Search for a Sultan, page 17
But pass through Bourg they did, travelling now due east, and Hambledon following their route on a sort of mental map, suddenly realised their probable destination.
“They’re making for Switzerland,” he said. “That’s my bet.”
“It will be awkward for us if they are monsieur. I have no papers for crossing the frontier, and it is sometimes difficult with an official car.”
“I am hoping it might be difficult for them, too,” said Tommy. “Then we’ll catch them up and I think I have enough authority to stop them leaving France, .at any rate for a short while.”
As the car ahead neared the frontier, however, it turned right and kept on towards the southern shore of Lake Leman, skirting the city of Geneva, but still remaining in French territory.
“Ah, that’s more likely,” said Tommy. “That suggests to me that they will try to cross the lake unofficially from somewhere around Thonon. Very sensible of them—it’s what I should do myself under the circumstances!”
As the road curved up towards the lake, they could see the lights of Geneva twinkling on the other side before the car turned down a little lane which seemed to lead towards the water-front.
“Now,” said Tommy. “We’d better be careful. I don’t want to alarm them. As soon as you see them stopping, park the car on the verge and we’ll creep up on them on foot. If; as I hope, we finish up in some lonely spot, I can be a little less ethical in my approach than if we’d met in public. Though, in that case, I suppose I ought not to involve you,” he added doubtfully.
“I shouldn’t like to desert monsieur,” said the driver, “especially as there seemed to be several people in that car.”
“Never mind,” said Tommy, “surprise will be on my side, and I’ve got a gun. I promised Superintendent Letord not to embarrass the French authorities if I could possibly help it, so I would rather not take you with me all the way. But I will ask you to remain near by, and if I am in trouble I’ll yell for you.”
“Very well, monsieur. You know best. Ah! They are stopping now, see—they must be right down by the water’s edge.
He pulled on to the grass verge and they jumped out.
“Listen,” said Tommy, “before we go any farther, I’d better give you these papers to hold for me. I wouldn’t like to lose them now.”
He handed the driver the marriage certificate and the photographs of the Prince and his family.
“Now,” he said. “I will reconnoitre the position, and you stand by and if I call or you hear shots, come at the double!”
The policeman nodded and buttoned the documents into an inside pocket and Hambledon crept stealthily down towards the car they had followed for so long, and which he saw was now empty. A little beyond it, as the driver had guessed, the road came to an end at a small landing-stage, where two or three motor boats were tied up. The largest of them, a cabin cruiser, was the only one which showed any signs of life and, as Hambledon approached it, he could hear voices and saw lights from the port-holes.
Keeping a sharp look out for anyone who might be on guard, he stepped lightly on deck and peered down through a hatchway into the lighted cabin below. He could not suppress a smile of satisfaction as he saw, seated at the table and blissfully unaware of his proximity, the Blue Rose and La Cigale, evidently about to drink to the success of their endeavours.
“That’s fine,” muttered Hambledon to himself, “I’ve come just in time to join them!” He slipped his gun out of his pocket and pushed the safety catch across. Then he made for the little door at the head of the stairway leading down to the cosy scene below.
What happened then might almost be described by the old cliché ‘He never knew what hit him’, for, without a sound, someone fell on him from behind and hurled him down the cabin stairs head first into the arms of La Cigale and the Blue Rose. The whole thing happened so quickly that Tommy stood no chance of defending himself and in a few moments he found himself neatly gagged and bound to one of the chairs at the cabin table.
“Ah! that’s better,” said La Cigale, a little breathlessly as he sat down and regarded their prisoner, “now we can talk.”
“I don’t think Mr. Hambledon will be able to,” said the Blue Rose, with an unpleasant leer. “He seems rather stuffed up at present. It’s a pleasure to welcome you again, my dear sir,” he went on, “we’ve been expecting you for some time.”
“Ever since we first caught sight of you following us this afternoon, in fact,” said La Cigale. “But we are forgetting our manners,” he added. “Present our new friend to Mr. Hambledon, mon cher colleague.”
