by John Creasey
A man called: “A moment, sir, if you please.”
Mannering stopped and looked round. It was the robed Arab who had brought him here.
“Colonel Kassim would like you to ride with him back to the ship.”
“All right. But I’m in a hurry.”
“Thank you, sir. A moment, please.” They waited in the shadowy hall until brisk footsteps sounded and Kassim appeared, looking unperturbed as well as immaculate.
“Thank you for waiting, Mr. Mannering. My car is coming.” The Arab opened this door and a new Cadillac stood outside, a shining monster against the squalor of the street. Across the street a dozen small boys stood admiring but none ventured across for backsheesh. An old man squatted by a pile of rotting water-melons, two youths sat outside the butcher’s shop which was alive with flies.
The Arab opened the door.
“After you, Mr. Mannering—” They sat inside. “I understand that you wish to discuss some matter with me.”
“The Mask of Sumi,” Mannering said. There was no need to let this man know that the shell of the mask had been discovered.
“I understand. You found the description and some letters from my old friend Mr. Harding in my desk.”
“That’s right.”
“Had it been possible to help Mr. Harding I would gladly have done so. The need has not arisen.”
“Was it Harding who paid you to try to kill me?”
“You shock me, Mr. Mannering.”
Mannering said grimly: “I am not working for the police, and I don’t have to report everything to Scotland Yard. But I can if I want to. All the lying witnesses in the world won’t help if your Government is convinced that you are betraying Egypt.”
“I do nothing of the kind.” Kassim was indignant. “I do not understand you.”
“Colonel,” Mannering said, “you are not the only one who can bribe witnesses. If I have to lodge a complaint against you it will be a great nuisance and take up much time. I don’t want that. But I mean to know who paid you to try to kill me, and who told you to change your mind and try to persuade me to leave the East Africa Star. It wasn’t Harding.”
“How can you say that?”
“He hasn’t got that kind of money. Who was it?”
Colonel Kassim spread his hands.
“You have been mistaken, Mr. Mannering. No one tried to kill you. I tried only to persuade you to go back to England with the very lovely girl. You understand I would not have harmed her in any way.” Kassim shot Mannering a glance from under his lashes. “I said what I did only to try to persuade you to take her away.”
“Who paid you to do that?”
Kassim spread his hands again.
“Would you betray a friend, Mr. Mannering?”
Mannering said: “When did you receive the instructions?”
“Only yesterday, or I would not have improvised so clumsy a method.”
“What time did the cable from the ship reach you?”
“Mr. Mannering, I did not say the cable came from the ship. You must not put words into my mouth.” Kassim looked out of the window, as if nervously. “Why must you insist on asking questions which I cannot answer? I cannot tell you what you wish to know.”
“You can, you know,” said Mannering. “If you don’t we’ll go on board the East Africa Star together and you can explain to Captain Cross why you sent the thief to my cabin this morning, why you put drugs in my cabin and told the police I was smuggling them, and why you kidnapped Miss Toji. We’re very near the docks,” Mannering went on softly. “You haven’t much time.”
Kassim drew a deep breath, and then said: “You are a hard man.”
“Just tell me who it was.”
“It was Naomi Ransom,” Kassim said. “But be sure of this, she did not do it for herself. Someone paid her. She is not wealthy, but she represents very wealthy interests.”
Mannering evaded most of the itinerant sellers, running a kind of gauntlet of leather goods, watches, dirty postcards, fly whisks and sandals thrust in front of him. Two passengers on the promenade deck were haggling over a carpet.
“Ten pounds, mister, dirt cheap,” the Arab was saying.
“It’s barefaced robbery. I’ll give you five.”
“No, mister, five not enough money. Eight pounds ten, mister.”
“He’s coming down,” the haggler whispered in satisfaction to his plump wife. In a louder voice: “Five pounds, that’s my limit.”
“They always cheat you,” a man said to Mannering.
“Do they?” Mannering pushed past a knot of Kenya farmers busy in their interminable argument about the future of their country.
“I tell you the wogs will kick us out the minute they can.”
“And I tell you if you keep calling them wogs you deserve to be kicked out.”
Mannering went down to his cabin, unlocked the door, and checked that no one had been here. He sat back for five minutes, going over everything that had happened, needing a rest and trying to empty his mind completely. So much had happened that there was only a confusion of impressions in his mind. As he smoked a cigarette, some kind of order began to take shape. Someone, or something, had frightened Kassim or he would never have permitted that search. Had it been Thomas? Had it been physical fear under threat from Thomas?
There was no way of answering that question now. It was far less important than the next: had Kassim lied about Naomi Ransom?
Mannering was surprised at the fervour of his hope that he had, but – why lie? Simply to put Mannering on the wrong track?
