Search for a Sultan, page 20
“Stripey-boots and partner I suppose,” grinned Campbell. “I say—this Emir fellow lives in a pretty grim place, doesn’t he?” he added, as they got nearer. “It looks like a fortress.”
“It was in the old days,” she said. “That’s why I asked you how you were going to get in. I knew you wouldn’t be able to climb through a window.”
“There don’t seem to be any,” said Forgan.
“There are inside,” she said. “It’s built round four sides of a courtyard like all these places, big or small.”
“It has some nice minarets,” said Campbell, “I’ll say that for it. Watch out for us waving from one of them if we get into trouble!”
“Now,” said Lady Ross-Crockdale, as she pulled in amongst the gnarled olive trees, “from now onwards, you’re on your own. If you do get into trouble, I hope to hear over the headphones, but let’s hope you won’t. Now just show me how I work the thing.”
They opened up the small suit-case which contained their receiver and fixed up the aerial.
“As long as you don’t touch the tuning knob, there,” said Forgan, “you should receive us all the time you’re switched on. That is the off and on switch; we’ll switch it on now and walk away a little and you wave if you can hear us talking.”
The test succeeded and Lady Ross-Crockdale waved cheerfully to them as they climbed the last few hundred yards up the rough track towards the Emir’s grim-looking residence. Looking back again, just as they reached it, Campbell nudged Forgan and pointed down the hill.
“See that little car parking under the further olive grove?” he chuckled. “One must admit the striped one is dogged.”
They came to an enormous wooden gate, set in an archway, heavily studded and with a small wicket in it.
“Do you think we ought to knock or ring?” asked Forgan quietly. “There seems to be a sort of bell-pull in the corner.”
“Pull away,” said Campbell, “and don’t forget, from now on, we no speak English.”
A tremendous bell clanged somewhere on the other side of the gates, and eventually a turbanned janitor opened the wicket.
“We’ve come to the Conference,” said Campbell in Arabic.
The man muttered something, and Campbell translated to Forgan, speaking French:
“He’s saying we’ve come to the wrong gate,” he said, “seems this is the tradesman’s entrance or something.”
The man pointed along the walls and Campbell thanked him. Then the wicket was shut again and they began to walk round the big building.
“It’s funny,” said Forgan, “in spite of the heat, my feet are cold.”
“I’ve got cold feet, too,” admitted Campbell. “There doesn’t seem to be much chance of making a run for it from this place, does there? I mean, once you’re in, you’re in till they choose to let you out, it seems to me.”
“Did you see that fellow with the curved sword standing behind the janitor?” asked Forgan. “He must have been at least seven feet high. Ah, this looks like the main gate,” he added, as they turned the corner. “My, what a scene of activity.”
There were already several cars parked outside the main gates and more could be seen coming up the hill in a cloud of dust.
“Well, here goes,” muttered Campbell. “For Queen and Country, and all that.”
“And for the hell of it,” grinned Forgan. “Let’s face it, we’re enjoying ourselves thoroughly!”
“Are we?” queried Campbell, as they approached the entrance. “I wouldn’t know, but I wish I hadn’t got quite so many butterflies in my inside.”
A small dark man came to meet them in the shade of the wide Moorish archway which led into the courtyard.
“Are you looking for me, by any chance?” he said in French, “I am Sulman bin Boukhba.”
“We are indeed,” said Forgan, speaking French with a decided Spanish lilt. “I am La Rose Bleue, and this is La Cigale. You will excuse us if we use these fancy pseudonyms which admirers have bestowed on us, but such is our invariable custom.”
Boukhba nodded.
“I don’t care about that,” he said, wringing his hands nervously, “as long as I can be absolutely sure everything’s in order—you know what I mean?”
Campbell nodded.
“Everything is in order,” he confirmed. “Now just what do you want us to do here.”
“I’ll tell you exactly,” said Boukhba. “Come over here a minute into the corner. You don’t look very like a Sicilian,” he added, suspiciously, looking at Campbell’s bony features and red hair.
