CHAPTER IX
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BACK WAS TURNED
Three letters for me, brought out by the pilot! One I had expected from Anthony; but my heart gave a bound as I recognized Brigit's handwriting, not seen for years; and instinct told me that the third was from Monny Gilder.
My one thought for the last two days, steaming back from the Piraeus to Alexandria, had been that I was drawing nearer to Cairo, and to those whose doings in my absence pulled at my curiosity and keyed my interest to breaking point. But if you think that I tore open those envelopes and greedily absorbed their contents the moment they were put into my hands, you have never been a conductor or even an observant passenger on a "pleasure yacht." When the letters arrived I was engaged in persuading breakfast-lingerers (they of the eggs-and-bacon habit, who ought never to leave their peaceful English homes) that it would give them more real pleasure to be first in the shore boats than last at the table. Then to get them into the boats; then to hypnotize Lady Biddell and Mrs. Harlow into the belief that they would not, could not, be seasick on the dancing waves which bobbed us up and down. No time to think of the letters; much less to feel the strangeness of fate which brought me back in such queer circumstances to the port I had entered on the Laconia eight days ago.
"As soon as we get on shore," I soothed my gnawing impatience, "I'll steal a minute somehow." But each moment was so conspicuously labelled that I could not be a thief of time—my time, which was my charges' time, bought and paid for by Sir Marcus Lark.
This was not the first occasion on which I'd heard the clanking of my chains, for, although I flattered myself that I was a popular success, popularity had penalties. On the night of the lecture I had used the passengers. Since then they had used me. Old ladies appealed to me on questions of etiquette, health or religion, and retailed my answers, not always correctly. Girls asked my advice about keeping up flirtations, and men wanted my help in getting out of them. I was expected to spout pages of Strabo or Pliny at an instant's notice; I must know why Plato went to Egypt, or how long he stayed; and be umpire between American and British bridge-players. I must be able to explain the true meaning and age of the Sphinx; invent new deck games; and show those who hadn't learned, how to dance the Tango. But with those three letters burning over my heart the duties of conductor became infuriating.
It was an awful day; for what was Pompey's Pillar to me while I remained ignorant of my friends' adventures? As I discoursed (more or less) learnedly about Diocletian, and Ptolemy's plot to drown Pompey in the Nile, something inside was asking, "Has Anthony fallen in love with Monny Gilder?" "What scrapes has that blessed girl got into?" "Has anything happened to worry Biddy?" Even that nameless but incomparable tomb on the hill of Kom esh-Shukafa could not distract my thoughts from the sealed envelopes; and three very modern handwritings came obstinately between my eyes and the matchless wall-paintings—paintings as fresh in their underground hiding-place as if finished yesterday instead of in days when it was dowdy to be pagan, fashionable to be Christian.
Corkran, as a soldier, had to guide a band to Aboukir, and chat about Nelson; point out the medieval fort of Kait Bey, and dash with hired motors to Adjemi, where Napoleon landed. Kruger took a few studious pilgrims to that unspoiled Oriental Nile town where the Rosetta Stone gave the secrets of Ancient Egypt to the world. It was mine to pilot the "frivolous lot"; to escort them in carriages round the Italian-looking city when they had absorbed its two chief sights; to give them a glimpse of the Museum, and to let them see the beauty and fashion of Alexandria driving out to San Stefano in the late afternoon. Still I had no chance to read my letters; but, thought I at the hotel, "Now at last, it has come!" Not at all! People's trunks were missing, or in the wrong rooms. It was I who had to sooth alarms, and calm rising storms. It was I who must assure Mrs. Harlow that her room was really preferable to that of Lady Biddell; and Lady Biddell that she, and not Miss Hassett-Bean, had the best in the hotel. Still, I had ten minutes to dress for dinner. Like Mr. Gladstone, I could do it in five, and have five left for my letters. But hardly had I slipped a paper knife under the flap of Monny's envelope (I should have felt a vandal to tear it) when one of the hotel managers knocked at my door. A gentleman was being very angry in the dining-room. He insisted on seeing me. He said he had been Lord Mayor of London, and ought to have a window-table. All these were previously engaged. What was to be done? Would I kindly come at once?
