Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

“Always?”

“Yes,” said Lucy Colthorpe Hartley. “We do something every morning and always try to get back just before lunch and Daddy is always waiting for us. He can’t come with us himself, you know, he’s not up to it. But he likes to sit and wait for us where he’ll see us the moment we arrive. I think he misses us, even when it’s just for the morning, especially since his stroke.”

“It’s pretty hot out there.”

“He doesn’t sit there for long. He knows when to expect us and goes out about ten minutes before. And,” said Lucy, trying to make a joke of it, “he’s never once been late!”

“So when you didn’t see him there today-”

“I knew something had happened to him. I thought perhaps-well, you know, there’s always the risk in his condition. I rushed straight indoors because I thought he might be in his room. Then I ran down and asked one of the suffragis to try the Gents. Then I spoke to Monsieur Vincent in case he had fallen somewhere. Monsieur Vincent immediately got everyone looking and I went back out on to the terrace and told Mummy. We asked people on the terrace but they hadn’t seen him. None of the waiters had either, though one of them thought he had definitely seen Daddy go out on to the terrace. We tried the arabeah-drivers, I mean, it’s not very likely, but there was just a chance, but none of them had seen him either. And then Monsieur Vincent came out looking very grave and said he thought we should ring the police. And only then did I think-well, it’s so unlikely, isn’t it? I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t! Even when it’s somebody sitting right beside you, like Monsieur Moulin, it’s somehow remote, the sort of thing you read about in the papers but which never happens to you. It’s as if you’ve got a great big wall around you and then suddenly the wall falls down and all sorts of horrible things are happening.”

There was this difference, too, from the Moulin case, that the alarm was raised almost immediately. Colthorpe Hartley could have gone out on the terrace no more than a quarter of an hour before Lucy and her mother arrived and it could have been no more than a quarter of an hour later that Monsieur Vincent had rung the police.

And Owen had been on the spot all the time.

“At least you weren’t out on the terrace,” said Garvin sourly.

Gavin had come across straight away, arriving with McPhee. Owen had had time to get a message to them before they left telling McPhee to bring as many men as he could lay his hands on. As soon as they had arrived he had thrown a cordon around the hotel. It was probably locking the door after the horse had gone but there was a faint chance that Colthorpe Hartley might be hidden somewhere close and every chance had to be followed up.

McPhee, as before, organized the searching. His face was pale and pink and distressed. These things ought not to happen in his ordered world.

Garvin was tight-lipped and grim. Like Mahmoud, he had gone straight to the street-sellers. He had been a policeman in Egypt for years and knew not only the language but also how to talk to people.

Mahmoud himself arrived shortly after. When he was really concentrating he allowed himself little of the Arab expansiveness of gesture and talk which were characteristic of him normally. He was concentrating now. He listened to the manager’s account of what had happened, nodded and went out to the terrace where he stood for some moments thinking. He saw that Garvin was questioning the vendors nearest the terrace and ignored them. After a moment he crossed the street and began to talk to people on the other side.

Owen had already questioned the hotel staff. The staff on Reception thought they had seen Colthorpe Hartley pass them on his way out to the terrace at about his usual time. He had collected a drink at the bar, the other end of the bar from where Owen had been talking with the Charge, and then taken it outside. The bartender remembered this. The waiters had a half-impression of his being at a table but since he had made no demand on them had not really bothered to register his presence. There had been only a few guests out on the terrace and they had seen or remembered nothing. When Owen questioned them, though, their response was different from what it had been when Moulin had disappeared. This time there was a distinct uneasiness and a kind of sudden shrinking. Owen knew what it was: fear.

Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley and Lucy had gone inside and Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley was lying down. Lucy came down to see them and tell him as much as she could, but then she went back to be with her mother.

Word spread quickly. As guests came out of the diningroom and sat down in the lounge areas to take their coffee those already in the know brought them up to date. Guests returning late from the bazaars were drawn aside into the little groups that stood talking in the foyer or in the bar. On the previous occasion the management of the hotel had played everything down. There was no point in doing that now. The managers themselves were searching with their staff.

Owen checked the dragomans. They had all been out that morning with various parties. As each party had returned, in time for lunch, the dragoman had shepherded its members up the steps and across the terrace and into the hotel, where he had parted with them after effusive farewells and pocketing his piastres. Then he had gone down the corridor behind Reception and out into the yard by the kitchens.

Owen went to the yard to check. It was a small area hemmed in by the backs of buildings and reeked of kitchen refuse. Nevertheless, it was highly regarded by the hotel staff. This was because with high buildings all around it there was permanent shade. At any time of the day people could be found lying there. In the afternoon, after lunch had been cleared away and the world was at siesta, it was hard to find a space. By lunch time the sleepers were gathering and the yard would normally have been well occupied. All the local staff had been summoned, however, to help search the hotel. The dragomans, not strictly speaking staff members, would nevertheless have helped but Owen pulled them aside for the moment. They crowded around him, anxious and concerned.

“Another one? That will be bad for the hotel.”

“It will be bad for us,” said Osman. He had obviously been recumbent when the summons had come, for he had taken off his fez and skullcap. His hair was clipped and gray and stubbly, which gave him an oddly undressed look. Owen felt almost embarrassed and looked away. Osman felt the embarrassment too and covertly put on the small embroidered skullcap. “It will be bad for us, by God.”

Abdul Hafiz, beside him, winced ever so slightly at his taking the name in vain.

“It is a bad thing to do,” he said, “and bad men must have done it.”

“I know the English ladies,” one of the dragomans volunteered. “They were in my party. I like them. Especially the young one. She talks to me as if I were a person.”

“What is your name?”

“Ismail.”

“And were they in your party this morning, Ismail?”

“As always. I am their dragoman.”

“They came back with you, then?”

“Yes. The young one ran on up the steps to speak with her father. She respects her father, even though he is strange.”

“I like to see that,” said Osman, who, Owen realized, now that he had seen his hair, was older than he looked.

“It is a good thing in children,” asserted Abdul Hafiz. “Who does not respect his father respects no one.”

“This English lady respects her father,” said Ismail, “and so I am sad to see him taken.”

“The English lady ran on ahead?”

“Yes. She usually does.”

“How far ahead?”

“Not far. I saw her going into the hotel as I came to the foot of the steps.”