“My family is directly descended from the Normans who settled there in the eleventh century,” he said, imperturbably. “There are quite a lot of us fair Sicilians as a result of this dash of northern blood.”
“I see,” said Boukhba. “Well, all you have to do is this—I shall take you into the Conference room and you will sit near me without saying anything until you are called upon to do so.”
“Quite so,” agreed Forgan.
“The proceedings will be conducted in Arabic, of course, which you probably won’t understand…”
“No, of course,” agreed Campbell quickly.
“But eventually the Emir will ask me to present you to the Conference. This I shall do in French. You will then be expected to tell the delegates that you have incontrovertible proof—which they will be able to examine at some future date—that Prince Achmed’s son and heir is dead and that there is now no heir to the throne of Qathusn but the Emir. Ah, they’re going in,” he said. “Follow me close, as I have to give the password. Oh, I do hope nothing will go wrong!” he muttered as they made for a narrow doorway leading from the courtyard.
“Amen to that!” murmured Campbell under his breath. And Forgan echoed the sentiment as they passed the official checking the members in and he saw, standing in a half-circle round him, six more guards, armed with naked scimitars and every one of them seemingly seven foot tall.
The Conference turned out to be surprisingly western in form. The model makers, who had expected divans and piles of cushions were mildly disappointed to find a typical board-room table laid out with blotting paper and stationery. Only the room itself was in fact oriental, and of course the delegates. These were dressed mostly in native costume with turbans of various kinds, though a few were wearing European suits, and one, in spite of the stifling weather, was in a tail coat and striped trousers, surmounted by a tasselled fez which he kept on throughout the proceedings. Whiskers and beards abounded and there were some very fine specimens of both, adding ferocity to faces which were hardly sweet and gentle to begin with.
For a few minutes they chatted in little groups, while Forgan. and Campbell strolled aimlessly up and down by the table, wishing something would start. Then a Majordomo came in and announced something and everyone looked expectantly at the door.
“Ah, here is His Excellency,” muttered Boukhba.
Rather surprisingly, the leader of the Ultra-Extremists turned out to be small, very small even, but what he lacked in height he made up for in dignity and self-assurance. With a bow to the assembled company, which they returned with muttered greetings and references to Allah and His Only True Prophet, he took his place in a high throne-like chair at the end of the table and the others took their seats on either side of it.
Boukhba and the model makers sat quite near the head of the table, so that they could study the Emir’s features at close hand and from what they could see of them, they were inclined to agree with Lady Ross-Crockdale, that he looked like someone who ‘could be very nasty when he liked’. He had a hooked nose like an eagle’s beak, little, glittering eyes set far too close together and a huge handlebar moustache over a straight mouth as close as a rat-trap. Behind him stood two guards with drawn scimitars and these differed from the others Forgan and Campbell had seen by being jet black in complexion and rather nearer eight feet tall.
The proceedings opened with a good deal of complimentary messages from the heads of the States which the delegates represented, and to these the Emir listened with polite attention, Campbell with surprise that he still remembered so much of his Arabic, and Forgan, who understood practically nothing, with the wayward thought that he hoped Lady Ross-Crockdale was enjoying the speeches from the tiny transmitters he and his colleague had popped under the table ledge as they strolled around the room before the Conference began.
Eventually, however, the delegates got down to business. A sort of secretary of the Emir’s, sitting beside him, went into the general purpose of their meeting and then the Emir himself spoke. In flowery language, he explained how Prince Achmed’s death had made him the Heir to the Sultan of Qathusn. “In spite of this,” he went on, “my reactionary ruler, because of his jealousy of your enlightened regimes,” he bowed slightly to the Conference, “and because he knows that I am determined to join the Arab League so that Qathusn marches in solidarity with all her Arab brethren,” (and so on and so on) “will not permit me to return to my home in my own country. In this he is of course supported by the rapacious British and American oil companies, who impoverish our poor land to line their own pockets. I need hardly tell you that they have intrigued to the full to prevent me from taking my rightful place as the Sultan’s heir. They have even,” he said, with a harsh laugh, “tried to invent another heir—some unknown son of Prince Achmed’s, presumably the product of one of his loose-living adventures in those haunts of Parisian vice he frequented. But here, I am glad to inform you, their foul purpose has been defeated, as you shall hear from our good friend and faithful supporter, Sulman bin Boukhba, until lately Attaché of the Qathusn Embassy in London.”
