The Mask of Sumi

by John Creasey

  Mannering had to be satisfied with that assessment.

  Very soon, he also had to accept a great deal of comment, much of it fulsome, about his night dive.

  “John, dear,” Naomi said with refreshing matter-of-factness, “don’t drown yourself before you’ve paid me for my honest toil, will you?”

  Mannering laughed.

  “John!” Pearl said, coming up to him on deck. “Why did you do that last night? I have only just heard.”

  “I thought it might bring the affair to a head quickly,” Mannering answered.

  “It might have led to your death!” She looked and sounded deeply concerned. “Please don’t take such chances again. It is not worth it.”

  “Do you really mean there is a limit to what it’s worth?”

  “Yes,” Pearl said. She leaned against the ship’s rail, looking at him. A faint reflection from the deep blue sea travelled across her eyes, and seemed to give her expression an even greater intensity. “Every time someone else is endangered I wish I had not come.”

  Mannering didn’t speak.

  “It is said that the man who attacked you was killed. Is that so?” Pearl asked.

  “I think so.”

  Pearl looked almost unbelievably lovely as she went on: “John, you were attacked at Gibraltar, and when coming on the ship. Now it has happened again. Every step you take seems to threaten danger. Three people have died already. I think we should give up, here.”

  “In Port Said?”

  “We could wait for a ship going back, or we could go to Cairo and fly to England.”

  “Leaving the mask,” Mannering said very slowly.

  “Yes,” Pearl said. Her fingers were light and cool on his arm. “John, why should you risk your life again for my father? You knew him so little. For the mask? You know nothing about the Asri Dynasty. It can mean nothing to you. Give up, John, please.”

  He didn’t speak. The pressure of Pearl’s fingers on his arm became greater.

  “John, please go back to London, to Lorna. Forget this terrible affair.”

  Mannering said slowly: “I’ll think about it.”

  “You will, won’t you?”

  “Very seriously,” Mannering promised.

  “Pearl!” Thomas came up, brisk as always. “They’re waiting for you in the semi-finals of the women’s quoits. Can you play now?”

  “Of course,” Pearl said.

  She hurried off, Mannering watching her. Thomas stood by Mannering’s side.

  “How well do you know her, John?”

  “I knew her father better.”

  “Think she can look after herself?”

  “Why?”

  “Katman is setting his cap at her,” said Thomas. “So is Nares. Wouldn’t trust either of them with my daughter without a chastity belt.” He looked shrewdly at Mannering.

  “None of my business, I suppose, but I’d hate anything to happen to a girl like that.”

  “So would I,” said Mannering feelingly.

  “I felt sure you would. That’s why I thought I’d mention it. Er—anything I can do to help you in the other business?”

  Mannering echoed blankly: “Other business?”

  “My dear chap!” said Thomas. “Three attempts on your life aren’t coincidental. There are a lot of us would like to lend a hand, if there’s anything we can usefully do. It was discussed at the Sports Committee meeting this morning: your high dive won you quite a reputation. Friend Joslyn can’t stop talking about you.”

  Mannering exclaimed: “Well, well.”

  Thomas grinned. “We’re not all blind, John!”

  “Obviously not. Then there is one thing you can do.”

  “Name it.”

  “Watch Pearl wherever she goes on land.”

  “Ah. Is she in physical danger, too?”

  “She could be,” said Mannering. “Tell only Kenyans or people you know.”

  “It shall be done,” said Thomas. “How will it help you?”

  “It will leave me free for other jobs.”

  “Don’t forget that if you want strong-arm help—”

  “I won’t forget,” Mannering promised him.

  “Is Pearl going ashore?”

  “Yes. She hasn’t been to Port Said before.”

  Thomas said: “We’ll see she doesn’t come to any harm. Don’t you worry.” He went off, obviously delighted, leaving Mannering very thoughtful.

  Soon they began to move slowly along the Channel towards Port Said harbour. As they came alongside, and were moored to the huge buoys, a dozen boats gay and riotous with colour, pulled close to them. Men in the boats packed with leather goods and carpets, sandals and cottons, began to bellow their wares. Every game stopped as passengers crowded towards the side. The big floating bridge was slowly extended and pushed towards the ship but before then goods were being hauled on board, passengers were shouting their offers.

  Mannering watched for a few minutes, saw Pearl with Katman and two others – active men on the Sports Committee. Nares wasn’t there. He went down to his cabin. His cabin steward said: “Don’t forget lock door, sahib.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “Very small boy easily get in window.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Mannering said.

  He went inside.

  He knew at once that this chaos wasn’t just Nares’ untidiness. A drawer jutted out an inch, clothes hung in the wrong places, books on the dressing-table were displaced.

  He remembered Cross’s story of the nine passengers whose cabins had been visited.

  “Now I wonder what they’re after,” Mannering said. He opened a drawer where he kept his ready money. The money, wrapped in a handkerchief, was still there. Suddenly, he frowned.

