Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

Daouad took no notice. He went straight across the room to an alcove, in which there was another door. He pulled back the bolts and beckoned Owen.

Colthorpe Hartley looked up.

“Good God!” he said. “You here?”

Owen sent Georgiades with one of the donkey-boys to see if he could find Farkas. They returned some time later holding the filthy-postcard-seller firmly between them.

“I haven’t done anything!” Farkas protested, even before he got through the door.

“I am sure you haven’t,” said Owen.

“No?” said Farkas, surprised and, probably, disbelieving.

“Nor would you wish to,” said Owen, “lest you might find yourself in the caracol or helping the men build the dam.”

“That is true!” Farkas assented fervently.

“So I know you will help me.”

“I will help all I can,” said Farkas cautiously.

“You certainly will. And, first, you will tell me why it was that the old Frenchman came down the steps from the terrace on the day he disappeared.”

“I do not know. Why should I know?”

“Because he came down to see you.”

“Why, so he did!” said Farkas, after a moment’s reconsideration.

“You showed him the cards.”

“He may indeed have looked at them.”

“And then he was seized. Who seized him, Farkas?”

“I do not know!”

“You were there. You saw. You must know.”

“I was there. But…but I did not see!”

“Come, Farkas, you are not telling the truth.”

“I swear it!”

“You are a forswearer, Farkas!” said the donkey-boy, clearly enjoying his role. “Everyone knows that.”

“It is the truth!” the postcard-seller protested. “I was there, yes, but I did not see. They pushed me aside. Anyway, they were all wearing masks.”

“But they weren’t wearing masks when they approached you and asked if you would help them.”

“It was one man only and I did not know him. He said he would beat me if I didn’t agree to help him. He was a bad man, effendi, and I knew he would keep his word.”

“Which is more than you would,” said the cooperative donkey-boy.

“Tell me what you were to do.”

“I was to go to the foot of the steps when I was told. The old man would come down the steps and then I would show him the cards.”

“And then?”

“Then I was to get out of the way. And tell no one.”

“You have told someone,” said the donkey-boy, carried away, “you have told us, Forswearer!”

“I would not have told,” protested the postcard-seller. “I tried not to. I ran away after you came the first time because I knew you would come again.”

“Farkas,” said Owen, “you said you were to go to the steps when you were told. You were told and you went. Who told you?”

Farkas moistened his lips.

“If it makes it any easier,” said Owen, “I may already know the answer. He came across the terrace, did he not, and spoke to you?”

“Abdul Hafiz,” whispered the postcard-seller.

“I had a feeling it was going to be him,” said Owen, “even before Colthorpe Hartley told me. While he was being held in that place in the Wagh el Birket he had a chance to do plenty of remembering and eventually he got there. He didn’t know Abdul Hafiz by name, of course. He remembered him as the serious one.”

“He saw him go across the terrace?”

“And speak to Farkas, yes.”

“Did he go straight to Farkas?” asked Georgiades.

“He went to Moulin first.”

“Yes,” said Georgiades, “that makes sense. I was wondering-”

“Presumably he told him something like that a new supply of cards had come in and would he like to see them?”

“How did he get on this sort of terms with Moulin in the first place? I mean, if I wanted someone to go on a dirty errand for me, Abdul Hafiz is not the man I would choose.”

“Abdul Hafiz dragomaned for Berthelot and Madame Chevenement. Moulin must have met him through them. When you first come to Egypt one dragoman looks pretty like another. Think of Colthorpe Hartley. It’s only later that you get to see the difference.”

“Abdul Hafiz went to Anton’s, of course. Carrying messages for Berthelot.”

“My guess is that they knew that the plan to build a big salon on the other side of the river was already beginning to seep out. Zawia might have already been tipped off by one of the Khedive’s entourage. When it began to break, Abdul Hafiz was the right man in the right place. And Moulin, the man behind it on the French side, became the obvious man to go for.”

“You think they were out to stop the Khedive?”

“And raise money. And hit at the Great Powers. Maybe at tourism, too. If you’re a Wahabbi you’re dead against all that kind of foreign contamination.”

“You reckon they’re all Wahabbi?”

“If one of them’s Wahabbi, the others are likely to be.”

“Not Senussi,” said Georgiades, as one reporting a fact.

“Not Senussi. That’ll disappoint the Army,” said Owen with satisfaction.

“Maybe. But it doesn’t make it any easier for us. There are a hell of a lot of Wahabbi in Cairo.”

“We’re not much further,” Owen conceded.

“Especially now that Abdul Hafiz has gone,” said Georgiades.

Someone must have been watching, for by the time that Owen had got downstairs again after taking Colthorpe Hartley back to his room, Abdul Hafiz had gone. It confirmed for Owen that someone had overheard Colthorpe Hartley’s groping attempts to identify the dragoman he had seen when he had been talking with Owen on the terrace, but this was no consolation.

“Abdul Hafiz was about all we had,” he said to Georgiades, “and now we haven’t even got that.”

He consulted the donkey-boys again but this time they were unable to help. They were more than willing-in fact, they were desperately eager to help-but the Wahabbi milieu was not really something they knew about. They were now locked up in the caracol, racking their brains to remember anything which might provide a clue to the dragoman’s present whereabouts.

One of them was not in the caracol. This was the boy who had claimed to recognize the camel. He was still at liberty, though accompanied everywhere he went by one of Owen’s agents. In the afternoons, he went to the Market of the Afternoon. The rest of his time he spent at the Mosque el Hakim, the two places where he thought he had previously seen the camel. If he saw the camel again he was to come back at once to Owen.

This was about all Owen could do, and he was worried. For he thought that Abdul Hafiz’s sudden flight might be a sign of panic. And when kidnappers panicked they usually killed their prisoners.

He was quite relieved when he got a phone call from Paul.

“Another Diplomatic Request,” said Paul. “The same as before. Stay away.”

“At the moment,” said Owen, “I am not aware that I am sufficiently near anything for anyone to think it worth-while asking me to stay away.”

“You are too modest. Now that the Mamur Zapt has smashed the Donkey-boy Mob, the Cairo underworld is all a-tremble. So think our Gallic colleagues, anyway. Besides, you have cocked it up for them before and they don’t want it to happen again.”

“Is it the same thing as before? They’re going to hand over the money?”

“In exchange for Moulin, yes.”

“What makes them think it’ll work any better this time than it did last time?”

“The fact that this time Zawia seem very keen to deal. They swear it will go ahead this time. Besides, the French are offering more money.”

“So what do you want me to do? I mean really want me to do?”

“Stay away, of course. Like I told you. It’s a Diplomatic Request, isn’t it?”