“This is us,” whispered Campbell, nudging Forgan, and Boukhba rose to his feet amidst some applause.
In French he explained that a group of loyal European supporters of the Emir’s, two representatives of whom were here present today, had been able to prove after exhaustive searches that no such heir as had been claimed by the Emir’s enemies did in fact exist. “In order,” he said, “to preserve their anonymity (because you will understand that the Secret Service Agents of all the Western Powers would like to lay hands on them) I will call them by the pseudonyms they employ amongst their associates, La Cigale and La Rose Bleue.”
The two model makers jumped to their feet and bowed, first to the Emir, who returned the salute gravely, and then to the rest of the company.
“Your Excellency and Gentlemen,” began Forgan in his Spanish French, “it gives me great pleasure to inform you that we have irrefutable proof of the death of Prince Achmed’s only son.”
There was a murmur of interest at this, and he prepared to go on. Always rather an exhibitionist, he was beginning to enjoy his role, picturing himself as a great statesman addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations and giving them their money’s worth at that. He had already prepared in his mind a pretty flowery oration which would butter the Emir up and flatter the others, and was just getting into his stride when there came an interruption.
A secretary or assistant to the delegate in the tail coat and fez entered the room, rather excitedly, and with a bow to the Emir, asked permission to speak to his master.
The Emir, surprised at the interruption, nodded, and the secretary thrust a newspaper under the fez-wearer’s nose.
For a moment he read quietly, and then, as he took in the gist of it, his eyes widened and he looked up in astonishment at Forgan and Campbell.
“But what is the meaning of this?” he cried, turning to the Emir. “Have you brought us here to make fools of us, or what? My secretary has just come from Tunis with this newspaper, which is all about Prince Achmed’s new heir. Look!” he said, thrusting it towards the Emir, who rose from his throne and was soon surrounded by a semi-circle of the other delegates.
“The new heir, Prince Sayed, has already reached Cairo on his way to the Sultan’s Court. Look! The whole paper is full of the romantic search which these two people, a Spaniard and Sicilian, have made to find Prince Achmed’s missing son!”
There ensued now, needless to say, a good deal of shouting and confusion of which Forgan and Campbell took swift advantage to edge round towards the door. But at that moment another newcomer entered.
European in appearance, though dark in complexion, he might have been Italian, even Corsican, and he was waving a newspaper with considerable excitement.
“Where is that rat Boukhba?” he shrieked. “He has double-crossed us all! Look—look here what it says in the paper! The heir has been found and is on the way to Qathusn. It was just by chance I picked up a paper at the airport, otherwise I should have been got out of the way, tricked by this Boukhba and his fine friends.”
“Just what is the meaning of this outrageous intrusion?” snapped the Emir angrily.
“I will tell you the meaning, Emir Abdul, my fine Excellency. The meaning is that I committed murder for your sake and now am thrown aside like an old worn-out glove. You didn’t treat me like this,” he shrieked, “when you set that Boukhba on to get me to slip poison in Prince Achmed’s drink.”
At this, there was not unnaturally a considerable outcry from the assembled delegates, and the Emir had some difficulty in making himself heard.
“I understand nothing of what you say!” he shouted. “If you have been tricked, it is your colleagues who have done it—you had better ask them about it.” He looked round at the model makers, who by then had just reached the door.
“My colleagues?” demanded Sampiero. “What colleagues?”
