Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

“I suppose they saw the point of that, sahib, for they changed their tone without, however, becoming friendly to Yussuf Dakmar. Thieves of that sort know one another, and trust none, and it is all a lie, sahib, about there being any honor among them. Fear is the only tie that binds thieves, and they proceeded to make Yussuf Dakmar afraid.

  “There seems to be one among them, sahib, who is leader. He has a thin voice like a eunuch’s, and unlike the others swears seldom.

  “This father of a thin voice accepted the situation. He said: “‘Well and good. Let Yussuf Dakmar do the hunting for us. It is sufficient that we hunt Yussuf Dakmar. Two of us occupy the room next to Ramsden’s. If Yussuf Dakmar needs aid in the night, let him summon us by scratching with his nails on the closet door. The rest will be simple. There are four in this besides us five; so if we count Yussuf Dakmar that makes ten who share the reward. Shall Yussuf Dakmar grow fat, while nine of us starve? I think not! Let him get the letter, and give it to me. We will hide it, and I will deal with the French. If he fails tonight, let him try again tomorrow on the train. But we five will also take that train to Damascus, and unless that letter is in my hands before the journey’s end, then Yussuf Dakmar dies. Is that agreed?’

  “All except Yussuf Dakmar agreed to it. He was very angry and called them leeches, whereat they laughed, saying that leeches only suck enough and then fall off, whereas they would take all or kill. They made him understand it, taking a great oath together to slay him without mercy unless he should get the letter and give it to them before the train reaches Damascus tomorrow evening.

  “Well, sahib, he agreed presently, not with any effort at good grace, but cursing while he yielded.

  “In truth, sahib, it is less fear than lack of sleep that Yussuf Dakmar feels. I could hear him yawn through the window lattice. Now a man in that condition is likely to act early in the night for fear that sleep may otherwise get the better of him, and the sahib will do well to be keenly alert from the first. I shall be asleep on that couch outside the door and will come if called, so the sahib would better not lock the door but should call loud in case of need, because I also have been long awake and may sleep heavily.”

  “Suppose I walk the streets all night?” said I. “Wouldn’t that foil them?”

  “Nay, sahib, but the reverse; for if Yussuf Dakmar should miss you after midnight he would go in search of you, with those five in turn tracking him. And as for finding you, that would be a simple matter, for every night thief and beggar waiting for the dawn would give attention to such a big man as you and would report your movements. All six would come on you in the dark and would kill you surely. Then, as if that were not bad enough, having searched you they would learn that the letter in your possession is not the right one; and the trail of the right one would be that much easier to detect.”

  “Then come with me,” said I, “and we’ll make a night of it together. You and I can defend ourselves against those six.”

  “Doubtless, sahib. But my place is within hail of Jimgrim. No, it is best that you see this matter through tonight between four walls. Only remember, sahib, that though a man on duty may feign sleep, it is wiser not to, because sleep steals on us unawares!”

  So I returned to the bedroom where Grim and Jeremy were snoring a hallelujah chorus; but Yussuf Dakmar hadn’t returned yet. I took advantage of the Syrian’s absence to open Grim’s valise, remove the bottle of doped whisky and set it on the table close to the window beside the two bottles that I had bought downstairs — one of which, for the sake of appearances, I opened just as Yussuf Dakmar entered, smiling to conceal anxiety.

  CHAPTER 10. “You made a bad break that time”

  Grim was in Mephistophelian humor. He can sleep cat- fashion, for sixty seconds at a time, with all his wits about him in the intervals, and likes to feel in the crook of his own forefinger the hidden hair-trigger of events. I don’t think Jeremy was awake when I first entered the room, although it suited Grim’s humor that he should be presently; but you would have sworn they were both unconscious, judging by the see-saw, bass and baritone snoring.

  I poured out whisky, drank a little of it grouchily, and watched Yussuf Dakmar into bed. He didn’t take many of his clothes off and even by candle- light you could see the shape of the knife concealed under his shirt. He sat cross-legged on the bed, presumably praying, and as I didn’t like the look of him I blew out the candle.

