were few folk abroad that morning, except peasants, mostly women and asses laden with stuff for market with a leisurely, lordly man or two consuming cigarets in charge. They gave us a wide berth to avoid our dust, and also because we had rifles, which might have meant we were policemen. There are other places in the world where the police take toll of passers-by, but none where it is done more thoroughly, because the evil of the Turks lives after them.
An hour after daybreak the land lay white as a bone and the color of amethyst in the baking sun. The glimpse we had of the Dead Sea was of a sparkling sapphire set in the rust and sulfur of the Moab hills; and Jerusalem behind us was a gray-white sepulchre. There wasn’t any milk and honey overflowing, nor any balm in the wind that brought dust devils courtesying and waltzing all the way from Egypt.
We were two dry men who drew rein at the governorate, reverently grateful for the luke-warm drinks mixed by de Crespigny, who prides himself with all the man-of-the-worldishness of six-and-twenty years on some attainments he does not possess. You can forgive him false pride in weird formulas for spoiling liquor, because he does not know that he is a genius at keeping peace among ungovernable men, and speaks of the impossible that happens regularly in his “parish,” as he calls it, as “just my luck. I was born under a lucky star.”
We were all day long in El-Kalil, talking things over with de Crespigny and dozing through the afternoon. There was information shared by Grim and de Crespigny that they did not trouble to explain to me, although they discussed it in my presence and did not try particularly hard to keep it secret from me. It seemed they both knew this man Jmil Ras, to whom Ali Baba proposed to deliver merchandise, and it was the nature of the merchandise that gave them most concern. Incidentally, it made me prick my ears more than if the camel-loads had contained machine guns and ammunition.
“Spades,” said de Crespigny, “shovels, sieves, sledge-hammers, crowbars, picks, bags of cement — that all might be fo
r building a fort or something; but here’s the unexplainable — nine lengths of steel rail stolen from the railway stores at Ludd, three big sheaf-blocks pinched from a Greek boat laid up at Jaffa for repairs, and three great lumps of hard steel weighing more than a hundred pounds apiece, one with a hole through the narrow end, one shaped something like a bottle with a big nob where the cork would be, and the third an old-fashioned scale-weight by the look of it, with a bar shaped in the top to lift it by.”
“Do you suppose the shapes are design or haphazard?” asked Grim.
“Both, I should say. There were plenty to choose from; they were being used as ballast by a coast-wise trading felucca, and Ali Baba offered such a price for his pick that the little captain saw the superior virtues of sacks filled with pebbles from the beach, and traded. I imagine Ali Baba chose the shapes that came nearest to specifications; but what d’you suppose Jmil Ras wants with them?”
“Well,” said Grim, “he paid for them with gold-dust, didn’t he? How would you go about getting gold out of quartz?” he asked, turning suddenly to me.
“Dolly it out with weights dropped by hand from a pulley,” I answered. “I’ve worked out enough to pay for proper machinery in that way more than once; but it’s hopeless unless the stuff assays a good many ounces to the ton, because you can’t recover half of it. He’ll need mercury—”
“Ali Baba has been moving heaven and earth for mercury and cyanide. Not a chance of getting either, though,” said de Crespigny.
“I know where there’s cyanide,” Grim answered, “but mercury is another matter.”
“Who is Jmil Ras anyhow?” I asked, breaking my rule of not asking questions. But I might as well have broken a plate or something of that sort. De Crespigny glanced swiftly at Grim, who is much more expert at concealing the fact that he knows and prefers not to tell. Grim’s face didn’t change a particle as he answered me.
“We aim to discover that on this trip. Where in thunder can we get cyanide?”
I made a suggestion at random.
“Unless the Huns left some behind on their retreat—” And suddenly Grim remembered. “Weren’t they experimenting with the glass business here, Crep? Took over a building in the glassmakers’ quarter, didn’t they? Put in a new-fangled furnace with a fuel-saving contraption to regulate the heat? Anybody been in there for a year?”
“No. Enemy property. Place is sealed up.”
“If I remember rightly there was a big steel ball full of mercury that opened and closed the draft in some mysterious way,” said Grim.
“Yes, maybe; but we can’t break that seal,” de Crespigny objected.
“I wonder how much mercury was in the thing, and whether it’s there now. How much would we need?” asked Grim.
“Not much,” said I. “An ounce or two would be better than none. You can use the stuff over and over. Depends on the scale of operations.”
One piece of information Grim could not keep to himself. He was excited. The poker player’s mask that he assumes when on a hot scent was growing uncommonly transparent; his left fist was clenched tight, and his forehead wrinkled into whorls.
“We’ve got to get that mercury or cyanide, Crep.”
De Crespigny laughed and shook his head.
“Can’t be done, old dear. Steal anything you want except enemy property. Can’t have the Crown Prince tossing us tu quoque. I’ll accept your receipt for anything you fancy, bones of Abraham included, but no Hun stuff — unless, of course, you care to override my authority.”
“Wouldn’t consider doing that, of course, but see here, Crep,” said Grim with more impassioned earnestness in his voice than I had ever heard him use. “We’ve got to find a way of contriving this. It’s Feisul’s chance! The French are going to chase Feisul out of Damascus; that’s a foregone conclusion, and about the best thing that can happen to him, for he hasn’t a chance to make good as king of united Syria.
