Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

“It takes some people that way. Look at Daouad!”

“I don’t go to the Wagh el Birket!” said Daouad indignantly.

“Not now he’s married.”

“I’m not married!” protested Daouad.

“Oh? I thought you’d been to a wedding recently?”

The donkey-boys doubled up with laughter. It was obviously some inside joke. They wouldn’t leave it alone and Daouad became angrier and angrier. Eventually Mahmoud was able to steer the conversation on to another subject. Another group of tourists came down the steps and Owen and Mahmoud, after the traditionally profuse Arabic thanks, left the donkey-boys to get on with their business.

It was still very hot and really too early to go on expeditions but the tourists were newcomers and had not yet discovered this and the dragomans, having once secured their customers, were certainly not going to tell them.

“They might suggest it later,” Mahmoud said, “when they’ve become their regular dragoman and make definite appointments. Even then, though, they’re not allowed into the hotel unless they’re a properly accredited hotel dragoman. That’s where the hotel dragomans have an advantage. Mind you, they’re not allowed to pester the guests. There’s a corridor behind Reception-it leads out into a little backyard behind the kitchens-and they have to stay in that. When their party arrives, if they’ve made an appointment, or if somebody comes along who looks as if they might want a dragoman, the staff on Reception give the dragomans a signal. If it’s not an appointment they have to take it turns. The first in the line comes forward.”

Mahmoud had been doing some research on the hotel dragomans. There were seven of them, all properly licensed by the police. “I thought we might go along afterwards,” he said, “and look at their files.”

On the day that Moulin disappeared there were only five of them on the premises, the other two having gone with parties to the Pyramids. Of the five, two who had appointments for later had spent the afternoon asleep in the backyard (confirmed by various members of the kitchen staff who had also gone out there to sleep where it was cooler), one had gone on an errand, and only two had been in the corridor at about the time in question. They had stayed in the corridor, according to their own account and confirmed, though not confidently, by Reception, until about half past four, when the first of them, Osman, the smoke-puffing one, had been summoned to take a party off to the bazaars. The second, Selim, had been called for about ten minutes later.

“But by then we’re not really interested,” said Mahmoud. “It’s really from about four o’clock to twenty past four that we’re concerned with.”

“Presumably you’ve asked those two in the corridor and they’ve denied ever having gone out on to the terrace?”

“Oh yes. May God strike them dead, etc. They’d have to deny it because the hotel is very strict on the point. They’ve got to stay in the corridor.”

“Is it possible to get from the corridor to the terrace?”

“Oh yes. It’s only a few steps and if the Reception staff were busy…Still, there would be a risk.”

“But one of them couldn’t have gone out without the other knowing.”

“That’s right.”

“So they’d both have to be in it together.”

“The trouble with the whole affair,” said Mahmoud, “is that everyone is in it all together.”

Mahmoud being Mahmoud, he had not taken anything for granted but had checked stories whenever he could. The dragoman who said he’d gone on an errand, Abdul Hafiz, had indeed gone on an errand. He had gone to collect a parcel for one of the guests from one of the shops in the bazaar, had definitely done so and had handed it in to Reception soon after four-thirty. No doubt on that point at least, for Abdul

Hafiz had wanted to give it directly into the hands of the guests (because of the bakhsheesh) and had been very reluctant merely to deposit it at Reception. It was something that all participants remembered and had clearly made an impression on all of them.

Likewise the two dragomans who had been with parties to the Pyramids had definitely been there and for the whole day too. It would have been impossible for them to have slipped back to the hotel at any point.

And the two dragomans sleeping in the backyard appeared genuinely to have been sleeping.

“Though, of course,” said Mahmoud, “there is no real precision about times.”

“And the yard is just at the other end of the corridor,” Owen pointed out. “They could have slipped along it easily enough.”

“Yes. Though there would have been a risk. They could easily have been seen.”

“That applies to them all.”

“Yes.”

It applied particularly on the terrace where if a dragoman had appeared, as Colthorpe Hartley reported, he must have been seen-indeed, was seen-by Colthorpe Hartley. Mahmoud had tried repeatedly to see if Colthorpe Hartley could identify the dragoman. That, in fact, had been part of the point of the ill-fated reconstruction. However, that attempt, like the others, had failed. Faced with the hotel dragomans, Colthorpe Hartley was barely able to tell them apart. His mind, he assured Mahmoud-and this Mahmoud could readily accept-went blank, “absolutely blank, old boy.” He was, however, quite positive that he had seen “one of those fellows” and Mahmoud was inclined to believe him.

“It fits in with what the snake charmer told us,” he said. “Someone from above the steps.”

“That could apply to a waiter.”

“But Colthorpe Hartley saw a dragoman.”

Naturally enough Mahmoud had tried to find corroboration for Colthorpe Hartley’s account. That, too, had been part of the point of the reconstruction. He had wanted to see if any of the street-vendors remembered the dragoman. His intention had been thwarted by the general rush of all the vendors to that end of the terrace on the day of the reconstruction, which had resulted in a complete mix-up of regulars and general sightseers. He had tried again on the following day when conditions were normal but had not achieved quite the clarification he had desired.

“No one saw a dragoman?”

“Oh yes, everyone saw a dragoman. But they all saw different dragomans!”

Most of the vendors had testified in detail as to the appearance of the dragoman. The flower-seller had described with considerable accuracy one of the dragomans who had been incontrovertibly at the Pyramids on the day in question. The sweetmeat-seller had given a vivid picture of one of the dragomans asleep in the backyard. Four witnesses described with lurid detail the dragoman who had acted the part in Mahmoud’s reconstruction. And the filthy-postcard-seller described a sinister figure with a hunched back and a wall eye and the Fang of the Wolf and-until Mahmoud shut him up.

Mahmoud, ever-hopeful, was still hopeful, though. That was part of the purpose of their stroll across the street. He wanted to reconstruct the image of Moulin’s disappearance again in his own mind, to note the vendors actually present, to see if there was anyone he had missed out. He had, moreover, not given up hope of assisting Colthorpe Hartley’s mind to some merciful clarity of vision and meant to try him again.

He and Owen stood in the shade and watched the events across the street. It was nearly four o’clock and people were coming out on to the terrace for tea. Lucy Colthorpe Hartley appeared with her mother and a little later, regular as clockwork, Colthorpe Hartley himself appeared. Waiters came and went, Mahmoud checked them off against a list.

A dragoman came out of the hotel. Owen tensed for a moment but he was with a party. The party was straggly and ill-disciplined-hence the gap-and the dragoman had to rush around making sure they were all there. This particular dragoman-Owen did not recognize him but thought he might be Abdul Hafiz-looked extremely harassed, too preoccupied with his charges to be mindful of other things.