They Came to Baghdad (14 page)

Victoria pursued her inquiries.

“Or anyone called Anna Scheele?”

This time Edward's reaction was very different. He turned on her abruptly, caught her by the arm and said:

“What do you know about Anna Scheele?”

“Ow! Edward, let go! I don't know anything about her. I just wanted to know if you did.”

“Where did you hear about her? Mrs. Clipp?”

“No—not Mrs. Clipp—at least I don't think so, but actually she talked so fast and so unendingly about everyone and everything that I probably wouldn't remember if she mentioned her.”

“But what made you think this Anna Scheele had anything to do with the Olive Branch?”

“Has she?”

Edward said slowly, “I don't know…It's all so—so vague.”

They were standing outside the garden door to the Consulate. Edward glanced at his watch. “I must go and do my stuff,” he said. “Wish I knew some Arabic. But we've got to get together, Victoria. There's a lot I want to know.”

“There's a lot I want to tell you,” said Victoria.

Some tender heroine of a more sentimental age might have sought to keep her man out of danger. Not so, Victoria. Men, in Victoria's opinion, were born to danger as the sparks fly upwards. Edward wouldn't thank her for keeping him out of things. And, on reflection, she was quite certain that Mr. Dakin hadn't intended her to keep him out of things.

III

At sunset that evening Edward and Victoria walked together in the Consulate garden. In deference to Mrs. Clayton's insistence that the weather was wintry Victoria wore a woollen coat over her summer frock. The sunset was magnificent but neither of the young people noticed it. They were discussing more important things.

“It began quite simply,” said Victoria, “with a man coming into my room at the Tio Hotel and getting stabbed.”

It was not, perhaps, most people's idea of a simple beginning. Edward stared at her and said: “Getting
what?
”

“Stabbed,” said Victoria. “At least I think it was stabbed, but it might have been shot only I don't think so because then I would have heard the noise of the shot. Anyway,” she added, “he was dead.”

“How could he come into your room if he was dead?”

“Oh Edward, don't be stupid.”

Alternately baldly and vaguely, Victoria told her story. For some mysterious reason Victoria could never tell of truthful occurrences in a dramatic fashion. Her narrative was halting and incomplete and she told it with the air of one offering a palpable fabrication.

When she had come to the end, Edward looked at her doubt
fully and said, “You do feel all right, Victoria, don't you? I mean you haven't had a touch of the sun or—a dream, or anything?”

“Of course not.”

“Because, I mean, it seems such an absolutely impossible thing to have happened.”

“Well, it did happen,” said Victoria touchily.

“And all that melodramatic stuff about world forces and mysterious secret installations in the heart of Tibet or Baluchistan. I mean, all that simply
couldn't
be true. Things like that don't
happen.
”

“That's what people always say before they've happened.”

“Honest to God, Charing Cross—are you making all this up?”

“No!” cried Victoria, exasperated.

“And you've come down here looking for someone called Lefarge and someone called Anna Scheele—”

“Whom you've heard of yourself,” Victoria put in. “You had heard of
her
hadn't you?”

“I'd heard the name—yes.”

“How? Where? At the Olive Branch?”

Edward was silent for some moments, then said:

“I don't know if it means anything. It was just—odd—”

“Go on. Tell me.”

“You see, Victoria. I'm so different from you. I'm not as sharp as you are. I just feel, in a queer kind of way, that things are wrong somehow—I don't know
why
I think so. You spot things as you go along and deduce things from them. I'm not clever enough for that. I just feel vaguely that things are—well—wrong—but I don't know why.”

“I feel like that sometimes, too,” said Victoria. “Like Sir Rupert on the balcony of the Tio.”

“Who's Sir Rupert?”

“Sir Rupert Crofton Lee. He was on the plane coming out. Very haughty and showing off. A VIP.
You
know. And when I saw him sitting out on the balcony at the Tio in the sun, I had that queer feeling you've just said of
something
being wrong, but not knowing what it was.”

“Rathbone asked him to lecture to the Olive Branch, I believe, but he couldn't make it. Flew back to Cairo or Damascus or somewhere yesterday morning, I believe.”

“Well, go on about Anna Scheele.”

“Oh, Anna Scheele. It was nothing really. It was just one of the girls.”

“Catherine?” said Victoria instantly.

“I believe it
was
Catherine now I think of it.”

“Of course it was Catherine. That's why you don't want to tell me about it.”

“Nonsense, that's quite absurd.”

“Well, what
was
it?”

“Catherine said to one of the other girls, ‘When Anna Scheele comes, we can go forward. Then we take our orders from her—and her alone.'”