“Certainly,” said La Rose Bleue, “I shall enjoy doing so. I must tell you,” he went on, turning to Tommy, “that I volunteered for the agreeable task of welcoming you on board, but our friend here insisted on having that privilege himself.” He motioned towards a tall, aquiline figure standing by the door and said, “May I introduce your Excellency?”
The tall man nodded, and La Rose Bleue, smiling sweetly, said:
“Monsieur Hambledon, it gives me the most exquisite pleasure to inform you that you have just had the honour of being knocked down the stairs by His Royal Highness, Prince Sayed, Heir to the Throne of Qathusn.
Chapter XIV. Lost Crocodile
IN their hotel room in Tunis, Forgan and Campbell took counsel one with another what they should do about the fact that they were so evidently being followed.
“Of course, we could do nothing at all,” said Forgan, thoughtfully, “after all, they’re causing us no actual inconvenience.”
“You’re absolutely right,” agreed Campbell. “As long as we know they’re on our tail, what harm can they possibly do us?”
“In that case,” said Forgan. “We might as well descend to the hotel bar and have an arak and soda, or whatever the local drink is.”
“Aren’t Arabs teetotal?” asked Campbell nervously.
“Not where tourists are concerned I hope,” said his companion. And so it proved. Although there was no actual bar at the Maison Dorée, every drink known to civilised man was served in the little lounge leading to the restaurant, and here the model makers settled down to, in Forgan’s case a Planter’s Punch (“it takes me back to Argentina,” he said nostalgically) and in Campbell’s a whisky straight, (“I’d sooner be in Scotland,” was his chauvinistic reply!)
They were just beginning their second round when they were approached by a person whom they judged to be female by the fact that her hair was worn rather longer (though not much) than most men wear theirs, and that she had no whiskers. Otherwise, from her riding breeches and boots and her severely cut jacket, one would hardly have known. to which sex she belonged.
“Ha! You are newspaper men I am sure,” she said, speaking in clipped English as she sat down, without waiting for an invitation, at their table. “I can smell printing ink a mile away! Come to cover the Conference have you?”
Same here,” she added, not bothering to pause for their reply.
“Will you have a drink?” said Forgan courteously. Like his companion, he was always ready for new experiences and this looked like being one of the better kind.
“Abdul knows what I drink,” she said, jerking a thumb towards the waiter, “always the same thing. Date wine, the drink the Lotus Eaters drank. That was no food stopped them from sailing, it was date wine, and a good drink too! Of course, it’s a spirit really,” she added, as the waiter placed a glass of clear liquid in front of her with a bow, “not a wine at all.”
“How interesting,” said Campbell. “I must remember that. So you are here to cover the Conference too?”
“S’right—if I can get in. You’re Scots aren’t you?” she added, curtly, “I thought so, I can smell good Scots blood a mile away.”
“You seem to have a very sensitive nose,” said Forgan.
“Ha! that’s good,” said the lady. “Very good—you need to have a sensitive nose when you’re dealing with these Middle Eastern politicians I can tell you—lot of things need smelling out over this Qathusn business, I give you no, word.”
“May we ask whom we have the pleasure of addressing?” enquired Forgan.
“Ross-Crockdale,” she said, “I’m a Scot too. Good stock the Ross’s. Me old father married me off to a numbskull of a southerner—Sir Roger Crockdale—but he had the sense to insist on me taking the good old name of Ross with me.”
“So you’re Lady Ross-Crockdale?”
“S’right. People call me the Lost Crocodile, but I don’t care. Appropriate really, still got me own teeth, and they’re sharp too!”
“Well, this is interesting,” said Campbell, “my friend here is a great admirer of your books. He’ll be very thrilled to meet you.”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Forgan, who did now remember dimly that he had seen some books in the library with her name on the cover. “And what is your feeling about the Conference?” he added.
“I feel it should be blown up!” she said. “I’d do it myself; but I wouldn’t like to embarrass Tunisia. I suppose you wouldn’t care to put a bomb under the table would you, either of you?”
“We might put something else,” said Campbell, darkly.