“He’ll go to Europe, where he’ll beard the politicians in their den and remind them of the promises they made when they wanted him in the war on any terms. They can’t deny that they made the promises; and not even that gang could deny that Feisul and his Arabs made it possible to win the war. They promised him an independent Arab kingdom, and they’ll have to make good. If anything on earth is certain, it’s a dead sure bet that they’ll send Feisul back to carve out an Arab government across the Jordan. He’ll probably get Baghdad too to begin with.”
“Let’s hope so anyhow,” laughed de Crespigny, “but what has that got to do with quicksilver? I’m acting deputy custodian of enemy property just now, and though I get no extra pay for it, a job’s a job.”
“It’s this way,” Grim answered. “What Feisul is going to need most of all is money. If he has to depend on European high finance he’s likely to get ditched again before he has half a chance to make good. But if we can fix him up with an independent gold-mine, situated in Arabia beyond the zone of mandates and the reach of company promoters, rich enough in ore to pay for machinery out of profits, Feisul is a made man. D’you get me?”
“Yes, but that don’t get you the quicksilver! Besides, it seems to be Jmil Ras’s gold. What has Feisul got to do with it?”
“Leave that to me. Jmil Ras wouldn’t send for mercury unless he needed it the worst way. Mercury and cyanide — good Lord! He must have known that inquiries for stuff like that would set the Intelligence Department by the ears. What worries me is that the next thing you know, the Zionists will hear of it.”
“What if they do?”
“They need money.”
“All right. They’ve no claim to Arabia?”
“They’d no claim to Palestine that anyone out here could see; but here they are. If they claim Palestine because King Solomon built a temple in Jerusalem, what’s to stop them from claiming the quartz out of which Solomon roasted his gold? This is a case for head-work. If we don’t supply Jmil Ras with what he wants, sooner or later he’s going to sell his prospect in the open market. We’ve got to help him make a killing, and then bottle up the secret until Feisul’s time comes. Don’t you see, Crep?”
“Sounds all right, if you can satisfy Jmil Ras. But I won’t break that enemy property seal for Feisul or anyone — not even for you, James Schuyler Grim; and I count you my friend at that.”
“Never mind me. Think of Feisul.”
“He’s a friend, too, but I’m custodian.”
“Suppose we stage an accident. How thick is the door? The windows are iron-barred, I remember, but a camel might kick the door in.”
I had never seen Grim so desperate for an expedient. He is usually reserved to the point of taciturnity, and stolidly averse to argument, especially when he has a plan in mind. But now there were actually great beads of sweat standing on his forehead, and his normally quiet face had the keen expression of a heavy plunger watching a horse-race.
“Not if I can keep away the camel,” laughed de Crespigny. “No, Grim. You’ve either got to override me on the score of seniority — in which case I shall have to phone Jerusalem, of course — or the seal stays where it is.”
“Well, I guess you’re right, Crep. Damn it to Hell!”
Grim looked sharply at me, and just at that moment Narayan Singh came and stood in the doorway to ask for orders. He was dressed in his usual disguise as a Pathan, and what with the rifle and two bandoliers that he had picked out from the governorate armory he looked sufficiently humorously savage even for that part. Like me, he looks enormous in clothes of that kind. It occurred to me to wonder which of us two was the heaviest, and that — added to Grim’s swift glance — gave me another thought.
“I’ll speak to Narayan Singh,” said I, and left the room.
“In the name of all wonders, sahib, what has happened to our Jimgrim, sahib?” the Sikh asked me when we reached the street.
“Do you know any of our Western mythology?” I asked him. “Who were the ancient gods, for instance?”
“They made me read t
hat nonsense in the school where I learned English.”
“You remember then that Mercury was the messenger of the gods?”
“Aye, wings on his ankles he had.”
“There’s reason to believe the gentleman is hiding in a German glass-factory in El-Kalil; but like the spirit in the vase in the Arab fish-story, he’s sealed up. Nobody’s allowed to break the seal. But if you and I can get him out and leave the seal unbroken, I know how to make him coax gold out of rock, and Jimgrim thinks he can make him set a new king on an ancient throne.”
“Well and good. We be two resourceful men. Lead the way and let us try.”
“I don’t know the way,” I answered, “but Ali Baba does, and he has sixteen thieves to lend a hand.”
So we threaded the mazy suk of El-Kalil and found old Ali Baba in the camel-khan sitting in the shade on top of a pile of roped loads, smoking his water-pipe and lecturing his sons. When I told him what I had in mind it did not take him ten seconds to decide to show the way.
But we did not go trooping through the narrow streets to call attention to ourselves; nineteen men, seventeen of whom were notorious thieves, all headed in the same direction, would have given El-Kalil a theme to talk about for weeks. Ali Baba knew a way over the roofs that was hot, devious, and risky, because the harem folk don’t encourage that kind of liberty; but we ran less risk of observation that way, for the heat had driven everyone indoors, or into the shadow of the ancient arches.
* * * * *
IN less than ten minutes all nineteen of us were standing on a flat roof with a high stone chimney at one end, which Ali Baba guaranteed to be the sealed-up German factory. I got down to the street and made sure, for there was no sense in burgling the wrong place. The seal was on the door all right, and the door was of solid olive-wood, which no camel in the universe could have kicked down, although any of the long-necked beasts can kick from either end about as hard as three mules. The windows were all barred with thick iron. I couldn’t find another door, and there were no weak places in the walls; so I climbed up to the roof again. The roofs of El-Kalil are of stone, at least a foot thick and cemented; there was no chance of breaking through without making noise enough to disturb the whole city’s siesta. I had hoped to find a trap-door, which Narayan Singh’s weight and mine combined might break.