The Gabriel Hounds (22 page)

Slowly, under the gentle ministrations of the handkerchief, the thing emerged. It was a creature which might have been a dog or lion, about six inches high, made in vivid yellow porcelain with a glowing glaze. It was sitting on its haunches with one paw down, and the other poised delicately on a fretted ball. The head was turned over one shoulder, at gaze, ears back, wide mouth grinning as dogs grin. It had a thick, waving mane, and its plumed tail curled over its back. Its air was one of gay watchfulness, a kind of playful ferocity. Its mate on the floor, her bright coat fogged with dust, had a plume-tailed pup under her paw instead of a ball.

‘Well, my God, who’d have thought it?’ said Charles softly. ‘What do you think of them?’

‘Heavens, don’t ask me, I’m not up in these things. Are they really meant to be dogs?’

‘They’re what are known as Dogs of Fo, or Buddhist
lions. Nobody seems sure exactly what kind of creatures they were.’

‘Who was Fo?’

‘The Buddha himself. These are the only creatures in the Buddhist mythology that are allowed to kill, and then only in the Lord Buddha’s defence. They’re officially the guardians of his temple.’ He turned the glowing creature over in his hands. The wrinkled pansy-face grinned like a Pekinese over the pretty ball.

‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘I’ve a feeling I do remember them. But why do you suppose they’ve been shoved out here? I mean, I’d have thought—’

‘Yes,’ said Charles. He set the dog down again on the floor, straightened up abruptly, and took the torch out of my hand. I got the impression he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. ‘Shall we get on with the programme?’

Without waiting for an answer, and without another glance at the contents of the room, he led the way quickly back into the corridor.

Here was silence and darkness, and the still smell of unused, dusty air. The trees of the faded, painted landscape slid past, punctuated by the dark cave-mouths of empty rooms. Then ahead of us the corridor curved slightly to the left, and on the outside of the curve the torch picked out another doorway, the same arched shape as the rest, but very different. Here was no empty cave, no sagging and rotten timber. The arch was blocked with a door of oak, brand new and solid as a ship, and it was not only shut fast, but locked with a new brass padlock.

The light paused on this for a moment, then moved on to the next door. Here again a new lock winked.

I said under my breath: ‘The real treasure chambers, huh?’

My cousin didn’t answer. The light slowly raked up the door to the barred ventilator above it, and down again, to fix on what stood beside it. He walked over to look, and I followed him.

Between the two doors, stacked against the wall, were a dozen or so cans, the size of small petrol cans, bright yellow with some sort of design on them. As the torchlight caught them I saw on the nearest, in bold black lettering:
FINEST COOKING OIL
Ideal for Frying. Mayonnaise, Salads
. And below this, something else. I stopped.

The light came back to me swiftly. ‘What is it?’

‘On the tins,’ I said, blinking in the beam, which swept down from my face again to the pile by the door. ‘I just noticed – I can’t remember where I saw it before. Oh, yes, now I’ve got it! It’s nothing, Charles, only that design on the cans in red, the running dog.’

‘Yes? What about it?’

‘Nothing, I suppose. It’s not important. Just that I’ve seen it before.’

‘Where?’ I looked at him in surprise. He sounded interested, even sharp.

‘Sunday afternoon, up at the village Hamid took me to. I told you, didn’t I? The sunflower field with the little sign on the tree-trunk, the red dog that I thought looked like a saluki.’

‘This is the same?’

‘I think so.’

We stooped closer, and now under the drawing of the running dog I could see in smaller black lettering:
Hunting Dog Brand. Best quality, beware immitations
.

‘Sal’q,’ said my cousin, half to himself. The torchlight was full on the tin. He looked absorbed.

‘What?’

‘That’s what “Hunting Dog” is, did you know? The word “saluki” is the Arabic
seluqi
or
slughi
and means “hound”. I imagine the Nahr el-Sal’q is some sort of corruption meaning ‘Hound River’. Local produce, in other words. This is the same as you saw in the field?’

‘Exactly the same.’ I straightened up. ‘Local produce it will be – sunflower oil, I suppose, and what I saw was a marker for the field. I think I read somewhere that the peasants use markers like that for their crops – I suppose it’s sense, when a lot of them can’t read. Heavens, this must be about ten years’ supply! What on earth do you suppose they use it all for?’