“But would a bomb do any good?” asked Forgan.
“It’d do them a lot of good!” she said. “To the whole bunch of them. That Emir now, take him! The fellow’s a crook, pure and simple. Wants the Arab League to press the Sultan to let him go back to Qathusn now he’s the heir apparent to the throne, and once he’s in power, believe me, they’ll get nothing out of him. Same with the Russians and the Chinese. They’re backing him, thinking they’ll get their hands on the oil, but they won’t.”
“Who will then?” asked Forgan. “That is assuming that he ends the British and American concessions. Who will benefit from the oil then?”
“He will,” she said. “He’s working for Number One that fellow, and nobody else. He’ll pocket the profits and let the country go to pot.”
“I see,” said Campbell, thoughtfully. “Yet, being the heir apparent I suppose there’s nothing to be done about it? Bar blowing him up?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “Unless, that is, another heir turns up. Have you heard this rumour that Prince Achmed might have left a son behind him somewhere?”
“Yes, we had just heard it,” confessed Forgan. “Do you think there’s anything in it?”
“Could be—’tween ourselves I’m working on it myself. Have an idea I could locate this heir, if there were one.”
“Did you know that the Emir is also trying to trace such a son?” asked Campbell, hoping to lead her on. “I believe he has a chap called Boukhba working on it.”
“Sulman bin Boukhba? From the London Embassy?” she cried, “that little snake-in-the-grass is just the sort of fellow he would use. Still, I wouldn’t like to insure the Prince’s son if they’re after him. He would have what the actuaries call a ‘short expectation of life’.”
“May we ask,” enquired Forgan, “what your interest is in this, Lady Ross-Crockdale? I mean, you say you are looking for this rumoured son of the Prince’s. For what reason?”
“Well, first and foremost, as a good journalist, I’m after the story, of course. But apart from that, and being a born interferer, as my old man would say, I like the Sultan and I don’t like the Emir. If it comes to that, I also like the people of Qathusn. They’re a very sound lot, and I wouldn’t like to see them suffering under the sort of dictatorship Emir Abdul has in store for them.”
Forgan looked at Campbell and the Scotsman nodded.
“In that case, we may as well admit,” said Campbell, “or I can, as one Scot to another, that we are interested in finding Prince Achmed’s son—if, that is to say, he had one.”
“Ah! Thought you were up to something when I saw those two narks hanging about outside,” she commented dryly. “Chap in a striped suit and an Arab lad. Notice them?”
“We did,” said Forgan. “They’ve been with us all the afternoon in the Souks. Do you think they’re the Emir’s men?”
“Could be. Or could be police.”
“What made you think they were after us, though?”
“Who else, my dear boy? There’s nobody special staying here except you and me, and they wouldn’t dare follow me. The Emir knows I’d soon pull his nose for him if he played that trick on me and of course the Tunisians would never trail me. Habib Bourguiba wouldn’t let them.”
“D-d-do you mean the President of Tunisia?” stammered Forgan.
“Yes. Nice chap. We were in prison together during the days of the French Protectorate. And later I saw a lot of him in Cairo.”
“He was in exile there wasn’t he?” asked Campbell.
“S’right—it’s made him a bit soft-hearted about exiles too. That’s why he’s let that Emir settle here. I’ve taxed him with it, many a time, but his view is that as long as the fellow doesn’t cause or do anything to embarrass Tunisia, he ought not to be shown the door.”
“It would be nice,” said Forgan, “if we could pool our information, don’t you think?”
“Very,” said the Lost Crocodile, “but not here. Far too many big ears waving about near us. Come up to my room,
No. 42, in half an hour’s time, that is if you don’t mind coming to a lady’s room!”
“Well, after all there’s two of us,” said Campbell.
“That’s true,” she said. “Not that I couldn’t deal with both of you if I chose! In half an hour’s time then, and make sure that striped suit doesn’t come with you.”
“But this is an Englishwoman of the most magnificent,” said Forgan, as she disappeared.
“Scots,” corrected Campbell. “A Scotswoman. And rather typical, in a way. She reminds me of Lady Macbeth.”