  Two small brown paper packets were in the drawer, packets which he had never seen before. They were about the size of a flat fifty cigarette box, and sealed thoroughly with Sellotape. He began to pick up the tape with his fingernail.

  He heard footsteps outside, half-turned, and saw Naomi. She looked alarmed, much of her usual poise gone.

  “John, are you in trouble?”

  “I often am. What makes you think so?”

  “I heard two Egyptian policemen who came on board saying that their first job was to see you.”

  “What?”

  “I speak Egyptian,” Naomi said quickly. “I’m quite sure. And they obviously suspect you of smuggling.”

  “Smuggling what?”

  “I don’t know.” Naomi stared at the packet in his hand. “What’s that?” Her voice sharpened.

  Mannering said: “I found it in my drawer.”

  “My God!” she exclaimed. “That’s how they pack hashish. If the police find that in your possession—”

  She broke off as if horrified.

  Mannering knew only too well what would happen. An Englishman caught in an Egyptian port with a fortune in hashish would be a sensational propaganda gift to the Egyptian Government. They would take him ashore and hold him for questioning and would not release him until the last ounce of publicity value had been wrung out of the situation. The “New Egypt” going all out to stop the traffic in drugs, the decadent Englishman making a fortune out of human misery.

  All this flashed through his mind as he opened drawer after drawer and found nothing more.

  “John—” Naomi began.

  “I’ve a chance of dropping this into the harbour,” Mannering said. He opened the window and saw the impassive face of a moustached Egyptian just outside.

  Footsteps sounded in the passage.

  Naomi said swiftly: “Give them to me.” She snatched the packets, and thrust them down the neck of her sundress. “You go out.”

&n
bsp; “I can’t let you—”

  “Don’t be a fool!” she said urgently. “Go out!” She pushed him towards the door.

  Mannering went out. If there was any risk to her he could tell the truth, so she was in no danger. He need not worry on that score.

  He stepped into the passage. Lister, the Master-at-Arms, was coming towards him, with two tall, handsome policemen. Lister stopped. His expression made it all too clear that he was alarmed.

  “Oh, Mr. Mannering.”

  “Hallo,” said Mannering. “What time are we likely to get ashore?”

  “You are Mr. Mannering,” the older of the two officers said.

  “That’s right,” Mannering beamed. “Can I help you?”

  “Mr. Mannering, we have been told that you carry contraband,” the officer said.

  “Oh, nonsense!”

  “We must please search your cabin.”

  “Search—” Mannering drew himself up and turned to the Master-at-Arms. “Can’t you stop this nonsense?”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t nonsense, Mr. Mannering.”

  “Then I must see Captain Cross.”

  “That’s not possible. He is deeply involved with—”

  “Nonsense!” exclaimed Mannering again. “I insist.” He thrust himself forward, and the two officers barred his path. “This is outrageous!”

  “Mr. Mannering, please!”

  Mannering swung round and rushed in the other direction. The policemen cried out, Lister shouted: “Mannering! Don’t be a fool!”

  Mannering turned to the Tourist promenade deck and heard heavy footsteps thumping behind him. He reached the deck. To the right was his cabin with the man outside it; to the left was an empty deck. He turned left and raced along, the others after him.

  As he reached the Tourist swimming pool, passing a doorway on his right, he saw a man’s leg stretched out in front of him. He kicked against it and pitched forward. As he crashed on to the deck he saw a man’s back as the man climbed a flight of stairs towards the main promenade deck.

  “Of course there’s nothing in my cabin,” Mannering said. “It’s a trumped-up charge, and you of all people should know it.”

  Captain Cross said coldly: “If you had co-operated with the Egyptian police you would have saved yourself a lot of time and us a lot of trouble.”

  “I simply wanted to see you,” Mannering said. He looked at the two Egyptian policemen. “Are you satisfied?”

  “We offer our apologies,” the spokesman said. “Our information was from a most reliable source, and we have much trouble with drug smuggling. You are free to go ashore if you wish, Mr. Mannering.”

  Mannering said: “Thank you.”

  “Captain Cross,” went on the policeman, “I regret that it is necessary to search your ship. Our information that there is contraband on board came from a most reliable source.”

  For the first time, Mannering saw Cross put out of countenance.

  “Search my ship. You can’t be serious.”

  “I am very serious indeed,” said the Egyptian.

  Tight-lipped, and restraining his anger with a great effort, Cross had a loud-speaker announcement made, and ordered his crew to co-operate. Mannering took his first chance to call Lister aside.

  “How well do you know the police here?” he asked.

  “Well enough. Why?” asked Lister suspiciously.

  “They could keep their eyes open for the mask,” Mannering said. “I could telephone the Yard and ask them to phone Port Said or Cairo, if it comes to that.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” promised Lister.

  For four hours in the torrid heat passengers stayed on board while the search was made. Every cabin and every part of the ship was searched with a thoroughness which told Mannering how certain the police were that they would find what they were after. Mannering waited, with a sense of anti-climax, until Lister came up to him.

  “Mannering.”

  “Any luck?”