He let this and other thoughts and reactions drift through his mind, and then decided what to do. He took out his copy of the Antiquarians’ Cable Code and coded a cable which read:
“Larraby, Quinns, London. First obtain and send airmail to Aden copies of photographs of James (Jimmy) Harding, Naomi Ransom, Pearl Toji stop check and send details war record and post-war record Colonel Akbar Kassim of Port Said stop ditto of Colonel (possibly military rank during war) Michael (Mick) Thomas now on board stop also advise if any trace of James Harding since his disappearance. Radio telegraph replies to ship. Mannering.”
He went up to the wireless officer, who was on duty but not busy.
“I’ll get this off at once, Mr. Mannering.”
“Thanks,” Mannering said. “Let me have the reply whatever time of day or night it comes, will you?”
“Even if it means waking you?”
“Yes, please.”
“Right, sir! Are you going ashore again?”
“I thought we were sailing tonight.”
“There’s been another delay, sir – something gone wrong in the Canal. We’ll be here until tomorrow noon, now.”
Mannering’s heart dropped; and he could imagine that Captain Cross’s had dropped even further.
He did not go ashore again, but many did.
At a quarter to eleven next morning the last stragglers were hurrying from the shore and the cries of the salesmen became more strident and insistent.
Mannering saw Naomi Ransom coming with two men – Mehta the Indian and Corrison the Australian. They were all laughing, as if they had no care in the world.
Naomi looked up, saw Mannering at the rail, and waved.
Then Mannering saw a youth sidling up towards the trio, carrying bouquets of roses. But instead of having his free hand outstretched for money, it was inside his ragged shirt.
“Naomi!” Mannering bellowed. “Naomi – the rose-seller!”
All three of them started. Corrison was the quickest to move, and he grabbed the boy by the shoulder and pushed him away.
A knife clattered to the ground, and the youth wriggled free and raced away.
Chapter Fifteen
REPLY
All three came hurrying. None of the ship’s officers appeared to have noticed what had happened. Two passengers strolled towards Mannering.
“These chaps won’t stop badgering you, will they?”
“It’s time it was stopped.”
“Well,” said a third, “you’ve got to admit the waterfront looks a lot cleaner than it did in our time.”
“Oh, they give it a shine on top.”
Corrison, Naomi, and Mehta reached the deck, and came towards Mannering. He drew back to a spot where no one was within earshot. Corrison began to speak first.
“I say we ought to report that, Mannering, but Naomi doesn’t want to kick up a fuss.”
“Also, it would delay the ship even further,” said Mehta. He was more sallow than dark-skinned, and good-looking; his complexion was flawless and he had fine dark eyes. “No one was injured, after all.”
“I still say we ought to report it,” Corrison insisted.
Naomi said: “John, how am I going to thank you?”
“I could see the devil was up to no good, but I doubt whether we’d ever prove it.” Mannering smiled at Corrison. “It would delay us at least another twelve hours – until the noon convoy through the Canal.”
Corrison scowled: “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I tell you, perhaps it was an accident,” Mehta temporised.
“Accident!” snorted Corrison. “That was an attempt at cold-blooded murder.”
“Charles, please keep your voice down,” Naomi pleaded.
“A spade’s a spade in any language.”
“It will do no good to make trouble. I am very anxious to arrive at Mombasa in good time. I am sure others are, also,” Mehta added hastily.
“What do you say, Mannering?” Corrison was almost truculent.
“I think we’d find it impossible to prove anything, and we’d better keep quiet.”
“You’re as tame as the others,” growled Corrison disgustedly.
But he gave way.
At last the East Africa Star sailed at the head of the passenger ships in a convoy of nineteen vessels, all steaming slowly, majestically through the desert, past hordes of men labouring to widen the Canal, shifting sand in baskets as they had in the days of Egypt’s earlier greatness. The sun glared on the pale sand and reflected a dazzling light. After a while watching the sides of the Canal slide by and reminding himself of the days when he had been here before, Mannering went down to his cabin. A note was on the mat, slipped under the door. He picked it up, feeling a new tension. Could this be another threat?
Captain Cross requests the company of Mr. J. Mannering at cocktails in his cabin at 6.50.
Mannering laughed, but there was an edge to the laughter. Until this case was over he would read threats in the most simple things, would see the most commonplace action as sinister.
He punched pillows into position and sat on his bed. It was hot and humid, and perspiration beaded his upper lip and his chin. He rang for a whisky and soda.
“With some ice, sir? American way.”
“Please.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was a long, weak drink, but just what he wanted. He lit a cigarette and sat and pondered, going through everything that had happened in his mind for the hundredth time. The most remarkable fact was Kassim’s change of heart – or at least his change of mind.
Mannering kept seeing a picture of Pearl in his mind’s eye, and remembering her look of virginal purity, as she ‘slept’. There had been Kassim’s threats, made more hideous by the presence of the girl. Mannering had taken a chance, and Kassim had caved in.
