The Gabriel Hounds (27 page)

Since the last guess was obviously the most accurate of the lot, I abandoned the questions, to add my postscript. ‘If my driver, or anyone else, comes back asking about me, tell him I’ve gone back to the Sûreté office in the Rue Badaro in Beirut, and then to my hotel, the Phoenicia. I’ll wait there.
Comprise
.’

They admitted it was
compris
, so I left them to it, said a thank you all round, and went out.

The bus’s engine was roaring, and a cloud of black smoke poured from the exhaust. There was no time to do more than look quickly up the road for a white Porsche or a black taxi and to get in. Six seconds later, with a horrible shaking roar and a smell of soot, we were heading for Bar Elias and the Bk’aa road to Baalbek.

It was a horrible journey, and it ended perforce where the bus finished its run, in some dirty hot street within shouting distance of the ruined temples, and just in front of the portals of the Adonis Hotel.

I got out of the bus, shaking the creases from my skirt with a strong feeling that I was dislodging fleas from it in clouds. The bus went off to turn, the other passengers dispersed, and the filthy black fumes slowly cleared from the air. The street was empty except for a big, sleek black car parked at the kerb, and just beyond it, incongruously, a white camel with a ragged Arab holding the head-rope.

He bore down on me now, with a shrill stream of Arabic interspersed with a few English words, from which I gathered that I was being offered a ride on his camel for the paltry sum of five English pounds or more. I beat him off with some difficulty, parried off his offer to pose for a snapshot for only ten shillings, and ran up the steps into the hotel.

I was lucky to find the manager himself was still around, and not absent, as might have been expected, on siesta. I found him in the little gravelled court that did duty as a restaurant garden, sitting with a companion at one of the small tables under the pines,
drinking beer. He was a smallish, round-faced Arab with a thin line of moustache and various chunks of Beiruti gold about his person. His companion, whom at first I barely noticed, looked English.

The manager rose and came hurrying to meet me. ‘Madame – mademoiselle? You are back again? But I thought your party had left the Lebanon?’

‘Good heavens, you recognised me?’ I exclaimed. He was bowing over my hand with every appearance of joy. You’d have thought I’d spent a month in the hotel’s best suite with all found, not merely bought a drink to take with the group’s packed lunch a few days ago. ‘What a memory you’ve got! I’d have thought you had so many tourists here that you wouldn’t even see them any more!’

‘How could I forget you, mademoiselle?’ The bow, the gallant look, assured me without a hint of offence that he meant it. He added, frankly: ‘As to that, I have only been here since the beginning of the season. So far, I remember all my guests. Please – will you sit down? Will you join us, it will be a pleasure?’

But I hung back. ‘No, thank you very much – there was something I wanted to ask you. I’m here on my own today, and I wanted some help so I thought I would come to you.’

‘Of course. Please tell me. Anything. Of course.’

He obviously meant it, but to my dismay, as soon as I began to explain my difficulty and mentioned a car, he made a moue of doubt, and spread his hands.

‘I will do all I can, naturally … but at this time of day most of the local cars are already hired and gone. It
is possible you may find one at the temples – do you speak Arabic?’

‘No.’

‘Then I will send someone with you to help you. There may be a car still there. If not – perhaps I can find one – perhaps one of my friends, even … It is urgent?’

‘Well, I do rather want to get to Beirut as soon as possible.’

‘Then please do not worry, mademoiselle. Of course I will do for you whatever I can. I am glad that you felt you could come here for help. I would offer to telephone for you now, but as it happens I had to get a car only ten minutes ago for one of my guests, and I had difficulty. But in another twenty minutes, perhaps, or half an hour, it will be worth trying again.’

‘Forgive me.’ It was his companion who spoke. I had forgotten all about him, and turned in surprise as he set down his beer glass and rose. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing. If you really are anxious to get to Beirut, and there’s any difficulty at all, I’m going that way and would be delighted to offer you a lift.’

‘Why, thank you—’ I was slightly taken aback, but the manager intervened quickly, sounding relieved and pleased.

‘Of course, that would be excellent! An excellent idea! May I perhaps introduce you? This is Mr Lovell, mademoiselle. I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’

‘Mansel. Miss Mansel. How do you do, Mr Lovell?’