  Instantly, pinched and prompted by James Schuyler Grim, Jeremy sat up and yammered profanely at the darkness, vowing he couldn’t see to sleep without a light in the room. I tinkled a tumbler against a whisky bottle, and Jeremy instantly swore that he heard burglars. Sitting up and whirling his pillow he knocked Yussuf Dakmar off the bed on to the floor.

  So I lit the candle again, after emptying my glass of whisky into a spittoon; whereat Jeremy quoted the Koran about the fate of drunkards and, getting out of bed, apologized to Yussuf Dakmar like a courtier doing homage to a king.

  “Your honor was born under a lucky star,” he assured him. “I usually shoot or stab, but the pillow was the first thing handy.”

  The Syrian had hard work to keep his temper, for he had fallen on the haft of the hidden knife and it hurt him between two ribs, where a poorly conditioned man is extra sensitive. However, he mumbled something and crawled between the sheets.

  Then Grim vowed that he couldn’t sleep with a light so I blew out the candle, and in about two minutes the steady seesaw snoring resumed. I took the opportunity to empty half the contents of a whisky bottle into the spittoon, and after lighting a pipe proceeded to clink a tumbler at steady intervals as evidence of debauch well under way.

  Except for the clink and bump of the tumbler, and once when I filled and relit the pipe, all was quiet for half an hour, when Yussuf Dakmar piped up suddenly and asked me whether I didn’t intend to come to bed.

  “I will not trouble you, effendi. I will keep over to my side. There is plenty of room in the bed for the two of us.”

  As he spoke I heard a movement of the bedclothes as Grim pinched Jeremy awake again. I answered before Jeremy could horn in.

  “Hic! You ‘spect me ‘nto bed full o’ snakes? Never sleep ‘slong as venomous reptiles waiting! Hic! You stay ‘n bed an keep ’em ‘way from me!”

  Well, Jeremy didn’t want any better cue than that. He got up, lit the candle and explained to me with great wealth of Arabic theosophy that the snakes I saw were mere delusions because Allah never made them; and I tried to look utterly drunk, staring at him with dropped jaw and droopy eyelids, knocking an empty bottle over with my elbow by way of calling attention to it.

  “Get into bed, effendi,” Jeremy advised me, feeding the cue back, since I was in the middle of the stage.

  “Not into that bed!” I answered, shaking my head solemnly. “That f’ler put snakes in on purpose. Why’s he sober when I’m drunk? I won’t sleep in bed with sober man. Let him get drun’ too, an’ both see snakes. Then I’ll sleep with him!”

  Jeremy’s roving eye fell on the small doped bottle that I had taken from Grim’s valise. Looking preternaturally wise, he walked over to Yussuf Dakmar’s bed, sat down on it with his back toward me and proceeded to unfold a plan.

  “Allah makes all things easy,” he began. “It is lawful to take all precautions to confound the infidel. We shall never get that drunkard to bed as long as there’s any whisky, so let’s encourage him to drink it all. When it’s gone he’ll sleep on the floor and we’ll get some peace. It’s a good chance for us to drink whisky without committing sin! We needn’t take much — just one drink each, and then he’ll swallow the rest like a hog to prevent our getting any more. You look as if a glass of whisky would do you good. That fellow Omar is asleep and won’t see us, so nobody can tell tales afterwards. It’s a good opportunity. Come on!”

  I had sat so that Yussuf Dakmar couldn’t see what I was doing and poured out the liquor in advance, arranging the glasses so that Yussuf Dakmar would take the doped stuff — a perfectly un-
Christian proceeding, I admit. Christians are scarce when you get right down to cases. Most of us in extremity prefer Shakespeare’s adage about hoisting engineers. It gets results so much more quickly than turning the other cheek. At any rate, I own up.

  Yussuf Dakmar, smirking in anticipation of an easy victory, took the nearest tumbler and tossed off the contents in imitation of Jeremy’s free and easy air; and the drug acted as swiftly as the famous “knock-out-drops” they used to administer in the New York Tenderloin.

  He knew what had happened before he lost consciousness, for he tried to give the alarm to his friends. He lay on the floor opening and shutting his mouth, and I think he believed he was shouting for help; but after a minute or two you could hardly detect his breathing, and his face changed color as if he had been poisoned.

