CHAPTER IXTHE DOPE TRADE
I HAVE said that Jakoub had compelled my grudging respect as he faced the sand-storm. Now I had to recognise in him again a master of circumstance, as from a fiercely clamouring crowd of apparently hostile natives, and some over-excited railway officials, he mobilised a little force of porters, and conjured from somewhere a kind of wagon, or rather a long beam mounted on two pairs of wheels and drawn by a couple of under-sized ponies.
On this he had all our cargo stowed in the time an ordinary man would have taken to find a hat-box. He had agharryready for me, with my hold-all on the front seat. Our tickets were delivered up, and the crowd more or less pacified with backshish. We drove off, watched with haughty indifference by a couple of Egyptian policemen.
I was back in the world of men and wires, and my first care was to send a cable home.
I had decided on Bates as the recipient of the first news of my resurrection.
So we stopped at the office of the Eastern Telegraph Company.
I had thought out my message during the long weeks in which I had been tending to this ganglionin the nervous system of the world, and I cabled simply “Unable to communicate earlier. Returning next boat via Marseilles.”
There was no need to say I was writing, as I would be home as soon as a letter, and in any case I felt that it would be utterly impossible ever to explain why I had been lost so long. I intended simply to say that the weather had tempted me to a longer cruise than I had contemplated, and that I had not had time to write.
Snape, I felt, would believe this; Bates and Mrs. Rattray would not care, so long as I returned at last in safety and health; and some day I would tell the whole story to the bishop. There was really no one else who would be either curious or concerned, though Marshall would doubtless be glad not to have to apply to a court of law to “presume my death,” and some day I would certainly swagger a little in my corner at the Athenæum about my adventure in the sand, and my exploration of the Temple of Osiris.
I had begun to think of myself as more in my element at the Savage or the Travellers’!
I posted Captain Welfare’s letter to his agent and we arrived at Van Ermengen’s Hotel, a pleasant spacious place facing the sea, from which it was only separated by the wide tram-girt road and the sea-wall.
Van Ermengen, the proprietor, met us in the hall. He was a thin, grave man, with a hard face so narrow that his profile seemed to be cut out of the edge of it. He had a cramped mouth and restless, rather anxious eyes, as colourless as his face and hair.
He received me very graciously, and made no difficulty about my wagon-load of packing-cases.He instructed Jakoub, who arranged with the hall-porter about their disposal. He seemed very anxious to explain to me that he was of English “nationality,” and that his establishment was run on “English lines.” He did not seem to know Jakoub, and apparently had no curiosity about me, not even asking my name, or expecting me to write it in a book.
I suppose it is impossible to take me for anything but a British parson, for he had assumed my nationality before I spoke, and addressed me in English.
It was my first experience of a European hotel in the Near East, and I was a little astonished at the vast size and the bareness of my bedroom. But it was delightfully cool. The sun was just setting over the sea on which three tall windows of my chamber looked, and the sea-breeze blew freshly into the room. I looked out longingly with the desire to see the sails of theAstartecoming into port; but there was nothing in sight but a couple of feluccas and a distant steamer.
A window at the side opened on a narrow street, and I looked down curiously at the busy Oriental scene in the violet transparency that fills the streets of Alexandria at sunset.
Then I went and wallowed long and luxuriously in a great bath, and shaved myself decently and respectably again.
After my scorching in the desert the evening seemed cool enough for ordinary clothes, and it was with a curious sense of luxury that I put on the dark clerical suit that had last been folded by Bates in my dressing-room at home.
There were still some minutes before the vaunted “English dinner” would be served at eight o’clock.I lit a cigarette and sat down by an open window watching the rapid onset of night and the assembling of the stars.
Hungry as I was I realised that I was very tired. I could have slept where I was; but I did not wish to sleep. There was on me that feeling of excitement, almost of elation, that comes with physical fatigue after a long strain is relaxed.
I was glad to be rid of my queer and rather doubtful responsibility, and to have succeeded in my first commercial mission, but I regretted the end of what had seemed a momentous interlude in my uneventful life.