I persuaded Sir John that window-tables were the least desirable, owing to draughts, and returning to my room, had four minutes to dress or risk further rows. After dinner Miss Hassett-Bean burst into tears because she was alone in the world owing to the marmoset's death from seasickness; and now that she was growing old nobody cared to talk to her. I argued that people were shy because she was more important than they, and had a reputation for satire. It took half an hour for the lady's nose to go from red to pink (I think she had papier poudré in her handkerchief); and then I was obliged to walk on the beach with Miss Enid Biddell to keep Mr. Watts from proposing. As Snell relieved me from sentry duty, I was called by Kruger to discuss certain details of next morning's start for Cairo; and at midnight, when I crawled to my room a shattered wreck, the letters were still unread.
"I'm incapable of caring now," I groaned, "what has happened to any of them. If an earthquake has swallowed up our mountain, and Anthony's married Monny, and Brigit's been abducted, or vice versa, and Miss Guest has gone off with the jewels, it will leave me calm."
That was the spirit in which I tossed up a coin to see which letter to read first. Heads, Monny's; tails, Anthony's; but the penny rolled away, far under the bed where collar-buttons go, and so—I opened Biddy's. She began:
MY DEAR GOOD DUFFER!
For any sake hurry back. Make an excuse to leave your pilgrims the minute you get this, and take the first train to Cairo. Surely the late conductor can be your understudy, and trot the people round Alexandria for a day? We need you more than they do. I picture you reading this early in the morning, with Alexandria still in the distance; for you said you'd arrange to have letters come out to the yacht by the pilot. I shall expect a telegram saying by what train you'll arrive here in the afternoon. You'll understand when I've told you everything, why it's necessary for you to hurry.
We have done and seen so many things, it seems years instead of days since you left us in care of that handsome Hadji of yours. I wonder if really you didn't suspect that I guessed who he was; or did you suspect; and didn't care? I caught the look in your eyes, when you first saw him standing under the terrace at Shepheard's, and then, when the name "Antoun Effendi" came up in the conversation, I put two and two together. Mrs. East guesses, also. I don't know if she did from the first, but she does now. It isn't a question of "guessing" with either of us, really. It's a certainty. Not that she's said anything to me or I to her. That is the malady of us all since you went. We are boiling with secret thoughts, and keeping them to ourselves, which is bad for us and for each other in the long run. I haven't told Monny that the "Egyptian Prince," as Rachel Guest has nicknamed him, is your friend Captain Anthony Fenton playing some deep game, partly connected with us, partly connected with a secret of his and yours; the secret you said was a "dusty" one in which women would not be interested. I haven't told her, because I don't want her to know. She is always talking and thinking about him, and is vexed with herself for doing so. She tries to stop, but can't. If she knew who he was, she wouldn't try to stop. She'd let herself go, and feel she was living in a beautiful romance. So she is living in a romance, but I want you to be the hero of it, not your Anthony Fenton. That's why I don't open her eyes to the game that's going on. The man is a perfect devil. Not a bad devil, but a wild devil.