“Why those two, La Cigale and La Rose Bleue, of course,” said Boukhba, pointing to the model makers.
Just as they thought they’d made it, two huge black guards stepped out and cut Forgan and Campbell off from the door and freedom.
“Well, go on, ask them what is the meaning of all this trickery,” cried the Emir sternly, as the two Englishmen turned at bay.
Sampiero looked at Forgan and Campbell and then he looked at Boukhba.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered. “Where are La Rose and La Cigale.
“There, there man,” screeched Boukhba.
“But I have never seen these two men before in my life!” said Sampiero.
Chapter XVII. Man In The Striped Suit
ABOUT the same time that Forgan, who had looked forward to holding the stage at the Conference, was doing so, in fuller measure than even he had hoped for, Hambledon was also enjoying surprises.
As soon as he had finished his breakfast in the hospital room at Evian, the doctor had pronounced him fit to get up and shortly afterwards visitors were announced.
“Well, well!” cried Inspector Tiny, advancing into the small private ward and making it seem smaller, “so the dead man’s come to life again! Delighted to see you’ve recovered, mon vieux, and look who I’ve brought with me.”
He stood aside and Tommy saw, to his astonishment, the smiling face of Antoine Letord.
“Alors, mon cher,” said the Superintendent, shaking hands. “Mahomet has come to the mountain, n’est-ce-pas? I heard you were ill, and as I had urgent news for you, I thought I would bring it in person, and see for myself how you were feeling.”
“It was very good of you,” said Tommy, “especially after all the trouble I caused you, I and my friends I mean.”
“Don’t give it another thought,” smiled Letord. “As it happens, a rather different view is being taken of their exploit now, I am told. The Foreign Office has discovered that the Emir Abdul was plotting all sorts of undesirable things on French soil, and his popularity has gone down below zero.”
“Didn’t you say that the Minister laughed when he heard about the corpse at the bedside?” chuckled Tiny.
“I don’t know that he went so far as to laugh,” said Letord. “But I did hear that he gave a sort of wintry smile!”
“Well, this is a surprise,” said Tommy. “Sit down, gentlemen, and make yourselves at home. I’m sorry I’m not dressed properly to receive such honourable company.”
“Don’t worry,” said Tiny. “You look splendid in that dressing-gown. Why, I think it must be an old one of mine.”
“Yes, it is rather oversize,” agreed Tommy, looking at his trailing skirts and rolled-up sleeves, “but it was the best one they had, the nurse told me.”
“Alors, mon Cher,” said Letord, sitting down and opening his briefcase. “You’ve seen the news, I suppose?”
“Not a word” said Hambledon, “I don’t think I’ve seen a paper since I left Normandy.”
“Well, you’ll enjoy this one,” said the Superintendent, handing him an air-mail edition of a London paper.
Tommy looked at the banner headlines and the large picture of Prince Achmed, with bulging eyes.
“But this is incredible,” he said. “How on earth have they got hold of the story? Why, the whole thing is here. What!” he cried as he read on. “Two Englishmen in Tunis are leading the search in conjunction with our Special Correspondent! Why, that must be Forgan and Campbell! I wonder they haven’t got my photo in yet!”
“They don’t need it,” said Letord. “The hunt’s over. The Heir has been found and has reached Cairo on his way to Qathusn. Here you are, it’s in the midday edition of the Geneve Soir.
Tommy gazed at the Swiss paper with stupefaction. “This is certainly the truth,” he said. “I practically saw them all off at the airport last night. I know they were en route for Qathusn.”
“In the late morning French paper, which we bought on the way down,” said Tiny, “there was a story about the Heir having been drowned, or at any rate killed, in a boat explosion on Lake Leman here—I gather that was you.”
“It was me in the boat,” said Tommy grimly. “I don’t know who told the story to the Press. Well, well,” he went on, “that just about wraps things up, doesn’t it. I mean the Heir’s found, the Emir’s goose is cooked, and that’s that.”