“That's frightfully important, Edward.”

“Remember, I'm not even sure that was the name,” Edward warned her.

“Didn't you think it queer at the time?”

“No, of course I didn't. I thought it was just some female who was coming out to boss things. A kind of Queen Bee. Are you sure you're not imagining all this, Victoria?”

Immediately he quailed before the glance his young friend gave him.

“All right, all right,” he said hastily. “Only you'll admit the whole story does sound queer. So like a thriller—a young man coming in and gasping out one word that doesn't mean anything—and then dying. It just doesn't seem
real.
”

“You didn't see the blood,” said Victoria and shivered slightly.

“It must have given you a terrible shock,” said Edward sympathetically.

“It did,” said Victoria. “And then on top of it,
you
come along and ask me if I'm making it all up.”

“I'm sorry. But you
are
rather good at making things up. The Bishop of Llangow and all that!”

“Oh, that was just girlish
joie de vivre,
” said Victoria. “This is serious, Edward, really serious.”

“This man, Dakin—is that his name?—impressed you as knowing what he was talking about?”

“Yes, he was very convincing. But, look here, Edward, how do you know—”

A hail from the balcony interrupted her.

“Come in—you two—drinks waiting.”

“Coming,” called Victoria.

Mrs. Clayton, watching them coming towards the steps, said to her husband:

“There's something in the wind there! Nice couple of children—probably haven't got a bean between them. Shall I tell you what I think, Gerald?”

“Certainly, dear. I'm always interested to hear your ideas.”

“I think that girl has come out here to join her uncle on his Dig simply and solely because of that young man.”

“I hardly think so, Rosa. They were quite astonished to see each other.”

“Pooh!” said Mrs. Clayton. “
That's
nothing.
He
was astonished, I dare say.”

Gerald Clayton shook his head at her and smiled.

“She's not an archaeological type,” said Mrs. Clayton. “They're usually earnest girls with spectacles—and very often damp hands.”

“My dear, you can't generalize in that way.”

“And intellectual and all that. This girl is an amiable nitwit with a lot of common sense.
Quite
different. He's a nice boy. A pity he's tied up with all this silly Olive Branch stuff—but I suppose jobs are hard to get. They should find jobs for these boys.”

“It's not so easy, dear, they do try. But you see, they've no training, no experience and usually not much habit of concentration.”

Victoria went to bed that night in a turmoil of mixed feelings.

The object of her quest was attained. Edward was found! She shuddered from the inevitable reaction. Do what she might a feeling of anticlimax persisted.

It was partly Edward's disbelief that made everything that had happened seem stagy and unreal. She, Victoria Jones, a little London typist, had arrived in Baghdad, had seen a man murdered almost before her eyes, had become a secret agent or something equally melodramatic, and had finally met the man she loved in a tropical garden with palms waving overhead, and in all probability not far from the spot where the original Garden of Eden was said to be situated.

A fragment of a nursery rhyme floated through her head.

But she wasn't back again—she was still in Babylon.

Perhaps she would never get back—she and Edward in Babylon.

Something she had meant to ask Edward—there in the garden. Garden of Eden—she and Edward—Ask Edward—but Mrs. Clayton had called—and it had gone out of her head—But she must remember—because it was important—It didn't make sense—Palms—garden—Edward—Saracen Maiden—Anna Scheele—Rupert Crofton Lee—All wrong somehow—And if only she could remember—

A woman coming towards her along a hotel corridor—a woman in a tailored suit—it was herself—but when the woman got near she saw the face was Catherine's. Edward and Catherine—absurd! “Come with me,” she said to Edward, “we will find M. Lefarge—” And suddenly there he was, wearing lemon yellow kid gloves and a little pointed black beard.

Edward had gone now and she was alone. She must get back from Babylon before the candles went out.

And we are for the dark.

Who said that? Violence, terror—evil—blood on a ragged khaki tunic. She was running—running—down a hotel corridor. And they were coming after her.

Victoria woke with a gasp.

IV

“Coffee?” said Mrs. Clayton. “How do you like your eggs? Scrambled?”

“Lovely.”

“You look rather washed out. Not feeling ill?”

“No, I didn't sleep very well last night. I don't know why. It's a very comfortable bed.”

“Turn the wireless on, will you, Gerald? It's time for the news.”

Edward came in just as the pips were sounding.

“In the House of Commons last night, the Prime Minister gave fresh details of the cuts in dollar imports.