Mrs. East doesn't tell Monny that Antoun is "Anthony with an h" because she is enjoying the thought that she alone knows the wonderful truth. She imagines that she is in love with him. She believes Fate has brought them together—that he is a "reincarnation," as she is, and that they ought to belong to each other. Well, let them! She isn't more than six or seven years older than he, and she's rich (though poor compared to Monny, of course), and every day she grows handsomer. So does Monny. As for Rachel Guest—but she is in another part of my story. Yet no, come to think of it, I'll bring her in now, because if it weren't for developments concerning that young woman, I might be able to wait one more day without begging you to come to us. She is taking Monny away from me; and something odd is going on, I can't make out what. Anyhow, that horrid Bedr el Gemály is in it. And there's to be a climax, I'm sure, to-morrow night. You'll get this letter to-morrow morning, for I'm writing it early, with my hair down my back, and my coffee not ordered, though I'm starving. We've left Shepheard's because Monny wanted to live for a few days in a hotel close to the Nile; and we were all pleased with the plan, for this was once a palace of Khedive Ismael, and his furniture's still in it, the wildest mixture of Orientalized French taste. There's a garden, with paths of vermilion sand brought from somewhere in the desert. But the most convulsive things live along the Nile Valley and spend their nights braying, hooting, cooing, whining, bellowing, and barking. If only the donkeys and dogs and birds and a few other sacred animals of Egypt would be a little more reticent, especially after dark, the country would be faultless. But what with worrying myself, and listening to furred and feathered creatures worrying themselves, I couldn't sleep last night, and I want you to help me! You'll be here to-morrow afternoon, and I shall stay in to receive you instead of going to the bazaars with the others, chaperoned by that dark-eyed devil of yours, "Antoun." I was there all yesterday, watching crowds of tourists buy beautiful expensive things for themselves, and horrid inexpensive things to take to their friends. Cleopatra purchased some disgracefully cheap pearls no self-respecting mummy would be seen in; and my prophetic soul tells me that she's going to try and dissolve them in wine.
There's to be a fancy dress ball at this hotel to-morrow night—or rather in the adjacent Casino, which is one reason we migrated here; and praise the saints you'll be in time for it because if anything's going to happen, you'll be able to stop whatever it is. If I were supposed to know that Antoun was Anthony Fenton, I might take him into my counsels. As it is, I can't. And anyhow, it wouldn't do much good, at present, because a silent duel is going on between him and Monny. He is bent on compelling her to acknowledge his authority. She is bent on resisting it—which is a great compliment to his power—but he doesn't know that, for he doesn't know Monny yet. It would be fun to watch them together, if I hadn't your interests to think of.
He hasn't got rid of Bedr el Gemály; but he would have done so, I'm sure, if it hadn't been for an unexpected turn of the wheel, by the hand of Fate in the person of Rachel Guest. Her hand is never off the wheel just now! The few days since you have been away have brought out the true inwardness of her. Felis Domestica with very little Domestica! Perhaps it's the air of Egypt which is having a really extraordinary effect on all of us; perhaps it's the fact that Monny has given Rachel a lot of lovely clothes which have rejuvenated and apparently revitalized her. But you will see for yourself, and talk things over with Your old friend, Biddy.
This was a nice letter to read, heaven knew how many hours too late!
My fatigue had slipped off like the skin off a grape. I felt energetic enough to start out and walk to Cairo. What could be in Biddy's mind? And what must she have thought when afternoon and evening passed without even a telegram? The evening paper, if she had happened to look, would have told her that the Candace had reached Alexandria in the morning, as she expected; and she could neither have guessed nor believed that the whole day would pass without my having a chance to read her letter. I ransacked the writing-table drawers for a telegraph form; and finding one had begun to address it, when I stopped. The message could not go out until morning. Meanwhile there were Monny's and Anthony's letters to read. One or both might give me some clue to the "climax" Biddy feared for to-night at the ball. I cut open Monny's envelope, which had on it an alluring sunset picture of the Pyramids and the name of the hotel. Hastily I ran through the pages. Not a hint of anything disquieting! If I had read her letter instead of Brigit's I might have gone to my well-earned rest without a qualm.