‘How do you do?’ His voice was English and cultured. He was a man of rather less than middle height,
somewhere in his forties, with a face made Arab-olive by the sun, and dark hair receding from a high forehead. He was well-dressed in a lightweight grey suit and silk shirt, and wore heavy-rimmed dark glasses. Something about him was faintly familiar, and I thought I must have met him somewhere before.

Even as the thought crossed my mind he smiled and confirmed it. ‘As a matter of fact we’ve met before, though without an introduction, and I don’t suppose you remember it.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t, but I did have a feeling I’d met you. Where?’

‘In Damascus, last week. Was it Wednesday – or perhaps Thursday? Yes, it was Thursday, in the morning in the Great Mosque. You were with a group then, weren’t you? I’d been talking to your guide while you ladies were admiring the carpets, and then he had to intervene in some minor international incident, and we exchanged a word or two while it was going on. You wouldn’t remember, why should you? But do tell me, did the stout lady allow herself to be parted from her shoes in the end?’

I laughed. ‘Oh, that’s what you meant by an “international incident”! Yes, she did, and even admitted she wouldn’t have wanted all that crowd walking on
her
carpets in outdoor shoes. There was a bit of a scene, wasn’t there? I thought I knew your voice. That’s it, then.’

‘You’re on your own today?’

‘Yes. In fact, I won’t make a story of it now, but that’s the reason why I’m stranded here today looking
for a car. Do you mean you’re really going straight to Beirut?’

‘Certainly.’ He moved one square, well-kept hand to indicate the car parked at the edge of the road below the garden wall. I saw now that it was a black Renault with an Arab impassive at the wheel in native dress and white
kaffiyeh
. ‘If I can be of any help to you, I’ll be delighted. I was intending to leave within a few minutes anyway. Of course, if you want to stay and see the sights here first, then you might prefer to take a chance of getting a taxi later, and Mr Najjar will probably be able to help you.’ He smiled. ‘Any other day I’d have been delighted to show you the place myself, but as it happens I have an engagement in the city that I daren’t cry off, so I’m driving straight down now.’

‘It’s terribly good of you, and I’d love to come with you,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen Baalbek before – I was here with the group on Friday – but in any case I’m anxious to get back to the city as soon as I can.’

‘Then shall we go?’

The manager came with us to the car, the Arab driver whipped round to open the rear door, and Mr Lovell handed me in, spoke to the man in Arabic, and settled beside me. We said our goodbyes to the manager, and the car moved off.

We threaded the narrow streets quickly and skilfully, then gathered speed along the road to Beirut. In a few minutes we had passed the last of the houses crouching among their gardens, and on our right the great sweep of hill and valley stretched brilliant in the afternoon
sun. The air through the open window was fresh and cool. I leaned back gratefully.

‘Oh, this is heaven after that bus! Have you ever been in one of the local buses?’

He laughed. ‘No, praise be to Allah, I have not.’

‘I should have warned you to keep right away from me until I’ve had a bath.’

‘I’ll take the risk. Where are you staying in Beirut?’

‘The Phoenicia. But don’t you bother about that, I can get a taxi from anywhere it suits you to throw me out.’

‘It’s no trouble, we’ll be passing it.’

‘Thanks all the same, but as a matter of fact I’ve a call to make first in the Rue Badaro. I don’t know where it is, but perhaps you do?’

‘Yes, of course. Well, that’s even simpler, it’s practically on the way. The Rue Badaro joins this one just before the
place
where the National Museum is. If we cut through the side streets when we get to the city we can go in that way, and I’ll drop you.’

‘Thank you very much.’

His voice betrayed no curiosity. He had given me a brief glance – unreadable because of the dark glasses – when I had mentioned the Rue Badaro, and I thought he must surely know that the Sûreté Générale was there, but he was either too indifferent or too well-bred to question me about my affairs. He asked merely: ‘What happened to your group?’

‘Oh, I didn’t break away from them today! I’m only stranded and thrown on your mercy because I hadn’t a proper visa and my own car went on … that is, there
were reasons why I had to send my driver on to Damascus, even if it meant my finding my own way home to Beirut. The group actually left on Saturday, and in a way, that’s the cause of the trouble.’ I explained briefly what had happened about the visa.

