The Quest of Julian Day (23 page)

‘Telephone them by all means if you wish, but I expect Sylvia Shane will already have told them where you are. I thought your friends might be anxious as to what had become of you so I rang her up first thing this morning to tell her we had you safely here.'

‘You know her, then?'

‘Oh yes, I've known her for years. She plays the best game of tennis of any girl in Cairo and she's a beautiful dancer.' His blue eyes twinkled again. ‘Nice girl, Sylvia—isn't she?'

‘Very, I should think, when one gets to know her,' I parried cautiously. ‘But I've only seen her in rather trying circumstances.'

‘You mustn't blame her for wanting to come to me in her trouble rather than relying on a strange young man of unknown antecedents.'

‘I don't in the least, sir, and I should never have attempted to persuade her to do otherwise if I hadn't been so desperately anxious to get my own back on this devil O'Kieff.'

‘Well, there's a chance that you may be able to do that yet. I'll have our records searched but I feel certain I've never come across him, under that name at all events. I can have him watched, of course, and if only I can tie him up in some way with Gamal there might be a case to bring against him. But that's unlikely as Zakri Bey is obviously the middle man between the two and it's going to be difficult enough to get anything even on him. In the meantime I can't interfere with O'Kieff at all. Have you any other line which you can follow up with a view to landing him?'

‘I'm afraid I haven't,' I confessed. ‘But he hasn't come to Egypt for his health and the Belvilles will be moving down to Luxor in a day or two, and I'm hoping that he'll show his hand again when we get there.'

‘All right, then.' Essex Pasha stood up. ‘If you find out anything of interest, let me know; and above all, remember that the law is stronger than you are. Don't go and get yourself into trouble with it, but use it to lay these rogues by the heels if you possibly can. There are a few formalities they'll want you
for outside and if you'll send your passport round by hand this afternoon I'll have it visa-ed for you. Good luck.'

I thanked him whole-heartedly for his kindness, and all that he was doing for me, and when I walked out of his office a free man I felt an altogether different being. That interview had done far more than relieve me of my fear of being deported or even possibly charged with Sir Walter's murder. It was the first time since the tragic termination of my diplomatic career that I had confided my whole miserable story to anyone; and it is impossible to describe the immense feeling of buoyancy and restored self-confidence it gave me to know that Essex Pasha had believed me and shown that I might count him as a friend.

The formalities he had referred to consisted of identifying Yusuf and the other prisoners at the police court proceedings against them and giving a précis of my evidence concerning them and Gamal, which I duly signed, to the proper authority.

Afterwards I telephoned the Belvilles and Sylvia but they were all out so I left messages asking them to lunch with me at Shepheard's Grill at half-past one. I then returned to my
pension
, got the stain off my face, changed back into my own clothes and moved to Shepheard's. I was still stiff and bruised from the previous night's scrap but after the luxury of relaxing for half an hour in a fine hot bath I felt infinitely better physically as well as mentally.

My message to Harry had included a request that he would bring the rest of my baggage round with him when he arrived for lunch, but my own clothes that Amin had brought out to me at Mena served for the time being, and when I walked down to the lounge a little after one o'clock I had, for the first time after nearly three days of costume parts, assumed my normal appearance.

I took a table on the terrace and at a quarter-past one Harry and Clarissa turned up. Sylvia had told them early that morning that I was safe at Police Headquarters so they had gone sight-seeing with her and visited the Citadel from which to see the maginificent views over Cairo. When they had got back to the Semiramis they had duly received my message about lunch and had come along early as Sylvia had asked them to drop her, on their way, at the Continental so that she could tidy up.

Clarissa was most solicitous about the cut on my forehead and both of them were anxious to hear about my adventure on the previous night. When I had told them about it, and something of my interview with Essex Pasha that morning, they were overjoyed to learn that things had gone so well and that I was now a free man again, able to move about without subterfuge just as I wished.

It took the best part of half an hour to tell my story and although it was a quarter-to-two by the time I had finished, Sylvia had not turned up. After glancing at his watch Harry exclaimed:

‘I wonder what can have happened to that girl. She's taking her time, isn't she?'

Clarissa laughed. ‘You silly! She's beautifying herself for the conquering hero. You can't expect her to hurry over that.' And I ordered another round of drinks.

Soon afterwards a porter came up and gave me a telephone message which had just come through. Miss Shane was terribly sorry but she would be unable to lunch as she had been sent for on urgent business by the police.

We could only imagine that Essex Pasha wanted to question her in order to check up on my statement to him. It was disappointing that she was unable to join us but it could not be helped, so we went in and I was able to enjoy the first really decent meal I had had for days.

We sat on the terrace afterwards until about four o'clock. In Egypt all roads lead to Shepheard's and the coming and going of its patrons, who include members of every nation under the sun, together with the colourful street-scene below, provides a fascinating spectacle which always makes one want to linger there unless one had urgent work to to.

It was Harry who suggested that Sylvia must soon be back and that we might stroll along to the Continental so as to be there when she got in.

The two hotels are in the same street and only a few hundred yards apart so a few minutes later we had exchanged the terrace at Shepheard's for the terrace at the Continental. Sylvia had not returned and we ordered tea.

It was getting on for five o'clock, I think, when we first became vaguely anxious. Three and a half hours seemed a long
time for an interview with the police and as Sylvia had intended lunching with us it was reasonable certain that she would get in touch with us as soon as she was free. It occurred to me that I might have received only a portion of her message and that something about meeting us later somewhere might not have reached me, so I went inside to the hall-porter's desk and made him repeat it to me in person.

I found that the message had been given to me just as she had given it to him and he was quite clear about what had happened. She had come in at about ten minutes past one and gone up to her room. At half-past a police officer had come in and enquired for her. She had come down in the lift a few minutes later and the two of them held a short conversation together within sight of the porter's desk; after which she had given him the message to be telephoned to me and gone off with the
bimbashi
.

