Agatha Christie: They Came to Baghdad

Captain Crosbie came out of the bank with the pleased air of one who has cashed a cheque and has discovered that there is just a little more in his account than he thought there was.

Captain Crosbie often looked pleased with himself. He was that kind of man. In figure he was short and stocky, with rather a red face and a bristling military moustache. He strutted a little when he walked. His clothes were, perhaps, just a trifle loud, and he was fond of a good story. He was popular among other men. A cheerful man, commonplace but kindly, unmarried. Nothing remarkable about him. There are heaps of Crosbies in the East.

The street into which Captain Crosbie emerged was called Bank Street for the excellent reason that most of the banks in the city were situated in it. Inside the bank it was cool and dark and rather musty. The predominant sound was of large quantities of typewriters clicking in the background.

Outside in Bank Street it was sunny and full of swirling dust and the noises were terrific and varied. There was the persistent honking of motor horns, the cries of vendors of various wares. There were hot disputes between small groups of people who seemed ready to murder each other but were really fast friends; men, boys and children were selling every type of tree, sweetmeats, oranges and bananas, bath towels, combs, razor blades and other assorted merchandise carried rapidly through the streets on trays. There was also a perpetual and ever renewed sound of throat clearing and spitting, and above it the thin melancholy wail of men conducting donkeys and horses amongst the stream of motors and pedestrians shouting, ‘ Balek – Balek !’

It was eleven o’clock in the morning in the city of Baghdad.

Captain Crosbie stopped a rapidly running boy with an armful of newspapers and bought one. He turned the corner of Bank Street and came into Rashid Street which is the main street of Baghdad, running through it for about four miles parallel with the river Tigris.

Captain Crosbie glanced at the headlines in the paper, tucked it under his arm, walked for about two hundred yards and then turned down a small alleyway and into a large khan or court. At the farther side of this he pushed open a door with a brass plate and found himself in an office.

A neat young Iraqi clerk left his typewriter and came forward smiling a welcome.

‘Good morning, Captain Crosbie. What can I do for you?’

‘Mr Dakin in his room? Good, I’ll go through.’

He passed through a door, up some very steep stairs and along a rather dirty passage. He knocked at the end door and a voice said, ‘Come in.’

It was a high, rather bare room. There was an oil stove with a saucer of water on top of it, a long, low cushioned seat with a little coffee table in front of it and a large rather shabby desk. The electric light was on and the daylight was carefully excluded. Behind the shabby desk was a rather shabby man, with a tired and indecisive face – the face of one who has not got on in the world and knows it and has ceased to care.

The two men, the cheerful self-confident Crosbie, and the melancholy fatigued Dakin, looked at each other.

Dakin said, ‘Hallo, Crosbie. Just in from Kirkuk?’

The other nodded. He shut the door carefully behind him. It was a shabby looking door, badly painted, but it had one rather unexpected quality; it fitted well, with no crevices and no space at the bottom.

It was, in fact, sound-proof.

With the closing of the door, the personalities of both men changed ever so slightly. Captain Crosbie became less aggressive and cocksure. Mr Dakin’s shoulders drooped less, his manner was less hesitating. If any one had been in the room listening they would have been surprised to find that Dakin was the man in authority.

‘Any news, sir?’ asked Crosbie.

‘Yes.’ Dakin sighed. He had before him a paper which he had just been busy decoding. He dotted down two more letters and said:

‘It’s to be held in Baghdad.’

Then he struck a match, set light to the paper and watched it burn. When it had smouldered to ashes, he blew gently. The ashes flew up and scattered.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They’ve settled on Baghdad. Twentieth of next month. We’re to “preserve all secrecy”.’

‘They’ve been talking about it in the souk – for three days,’ said Crosbie drily.

The tall man smiled his weary smile.

‘Top secret! No top secrets in the East, are there, Crosbie?’

‘No, sir. If you ask me, there aren’t any top secrets anywhere. During the war I often noticed a barber in London knew more than the High Command.’

‘It doesn’t matter much in this case. If the meeting is arranged for Baghdad it will soon have to be made public. And then the fun – our particular fun – starts.’

‘Do you think it will ever take place, sir?’ asked Crosbie sceptically. ‘Does Uncle Joe’ – thus disrespectfully did Captain Crosbie refer to the head of a Great European Power – ‘really mean to come?’

‘I think he does this time, Crosbie,’ said Dakin thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think so. And if the meeting comes off – comes off without a hitch – well, it might be the saving of – everything. If some kind of understanding could only be reached –’ he broke off.

Crosbie still looked slightly sceptical. ‘Is – forgive me, sir – is understanding of any kind possible ?’

‘In the sense you mean, Crosbie, probably not ! If it were just a bringing together of two men representing totally different ideologies probably the whole thing would end as usual – in increased suspicion and misunderstanding. But there’s the third element. If that fantastic story of Carmichael ’s is true –’

He broke off.

‘But surely, sir, it can’t be true. It’s too fantastic!’

The other was silent for a few moments. He was seeing, very vividly, an earnest troubled face, hearing a quiet nondescript voice saying fantastic and unbelievable things. He was saying to himself, as he had said then, ‘Either my best, my most reliable man has gone mad: or else – this thing is true…’

He said in the same thin melancholy voice:

‘ Carmichael believed it. Everything he could find out confirmed his hypothesis. He wanted to go there to find out more – to get proof. Whether I was wise to let him or not, I don’t know. If he doesn’t get back, it’s only my story of what Carmichael told me, which again is a story of what someone told him . Is that enough? I don’t think so. It is, as you say, such a fantastic story…But if the man himself is here, in Baghdad, on the twentieth, to tell his own story, the story of an eyewitness, and to produce proof –’

‘Proof?’ said Crosbie sharply.

The other nodded.

‘Yes, he’s got proof.’

‘How do you know?’

‘The agreed formula. The message came through Salah Hassan.’ He quoted carefully: ‘ A white camel with a load of oats is coming over the Pass .’

He paused and then went on:

‘So Carmichael has got what he went to get, but he didn’t get away unsuspected. They’re on his trail. Whatever route he takes will be watched, and what is far more dangerous, they’ll be waiting for him – here. First on the frontier. And if he succeeds in passing the frontier, there will be a cordon drawn round the Embassies and the Consulates. Look at this.’

He shuffled amongst the papers on his desk and read out:

‘An Englishman travelling in his car from Persia to Iraq shot dead – supposedly by bandits. A Kurdish merchant travelling down from the hills ambushed and killed. Another Kurd, Abdul Hassan, suspected of being a cigarette smuggler, shot by the police. Body of a man, afterwards identified as an Armenian lorry driver, found on the Rowanduz road. All of them mark you, of roughly the same description. Height, weight, hair, build, it corresponds with a description of Carmichael. They’re taking no chances. They’re out to get him. Once he’s in Iraq the danger will be greater still. A gardener at the Embassy, a servant at the Consulate, an official at the Airport, in the Customs, at the railway stations…all hotels watched…A cordon, stretched tight.