Leslie Charteris - The Saint Around the World

What happened next was that the hazel began to twist in his hands, the upright stem of the inverted “Y” trying to swing over to point downwards, so startlingly that he involuntarily fought against it. But it was as if the wood had become possessed of a will and a power of its own, so that with all his strength he could not hold it, and it writhed slowly and irresistibly over in his grasp until the stem pointed vertically down.

Simon Templar felt the sweat of his body chilled by a passage of ghostly wings, and would never know how he succeeded in keeping his face from looking completely fatuous.

He thought that a distant roar came to his ears from a hundred indistinguishable throats, though it might as well have been only a subjective amplification of the turmoil in his own brain, yet it seemed almost breathlessly quiet in the enclosure, where except for the Emir himself only Tâlib and one pair of sword-bearing guards had presumed to follow him. And in that brimming silence, he released the forked twig and extended his forefinger imperatively towards the spot where it fell, almost in the geometrical center of the Sheik’s most treasured enclave.

“Here,” said the Saint.

“You mean close here, outside, okay?” Tâlib said, shaken for the first time since Simon had known him into an almost incoherent dither.

The Saint’s arm and pointing finger remained statuesquely rigid.

“I mean here ,” he repeated inflexibly.

Yûsuf was studying him in thunderous gloom, his head on one side like an introspective vulture. Simon met the inquisitorial scrutiny without blinking, letting everything ride with the bet that the Sheik’s cupidity would be stronger than his interest in horticulture — or at least that he was capable of the arithmetic to realize that a new oil well would buy a lot more lawns. And finally Yûsuf spoke.

“Sheik say,” Tâlib transmitted it, “you deliver, you get rich, pronto. Not deliver no goods, we cut your bloody head off. What you say, Mac?”

“You’ve got a deal, schlemiel,” said the Saint blandly.

After that it became much less orderly — in fact, it rapidly lost all semblance of order. The Emir rattled off another cataract of injunctions, and stalked away. Tâlib began to shout supplementary orders in four directions. The privileged spectators who were inside the cordon of militia pressed forward, gesticulating and shrieking in friendly conversation until they reached the fence, which bulged and bent and then meekly disintegrated before the weight of their excitement. At a word from Tâlib, the two Negroes closed in on Simon and hustled him unceremoniously through the jabbering mob. Outside the remains of the enclosure, the two other scimitar-bearers had already sandwiched in Mr Usherdown, who looked limp and pallid with stupefaction. Simon’s unit joined up with them, and the four guards formed a hollow square with Simon and Mr Usherdown in the middle and rushed them towards the palace entrance.

Simon caught one glimpse of Violet Usherdown, off to the side, with Yûsuf making gestures towards the palace, and a few of his nobles gathering curiously around, and Tâlib heading across no doubt to volunteer the assistance of his extraordinary brand of English; and then he was pushed through the great doorway and hurried into the labyrinthine route that led back to what he now felt it was somewhat euphemistic to call the guest quarters.

The massive door slammed shut and quivered with the clanking of bolts, leaving Simon and Mr Usherdown alone to gaze at each other.

At last Mr Usherdown achieved a shaky voice.

“Why did you do that, Templar?”

“I guess I was born ornery,” said the Saint. “It was such a priceless chance to trespass on Joe’s holy of holies, I just couldn’t resist it. I was quite tempted to take my shoes off and do it in my bare feet, but I was afraid that might be going too far.”

“But you didn’t have to pretend to find there.”

“I didn’t. Your hazel twig did that.”

“Nonsense. You made it look terrific, but I knew you were faking.”

“I wasn’t,” said the Saint flatly. “I admit, I’d thought of it. But I hadn’t quite made up my mind I was still ad-libbing. And then that silly stick took over.”

The little man stared at him unbelievingly.

“It couldn’t. You said you’d never done any dowsing.”

“I haven’t. But there has to be a first time for everything. Maybe I have unsuspected talents.”

“Did it feel as if it was sort of magnetized?”

“It was the eeriest sensation I’ve ever experienced in my life. I couldn’t control the damn thing. I tried. It almost tore the skin off my hands, twisting itself over.”

“There’s no oil under the palace — least of anywhere,” Mr Usherdown said stubbornly, but in blanker perplexity than ever. “I’ve held a rod around here myself — not too seriously, but you were wrong when you said nobody had tried. You must’ve been trying so hard, you got a sort of auto-suggestion. I’ve heard about things like that.”

Simon shrugged.

“Could be. It doesn’t matter much, anyway. All I wanted to do was stall for time, and give Joe a new place to dig. While he’s busy with that, we can work at digging ourselves out of this Arabian Nightsmare. What will the next move be?”

Mr Usherdown shuffled to the nearest barred window, where the Saint joined him. The opening did not look out on the front of the palace, where the latest activity had been, but through it drifted echoes of clangings and hammerings and a natter of filtered voices erupting in occasional screeches of peak enthusiasm.

“Yûsuf has a well-drilling rig of his own now,” Mr Usherdown said. “He bought it after the big company refused to put in any more wells, and he’s only been waiting to be told where to use it. They must be setting it up already, where you told them to.”

“How long will it take ’em to find out if it’s doing them any good?”

“I don’t know. I never had to study that sort of engineering. It seems to me if they were good enough they could get it working in less than a week, because they don’t have any union hours, and then of course they’d be expecting something from the minute the drill started to go down. I don’t know how many feet a day this kit he’s got could drill, but they wouldn’t wonder how deep they might have to go, either—”

“All right,” said the Saint impatiently. “We can figure we’ve got a few days, anyhow.”

“I wish I knew why they didn’t bring Vi back with us,” Mr Usherdown said worriedly.

There was no answer to that for almost an hour, when the door was flung open again and Tâlib came in. He was accompanied by one of the possible eunuchs, an ordinary manservant, and a dumpy woman heavily swathed in drab veils; a militiaman armed with a Tommy-gun brought up the rear, and stopped in the doorway with his weapon at the ready and a very competent look in his eye. The woman bustled on through the apartment, located a suitcase, and began to stuff it with everything feminine that caught her eye. The manservant followed her, examining the articles which she discarded, opening drawers and cabinets, and occasionally tucking things away in his pockets.

“What’s the idea?” bleated Mr Usherdown. “And where’s my wife?”

“Wife go live with Sheik’s other wife mothers,” Tâlib said. “Sheik don’t want her live with you no more, no sir. But take yourself easy. Nobody hurt her. Sheik only make sure you don’t be like jealous husband, perhaps bump her over yourself. Or perhaps you and friend try run off with her. Not bloody like it.”

He spoke to the big Negro, who gave Tâlib his scimitar to hold while he made a quick but thorough search of Simon’s and Mr Usherdown’s persons.