He lifted one of the cans and put it down again, ‘Empty,’ he said shortly, and turned away.

I looked at him curiously. ‘Why so interested?’

‘Not here,’ he said, ‘not now. Let’s finish this, shall we? And we’d better stop talking.’

When we rounded the curve of the corridor, going warily, we saw some thirty yards ahead of us a stairway, a wide sweep leading up to a landing and another elaborate arch. The door was standing open, back to the wall, but in its place, a heavy curtain hung across the arch. And at one edge of the curtain a line of light showed. We stopped still, listening. Even our own
breathing sounded loud to me in the dead air. But nothing moved; no sound came from beyond the curtain.

Carefully shielding the torch with his fingers, so that only a rosy crack of light showed to dance like a fire-fly towards the curtain, Charles mounted the stairs and inched his way forward across the landing to the doorway. He paused beside the curtain, with me at his elbow. The torch was out now, the only light the streak at the curtain’s edge.

Still no sound. But now I could smell the curiously pungent scent of Great-Aunt Harriet’s tobacco. This must be the Prince’s Divan. She might be very near us. She must have been reading, and have fallen asleep over her book. I couldn’t hear her breathing I thought but then the room was so vast, and if she had drawn the bedcurtains before she slept …

My cousin put out a stealthy hand and drew the edge of the curtain back a couple of inches. He laid an eye to the crack, and I stooped to look.

It was certainly the Prince’s bedchamber. And this was actually the curtain at the back of Great-Aunt Harriet’s bed.

There was very little light in the room; the streak at the curtain’s edge had only seemed bright in comparison with the outer darkness where we stood. The lamp stood on the table, its flame turned low, the smallest slug of light. But knowing the room, I could see fairly clearly. It was exactly as last night; the red lacquer chair, the unwashed dishes on the table, the hypochondriac clutter on the dressing-chest, the dish on the floor
with
DOG
now half-hidden with milk for the cat, and on the bed …

For one breathless moment I thought Great-Aunt Harriet was there too, within a yard of us, sitting where she had sat last night in her welter of shawls and silks; then I saw the room was empty. The dark corner at the bedhead held only the tumble of blankets, and the red of her discarded jacket and the fleecy pile of the shawl.

A moment later it hit me again, the cold wave of sickness and the shiver over the flesh, as the cat lifted its head and eyed us from the tumbled bed. Charles saw it at the same moment as I did, and as I backed sharply away he let the curtain fall and came with me. His arms went round me.

‘Okay, okay, it’s not coming.’

‘Sure?’

‘Of course. You’re all right, love, relax.’

I was shivering, and the arms tightened. The top of my head came just up to his cheekbone. ‘Give it a minute,’ he whispered, ‘then we’ll go.’

He held me like that for a while, till the shivering quietened, and I felt the cold leave my body. It was very dark and still. I knew from the sound of his breathing that he had turned his head away, and was watching and listening. He turned back, and I felt him draw breath to speak, then with an abrupt but stealthy movement his cheek came down against my hair.

‘Christy—’

‘Yes?’

A tiny pause. The breath went out like a light sigh, stirring my hair. ‘Nothing. All right now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come along then.’

‘You – you really didn’t want to wait and see her? I don’t think somehow—’

‘No. Forget it, we’ll go back.’

‘I’m sorry, Charles.’

‘So you should be.’ His whisper mocked me gently. ‘Brace up, love, it can’t get you. Be a big brave girl. Charles’ll fight the nasty cat for you.’

The terror receded. I laughed. ‘Big brave Charles,’ I said. ‘What if we meet the dogs? I’m fine now, thank you.’

‘Really? Then we’ll call it a night, I think. Back to your harem, my girl.’

The painted door was still wedged open, and the air outside in the pavilion was wonderfully fresh and sweet. We crossed the bridge to the gap, and I jumped it after him. He didn’t let me go straight away.

‘Christy …’ He spoke softly, quickly. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

‘I knew it. I knew you were holding something back. Well?’

‘Not quite that. I don’t
know
anything. I’ve been making a few wild guesses, let’s say. And I know that there’s one thing very wrong, and it makes me smell a hell of a big rat. But – and I want you to take this if you will – I’m not going to tell you here and now.’