It seemed stupid to go straight home, but home called me. This was not the season for travel in Egypt, and anyhow, the experiences of a tourist would seem insipid after my journey over sea and land. I decided to revisit the country in the orthodox way, perhaps the following winter, and meantime I must go home.
Then into my mind rushed all those mundane details inevitable in what we call civilisation, which had been banished since I first put foot on the deck of theAstarte.
I had sent word that I would sail by the next boat, but now it occurred to me that I might not have money enough for the journey. If Edmund did not come in time how was I to get it? I knew nobody in this city, and even if my bankers cabled money, I was not sure how I could draw it without any means of identification.
I could no doubt find an English banker, or consul, or official of some kind, but he would ask questions. He would naturally want to know why an English clergyman, claiming to haveample means, found himself suddenly without resources in Alexandria? He would ask had I not arranged a letter of credit? He would want to know what boat I had come out by, and where I had stopped while in Egypt?
The blood rushed to my face as I thought of it. Who on earth would believe my tale of theAstarteand Jakoub, and my camel ride, even if I dared to tell it?
Imightmake what was left of my money do, but I reflected that Jakoub had earned something handsome in the way of a tip. He had not only refrained from taking my life; he might almost be said to have saved it.
I went down to the big dining-room with my mind full of these grovelling details; as certain that my connection with the episode of the merchandise was at an end, as I was convinced that my muscles ached with fatigue.
But if we deny the existence of Chance or of the Fates we shall have to include a sense of humour among the attributes of the Deity. It was what men call Chance that now prolonged the game of cup-and-ball the gods were playing with me.
The head-waiter was indicating my solitary table with the extraordinary gesticulations and grimaces of his kind, when I heard my name called out in a shout of surprise.
A tall man in the uniform of the Egyptian army rose from an adjoining table and came across to me, with a beaming smile and outstretched hand.
“You don’t know me from Adam,” he exclaimed. “It’s this bally uniform.”
“Brogden!” I cried, in a flash of recognition.
“Good shot!” he said. “It’s jolly to find one’s not quite forgotten after all these years.What on earth are you doing here? But you must come to my table, and we’ll tell each other all about ourselves.”
He had me by the arm and walked me across the room to his table.
Again my will had nothing to do with events.
I watched the waiters doing conjuring tricks with knives and forks and napkins, as they rearranged the table, and gaped in astonishment at my old friend.
For he was an old friend, once almost my dearest friend, although I had forgotten his existence.
“I had no idea you were in Egypt,” I said. “You went into the Civil Service. I have heard nothing of you since.”
“No, you old devil! I wrote you two letters and didn’t get an answer. And then—you know the way, one loses touch.”
I knew. We went on for a time each making the futile excuses and offering the explanations that men do for lapsed friendships when they are renewed by chance. We had been dear friends at Oxford for several terms, and had normally, and without unpleasantness, been separated by circumstance. There was nothing to apologise for.
The great majority of our friendships are determined by propinquity. Time and space have dominion over more of them than death can claim.
“I heard of your coming into the Irish estate,” Brogden was saying. “I must congratulate you. But I see you are still a Padré. Do you know, I have only seen you once before since you were ordained? You’re down from Cairo, I suppose? It’s a bit hot there now but I suppose you havefinished the usual beat. You got to Assuan, of course?”
This was just the kind of cross-examination I wanted to avoid.
“No,” I said, “I couldn’t manage Assuan this trip. I hope to come next winter; I must keep your address. But my tourist experiences won’t be very interesting to an old resident. But tell me about yourself. How long have you been in the army?”
“Oh, I’m not a pukka soldier,” he explained with a laugh, “though I wear this kit and am known as ‘Brogden Bey’! We Egyptian officials sometimes trickle in and out of uniform as a matter of expediency. I’m really a rather superlative kind of policeman at present.”
“I don’t understand at all. Let’s hear your story right from the beginning.”
“Well, you remember I passed rather decently into the Civil Service? Eighth or ninth, I think.”
“I remember it very well. We rejoiced together in town. It was just before I took Orders.”