"Dear Lord Ernest," Miss Gilder addressed me, in a handwriting which to any "expert" would reveal some originality, more pride, still more conscientiousness, any amount of self-will, and singularly little conceit. An odd combination! But the Gilded Rose is that. She went on:
You asked me to write to you while you were away, and tell you the news, and what I thought about things. But I'm thinking so much and so fast that I can't sort out my thoughts. I suppose it must be so with every one who comes to Egypt for the first time. Everything fascinates and absorbs me, even more than I had hoped it would—almost too much, I feel sometimes. Your Antoun Effendi is a very good guide, and I am not sorry that we have him—except once in a while. And now and then I'm glad. We're proud of his looks when we go about, for every one stares at him and envies us for having him to take us about, instead of being condemned to a mere dragoman. Oh, talking of dragomen (you see I will call them that!), we still have Bedr, though I know you thought we ought to give him up, and I don't see how we are ever to discharge him now, for he has attached himself to Rachel G. in the most wonderful way. It is pathetic. It began with a talk they had the day you left, about his having been in America, and about religion. She found him half inclined to be converted, and of course, her goodness and unselfishness made her long to snatch him like a brand from the burning. He thinks no one ever talked so wonderfully about religion as she does, which she, dear thing, attributes to the fact that she taught Sunday-school in Salem. She says, if she can have him to work upon even for a few weeks, she is sure to make him a convert.
We haven't wasted a minute since you went away, but have seen sights from morning till night, so as not to have missed anything when we leave Cairo on the Enchantress Isis. I hope you'll be pleased that I've given up my dream of having a private dahabeah, and that we shall be with you on Sir Marcus Lark's boat. She is really a beauty. Antoun took us over her, and on board we met Sir Marcus, who was showing some friends round. Antoun introduced him to us. I think Sir M. asked him to do it. We had great fun, for Sir Marcus seemed to take the most violent fancy to Aunt Clara, who didn't like him at all. She says now that she believes when she was Cleopatra he was Caesar, and that it's a pity he can't wear a wreath to hide his baldness, as she remembers his doing then. It's only a very little bald spot, really, and Rachel Guest says it reminds her of a tonsure on the head of a fine-looking monk. Aunt C. quite resents Sir Marcus being able to engage the services of you and Antoun. She wants you both to be there, but she doesn't like Sir M. to have a superior position to Antoun's. That day on the Enchantress Isis Sir M. invited us to have tea on the deck, and it really was enchanting; a deck like a huge open-air drawingroom, or one of our biggest verandas at Newport, or somewhere, with jolly green wicker chairs and tables and sofas with heaps of cushions. But I forgot—you've seen the boat. The best rooms were engaged, but when we talked to Sir Marcus, he called a man who can speak many languages in bits—broken English, cracked German, fractured French, and goodness knows what all. Between them, they arranged it somehow that we should have our choice, and the other people were to take what was left. I would have refused, because it didn't seem fair, but it was for Aunt Clara's sake, evidently, that Sir M. wanted to make the exchange, and she accepted. She was as haughty as a queen, but in rather a fascinating, soft way that I think men like. And she was looking beautiful. So is Rachel, as even Biddy admits. I do believe Rachel looks younger than I do, in some new dresses and hats she has. I never noticed before, but I fancy now that we're rather alike. I'm so delighted to see her enjoying herself so much, for you know, she's wonderful. Think what courage it must have taken to break with her tiresome old life, because she felt she must see the glory of the world, when a tiny legacy gave her the chance she'd longed for. She wouldn't have had a penny left, after she'd finished her trip, if Aunt C. and I hadn't been able to help her out. It's a privilege to do anything for such a brave creature. And I can't bear to think of her having to go back when this is over, to the dull round. Perhaps some way out will be found for her.
I've fallen in love with Cairo, although—or perhaps because—I still feel as if I were moving in a marvellous picture. Antoun does make it live for us! I will say that for him, though he can be so annoying that at times he spoils everything, and makes me wish you'd won my hat instead of my winning his green turban. I'm dying to find out how you got it. But, of course, I can't ask him: it would be infra dig. You must tell me when you come. I think the one he wears now is handsomer though. I wish I could change it for mine.