  Grim didn’t even trouble to get out of bed, but listened without comment to my version of Narayan Singh’s report, and Jeremy went back to sleep chuckling; so I held a silent wake over Yussuf Dakmar, keeping some more of the doped whisky ready in case he should look like recovering too soon. I even searched him, finding nothing worthy of note, except that he had remarkably little money. I expect the poor devil was a penny ante villain scheming for a thousand-dollar jackpot. I felt really sorry for him and turned him over with my boot to let him breathe better.

  A little before dawn I awakened Grim and Jeremy and we left the room quietly after I had scratched on the closet door with my fingernails. Pausing outside to listen, we heard the closet door being opened stealthily from the far side. I caught Grim’s eye, thinking he would smile back, but he looked as deadly serious as I have ever seen him.

  “You made a bad break that time,” he said when we had gone downstairs. “Never give away information unless you’re getting a return for it! If you’d left Yussuf Dakmar to scratch that door after he recovered consciousness, he’d have invented a pack of lies to tell his friends, and they’d have been no wiser than before. Now they’ll know he never scratched it. They’ll deduce, unless they’re lunatics, that someone overheard their conference last night and knew the signal. That’ll make them desperate. They’ll waste no more time on finesse. They’ll use violence at the first chance after the train leaves Haifa.”

  “Rammy’s like me; he hates not to have an audience for his tricks,” put in Jeremy by way of consolation.

  “We’ve got to stage a new play, that’s all,” said Grim. “I’d have the lot of them arrested, but all the good that would do would be to inform the man higher up, who’d tip off another gang by wire to wait for us over the border. Say, suppose we all three bear this in mind: No play to the gallery! That’s where secret service differs from other business. Applause means failure. The better the work you do, the less you can afford to admit you did it. You mustn’t even smile at a man you’ve scored off. Half the game is to leave him guessing who it was that tripped him up. The safest course is to see that someone else gets credit for everything you do.”

  “Consume your own smoke, eh?” suggested Jeremy.

  “That and more,” Grim answered. “You’ve got to work like hell for what’ll do you no good, because the moment it brings you recognition it destroys your usefulness. You mayn’t even amuse yourself; you have to let the game amuse you, without turning one trick for the sake of an extra smile; most of the humor comes in anyhow, from knowing more than the other fellow thinks you do. The more a man lies the less you want to contradict him, because if you do he’ll know that you know he’s lying and that’s giving away information, which is the unforgivable sin.”

  “Golly!” exclaimed Jeremy. “Your trade wouldn’t suit me, Jim! When doing tricks, it’s good to watch folks’ eyes pop open. What tickles my wish-bone is what I can see for myself on their silly faces, half of ’em trying to look as if they know how it’s done and the other half all grins. I did tricks for a Scotchman once, who got so angry I thought he’d hit me; he said, what I did was impossible, so I did it again and he still said it was impossible, and he ended by calling me a ‘puir dementit mon.’ That was my apogee; I’ve never reached that height since, not even when I first made a camel say prayers at Abu Kem and the Arabs hailed me as a prophet! Bread’s good, but it’s better with the butter on it right side up!”

  “Not in this game, it isn’t,” answered Grim. “If your bread seems smeared with butter that’s a sure sign it’s dangerous. For God’s sake, as long as you stay in the game with me don’t play to the gallery, either of you! Let’s order breakfast.”

  It was the longest lecture and expression of opinion I had ever listened to from James Schuyler Grim, and though I’ve turned it over in my mind a great deal since, I can’t discover anything but wisdom in it. I believe he told Jeremy and me the secret of power that morning.

  CHAPTER 11. “They are all right!”

  There was no competition for seats on the Damascus train that morning. Several of the window-panes were smashed, there were bullet-marks and splinters on the woodwork everywhere — no need to ask questions. But I found time on the platform to chat with some British officers while keeping an eye lifting for Yussuf Dakmar and his friends.

  “Damascus, eh? You’ll have a fine journey if you get through alive. Nine passengers were shot dead in the last train down.”

  “No law up there, you know. Faisal’s army’s all concentrated for a crack at the French (good luck to ’em! No, I’m not wishing the French any particular luck this trip). Nobody to watch the Bedouins, so they take pot shots at every train that passes, just for the fun of it.”