“Yes. I remember that dinner! I had taken a pretty good degree, and after that I had to go to an expensive crammer for three months to be sure of a decent place in that exam. I was nearly at the top in classics, history and law, but my higher maths let me down. Good God! the things one knew then! The Civil Service candidate has to do a lot of mental vomiting after his exam before he is quite human again. However, having demonstrated my amazing acquirements as a scholar, they gave me a job in the Printed Book Department of the British Museum. I had to lick the labels for the backs of new volumes of the Supplementary Catalogue.
“No, I’m not joking,” he broke off in answer to my glance, “that is literally what I had to do. There was a man there who had been doing it for twelve years. He had been crammed even tighter than me for the exam., and he was quite unfit for anything else, poor chap! I didn’t see my way to become Chief Librarian either, and I was frightened of getting cancer of the tongue. I wrote to an uncle of mine who was then one of Cromer’s men out here, and he got me a billet in the Ministry of the Interior. I rather took to the languages, and happened to make myself useful in the Criminal Investigation Department, and—here I am.”
“But what about the army? What are you doing now?”
“Let’s go and have our coffee in the lounge,” he said. “It’s a bit public here for chatting.”
We found a retired sofa at the end of the wide cool lounge, and a white-gowned Arab with crimson sash brought us coffee.
“What liqueur will you have?” asked Brogden. “Don’t drink before sunset in the hot weather, but don’t go to bed teetotal if you want to keep fit. Their cognac is not fit to drink without some curaçoa in it.”
He had evidently taken charge of me; apparently someone always did, so I let him order the liqueurs.
“You haven’t told me yet what you are doing now,” I reminded him.
He bent forward mysteriously and whispered one word, “hashish.”
I was about to repeat it aloud when he stopped me with a gesture.
“Don’t shout about it,” he said. “I’m notsupposed to talk, and I don’t want even the English people here to know what I’m about. But it can’t matter telling you, and you’d be surprised what a relief it is to talk to someone!”
I was thankful to have started him on a topic that would keep him from questioning me till bedtime.
“That’s some kind of drug, isn’t it? I remember it in theArabian Nights.”
“Good Lord! Where have you put yourself in Egypt? Yes, it’s a ‘kind of drug,’ as you say.” He whispered again, “It’sCannabis indica,Indian hemp, in the medical books. We call it the other thing. It’s meat and drink, wife and family, lunacy and lingering death to the Oriental when he gets fond of it. Drink’s a boon and a blessing, and opium is mother’s milk to it. We’ve stopped it being cultivated, and we’ve prohibited its importation. We’re still trying to stop its being smuggled. That’s my job at present. I’ve been given a semi-military appointment with the temporary rank of colonel, Egyptian colonel of course, but that’s a blind.”
Any story of smuggling has always had a certain fascination for me. I became interested at once, and forgot my fatigue and my longing for bed. I thought it seemed a whimsical thing that I should live over a reputed smuggler’s passage, and now find in an old friend a modern “preventive man.”
“That must be an interesting job,” I said. “Tell me as much as you can. I needn’t tell you I have sense enough to keep my mouth shut.”
“I know you will. You see, the natives, especially the wealthy ones,willhave the stuff, and they simply don’t care what they pay. Naturally, the value of it has become enormous—incredible.These damned Arabs and Levantines are always slipping it in. But there’s a bigger trade going on. They grow it regularly now in Greece, and the Greek Government won’t lift a finger to stop it. There’s too much backshish about. It will be a big thing for me if I succeed. At present I’m sorry to say I’m on the track of two renegade Englishmen.”
“Englishmen?” I repeated. “That’s bad.”
“It’s damnable,” he said. “You can’t imagine how we depend on prestige out here. If I could get evidence against them, we should have to keep it quiet here and have them dealt with at home. At present I’ve only suspicions to go on; but they’re in tow with a rascally native. The biggest blackguard in the trade. He was in the police and got to know all the ropes. Some years ago he made a big coup, collared two feluccas full of the stuff near the Western Frontier. There was thousands of pounds’ worth of the drug in them, and he had risked his life a dozen times to bring it off, to say nothing of the brains he showed. Of course, he was entitled to a reward, and what do you think they offered him?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Five pounds,” he groaned.