There was nothing particularly queer about that: it was only the length of time she had been away which puzzled me somewhat and I decided to ring up and find out if she was still at Police Headquarters.

After a little delay I managed to get on to Essex Pasha and to my surprise he knew nothing whatever about the matter. He said that he had certainly not sent for Sylvia and he knew of no reason why anyone else should have done so; but he promised to make inquiries at once and ring me back as quickly as he could.

When he rang through again it was quite evident that he was as worried as I was.

‘Nobody here knows anything about this business,' he said quickly. ‘You had better hang on where you are. I'm coming round at once.'

A quarter of an hour later he was with us. Tall and distinguished-looking, he swept off his soft black hat with the flourish of an eighteenth-century courtier as I introduced him to Clarissa, but the gay twinkle in his blue eyes which had made him seem so friendly in the morning was no longer there. Quietly but with extraordinary speed and efficiency he took charge of the situation. Within two minutes of his arrival the manager had been fetched and we were upstairs in Sylvia's room.

The place was in chaos and looked as though a tornado had swept through it; cupboards and trunks had been broken open, the mattress dragged off the bed and ripped from end to end, the carpet rolled aside and half the floorboards pulled up. Her clothes and belongings were scattered in wild confusion everywhere.

I knew at once that what I had been fearing for the last twenty minutes had happened. Sylvia had been lured away in order that O'Kieff's people could ransack her room for the other half of the tablet. Probably they had hoped to secure it by some more subtle means until one of Zakri's spies—perhaps even a police official in his pay—had told them that Essex Pasha had had a long interview with me that morning and then released me. The news that they would not be able to have me deported, as they had hoped, and that I was free to continue my fight against them had doubtless forced their hands and made them decide upon immediate action.

‘What were they hunting for?' Essex Pasha asked me sharply.

‘The other half of that memorial tablet I told you about this morning,' I said at once.

‘Well, they haven't got it,' Harry cut in. ‘Sylvia told me yesterday that it's lying in the vaults of her bank.'

‘How about a translation of it?' I asked. ‘I suppose she made one?'

‘Yes. But fortunately they haven't got that either. She gave it to me to read last night, together with a rough translation which she did of the first half of the tablet in my room at he Semiramis after dinner. I've got them both in my pocket at the moment.'

‘But where have they taken her?' I exclaimed. ‘That's what matters.'

Essex Pasha had already sent for the floor waiter and the chambermaid. His questions elicited the fact that two Egyptians who were not staying in the hotel had been seen coming down the corridor from Sylvia's room at about half-past two. Their description was taken, and that of the bogus policeman, from the hall-porter downstairs.

In the manager's office Essex Pasha got on the telephone, passed the description of the three men and that of Sylvia to
his people and ordered a general notification to be sent out to all stations. Then he sat back and said glumly:

‘I'm afraid that's all we can do for the moment. But what puzzles me is why they should have troubled to kidnap her. They could easily had kept her under observation until she was safely out of the hotel for a few hours and have ransacked her room during her absence.'

‘I think I can tell you,' I said miserably. ‘They must have realised it was only a fifty-fifty chance they would find the tablet here or a translation of it. They kidnapped her so that if their raid was unsuccessful they would be able to force her to sign a letter authorising them to collect the tablet from anyone to whom she had passed it for safe-keeping.'

He gave me a sharp glance of approval and looked at the manager. ‘D'you know where Miss Shane banks?'

‘Yes, Excellency. Miss Shane has been staying with us for many months and her cheques are always drawn on the Anglo-Egyptian Bank.'

‘Get me through to the manager, will you? If he's gone home have the call made to his private address.'

For a few moments we stood about silent and anxious until the bank manager was located. Essex Pasha told him there was reason to believe that Sylvia Shane had fallen into wrong hands; crooks who might exert pressure upon her to sign certain documents; and that if anybody arrived at the bank on any sort of business in connection with her they were to be detained on some plausible excuse and Police Headquarters notified immediately.

‘Well, we've blocked them there,' he said when he had finished. ‘But that doesn't get us far. I'll turn every man I've got on to the job; but the devil of it is that we haven't got a single line to indicate where these thugs may have taken the poor girl.'

‘I don't know,' I said, and as I spoke I was half sick with fear, ‘but I may be able to tell you that too. Have you ever heard of a white-slaving joint down in Ismailia called the House of the Angels?'

‘The House of the Angels,' he repeated. ‘Yes, I have heard of it. There have been vague references to it from time to time in some of my people's reports, but it's evidently a pseudonym for some other place and only referred to under that name by the inner ring. Are you certain it's at Ismailia?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Tell me all you know about it.'

I related my conversation with Oonas and her offer to give me the run of the place when she believed that I was Lemming.

‘Why should you imagine they would take Sylvia there?' he asked when I had finished.

‘Well,' I hesitated. ‘It's a beastly thought, but Sylvia's good-looking, isn't she? And the place is not an ordinary brothel but a depot through which they bring Asiatic beauties for the houses in the Mediterranean ports and ship white women to the East. It makes one sick even to think of it but, since white-slaving is part of their business, mustn't one face the facts and assume that having taken the risk of kidnapping Sylvia, directly they've bullied her into signing the letter to the bank, instead of releasing her they'll white-slave her as well?'

He nodded. ‘I'm afraid that is so. I only asked you to see if you were reasoning on the same lines as myself.'

‘How simply frightful!' Clarissa exclaimed. ‘We must stop them! We must! We must!'

Essex Pasha took no notice of her. He was already on the telephone again asking the operator to get him on to Police Headquarters in Ismailia. As he hung up the receiver he glanced at his watch.