“A report from Cairo announces that the body of Sir Rupert Crofton Lee has been taken from the Nile.
(Victoria put down her coffee-cup sharply, and Mrs. Clayton uttered an ejaculation.)
Sir Rupert left his hotel after arriving by plane from Baghdad, and did not return to it that night. He had been missing for twenty-four hours when his body was recovered. Death was due to a stab wound in the heart and not to drowning. Sir Rupert was a renowned traveller, was famous for his travels through China and Baluchistan and was the author of several books.”

“Murdered!” exclaimed Mrs. Clayton. “I think Cairo is worse than anyplace now. Did you know anything about all this, Gerry?”

“I knew he was missing,” said Mr. Clayton. “It appears he got a note, brought by hand, and left the hotel in a great hurry on foot without saying where he was going.”

“You see,” said Victoria to Edward after breakfast when they were alone together. “It
is
all true. First this man Carmichael and now Sir Rupert Crofton Lee. I feel sorry now I called him a show-off. It seems unkind. All the people who know or guess about this
queer business are being got out of the way. Edward, do you think it will be
me
next?”

“For Heaven's sake don't look so pleased by the idea, Victoria! Your sense of drama is much too strong. I don't see why anyone should eliminate you because you don't really
know
anything—but do, please, do, be awfully careful.”

“We'll
both
be careful. I've dragged you into it.”

“Oh, that's all right. Relieves the monotony.”

“Yes, but take care of yourself.” She gave a sudden shiver.

“It's rather awful—he was so very much alive—Crofton Lee, I mean—and now he's dead too. It's frightening, really frightening.”

I

“F
ind your young man?” asked Mr. Dakin.

Victoria nodded.

“Find anything else?”

Rather mournfully, Victoria shook her head.

“Well, cheer up,” said Mr. Dakin. “Remember, in this game, results are few and far between. You might have picked up
something
there—one never knows, but I wasn't in any way counting on it.”

“Can I still go on trying?” asked Victoria.

“Do you want to?”

“Yes, I do. Edward thinks he can get me a job at the Olive Branch. If I keep my ears and eyes open, I might find out something, mightn't I? They know something about Anna Scheele there.”

“Now that's very interesting, Victoria. How did you learn that?”

Victoria repeated what Edward had told her—about Cather
ine's remark that when “Anna Scheele came” they would take their orders from her.

“Very interesting,” said Mr. Dakin.

“Who
is
Anna Scheele?” asked Victoria. “I mean, you must know
something
about her—or is she just a name?”

“She's more than a name. She's confidential secretary to an American banker—head of an international banking firm. She left New York and came to London about ten days ago. Since then she's disappeared.”

“Disappeared? She's not
dead?
”

“If so, her dead body hasn't been found.”

“But she
may
be dead?”

“Oh yes, she may be dead.”

“Was she—coming to Baghdad?”

“I've no idea. It would seem from the remarks of this young woman Catherine, that she was. Or shall we say—
is
—since as yet there's no reason to believe she isn't still alive.”

“Perhaps I can find out more at the Olive Branch.”

“Perhaps you can—but I must warn you once more to be very careful, Victoria. The organization you are up against is quite ruthless. I would much rather not have your dead body found floating down the Tigris.”

Victoria gave a little shiver and murmured:

“Like Sir Rupert Crofton Lee. You know that morning he was at the hotel here there was something odd about him—something that surprised me. I wish I could remember what it was….”

“In what way—odd?”

“Well—different.” Then in response to the inquiring look,
she shook her head vexedly. “It will come back to me, perhaps. Anyway I don't suppose it really matters.”

“Anything might matter.”

“If Edward gets me a job, he thinks I ought to get a room like the other girls in a sort of boardinghouse or paying guest place, not stay on here.”

“It would create less surmise. Baghdad hotels are very expensive. Your young man seems to have his head screwed on the right way.”

“Do you want to see him?”

Dakin shook his head emphatically.

“No, tell him to keep right away from me. You, unfortunately, owing to the circumstances on the night of Carmichael's death, are bound to be suspect. But Edward is not linked with that occurrence or with me in any way—and that's valuable.”

“I've been meaning to ask you,” said Victoria. “Who actually did stab Carmichael? Was it someone who followed him here?”

“No,” said Dakin slowly. “That couldn't have been so.”

“Couldn't?”

“He came in a
gufa
—one of those native boats—and he wasn't followed. We know that because I had someone watching the river.”

“Then it was someone—in the hotel?”

“Yes, Victoria. And what is more someone in one particular wing of the hotel—for I myself was watching the stairs and no one came up them.”