“Think of it!” he continued a moment later. “Five pounds to a man like that! He put the money back on the desk, smiled, saluted and disappeared. The fellow who had to offer him the money told me his smile as he saluted keeps him awake at night still—the memory of it, I mean. He’s had to take a long sick-leave on account of insomnia. Of course, the man went straight into the trade, and I fancy he really organises the whole business. I’ve all the evidenceI want against him, and when I get him, he’ll give away his English pals all right.”
“What’s his name?” I asked to fill another pause.
“Oh, names don’t count with a fellow like that. He’ll answer to anything—Osman, Ali, Jakoub—‘anything that comes to ’and,’ as the old lady said of her goat.”
“Jakoub?” I asked, startled.
“Yes. Why?”
A blur of impressions and calculations mingled in my tired mind. It suddenly occurred to me that the description was like our Jakoub. But he had been on theAstarteall this time. Nothing fitted in. Still, some instinct made me disinclined to give any particulars about my enemy, if such I could still consider him.
“Jakoub is my dragoman’s name,” I replied.
“It’s a common enough name,” said Brogden with a laugh. “They’ve only got about a dozen names among them.”
“But what have these Englishmen got to do with it?”
“They run the damned ship. A wretched little Greek schooner they picked up here, interned during the Balkan war, and sold for a song. They profess to be making money out of the fruit trade, which of course is rot.”
I was aware only of the effort to keep any revealing emotion from my face. Suddenly and quite clearly I had seen who were the two “renegade Englishmen.” I had only one idea—that they were in danger of betrayal by Jakoub. How he had managed to deceive them, or how far they might be compromised, I did not try to guess. My only thought was that Brogden was now an enemy, a skilful, questing enemy on the trackof a frightful misapprehension. I felt my skin grow cold as I thought what a mere chance it was that I had not told him my story, enough of it anyhow to lead him straight to Jakoub—and Edmund’s disgrace. People would never understand that Edmund was innocent. Suddenly the question occurred to me—“Would they understand that I was?”
Brogden was talking all the time, and now I listened again.
“I was making things so hot for them that they left the Mediterranean in the beginning of this year. They’re experts at dodging signal stations, and I lost track of them till they got to London. Ship’s papers, manifest, cargo and everything all right, but the police got warrants out for the Arab in the name of Osman Hamouda. Then they disappeared again. We hoped to pick them up at Jersey, where we found they had relations with some very shady customers. I don’t know what their game was, but there’s sporadic smuggling going on there still in the old commodities whenever a chance offers. However, we missed them again. They got warned somehow and disappeared. I shouldn’t be surprised if they’re back in the Mediterranean. We’ll find them with a perfectly innocent cargo of bananas or something!”
Brogden laughed, and then I heard him exclaim, “Hallo! What’s the matter? You’re ill!”
A great darkness had come on me through which I seemed to hear his voice as a teasing sound at a distance.
I saw it all now.Edmund had known all along!
“No. I’m all right now; a bit fagged, and the heat.”
“Let me help you to your room.”
“No, no thanks. I can walk all right.”
I stood up to show him that I could, and to my surprise I was really dizzy. I swayed and sat down awkwardly on the couch. But my mind was clearing.
“Stop there a bit,” he said authoritatively, and rang the bell.
“Here, Esmah,” he called to the Arab, “get a whisky, get two, large ones, and some soda.”
I swallowed the whisky, longing only to be left alone.
“That’s better,” I said, and this time I managed to rise quite steadily; “I’ll turn in, I think, if you don’t mind. Many thanks. Good-night.”
“Well, I’ll look you up to-morrow.”
He came to the foot of the staircase with me, and I felt he was watching me as I went up. I turned at the landing and smiled, I think quite naturally. He waved a hand, and I was rid of him at last and alone in my room.