‘I see. But how extraordinarily awkward. I suppose you have to get a new visa? Then do I gather it’s the Sûreté you want in the Rue Badaro?’

‘Yes,’ In spite of myself I cast a worried glance at my watch. ‘Have you any idea what their hours are?’

He didn’t answer immediately, but I saw him give a quick glance at his own wrist, then he leaned forward and said something in Arabic to the driver. The big car surged forward smoothly at an increased pace. Mr Lovell smiled at me. ‘You should be all right. In any case, I might be able to help you. Stop worrying.’

‘You? You mean you know someone there?’

‘You might say so. I can see how the mistake occurred, it’s no one’s fault, and I doubt if there will be any difficulty in getting you a new visa. You’ll have to pay another half-crown, I’m afraid, and wait while they fill in a form or two in triplicate, but that’s all it will take. So relax now till we get there. I promise you it’ll be all right. And if you like, I’ll come in with you and see you through it.’

‘Oh – would you really? I mean – if you’ve time? It’s terribly good of you!’ I found myself stammering in a sort of confusion of relief.

‘Think nothing of it,’ he said calmly. ‘Do you smoke?’

‘No, well, sometimes I do. Thank you, I think I will. Oh, are they Turkish?’

‘No, Latakia – it’s the best Syrian tobacco. Go on, try it.’

I took one, and he lit it for me. The driver, who all this time had said nothing, was smoking already. Mr Lovell lit a cigarette for himself and leaned back beside me. His lighter I saw, was a gold Flaminia, and the cigarette-case had been gold, too. The cuff-links in the silk cuffs were of heavy gold with a beautiful, deliberately ‘roughed’ surface. A man of substance, and certainly a man of easy self-assurance. Someone of importance, perhaps? He had that air. I began to wonder if quite by chance I had found the ‘useful contact’ in Beirut that I had talked of to Daddy. It certainly seemed as if I could stop worrying about the Sûreté and the visa.

He was silent, half turned away to look out of his window. We sat for a while smoking in silence, while the big car sped silently south and west, then took the High Lebanon pass in its stride and began to nose downhill towards the distant sprawl of Beirut. I was content to sit back in silence and stop thinking. This was an interval, a gap in time, a moment to free-wheel before the next effort. And the next effort would be eased for me by the pleasant and competent Mr Lovell.

It was only then, as I found myself relaxing, brittle tension melting like toffee into a sweet goo of softened bone and nerve and sleepy muscle, that I realised how taut and tight-strung I must have been, how senselessly, uselessly keyed up to meet something which could have been no more than a challenge of my own
imagination. Something I had let Hamid see and feel, and which, because he had over-interpreted me, I had been left to sort out on my own. Well, I seemed to be doing just that … and meanwhile the car sailed on at speed, and the sun beat warm and heavy through the window, and the breeze stirred the ash in grey dust from my cigarette and feathered the smoke away in veils of blue nylon, and I was content to lift a lazy hand to wave it away from my eyes, then drop the hand, palm up, into my lap while I leaned back, tranquil, without thought.

My companion, seemingly as relaxed as I, was turned away from me gazing out at the view on his side of the car. Here the steep hillside fell away from the road in an abrupt sweep of rock-strewn green to the dark sprawl of forest and the gleam of running water. Beyond the forested stream the land rose again through terraced fields of gold and green and dark-gold to more stony heights, and the grey seams of snow. The poplars along the road’s edge flashed and winked past like telegraph posts, bare and lacy against the far snow and the hot blue sky.

‘Good Lord!’

Mr Lovell, who had been gazing out almost dreamily, stiffened to attention, whipped off his dark glasses, craned his neck farther, and shaded his eyes to stare down the mountainside.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing, really – rather a pretty sight, that’s all. And not quite as out of place here as one might think.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘It still goes on, of course, the high
romance – Haroun Al Raschid and the perfumes of Arabia and blood on the roses. It’s an Arab riding down there with a pair of Persian greyhounds, you know them? – salukis, beautiful things. How very dramatic’

I didn’t for the moment take in what he was saying. I was fiddling with the ashtray in the back of the seat in front of me, trying to stub out my cigarette.

He added: ‘He ought to have a hawk on his wrist, probably has, but it’s too far away for me to see.’