  “They’ve found a stack of Egyptian currency in O’Keefe’s cabin – he obviously had a black market deal on. They’ve confiscated the money but O’Keefe’s staying on board, thanks to Captain Cross’s pleading. And Nares has been held on shore,” added Lister in a tone of suppressed excitement. “He was one of the few who got off before the ship was searched – for smuggling watches in. Bloody fool – he’ll be in an Egyptian jail for a long time. They’ve just finished. I think they turned up something which will interest you.”

  “The mask?” exclaimed Mannering eagerly.

  “It was found hidden behind some crates in the hold,” Lister said. “The Captain has it now.”

  It was the Mask of Sumi. Mannering had no doubt about that. But the jewels were missing. They had been forced out of their settings, and the mask was just a misshapen piece of battered metal.

  “So the jewels are loose,” Cross said. “And we’ve no way of being sure whether they’re on the ship.”

  “There’s no way of being sure they aren’t,” Mannering retorted.

  Cross said: “I have just had instructions from my head office to give you what assistance I can. But there will be limits. I suppose I can’t blame you for losing the noon convoy through the Canal, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the affair you’re working on had something to do with it. We have lost half a day. That costs money.”

  “I know,” said Mannering humbly. “But someone could have been giving Nares or O’Keefe away, you know. Er—how about shore leave?”

  “No point in staying aboard – we won’t sail until eleven o’clock at the earliest,” Cross said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  SPECIAL EXHIBITION

  Mannering was still shaken by the narrowness of his escape. If he had reached his cabin ten minutes later the packets would have been found. He felt tense and on edge because he did not know whether Naomi had got away with it. The discovery of the mask gave him a sick feeling of failure, too.

  Lister was on B Deck.

  “Everything all right, Mr. Mannering?”

  “As good as it can be in the circumstances, I suppose,” Mannering said.

  “No ill feelings?”

  Mannering had to laugh.

  “No. How do I get off?”

  “Hand your passport to these gentlemen and they’ll give you a receipt.” Two Customs officials stood a few yards away. “We sail at 11 o’clock – 10.30 is the latest time for return.”

  “Has Miss Toji gone ashore?”

  “If her key’s on the board—” Lister turned towards a key-board.

  “I saw her go off with a party including Sir Harry Katman and Mr. Nares,” a junior Purser volunteered.

  “Mrs. Ransom?”

  “I think she went off, sir. Her key’s on the board,” he confirmed a moment later, and Mannering felt the stirring of relief.

  “Do you know Port Said?” Lister asked.

  “I knew it during the war.”

  “You won’t find it changed much,” Lister said. “They’ve done a bit of rebuilding since Suez and tidied things up a bit. But you still have to be careful. You more than anyone else today.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Mannering said.

  He strolled over the floating bridge, past the boats where eager-voiced and bright-eyed men shouted their wares. Men in long robes came up to him, carrying leather coshes, shoehorns, albums.

  “French portrait, sir?”

  “Feelthy postcard.”

  Mannering walked past, smiling a set smile but not speaking. He had been more shaken by the attempt to frame him than by the attacks on his life and the useless mask. He was worried, too, about Pearl – but Thomas’s men would be looking after her.

  What about Naomi?

  She was having
a disturbing effect on him. Her tall, almost languid figure and her beauty would appeal to most men but she had something else – a kind of attitude of mind, a superb poise and the ability to think on the instant and to act on her thoughts.

  She seemed too able a woman to be living on her wits.

  Was she?

  Or had she lied to him?

  He reminded himself that he hadn’t seen inside those brown paper packets, and that she had appeared to recognise them on sight.

  Had they contained hashish? If so, how was it that Naomi had been able to recognise it?

  Mannering ignored a bare-footed boy trying to sell him roses, and reached the gate leading out of the docks. No one took any notice of him. He saw two small boys and a man obviously twice their age but not much larger in body. Someone like that had come to knife him, and was now dead, floating unseen in the harbour.

  He went along the main street. Here, it was not unlike a European city except that there were very few cars. Small boys came up, their hands outstretched, but they ran at the sight of a policeman. The inside of the shops seemed dark and cool.

  A man in a long robe with an aristocratic face stepped in front of him.

  “Special exhibition for English gentleman,” he offered.

  “No,” said Mannering.

  “Beautiful girls, very clever, big bellies.”

  “No.” Mannering stepped to one side.

  “Very special Oriental lady,” the man said. “From Bangkok.”

  Mannering missed a step, but his heart began to thump. He had to shoulder the man aside so as to pass; he needed a few moments to collect his thoughts. Then a car turned the corner, a big black American model. A man was leaning out of the window; Joslyn.

  “Mannering!”

  Mannering stopped and the car slowed down.

  “Mannering,” Joslyn gasped as he got out of the cab, “Thomas has laid on a search for you. Pearl’s disappeared.”

  Mannering’s heart seemed to turn over.

  “We were in a mosque, first place we stopped,” Joslyn went on. “Everyone thought she was with us. Thomas was keeping a special eye open for her when some shoeshine boy pestered him. Pearl must have slipped away then.”