He watched her rather puzzled face and said quietly:

“That doesn't really give us very many names. You and I and Mrs. Cardew Trench, and Marcus and his sisters. A couple of elderly servants who have been here for years. A man called Harrison
from Kirkuk against whom nothing is known. A nurse who works at the Jewish Hospital…It might be any of them—yet all of them are unlikely for one very good reason.”

“What is that?”

“Carmichael was on his guard. He knew that the peak moment of his mission was approaching. He was a man with a very keen instinct for danger. How did that instinct let him down?”

“Those police that came—” began Victoria.

“Ah, they came
after
—up from the street. They'd had a signal, I suppose. But they didn't do the stabbing. That must have been done by someone Carmichael knew well, whom he trusted…or alternatively whom he judged negligible. If I only knew….”

II

Achievement brings with it its own anticlimax. To get to Baghdad, to find Edward, to penetrate the secrets of the Olive Branch: all this had appeared as an entrancing programme. Now, her objective attained, Victoria, in a rare moment of self-questioning, sometimes wondered what on earth she was doing! The rapture of reunion with Edward had come and gone. She loved Edward, Edward loved her. They were, on most days, working under the same roof—but thinking about it dispassionately, what on earth were they doing?

By some means or other, sheer force of determination, or ingenious persuasion, Edward had been instrumental in Victoria's being offered a meagrely-paid job at the Olive Branch. She spent most of her time in a small dark room with the electric light on, typing on a very faulty machine various notices and letters and manifestos of the milk and water programme of the Olive Branch
activities. Edward had had a hunch there was something wrong about the Olive Branch. Mr. Dakin had seemed to agree with that view. She, Victoria, was here to find out what she could, but as far as she could see, there was nothing to find out! The Olive Branch activities dripped with the honey of international peace. Various gatherings were held with orangeade to drink and depressing edibles to go with it, and at these Victoria was supposed to act as quasi-hostess; to mix, to introduce, to promote general good feeling amongst various foreign nationals, who were inclined to stare with animosity at one another and wolf refreshments hungrily.

As far as Victoria could see, there were no undercurrents, no conspiracies, no inner rings. All was aboveboard, mild as milk and water, and desperately dull. Various dark-skinned young men made tentative love to her, others lent her books to read which she skimmed through and found tedious. She had, by now, left the Tio Hotel and had taken up her quarters with some other young women workers of various nationalities in a house on the west bank of the river. Amongst these young women was Catherine, and it seemed to Victoria that Catherine watched her with a suspicious eye, but whether this was because Catherine suspected her of being a spy on the activities of the Olive Branch or whether it was the more delicate matter of Edward's affections, Victoria was unable to make up her mind. She rather fancied the latter. It was known that Edward had secured Victoria her job and several pairs of jealous dark eyes looked at her without undue affection.

The fact was, Victoria thought moodily, that Edward was far too attractive. All these girls had fallen for him, and Edward's engaging friendly manner to one and all did nothing to help. By agreement between them, Victoria and Edward were to show no
signs of special intimacy. If they were to find out anything worth finding out, they must not be suspected of working together. Edward's manner to her was the same as to any of the other young women, with an added shade of coldness.

Though the Olive Branch itself seemed so innocuous Victoria had a distinct feeling that its head and founder was in a different category. Once or twice she was aware of Dr. Rathbone's dark thoughtful gaze resting upon her and though she countered it with her most innocent and kitten-like expression, she felt a sudden throb of something like fear.

Once, when she had been summoned to his presence (for explanation of a typing error), the matter went farther than a glance.

“You are happy working with us, I hope?” he asked.

“Oh yes, indeed, sir,” said Victoria, and added: “I'm sorry I make so many mistakes.”

“We don't mind mistakes. A soulless machine would be no use to us. We need youth, generosity of spirit, broadness of outlook.”

Victoria endeavoured to look eager and generous.

“You must
love
the work…love the object for which you are working…look forward to the glorious future. Are you truly feeling all that, dear child?”

“It's all so new to me,” said Victoria. “I don't feel I have taken it all in yet.”

“Get together—get together—young people everywhere must get together. That is the main thing. You enjoy your evenings of free discussion and comradeship?”

“Oh! yes,” said Victoria, who loathed them.

“Agreement, not dissension—brotherhood, not hatred. Slowly and surely it is growing—you do feel that, don't you?”

Victoria thought of the endless petty jealousies, the violent dislikes, the endless quarrels, hurt feelings, apologies demanded; and hardly knew what she was expected to say.

“Sometimes,” she said cautiously, “people are difficult.”

