The Quest of Julian Day (21 page)

Behind me I left occasional street-lamps and the faint rays of friendly light coming from partially-curtained windows. As I mounted the hill and looked back I could see over the rooftops. The individual lights in the nearer houses had become pin-pricks and now blended with a hundred thousand others making a reddish glow above the whole broad expanse of modern Cairo. But up the hill in front lay impenetrable darkness unlit by a solitary gleam in any direction; except if one looked upwards over the line of crumbling walls to the stars which twinkled in the darkened sky. Behind me I could hear the subdued roar of the city's night life; in front it was as silent as the grave, and when I say grave I speak literally, for upon either hand graves lay in every room of every house by hundreds upon hundreds throughout the length and breadth of that desolate, eerie city.

I advanced with extreme caution, listening with all my ears for the faintest sound which might disturb the stillness. I had
no desire to run into a police patrol as they would be certain to question, and might arrest me, since they would regard anyone found there at such an hour as being up to no good. Yet I was even more afraid of being surprised and fallen on by one of the gangs of toughs which were said to lurk in the ruins. Preferring the lesser evil of being challenged by the police I kept well to the centre of the road. The shadows at its sides which would have concealed me were fraught with too many unknown dangers.

When I reached the top of the hill I turned left into a long straight thoroughfare and, hand on gun, heart in throat, walked down it for half a mile until I saw a faint glow ahead of me. I went even more cautiously then, knowing it could only be the bivouac fires of the police-post. A few minutes later I came to the end of the street and, carefully ensconcing myself in a heavy band of shadow, I peered round the corner into the old square which used to be the centre of the city. In it there were now a wooden shed, two army tents and about half a dozen of Essex Pasha's famous white racing dromedaries tethered near by. A bivouac fire was burning in the centre of the encampment and a dozen Egyptian police were squatting round it.

Silently I turned away and retraced my steps, counting the turnings between the ruined houses as I went. All the time I kept to the centre of the road and my hand on my gun as, although I had not seen a single sign of life except at the police-post, that was no evidence that I had not already been spotted by cut-throats who were stalking me and liable to leap out of the shadows at any moment.

At the sixth turning on the right I turned downhill again and took the first turn to the right as I had been instructed. The road was of a fair width but only by comparison with some of the noisome alleys I had passed on my way up from the modern city. I found the house of El Said without difficulty, since it was easily identifiable by the shutters. I found, too, the niche by the old side-door where I had been told to wait but I did not pause there; instead I took up my position about twenty yards further on in a patch of darkness which gave me ample cover. Then I waited with beating heart and the best patience I could muster.

My watch showed me that it was just on the time appointed
but the minutes dragged by with leaden feet and not a sound broke the stillness. I was just beginning to think that Gamal had managed to warn my opposite number in time, and that he would not turn up, when the clicking of a loose stone caught my ear. It was followed by a stealthy tread.

At first I could see nothing but after a moment I discerned a movement in the shadows near the entrance of the turning which led to the main street; but it seemed to me that it was too diffused to be one person and, staring into the darkness, I suddenly became aware that four figures were approaching.

The thought, ‘why four instead of one?' flashed through my racing brain and then that these men were nothing to do with Gamal but one of the gangs which I feared so much. They reached the nook where I was supposed to be and entered it which told me definitely that there were Gamal's people. Next moment they broke out into excited chatter; yet their voices were semi-hushed and I sensed that the grim spell of the place was on them even as it was on myself.

Evidently they were surprised and annoyed to find the place empty. Abandoning their former caution they stepped back into the road where, by the faint starlight, I could see them for the first time with some clearness. The silhouette of one of them struck me as vaguely familiar; then I identified it as that of Yusuf. I guessed at once that on learning he had been fooled Gamal had sent Yusuf and several of his people to stop my opposite number keeping the tryst and, on the assumption that I might be a police spy, ordered them to find out if I had kept it with the idea of assassinating me. Even as the thought came to me it was confirmed by my catching the flash of starlight on steel and I saw that one of the stalkers was carrying a drawn knife in his hand.

I thanked my gods that I had had the sense to conceal myself at some little distance from the rendezvous but I was none too happy at the thought that I could not retreat from where I stood without showing myself. With the idea of making myself safe from any surprise attack I had selected an angle where two high walls met; the deep shadows there concealed me perfectly but my situation would be a desperate one if it occurred to them that I might be hiding somewhere near by and they started to hunt for me. My only consolation was that there were
so many equally good hiding-places within a hundred yards of where they stood they would probably consider any search quite futile.

I could hear them debating together what to do next, and even caught the words of one who declared that as I had failed to keep the appointment it was senseless to linger there and that they had best get back to make their report as quickly as possible. With a sigh of relief I saw them turn away and set off towards the entrance of the lane.

They had not gone ten yards when a frightful tickling started in my nose. The wretched cold I had caught the night before had been bothering me all the evening. I gritted my teeth, whipped out my handkerchief and buried my nose in its folds but, in spite of my superhuman effort to suppress it, a violent sneeze burst from me. Instantly Yusuf and his companions swivelled round, paused for one moment and then, drawing their knives with excited cries, came dashing towards me.

I was cornered; I could not retreat and there were four of them. If they used firearms it was certain that I should be massacred where I stood within the next two minutes. My one hope was that they would rely upon their knives and that I might be able to break through them if I could survive their first attack.

One of them pulled a torch out as he ran and flashed it into the dense shadow where I was crouching. The sight of me, caught in the beam, drew a cry of triumph from Yusuf. Momentarily the light of the torch blinded me and as the man who held it switched it off I could see nothing. After that one cry of triumph they fell sinisterly silent and I could only hear the soft padding of their feet as they came racing at me in the blackness.