I wanted to think everything out and understand as far as I could. But thought was blotted out by emotion. My mind seemed blackened by the sense of Edmund’s degradation. Less worthily, but I suppose not unnaturally, there simmered the sense of personal humiliation and affront.
Edmund had associated with Welfare and Jakoub in making of me their tool and dupe. In my bitterness I accused them of laughing at my innocence. But I knew at once I wronged them in that. I knew enough of the good in both of them to realise the wretchedness for them of our association during those weeks on theAstarte. Then I began dimly to perceive the hold thatJakoub had obtained over them. I tried to put away all these profitless ponderings and think out what was now to be done, how some shreds of honour were to be saved, or at least depravity concealed. I remembered the cargo of “curios” brought into my house, and realised it must be contraband, and the shop in Brighton only an agency for its sale.
But my mind refused to think it out then. I went disconsolate to bed, and was mercifully surprised by sleep.
I slept heavily until the Arab came with my tea and opened the lowered shutters that closed my windows.
I awoke with my body refreshed and mind alert.
As though I had thought it out in the night, I saw that I must at once get control of that abominable stuff. Whatever happened it should not be released to poison the souls and bodies of men. I would be a passenger no longer, but must act now.
I hated and feared the timidity and indolence that I had made a sort of petted habit.
As soon as I was dressed I went downstairs and sent for Van Ermengen.
He came, smiling and urbane, and wished me good morning.
“Good morning. Those packing-cases of mine?”
“Yes?”
“I want them brought up to my bedroom.”
There was a sudden hardening of his face, and I remembered Edmund saying, “Van Ermengen knows all about the consignment.” I was certain now that he did know all, that he was “in the trade.” It was evident too that he had assumed—how rightly!—that I knew nothing.
“But it is impossible,” he said; “they will be called for this afternoon.”
“Who says so?”
“Your dragoman told me.” He sucked in his lips with annoyance at being forced to this admission.
“My dragoman takes my orders.”
“He referred to your partners,” said Van Ermengen with a touch of insolence.
“I am waiting for my partners.”
Now that I had started, it seemed much easier than I had expected to assert myself. I had feared Van Ermengen. Now I saw that he began to fear me. I saw too that he was utterly puzzled by my demeanour.
“But your bedroom, sir? It is impossible. It will take a couple of Arabs all morning.”
“I will pay them.”
“If you will come, I will show you where your cases are. They are quite safe.”
“I want them in my bedroom.”
“But think of the weight! They are too heavy for the floor.”
“If that’s so, I will ask the English Consulate to take charge of them. Will you be good enough to ring them up?”
He darted at me the malevolent glance of a beaten man, and gave some orders in Arabic to a porter.
“I will have my breakfast in my room, if you please, so that I may count the packages.”
He bowed, and we parted.
In spite of the misery that still afflicted my soul, I had a new feeling of self-esteem as I regained my room. I had come well out of this encounter, and felt I could depend on myself in the struggle that must lie before me.
Before I had finished my breakfast Jakoub was shown in, polite as ever.
“You have slept well, effendi? You seem no longer fatigued?”
“I’m quite well, thank you.”
“The praise to Allah. You would have the packing-cases up here, effendi?”
I nodded.
“But it is against the orders of the Captain and the other effendi. Nasr Hussein calls for them to-day. I must obey my orders, effendi.”
“You must obeymyorders.”
“It is not in my agreement. It is impossible, this.”
He was evidently prepared to defy my authority.
I stood up and looked at him.
“Jakoub, if those cases are not all here in one hour, I shall send for the police to take charge of them.”
I suppose he saw in my eyes that I knew all that was involved in this decision, to Edmund and myself as well as him, and realised that I was determined to take the consequences.
He smiled as he had smiled at the official who offered him the five pounds.
“Very well, effendi,” he said, and departed with a salaam.
There was deadly fear of him in my heart as the Arabs piled the cases on the floor.
Shortly after they had deposited the last one a message came that Brogden Bey was waiting for me below. I had forgotten his promised call. It was another embarrassment.
I locked my door and went down to meet him.