“I know…I know…” Dr. Rathbone sighed. His noble domed forehead furrowed itself in perplexity. “What is this I hear of Michael Rakounian striking Isaac Nahoum and cutting his lip open?”

“They were just having a little argument,” said Victoria.

Dr. Rathbone brooded mournfully.

“Patience and faith,” he murmured. “Patience and faith.”

Victoria murmured a dutiful assent and turned to leave. Then, remembering she had left her typescript, she came back again. The glance she caught in Dr. Rathbone's eye startled her a little. It was a keen suspicious glance, and she wondered uneasily just how closely she was being watched, and what Dr. Rathbone really thought about her.

Her instructions from Mr. Dakin were very precise. She was to obey certain rules for communicating with him if she had anything to report. He had given her an old faded pink handkerchief. If she had anything to report she was to walk, as she often did when the sun was setting along the riverbank, near her hostel. There was a narrow path in front of the houses there for perhaps a quarter of a mile. In one place a big flight of steps led down to the water's edge and boats were constantly being tied up there. There was a rusty nail in one of the wooden posts at the top. Here she was to affix a small piece of the pink handkerchief if she wanted to get into communication with Dakin. So far, Victoria reflected bitterly, there had been no need for anything of the sort. She was merely doing an
ill-paid job in a slovenly fashion. Edward she saw at rare intervals, since he was always being sent to far-off places by Dr. Rathbone. At the moment, he had just come back from Persia. During his absence, she had had one short and somewhat unsatisfactory interview with Dakin. Her instructions had been to go to the Tio Hotel and ask if she had left a cardigan behind. The answer having been in the negative, Marcus appeared and immediately swept her out on to the riverbank for a drink. During the process Dakin had shambled in from the street and had been hailed by Marcus to join them, and presently, as Dakin supped lemonade, Marcus had been called away and the two of them sat there on opposite sides of the small painted table.

Rather apprehensively Victoria confessed her utter lack of success, but Dakin was indulgently reassuring.

“My dear child, you don't even know what you are looking for or even if there is anything to find. Taken by and large what is your considered opinion of the Olive Branch?”

“It's a thoroughly dim show,” said Victoria slowly.

“Dim, yes. But not bogus?”

“I don't know,” said Victoria slowly. “People are so sold on the idea of culture if you know what I mean?”

“You mean that where anything cultured is concerned, nobody examines
bona fides
in the way they would if it were a charitable or a financial proposition? That's true. And you'll find genuine enthusiasts there, I've no doubt. But is the organization being used?”

“I think there's a lot of Communist activity going on,” said Victoria doubtfully. “Edward thinks so too—he's making me read Karl Marx and leave it about just to see what reactions there will be.”

Dakin nodded.

“Interesting. Any response so far?”

“No, not yet.”

“What about Rathbone? Is
he
genuine?”

“I think really that he is—” Victoria sounded doubtful.

“He's the one I worry about, you see,” said Dakin. “Because he's a
big
noise. Suppose there
is
a Communist plotting going on—students and young revolutionaries have very little chance of coming into contact with the President. Police measures will look after bombs thrown from the street. But Rathbone's different. He's one of the high-ups, a distinguished man with a fine record of public beneficence. He could come in close contact with the distinguished visitors. He probably will. I'd like to know about Rathbone.”

Yes, Victoria thought to herself, it all centred round Rathbone. On the first meeting in London, weeks ago, Edward's vague remarks about the “fishiness” of the show had had their origin in his employer. And there must, Victoria decided suddenly, have been some incident, some word, that had awakened Edward's uneasiness. For that, in Victoria's belief, was how minds worked. Your vague doubt or distrust was never just a hunch—it was really always due to a cause. If Edward, now, could be made to think back, to remember; between them they might hit upon the fact or incident that had aroused his suspicions. In the same way, Victoria thought, she herself must try to think back to what it was that had so surprised her when she came out upon the balcony at the Tio and found Sir Rupert Crofton Lee sitting there in the sun. It was true that she had expected him to be at the Embassy and not at the Tio Hotel but that was not enough to account for the strong feeling she had had that his sitting there was quite impossible! She would go over and over
the events of that morning, and Edward must be urged to go over and over his early association with Dr. Rathbone. She would tell him so when next she got him alone. But to get Edward alone was not easy. To begin with he had been away in Persia and now that he was back, private communications at the Olive Branch were out of the question where the slogan of the last war (
“Les oreilles enemies vous écoutent”
) might have been written up all over the walls. In the Armenian household where she was a paying guest, privacy was equally impossible. Really, thought Victoria to herself, for all I see of Edward, I might as well have stayed in En gland!