Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

Owen shifted his position and something flashed in his eyes, dazzling him. Involuntarily he jerked his head back and was dazzled again. For a moment he could not work out what was happening. Then he realized. There was some glass opposite him which was catching the light from the oil lamp. Several bits of glass, because as he moved there were different flashes.

He looked more closely. At first he could not make out what it was. Then he saw and could not believe his eyes. The space in front of him was piled deep with lanterns. That was what the “wall” consisted of: lanterns, hundreds of them. They stood in heaps and piles all around this part of the liwan, bright, colored lanterns with gaudy paper and flashy dangling beads.

Then he remembered. The mosque was used to store the lanterns used on feast days to decorate the city’s streets and squares.

The two Arabs went on talking quietly. From time to time the watchman looked at the case. The other man did not stir.

At one point the watchman got to his feet and shuffled off into the night. Owen tensed expectantly but the suffragi did not move nor did anyone come. Eventually the watchman shuffled back, this time with a dirty black can. He produced two small enamel cups from the folds of his galabeah, set them on the ground and filled them from the can. The suffragi drank with appropriately polite smacking of lips.

They resumed their conversation. Owen could follow it only in parts. It was purely trivial in nature. They were just passing the time. Owen felt sure the suffragi was waiting for somebody.

Georgiades had slipped away. Owen knew what he was doing. He was making his way ’round to the other side to cut off possible escape routes.

If the man was coming, though, it would have to be soon. The sky was beginning to lighten.

The watchman produced some bread and an onion and offered to share it with the suffragi. The suffragi refused politely.

Owen was beginning to get bothered now. It was getting light so quickly that a man coming through the liwan would be able to see the watchers. He signalled to Abou, who was standing beside him and they moved in front of two pillars to be less visible from behind.

Still no one came.

In the strange gray light that came before the dawn in Egypt things stood out as clearly as if it were day but with a gentle softness which lacked the harsh clarity of the sun. Owen always woke early. He would be awaking now if this were an ordinary day.

Any moment now the sun would come over the horizon. The watchman leaned forward and extinguished the lamp.

The suffragi rose from his squat and picked up the case. He bade the watchman the usual extended, ceremonious, Arab farewell and then walked off down the colonnaded arcade.

Abou looked at Owen questioningly.

Owen nodded and the tracker slipped off through the pillars. Owen followed a long way behind. Tracking by daylight, when it was so much easier to be seen, was far harder than tracking by night. It was best left to those who knew how to do it.

He could not see Sadiq. Georgiades, he knew, would be doing the same as he was.

They followed the line of the old city wall. The houses in this poor quarter were made of mud. Every year when the heavy rain came it washed away some of the mud and left the houses slightly shapeless, their corners blurred. Then the sun came and dried the mud until it cracked. Little by little it would crumble and then be washed away when the rain came again. Many of the houses were little better than ruins.

The suffragi went into one of the most ruined of these. There was not even a proper door, just a gap in the wall.

The trackers waited at a discreet distance. Georgiades and Owen came up with them. Georgiades looked at Owen and made a face.

“Nothing else for it!” Owen said resignedly. He waved the trackers in.

They were holding the suffragi when Owen stepped into the room. The suffragi was putting up no resistance; indeed, there was a smile on his face.

Owen went across to the case and snapped it open.

It was empty.

“It was a decoy,” said Owen bitterly, “just a decoy.”

“And you fell for it,” said Garvin, with a certain grim satisfaction.

“You’ve got the man, though,” said McPhee, loyal to the last.

“Yes, but I can’t hold him. What’s he done?”

“He has deceived us,” said McPhee stiffly.

“The way you’re conducting this investigation, that’ll be true of half the population by the time you’ve finished,” said Garvin.

“Anyway, that doesn’t constitute a crime.”

“Stolen a case.”

“He’s not stolen a case,” said Owen. “It’s his case.”

“Not Berthelot’s?”

“No. Like Berthelot’s. Exactly like.”

“What absolute nonsense! What is a suffragi doing with a case like that?”

“He says he uses it to take his supper to the club. Anton won’t give him any food, so he has to take his own. He used to take it wrapped in a newspaper but Anton didn’t like that. He said it lowered the tone. So now he takes it in a posh case.”

“Just like Berthelot’s?”

“Just like Berthelot’s. Pure coincidence.”

“Coincidence!” McPhee fumed.

“And meanwhile the real case went somewhere else, I suppose,” said Garvin.

“No. It’s still in the cloakroom, where Berthelot left it. The attendant says he can’t give it to us unless we produce a receipt.”

“Oh really!”

Garvin laughed. “I take it the money is no longer in it?” he said.

“There never was any money in it. According to Berthelot.”

“Just a case, which he properly left in the cloakroom?”

“And the cloakroom has properly looked after it.”

“Well,” said Garvin, “they’re certainly running rings around you.”

“They’re just laughing at us,” said Owen. “Everyone’s laughing at us. The donkey-boys are laughing, the bazaar’s laughing, even you’re laughing.”

“I’m not laughing,” said Garvin, “not any more. The French-”

“Ah yes,” said Owen uncomfortably.

“-are not laughing either. They’re hopping mad. They say it’s all our fault. If we’d not messed things up the exchange would have gone ahead as planned and Moulin would now be a free man.”

“It’s hardly fair-”

“Isn’t it?” Garvin cut in. “You were at Anton’s, weren’t you? Well…”

He tossed a piece of paper on the table in front of them. Owen read:

Because you’ve broken your side of the agreement and told the Mamur Zapt, we are breaking our side of the agreement.”

“When they got to the address Berthelot was given,” said Garvin, “they found the house empty. There was just this note left on a table.”

“No Moulin?”

“No Moulin,” said Garvin.

Owen poured out his troubles to Mahmoud, who listened sympathetically and then took him out for a coffee to restore him. They chose a cafe in one of the small streets opposite Shepheard’s: the Wagh el Birket, in fact. It was just after midday, however, and the ladies of the night were still sleeping off the effects of their labors. The shuttered doors on the balconies were closed, the cheap bands in the arcade opposite stilled. Only a few of the cafes were open and these were the traditional Arab ones which catered for the humble local clientele. They picked a table outside one of these and sat down in the shade.

Mahmoud had problems too. He had only just finished questioning all potential witnesses. The list had been a long one, including as it did the staff of the hotel, guests who had been on the terrace, and an assortment of donkey-boys, arabeah-drivers, street-vendors, and general bystanders, of whom, as was usual in Cairo, there were a lot. These latter were especially eager to contribute their impressions and it was only after much patient sifting that Mahmoud was able to establish whether they had actually been present on the day or not.