I had drawn my gun and I fired at point blank range, dead ahead into what I believed to be the middle of them. A scream of pain told me that my bullet had found its mark and the flash of the gun showed them to me. Two negroes, an Eurasian with a hooky nose and small beard, and Yusuf—evidently the most cautious of the four as he was well behind the others. Which one I had hit I could not tell but I thought it was one of the negroes.

They fell upon me like an avalanche and I fired again at that very second but I must have fired wide as there came no answering cry to my bullet.

As they came at me I attempted to side-step but one of the negroes caught me off my balance. In my left hand I was gripping the packet of dope by its string handle and I swung it violently at his head, catching him full in the face, but his impetus was much too great for the blow to have any material effect. It saved me momentarily from his knife, which glanced
over my shoulder, but the force of his attack sent me spinning sideways and I fell heavily to the ground.

The Eurasian was on me like a tiger-cat but I kneed him in the stomach and wriggling free rolled over and over down the slope still clutching my automatic. The loose dust swirled up all round me getting in my mouth, eyes and nostrils. My thigh was hurting where the Eurasian had kicked me and as I tried to get my breath the filthy dust made me choke and splutter.

The second I stopped and tried to rise they were on me again cursing and shouting; my gun exploded ineffectually and was knocked out of my hand. I caught the flash of a knife but jerked myself aside and the blade struck sparks out of the stones in the roadway. One of them clutched my throat and bore me backwards; I could no longer see which of them was actually on top of me as we were all in one writhing bundle, kicking and slashing at each other in wild confusion. A pain like the searing of a red-hot iron ran across my forehead as a knife gashed it.

Even as I lay there wriggling beneath them, lunging out with fists and feet, grabbing handfuls of hair or turban, the beastly stench of their unwashed bodies strong in my nostrils, with half of my brain I was thinking what a lunatic I had been not to foresee that Gamal might send several of them after me. If I died there I knew that I had only myself to blame. A fist smashed into my face and I felt the hot and sticky blood from my nose run down over my mouth and chin.

The hand that gripped my throat was powerful and muscular; I fought with the strength of desperation but the grip tightened and I began to feel an intolerable pain in my chest while my limbs weakened. The stars above me went out. Everything was black, then red with whirling catherine-wheels and streaks of fire. I squirmed and twisted but evey movement was weaker than the last and I knew that I was done.

As though from a great distance I heard the report of fire arms but it did not mean anything to me at that moment. The hand on my windpipe was suddenly withdrawn. My protruding eyeballs eased back into their sockets, the catherine-wheels gave place to a red mist and then to blackness again.

After a second I realised that the weight of my attackers had been withdrawn from my bruised and aching body. I could see the stars above and was lying there huddled in the gutter. A
great commotion was going on all round me; someone trod on my chest and stumbled, pitching over my prostrate body; there were more shots, the flash of torches and an authoritative voice shouting staccato orders in Arabic. A hand grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and I was lugged roughly to my feet.

Still dazed and semi-conscious I looked about me and enough of my wits had returned by then for me to realise that I owed my life to the intervention of the police.

There were about twenty of them armed with rifles and automatics and commanded by a native officer. Yusuf, the Eurasian and one of the negroes were already being manacled. One of the police snapped a pair of handcuffs on my wrists and pushed me roughly towards them. The second negro was lying sprawled in the middle of the roadway where I had shot him; he was groaning slightly which gave me a little hope that I might escape being charged with manslaughter.

At the end of the lane a police-van had driven up; a stretcher was got out of it and the wounded negro carried to it. After a curt order from the officer the other captives and myself were hustled to the van and four policemen got into it with us. The doors were locked and it was driven off down the hill.

Some twenty minutes later we arrived at Police Headquarters. Our names were taken by a sergeant and I gave mine as Daoud el Azziz; after which the officer duly charged us with trafficking in illicit drugs. We were searched but I had no papers on me and had decided that it would be best to hold my peace for the moment. When the formalities were over we were led downstairs and I was pushed into a small cell.

The place was clean but there was no means of switching off the blue-bulbed electric light. I was only thankful that I had been given a cell to myself and not confined with the others who could certainly have beaten me up, if they had had half a chance, as being the cause of their own arrest. Yusuf had glowered daggers at me while we were standing in front of the sergeant's desk and he had good reason for his fury. Seeing that the police had found the packet of dope in the gutter it was quite certain that Yusuf and Co. were in for a good long spell of prison.

My head was aching abominably but I sat down on the narrow bed and began to consider my own position. My firing, I
thought, must have brought the police on the scene and they would assume that a quarrel had broken out among the dope-traffickers, so I should be brought up with them for examination next morning. That did not worry me much since I had a perfectly good explanation as to how I had become mixed up in the affair. On the other hand, that explanation meant giving away the fact that I was the man the police were hunting for in connection with Sir Walter's murder, and it was quite certain that I should have considerable trouble with a lot of angry policemen for having led them such a wild-goose chase instead of having come forward immediately I had landed in Alexandria.

My only consolation was that in any case I had promised Sylvia that I would surrender to the police the following morning so I was only really anticipating what was in store for me by spending the present night in a cell.

To my annoyance I found I had run out of cigarettes; doubtless I could have bought a few off one of the warders if I had cared to try but I had some of Groppi's soft caramels in my pockets so I made do with those instead. They were a bit squashed through my rough-and-tumble but that had not impaired their delicious flavour and I only wished that I had come through the business with so little damage. I was bruised all over; my right leg hurt me badly where the Eurasian had kicked me and the gash on my forehead was now stiff and painful.

Having cleaned and bathed the cut by dipping my handkerchief in the pitcher of water I lay down on the hard bed, covered my eyes to shield them from the light and drifted off into an uneasy slumber.