Edward Whittemore - Nile Shadows

The Major kept a clean desk. When he returned from the Colonel's office that evening the only thing on it was his pith helmet, which the Major raised to see if any messages had been left for him underneath it.

There was one, a note saying some calls had come in on his private telephone while he was in back with the Colonel. Three rings each time, the note said, the calls repeated every fifteen minutes on the quarter-hour. Since it was his private telephone, no one had taken the calls.

The Major looked at his watch, feeling a sudden rush of excitement. He paced impatiently behind his desk, waiting, and the next call came exactly on time on the quarter-hour. The Major picked up the phone and said hello, and that was all he said. He listened to the voice speaking to him, then when the call ended he hurried back to the Colonel's office, where the Colonel was locking up his files, preparing to leave for the night. The Colonel looked up, surprised.

Well well, what's this? I thought you'd already left.

I just had a telephone call, the Major blurted out. A very curious piece of business.

Oh? What was it?

The Major explained the repeated calls on his private phone and the one he had just taken. The code words used by the caller belonged to Liffy, including the code word dove, which was Liffy's mechanism for requesting an emergency meeting, something he had never done before.

But not at any of the places where we usually meet, added the Major. He wants the emergency meeting to be at the Sphinx.

The Colonel looked up again, smiling.

How's that? Liffy at the Sphinx?

But I don't think it was him, said the Major. I think it was somebody else.

Couldn't you tell from his voice?

No, not really. Liffy always disguises his voice on the phone with me. It's a game he plays.

Well whom did he sound like this time?

The voice had an Irish accent.

Child's play for Liffy, said the Colonel.

But I'm quite sure it wasn't him. There's no conceivable reason why he should need an emergency meeting. He's not in that end of things.

Then perhaps he's just lonely and wants you to hold his hand, said the Colonel. It happens.

The Major frowned, an expression of disagreement he had picked up from the Colonel.

At two o'clock in the morning in front of the Sphinx? Tonight? And only calling now to set it up?

Normally he couldn't even expect to find me in the office this late in the evening. He knows that.

The Colonel continued to sort through his papers, putting them away in his file cabinet.

He's been drinking a bit, do you suppose?

No, Liffy never gets out of hand that way.

Well who else knows his code words?

No one. Just the two of us.

Then he must have made an exception and gotten drunk, said the Colonel. Probably thinks he's playing a practical joke, mentioning the Sphinx. If I were you I'd get ahold of him in the morning and let him have it.

Inexcusable, really, at a time like this.

The Major said nothing, waiting. He understood the reasons for the Colonel's reluctant reaction to the phone call, but he was still determined to get some resolution to the matter. The Colonel, meanwhile, put his last folder in the file cabinet and locked it. He checked the file drawers and walked stiffly on his false leg to the door. He reached for the door, hesitated, spoke in a casual tone of voice.

How are you and Liffy getting on these days?

We get along well, replied the Major. I think if he wanted to help someone, to give them a contact here, he'd think of me.

I see.

The hand-grenade explosion in the bar, Colonel. You said that if it was the work of the Monks, it was probably intended for the Armenian as well as for Stern.

Yes, I believe I did suggest that.

But the Armenian got away, said the Major. He wasn't killed, he escaped.

Yes, so it seems. But the Sphinx, you say? That certainly seems a bizarre place for a meeting with Liffy.

The Colonel smiled to himself.

Unless, he thought, Liffy has finally decided to go all the way and do that impersonation.

Yes, quite, he murmured. But if one were to go to such a meeting, how could any backup men be taken along without them being seen?

No backup, said the Major. The caller was specific about that.

Oh he was, was he? That sounds rather arrogant to me.

Or cautious perhaps, out of necessity. He implied it was the Monks he was concerned about.

The Colonel looked shocked.

You mean he mentioned Monks on the phone?

No, not directly. He made an allusion to St Anthony as the founder of monasticism, although he didn't come out and say that directly either, and he said something about fifteen hundred years in the desert being a danger to a man's health. Or to his spiritual balance, as he called it.

The Colonel smiled despite himself.

Erudite fellow, it seems, and rather accustomed to alluding to things. Colly was like that.

He also said he'd call back in fifteen minutes, added the Major, looking at his watch.

The Colonel's smile faded.

What on earth for?

To find out whether I'm coming or not. He said that given the nature of competing bureaucracies, as he put it, not directly again, he imagined I'd have to check with you before I could agree to come.

That's not just arrogance, muttered the Colonel, that's a perverse sense of humor. How could he have known I'd be here?

He said he assumed it. He said that in perilous times, as he put it, the old man tends to work late.

Definitely a perverse sense of humor, muttered the Colonel. He seems to have said quite a lot in his indirect way.

He was speaking quickly.

Yes, I can see that. Tell me, do you ever take walks alone in the desert at night? To clear your head and get things in order a bit?

I have, replied the Major.

Ever go out to the pyramids just to take in the majesty of the place?

I have.

Well these days, said the Colonel, I'd go well-armed if I were you. And other than that all I can say is Bletchley's business belongs to Bletchley, and if I were to interfere he'd have my head in twenty-four hours, and rightly so.

I understand, said the Major.

It was bad enough that I sent Jameson to check into a killing where a Purple Seven was involved. But to do anything more than that is out of the question. I couldn't authorize it and I wouldn't. Moreover, if I knew anything about it I'd have to put a stop to it immediately.

I understand, said the Major.

So I'm sorry I missed you tonight, the Colonel went on, after our discussion earlier on Jameson's findings.

I'm leaving to get some rest because I haven't been sleeping well lately. I fall asleep but then some damn worry wakes me up at three in the morning and I can't get back to sleep. I pass the time as best I can but it would certainly be much pleasanter to share a pot of tea with someone then, if someone had some late business and chanced to drop by after it was over.

The Colonel glanced around the office, his hand on the door.

I enjoyed reminiscing about Colly this evening, he added, but we do have to keep in mind that Purple Sevens aren't everyday sorts. . Not at all. That's why they have the designation.

***

And beyond the rumbling chaos of the city it was an eerie night of luminous stars and strange wan moonlight full upon the reaches of the Nile. In the rambling houseboat of the Sisters, in that pale airy sunroom that had once rung with gaiety and laughter and was now filled to overflowing with empty furniture, in that gently familiar place where faded voices and small unbroken melodies came to mingle in the delicate half-light, there in the stillness Big Belle and Little Alice sat gazing at the Nile, at their own restless currents of memory. The night was too bright for candles so they sat with only the moon and the stars as their guides, occasionally one of them stirring, speaking.