  “May be war, you know, at any minute. The French are sure to make a drive for the railway line — you’ll be hung up indefinitely — commandeered for an ambulance train — shot for the sake of argument — anything at all, in fact. They say those Algerian troops are getting out of hand — paid in depreciated francs and up against the high cost of debauchery. You’re taking a chance.”

  “Wish I could go. Haven’t seen a healthy scrap since Zeitun Ridge. Hey! Hullo! What’s this? Lovely woman! Well, I’ll be!”

  It was Mabel Ticknor, followed by the six men I was watching for, Yussuf Dakmar looking sulky and discouraged in their midst, almost like a prisoner, and the other five wearing palpably innocent expressions.

  “Lord!” remarked the officer nearest me. “That gang’s got the wind up! Look at the color of their gills! Booked through, I’ll bet you, and been listening to tales all night!”

  The gang drew abreast just as another officer gave tongue to his opinion. They couldn’t help hearing what he said; he had one of those voices that can carry on conversation in a boiler foundry.

  “There’s more in this than meets the eye! She’s not a nurse. She don’t walk like a missionary. I heard her buy a ticket for Aleppo. Can you imagine a lone, good-looking woman going to Aleppo by that train unless she had a laissez passer from the French? She’s wearing French heels. I’ll bet she’s carrying secret information. Look! D’you see those two Arabs in the train?” He pointed out Grim and Jeremy, who were leaning from a window. “They tipped her off to get into the compartment next ahead of them. D’you see? There she goes. She was for getting into the coach ahead. They called her back.”

  Almost all the other cars were empty except that one, but, whether because humans are like sheep and herd together instinctively when afraid, or because the train crew ordered it, all six compartments of the middle first-class car were now occupied, with Mabel Ticknor alone in the front one. Nevertheless, Yussuf Dakmar and four of his companions started to climb in by the rear door. The sixth man lingered within earshot of the officers, presumably to pick up further suggestions.

  So I got in at the front end and met them halfway down the corridor.

  “Plenty of room in the car behind,” I said abruptly.

  They were five to one, but Yussuf Dakmar was in front, and he merely got in the way of the wolves behind him. The sixth man, who had lingered near the officers, now entered by the front end as I had done and called out that there wa
s plenty of room in the front compartment.

  “There’s only a woman in here,” he said in Arabic.

  And he set the example by taking the seat opposite to Mabel.

  It would have been easy enough to get him out again, of course. Not even the polyglot train crew would have allowed Arabs to trespass without her invitation.

  The trouble was that Jeremy, Grim, Narayan Singh and I all rushed to her rescue at the same minute, which let the cat out of the bag. It was Doctor Ticknor’s statement in Jerusalem about not wanting to see any of us alive again if we failed to bring his wife back safe that turned the trick and caused even Grim to lose his head for a moment. When a Sikh, two obvious Arabs and an American all rush to a woman’s assistance before she calls for help, there is evidence of collusion somewhere which you could hardly expect a trained spy to overlook or fail to draw conclusions from.

  It was all over in a minute. The rascal left the compartment, muttering to himself in Arabic sotto voce. I caught one word; but he looked so diabolically pleased with himself that it didn’t really need that to stir me into action. I take twelves in boots, with a rather broad toe, and he stopped the full heft of the hardest kick I could let loose. It put him out of action for half a day, and remains one of my pleasantest memories.

  His companions had to gather him up and help him pulley-hauley fashion into the car ahead, while an officious ticket-taker demanded my name and address. I found in my wallet the card of a U.S. senator and gave him that, whereat he apologized profoundly and addressed me as “Colonel” — a title with which he continued to flatter me all the rest of the journey except once, when he changed it to “Admiral” by mistake.

  Grim went back into our compartment and laughed; and none of the essays I have read on laughter — not even the famous dissertation by Josh Billings — throw light on how to describe the tantalizing manner of it. He laughs several different ways: heartily at times, as men of my temperament mostly do; boisterously on occasion, after Jeremy’s fashion; now and then cryptically, using laughter as a mask; then he owns a smile that suggests nothing more nor less than kindness based on understanding of human nature.