Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

“But you didn’t actually see him go?”

“No.”

“You didn’t see him go down the steps, for instance?”

“No. Don’t think he would have gone down the steps. Not by himself. A bit too shaky on his pins.”

“With someone helping him?”

“Oh, he could have managed it then, all right.”

“But you didn’t see anyone?”

“Helping him? No.”

Mr. Colthorpe Hartley rubbed his chin and stared thoughtfully into space. A suffragi hurried past with a tray of coffee. The aroma came strongly across the room.

“Saw someone else, though,” he said suddenly. “One of those chaps. Or not one of those chaps, one of the others. He was speaking to the Frenchman. Then he went across to the railings. Spoke to someone. As if he was on an errand for the Frenchman. Buying something for him.”

“Did he buy anything?”

“No. Just came straight back.”

“To the Frenchman?”

“Yes.”

“Spoke to him?”

Mr. Colthorpe Hartley hesitated.

“Think so. Stopped looking. Can’t go on watching a chap forever, you know. Bad form.”

“So you looked away.”

“Yes.”

“And when you looked again, the Frenchman had gone?”

“That’s right.”

“Just one thing more, Mr. Colthorpe Hartley,” said Owen. “You spoke of seeing a suffragi. Or one of the others. One of the others?”

“One of the other chaps from the hotel. The ones who go out with parties. Take you to the bazaar.”

“A dragoman?”

“That’s right. A dragoman.”

“Would you be able to identify him if we paraded the hotel dragomans before you?”

“These chaps all look alike to me,” said Mr. Colthorpe Hartley.

Mahmoud established with Reception the name of Monsieur Moulin’s petite amie and sent a note up asking if she could see him. Madame Chevenement replied that she was still indisposed but would make an effort to see him on the following morning at eleven o’clock.

Nikos was going through Owen’s engagements for the week. He had not included the Moulin affair. When Owen drew attention to this he shrugged his shoulders and said: “You’re not going to be spending much time on this, surely?”

“Garvin wants me to. He says it’s political.”

“It will all be over by next week. They’ll pay, won’t they?”

“Probably. Though whether we ought to let it go at that’s a different matter.”

“There’s not much else you can do, is there? They won’t want you interfering.”

“Yes, but it’s the principle of the thing. If you let Zawia get away with it once, they’ll try it again. And again. Until they’re caught.”

“In the end they’ll make a mistake and then we’ll catch them. Until then there’s no sense in bothering about them.”

“If we don’t work on the case how will we know about the mistake?”

“Your friend El Zaki is working on the case, isn’t he?” Nikos disapproved of too warm relationships with other departments. “Why don’t you leave it to him?”

“It could blow up in our face. That’s what Garvin’s worried about.”

“The French are quite efficient at this sort of thing.”

“They’re the ones who are on to me.”

“Well, obviously they’re not going to miss a chance to make trouble. Anyway, if they can take it out on you they won’t feel so bad about paying.”

“We don’t know they will pay yet.”

“Of course they’ll pay. Incidentally, has the follow-up message got through yet?”

“About paying? No, I don’t think so.”

“It probably has. They’ll keep quiet about it.”

“I think I’d have heard. They’d have warned me off.”

“Perhaps it hasn’t, then.” Nikos considered. “If you’re so worried about it,” he said, “I could ask our man at the hotel to keep an eye open for it.”

“ Have we got a man at the hotel?”

“We’ve got a man at all the hotels. The main ones. It doesn’t cost much,” he assured Owen, thinking he detected a shade of concern and assuming, naturally, that the concern was financial and not moral.

On becoming Mamur Zapt Owen had inherited a huge information network, which Nikos administered with pride. What was striking about it was not its size, since a highly developed political secret service was normal in the Ottoman Empire and the British had merely taken it over, nor its ability to find informers, since people came cheap in Cairo: rather, it was its efficiency, which was not at all characteristic of the Ottoman Empire. It was, however, characteristic of Nikos, who brought the pure passion of the born bureaucrat to his work.

“Where is he?”

“At Reception.”

“That might be useful.”

“It was where the first message was left.”

Owen thought about it. “If we could get a look at it-”

Nikos nodded. “That’s what I thought. Note the contents and pass it on.”

“It could all go ahead.”

“They would pay.”

“Moulin would be released.”

“And with any luck,” said Nikos, “we would be watching and could follow it up.”

“I’d go along with that,” said Owen, “I’d go along with that.”

Later in the morning, Nikos came into Owen’s room just as he was about to go out to keep his appointment with Mahmoud and Madame Chevenement.

“I’ve been checking through the files to see if I could find anything on Zawia. There’s nothing on any group of that name.”

“It’s a new group,” said Owen.

“Yes. But often new groups are re-forming from members of old groups, so I looked through to see if there were any references to groups with associated names.”

“And did you find any?”

Nikos hesitated.

“Well,” he said, “this kind of stuff is just conjecture. But what about the Wekils?”

“The Wekils?”

“Came on the scene last year. Two known kidnappings. One, a Syrian, notified to us in June. Case went dead, family left the country. My guess is they paid and got out. No point in us going back over that case. But we might look at the other. A Greek shopkeeper, taken about six months ago. Again the case went dead, so they probably paid. But I think the family is still here, so we might be able to find out something.”

“Why is ‘Wekil’ an associated name?”

“It’s a Senussi name. The Wekils are those Brothers who take charge of business matters and so are permitted to have dealings with Christians. As I said, it’s just conjecture.”

Mahmoud was waiting for him at Reception.

“Room 216,” he said.

They climbed the stairs together. The door of 216 was open and suffragis were coming out carrying suitcases. Mahmoud and Owen went straight in. A row of already packed suitcases stood by the bed. The doors of the wardrobe were hanging open. It was quite empty. A man was bending over the suitcases. He turned as they came in. It was the French Charge d’Affaires.

“Madame Chevenement?” asked Mahmoud.

The Charge spread his hands apologetically.

"But she’s a material witness,” said Mahmoud.

“Sorry!” said the Charge.

“You can’t do this!”

The Charge shrugged.

“I–I shall protest!”

“We will receive your protest. If it’s made through the proper diplomatic channels.”

Mahmoud looked ready to explode.

“She’s not really a material witness,” said the Charge. “She doesn’t know a thing.”

“Then why are you removing her?” asked Owen.

The Charge looked at his watch.

“Look,” he said, “perhaps I owe you something. How about an aperitif downstairs?”

Mahmoud, furious, and strict a Moslem anyway, refused. Owen accepted. The Charge ordered two cognacs.