We have been to heaps of mosques, and I can't help wishing we were the only tourists in Cairo. Of course, this is a selfish wish; and as dear Biddy says, it's quite funny to think how each tourist feels that he is the only spiritual-minded, imaginative person travelling—that he alone has the right to be in Egypt—that all the others are offensive, vulgar creatures, who desecrate the beautiful places with their presence. But really, you know, it gets on one's nerves, meeting droves of silly men in pith helmets with little white lambrequins looped up, when it would be so much more appropriate to wear the kind of hats they have at home. And some of the women are weird! They have the queerest ideas of what is suitable for Egypt. One friend of Bedr's refused to go about and be seen with the ladies who'd engaged him, as he was the smartest dragoman in Cairo and had his reputation to keep up. Don't you like that? Even Antoun laughed—which he hardly ever does. He's so dignified I wish his turban would blow off or something. I wonder how he'd look without it, and if most of the charm would be gone? Almost, I hope so. One doesn't like to catch one's self feeling toward an Egyptian, even for a minute, as one does toward men of one's own blood —I mean, on the same level, or even as if a person like that were above one. It's just the picturesque dignity of the costume, and the pose, perhaps. And then, this strange glamour of the East is over everybody and everything, here. I used to wonder why people wrote and spoke of the East as mysterious. Why should it be more mysterious than the West? I would ask. Nobody could explain exactly. They said only, "It is." Now I know why—at least I feel why. Without his green turban, or in European coat instead of his graceful silk robe, and away from these luminous sunsets of pale rose and gold and emerald, Antoun would be nothing extraordinary, would he? He says he is considered old fashioned in his way of dress. Most of his friends wear European clothes, and the tarboosh which Egyptians love because it never blows away or falls off when they pray. He does make me angry, because he wants to banish the beggars and poor men who sell things in the street, instead of letting me give and buy. What am I for, with all my money, except to do things for people? And it's such fun making them happy by saying "I want a cat-necklace—" or a scarab, or whatever they have, instead of pushing past with a stony glare as if they were dust under our feet. Of course we're attended by great crowds whereever we go, because it's got round that we don't refuse any one, consequently it takes a little long to arrive anywhere. But what does that matter in Egypt? Already I'm losing my American hustle. I want to eat lotuses, which seem out of season in Egypt now! I've asked for them everywhere but can't get them. I want to feel back in the Middle Ages, in Cairo, which, as Antoun says, is an Oriental and Medieval Gateway to the Egypt older than history. And how I am looking forward to the Desert! Sir Marcus tells us that you are to take the people of the Candace for a desert trip before they go up the Nile; so of course you must count us among your "trippers," and Mr. Willis and Mr. Sheridan, who have settled to go on the Isis. You didn't mention the desert plan before you went away!
No news of that poor, beautiful child, Wretched Bey's wife though I've written twice. I'm worried about her. Mabel she used to be. Now she's Mabella Hânem! Biddy says you'll arrive for the ball to-morrow night. But somehow I don't feel you will. I don't know why you should. Men don't care for such things much. And of course I shall not dance, as I'm still in half mourning. I shall only look on, and then—Rachel and I have an amusing plan for the end of the evening. But even if you came, we couldn't let you into the secret, as you would think it silly.
Yours sincerely,
ROSAMOND GILDER.
Mine "sincerely, Rosamond Gilder!" So she ended her letter, with youthful and characteristic dignity, childishly unaware, apparently, that there was more to read between the lines than in the lines themselves.
Had I read this Rosamond letter first, the last four or five sentences would have meant little for me. As it was, I would have given a month out of my future for the gift of an astral body which could go this minute to the ball at the Ghezireh Palace. I was lost in the mystery of that "amusing plan."
In Anthony's letter lay my last hope of a clue. But in it there was none. He did not even mention Monny's name. It was all about that "desert trip" which, from her, I hadn't taken seriously. Sir Marcus was actually planning it. Kruger had written that some of the passengers were clamouring for a few days' camping, and the idea was to send them off in my care, after three days in Cairo, while the others remained in charge of Antoun, who wasn't yet ready to leave. Fenton said:
Somebody's trying to defeat my scheme for getting the sheikh's tomb moved. I don't know who it is yet. Meanwhile my time and my head are so full, that in the few hours of the night I put aside for sleep, I dream queerer dreams than the visits of ghostly sheikhs. Apropos of dreams, do you know by chance a man who answers this description: elderly, stoutish, red face, gray hair, black moustache, pale eyes with sharp look in them. Sounds commonplace, doesn't it?