Had he been warned that Thomas and the others were near?
Thomas had known a lot about Port Said and Kassim. Now that he had time to think, Mannering saw clearly how eager Thomas had been to help. He had made it difficult for Mannering to refuse. How far could he be trusted? What was he really after?
“Thomas,” mused Mannering.
Or Naomi?
He heard the bell for luncheon; it was one o’clock. He got off the bed and went along to Pearl’s cabin. The stewardess was in the one next door.
“How is Miss Toji?”
“Still asleep, sir.” She had come round but had been given sedation by the ship’s doctor.
“Has the doctor seen her again?”
“Oh, yes. He says she will wake up sometime this afternoon.”
“Thank you,” Mannering said. He waited until the stewardess had gone, then slipped into Pearl’s room. He saw her lying in a bikini swimsuit a pale lemon-colour, and against it her skin showed as beautiful as a yellow peach. She was on her back, and her breathing was shallow but even. He raised her right arm and examined it, looking for a puncture from a hypodermic needle; he found none. He tried her left arm with the same result. Very carefully he studied her legs, easing her gently over on her side to make sure he missed no tiny red mark.
There was none; except for two small moles, her skin was without blemish.
If she had been given the needle, the puncture would surely have shown.
So – how had she taken the drug? Orally, presumably, but when? It was one thing to jab a needle into someone who was not expecting it, quite another to force anyone to take tablets.
Mannering, now very puzzled, went out.
He went along to Thomas’s cabin. Thomas would be at lunch. If he, Mannering, didn’t hurry, he would be missed. He opened the door, which wasn’t locked. It did not open wide but banged against something – probably the end of the bed. But years of taking care and of being prepared for danger made him look behind the door.
Naomi Ransom stood there.
Mannering went further into the room after closing the door, smiled at Naomi wryly, and remembered how positively Kassim had implicated her.
“Hallo,” he said. “Paying a social call?”
“Just like you,” retorted Naomi. For a moment she had looked alarmed, but her poise seldom deserted her for long. “Looking for something?”
“Just a little trifle,” Mannering said. “And you?”
“Doing my job.”
“What job?”
“John, dear, your memory can’t be as bad as all that. You hired me to find out all I could about Major Thomas. I’m finding out.”
Mannering said slowly: “You’re good, Naomi, you’re very good. What have you found?”
“Nothing of interest yet.”
“What did you expect to find?”
“That Major Thomas isn’t exactly what he seems.”
“Ah,” Mannering. “Is Naomi Ransom?”
Naomi laughed.
Mannering was keenly aware of that sense of attraction. Whether she was good or bad, he liked her. She had nearly been knifed, certainly had been within an ace of serious injury, but she had taken it in her stride. Now she was completely self-possessed. Was his feeling simply admiration for her?
“Of course I’m not what I seem,” she said. “I’m Mata Hari in modern dress. Didn’t you guess?”
“I guessed. Why were you attacked?”
“Someone doesn’t like me.”
“Colonel Kassim?”
She said: “Probably.” Her eyes narrowed as if the remark made her very wary. “Do you know him?”
“He knows you. He told me that you passed on all the instructions to kill me.”
“Oh,” said Naomi,
very softly. “Did you believe him?”
“I haven’t yet seen any reason not to.”
“Come, John. Use your head.” She moved away and sat on the dressing-table stool. He could see her head and shoulders reflected in the mirror, as well as her face as she looked up at him. “Would I kill the goose which lays my golden eggs?”
“That might depend on whether someone bribed you with bigger eggs.”
“I see what you mean. I did not give Kassim any messages of any kind.”
“Yet you know him.”
“I was in Cairo during the last days of the war.”
“Doing what?”
“Saving the souls of Wrens, Waafs, and Naafis,” Naomi said.
“How?”
“You do like your t’s crossed and your i’s dotted, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I was in Intelligence, and my particular job was to try to make sure that our girls didn’t fall victims to drugs and didn’t risk becoming involved with Egyptian night clubs. Kassim offered very high bribes to some of our girls. They make the best strip-teasers and bed pals.”
If this story were true it could be checked.
“And you, the soul of purity and probity, rescued them,” Mannering said.
“John, dear,” retorted Naomi, “that wasn’t worthy of you. I can’t do more than tell you the simple truth.”
“Let’s try to keep that up. How many cabins have you searched on board?”
She calculated for a moment and then said calmly: “Fourteen.”
“What!”
“Fourteen,” Naomi repeated. “Including yours.”
“And who else’s?”
“Pearl Toji’s, Mehta’s, Corrison’s, Nares’, O’Keefe’s, young Joslyn’s—” Naomi listed all of the people on Captain Cross’s list, and some others. “Satisfied?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “What were you looking for?”