“Or Flora Macdonald,” suggested Forgan.
“Or Mary Queen of Scots, if it comes to that,” said Campbell. “But the thing is, can we trust her?”
“I wish to goodness Hambledon would phone us,” said his companion. “Then we could leave it to him to decide.”
Thomas Hambledon would have been glad to telephone them at that moment, in fact he would have been glad to telephone anybody. Circumstances however, prevented him, the circumstances being that he was tied to a chair in a small cabin cruiser, lying at anchor with no lights in the middle of the Lake of Geneva, or, to give it its proper title, Lake Leman.
Seated opposite him, with a decanter of brandy in front of them, La Cigale and the Blue Rose were enjoying themselves.
“So you see, Mr. Hambledon,” La Cigale was saying, “we have done your job for you. You might almost say, we have been working in the interests of the British Government.”
“We have,” said La Rose Bleue. “They sent you to find Prince Achmed’s lost son—we have found him.”
“And we intend taking him straight to his grandfather the Sultan,” continued La Cigale. “So your task is finished, is it not? Do remove Mr. Hambledon’s gag,” he added, turning to his colleague, “he looks as if he is going to burst. Besides, I am longing to hear his comments.”
The Blue Rose took off the pad which had been stopping Tommy from speaking until then, and the M.I.5 man, drawing a deep breath—his first since he had woken up and found himself trussed up like a chicken—spoke:
“You mean you are going to double-cross the Emir?” he enquired coldly.
“What a crude way you have of putting things,” said La Cigale. “We have decided that in the interests of Qathusn (and I must admit ourselves) Prince Sayed would be a more suitable candidate for the Throne of his country than the Emir Abdul.”
“You mean he’s promised to pay you more?” snapped Hambledon.
“We are inclined to think he will be generous,” admitted La Rose Bleue, “and after all, we are not in this for our health.”
“Nevertheless, it must be gratifying for you, mon cher Hambledon, to know that the wishes of your Government are being fulfilled, and that the Heir to Prince Achmed will now take the place of the anti-western Emir, n’est-ce-pas?”
“Though it must be admitted,” said his companion, “that Prince Sayed seems to have little love for the British himself. There was some little bother, we gather, at the end of the war, about his grandfather old Dubois, having, I won’t say collaborated, but having been amiable towards the Germans during the Occupation. The British Authorities seem to have resented this, and they persuaded the French to treat him in a way which has left his grandson somewhat resentful and anti-British.”
“I see,” muttered Tommy. “In fact, he looks like being an even less suitable Sultan than the Emir, especially with you two as his right-hand men. Where is he now, by the way?” he added.
“We have asked him to keep watch on deck,” said La Cigale. “We shouldn’t like him to hear anything from you that might influence him against us.”
“You were right,” said Tommy. “He might have thought twice about trusting himself in your hands if he’d known something about your record.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” said the Blue Rose. “There are certain things about his own background which makes him very sympatico as my friend here would say.”
A voice called from the companion-way above.
“There’s a small boat just coming in sight,” it said.
“Ah, that will be our friends coming to collect us,” said La Cigale. “You will have to excuse us now, Monsieur
Hambledon! You had better put the gag back again,” he told his colleague, “our poor friend here might otherwise be tempted to draw attention to himself.”
They gagged Tommy again and, pouring out a last glass of brandy, La Cigale lifted it:
“Here’s to Qathusn,” he said. “Its new Heir, and his advisers!”
The two gangsters drank to each other and La Rose Bleue grinned at the helpless Hambledon.
“We will leave the decanter for you, cher ami,” he said. “It will be like Tantalus, will it not? So near, and yet so inaccessible. You have arranged the little surprise for Mr. Hambledon later?” he asked La Cigale.
The Grasshopper nodded.
“I have only to switch it on,” he said. “When we are safely away,” he went on turning to Tommy. “A delightful firework display will take place, which will provide enough distraction to any watchers on the shore to cover our landing on Swiss Territory, it will also, how shall I put it …?”
