Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

“For goodness’ sake!” said McPhee.

Mahmoud shrugged and carried on.

“Monsieur Moulin” was escorted to his table and allowed, eventually, to sit down. The waiters gave vigorous final polishings to the table, chair, and anything else that came within reach and then stood proudly by. Mahmoud waved them away. At first they affected not to notice; then, hurt, they reluctantly withdrew. Mahmoud’s sigh of relief was audible even where Owen was standing.

Lucy Colthorpe Hartley jumped up.

“This isn’t right!” she said.

“Why not?” asked Mahmoud.

“He was already out here when we came out. Come on, Mummy!”

Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley rose reluctantly from her chair and went back with Lucy to the hotel entrance.

“God, how embarrassing!” said Mr. Colthorpe Hartley.

Lucy and her mother came briskly back across the terrace, hesitated for a moment, and then sat down at the table they had previously occupied.

Lucy leaned across to the pretend Monsieur Moulin, a Greek clerk borrowed for the occasion by Mahmoud from the Parquet offices.

“Go on!” she said. “Look around! As if you were expecting someone.”

Entering into his part with spirit, Monsieur Moulin did so, craning backwards over his chair the better to see the length of the terrace.

“Waiter!” shouted Mahmoud.

Five sprang forward.

“One of you!” shouted Mahmoud. “Abdul!”

Four fell back wounded. Abdul advanced on the table with flourishes.

“ Voulez-vous prendre du the, Monsieur? ”

Like most of the terrace waiters, Abdul spoke some French. The clerk didn’t and looked puzzled; then guessed and nodded his head. Abdul gave a deep bow and walked slowly off the terrace; very slowly, dragging out his part, greatly to the envy of all the other waiters.

Mr. Colthorpe Hartley emerged from the hotel and walked determinedly across to join his wife and daughter. As he passed Monsieur Moulin he nodded very deliberately. Monsieur Moulin gave a start and then nodded back. Mr. Colthorpe Hartley sat down, stretched his legs and said loudly: “I’d like some tea, my dear.” He took the cup and settled back. “Hot, this afternoon,” he said.

“Golly, Daddy, you are good,” Lucy whispered.

Mr. Colthorpe Hartley meditated over his tea for some time, then looked again very deliberately at Monsieur Moulin. He looked away and then looked back. Something was troubling him. He leaned across, put his hand in front of his mouth, and whispered confidentially: “Fidget!” The Greek looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Come on!” said Mr. Colthorpe Hartley urgently: “You know.” He demonstrated with a violent twitch of his body. The Greek looked even more baffled. Mr. Colthorpe Hartley repeated his demonstration. The Greek caught on and responded with a violent jerk. Mr. Colthorpe Hartley gave him an encouraging nod.

The Greek, evidently concluding that Monsieur Moulin had suffered a fit of some kind, racked his body with violent spasms. “That’ll do, old boy,” said Mr. Colthorpe Hartley. “Mustn’t overdo it, you know.” The waiters watched spellbound.

Mr. Colthorpe Hartley went back to his tea. Another actor stepped on to the stage. This was one of the hotel dragomans dressed for the occasion in a splendid robe and great curving red slippers. He bent impressively over Monsieur Moulin for a few seconds and then stalked across to the terrace railings and looked imperiously down into the crowd. The vendors lining the railings fell back uneasily. Spotting his chance, another vendor rushed forward and thrust a bunch of flowers up at the dragoman. Indignantly the other vendors pushed him out of the way. The dragoman watched the melee impassively. Then he turned and stalked back to Monsieur Moulin. He bowed down so that his long, drooping moustaches were dangling almost in Monsieur Moulin’s face, muttered something to him and then strode majestically into the hotel.

The little Greek clerk seemed rather overcome by his encounter and huddled deeper into his chair. Mr. Colthorpe Hartley glanced up, glanced away again and sipped his tea. A moment later he looked again. This time he frowned. Again the confidential whisper: “I say, old chap, it’s time you went. Imshi!” The Greek shot out of his chair, then stopped and looked to Mahmoud for instructions. Mahmoud came up the steps.

So far, so-moderately-good. It was what came next that was tricky, for now Mahmoud had nothing definite to guide him and was dealing only in possibilities. He had worked out three alternative scenarios. In the first one Monsieur Moulin was to rise from his table and simply walk back indoors. The second envisaged him walking down the terrace steps; and the third saw him being forcibly taken down the steps.

The first one was soon played and was indeed a bit of an anticlimax. The Greek stand-in got up suddenly and walked off and that was that. The spectators clearly wanted more. Mahmoud asked the residents on the terrace whether they had seen anything like this and they said no. He tried the waiters. They were divided. Some claimed to have seen him and described what they had seen in great and implausible detail. Others, equally definite, had seen nothing. The hotel reception was just inside the doors and if Monsieur Moulin had re-entered the hotel he would have passed in front of their counter. They were fairly sure they hadn’t seen him. On the day in question McPhee had checked with them virtually as soon as Moulin had been reported missing and they had said the same thing. One of the receptionists was Nikos’s informant and Nikos had said he could be trusted.

The second option had envisaged Moulin walking down the steps. Everyone acknowledged that this was a possibility but no one had actually seen him do it. But if Moulin had done that, what had he done when he reached the bottom? The arabeah-drivers and the donkey-boys were adamant that he had not approached them; they were even more confident that no one else would have picked him up-they guarded their rights too jealously for that. Of course, he could simply have walked off into the crowd. But walking was anything but simple for Monsieur Moulin and although it could have been easy for him to disappear into the crowd, he would have found it hard going to make his way through the crush and reach some harbor on the far side. No witness had seen him doing that. Mahmoud tried the tumblers and vendors, some of whom were sharp, observant men, but they had no recollection of an elderly man trying to push his way past them. The snake charmer was so bemused that he could hardly be brought to say a word.

By now Mahmoud’s arrangements were coming under severe strain. The crowd had grown still more and now stretched right across the street, blocking it in both directions. A few stranded arabeahs stood out above the sea of curious faces. Some way up the street a wedding procession had come to a complete halt. It was evidently a rich man’s wedding for there were musicians mounted on camels as well as the palanquin for the bride. There were probably jesters and mirror-bearers but they were lost in the crowd; although, as Owen watched, he caught the occasional flash of glass sparkling in the sun. This bride, thought Owen, was one who was definitely going to be late for her wedding.

The defensive ring of constables had already given way once or twice under the pressure of the crowd but each time, under the instructions of McPhee, had managed to reassert itself. It had lost ground each time, however, and one more cave-in would see the space at the foot of the steps disappear altogether.

Mahmoud evidently thought the same thing, for he hurried on with the third scenario. This envisaged Monsieur Moulin somehow being compelled down the steps. This sounded unlikely and proved so in practice. The pretending Monsieur Moulin had been allowed a little resistance and in fact he struggled so vigorously that his would-be kidnappers couldn’t get hold of him at all until one of them, a constable carried away by his role, tapped him on the head with his truncheon. The little clerk collapsed into immobility. Even so, the kidnapping party found it hard to carry him off down the steps without causing so much commotion that even those people at the far end of the terrace who were not in on the plot looked up to see what was going on. Mahmoud had initially tried two kidnappers only but as the difficulties multiplied had been obliged to add a third. Eventually they got the “body” down the steps; but what then?