‘Why not?’

‘For the simple reason that you’ve got to stay in this place until morning, and I haven’t. No, listen Christy
… you’ve got to meet John Lethman and be civil and normal to him, and you never know, Great-Aunt Harriet may take it into her head to see you again, and—’

‘“Civil and normal” to John Lethman? Then there
is
something wrong about John Lethman?’

‘I told you I was only guessing. Most of it’s only a guess. But you have got to stay here.’

‘So the less I know the better?’ I said derisively. ‘Corny, Chas darling, corny! Blast you, I can
act
innocence, can’t I? I’m doing it all the time. Don’t be so maddening! If it comes to that, it’s me that’s in the middle of this, and not you! Come on, you’ve got to tell me! Is John Lethman Aunt Harriet’s lover or something?’

‘Heavens,’ said Charles, ‘if that were all …’

I argued, of course, but he wouldn’t be moved. Eventually he let me go, and prepared to jump back across the gap. I said: ‘Why do you have to go back that way? Why don’t you just shin down now from the window with the rope?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s easier this way. Close the shutters now, will you, so there’s nothing to catch the eye? Don’t put the bar back yet, just in case. I’ll go now. You get yourself to bed, I’ll see you at the hotel in the morning.’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’

‘Scared? Why on earth should I be scared?’

‘Well, as long as you’re not,’ said Charles, and left me.

So free from danger, free from fear,

They crossed the court: right glad they were.

S. T. Coleridge:
Christabel

I
THOUGHT
I wouldn’t have slept well, but I went out like a light for the five hours or so until my breakfast came, and woke to a glorious morning, and the sunlit peace of the Seraglio garden with the ripple of water where a light breeze touched it, and the singing-birds.

All the same, I remembered that I came back to consciousness not of the romantic peace of the place, but of the incipience of something cloudy, the faintest shadow of apprehension colouring the day ahead. Even when I realised that this was probably only the result of Charles’s hints about John Lethman, whom I would have to meet again this morning, and the rest of the day would be shared with Charles himself, I still found that the Seraglio Court, the whole palace locked in its hot valley afflicted me with a sort of claustrophobia, and I got up quickly and swallowed my coffee, restlessly eager now to get out of the place and back to the hotel and the life and colour and vulgar bustle of Beirut. And to Charles.

Hamid had been told to come for me at half-past nine, but it was barely half-past eight when I finished the coffee that Nasirulla had brought me, lingered for a few minutes for a last look at the garden with the sun on the pavilion’s golden dome, then let myself – by the orthodox route – out of the Seraglio.

My first apprehension had been removed by Nasirulla’s appearance with my breakfast. If he were here, the river must be passable this morning. I decided to go immediately, and walk up to the village to meet Hamid there. I had tried to indicate to Nasirulla by signs that I wanted to leave early, and though he had merely stared at me in his unsmiling way without a hint of understanding, he must have told John Lethman, for I met the latter coming to meet me in the second courtyard, where the anemones of the Adonis Gardens had already, in the one day’s heat, withered and died.

I thought he looked the worse for wear this morning, and wondered if the same could be said of me.

‘You’re up early,’ he said.

‘I suppose I must have been worrying about the ford. I gather it’s all right and I’ll be able to get across?’

‘Oh, yes. Did you sleep all right in the end after the alarums and excursions?’

‘After the—? Oh the dogs. Yes, thanks. Did you shut the poor things up? I admit I was a bit scared at first, but they were rather pets, and it’s just another romantic episode to think about later on. But they’re not like that with everybody, are they?’

‘By no means. You must have something special.’ A smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t say they’re
ever exactly savage, but they make good guard dogs, simply because they make a hell of a row if they hear anything out of the ordinary, I did shut them up, and it may have been a mistake.’

I didn’t want to ask him why, but he had paused as if he expected it, and it was certainly the natural question. At least the pause gave me time to get my face in order, I asked: ‘Why?’

‘I should have left them on patrol. We found the side gate open. Anyone could have got in during the night.’

‘The side gate? Is there another gate, then?’

‘There’s one opening out on the plateau at the back. What with that, and letting the hounds into the Seraglio, Jassim seems to have had himself a ball yesterday.’