But I have a recurring dream of such a man, whose face I never saw elsewhere. For the last three nights, as soon as I shut my eyes, he comes. He seems to interrupt some scene between you and Lark, and myself, and I see him looking over Lark's shoulder. Then he turns quickly away, and tiptoes off to a very low, closed door in a deep recess. There he disappears into shadow—and I wake up with a jump, or slide off into another dream—but generally this rouses me, for there's an impression of something stealthy in the shadow round the door. That so ordinary a type of person should be in a dream. You'll laugh at my asking if you've ever known such a man, and say that I'm back at my old tricks again, as a dreamer of dreams. Never mind, I scored, dreaming of our Mountain of the Golden Pyramid the night before I got your letter with Ferlini's papers. I can't help feeling that there may be something in dreams—in mine, anyhow, though I never have any except in Egypt. This one about the red-faced man and the closed door in the deep recess is getting a bit on my nerves.
Excited as I was over the patchwork of news, I laughed scornfully at Anthony's dream. For the man he described might be Colonel Corkran.
CHAPTER X
THE SECRET MONNY KEPT
Cairo at last! My watch said that the journey took only three hours; but my nerves said six.
I had telegraphed Biddy first thing in the morning the hour of my arrival with the "Candace crowd," and I half expected to see her at the big white and red station, but there was no familiar form in the throng, the gay throng which excited my charges. Everything interested them; the black face of the Sudanese engine driver who looked down from his huge British locomotive, the display of English, French and German literature mingled with Greek, Italian, Arab, or Turkish papers on the bookstall; the ebony and copper-coloured luggage carriers who seemed eager to take one another's lives, but in reality desired no more than to snatch each other's jobs, under the eyes of the uniformed hotel-porters. To me, the busy place was a desert, lacking one face.
Even outside the station-yard, and in the streets and squares where silent camels looked their contempt of electric trams, soldiers in khaki uniforms jostled Bedouins in khaki robes, and drivers of arabeahs made the way one long procession of shrieks, I still glanced at passing carriages in hopes of a belated Biddy. All in vain! And destitute of news I resigned myself to the task of piloting the Set out to Mena House. The moon would be full that night—and it's "the thing" to be a neighbour of the Sphinx while the moon feeds her with honey.
The Flock, under the guidance of Mr. Watts, had now definitely parted from the Set, chieftained by me. They went meekly off to the cheaper hotels, where they would live before boarding the Candace again for Palestine, and Colonel Corkran, who was supposed to have joined that party, had announced that he was "bound for a long talk with Mark the Lark." Mr. Watts, refused by Enid Biddell and separated from her, had relapsed into melancholia. He had ceased to brilliantine his once sleek hair, and dust and crumbs were allowed to collect in each fold of his clerical waistcoat. As we of the Set buzzed richly away in taxicabs, I saw him in a shabby arabeah between two old ladies, gazing wistfully after us. He was envying me Enid!
It is a wonderful drive through Cairo to the Pyramids, whether you spin out there in a motor, or trot on a donkey, or lilt on a camel, squatting cross-legged on a load of green bersím. Past the great swinging bridge, and the Island of Ghezireh (the word that in itself means "island") begins the six-mile dyke, which is the road made by Ismaïl to please the Empress Eugénie. Since her visit, in the days when the Suez Canal was opened, it has pleased two empresses, and more queens than I have time to count. Under the deep shade of lebbek trees it goes on and on, toward the Pyramids, a dark cool avenue, high above cultivated fields flooded by the Nile when the river is "up." The emerald waves of grain flow like green water to the foot of the broad dyke-road, and canals like long, tight-drawn blue ribbons are threaded through it, their ends lost to sight at the shimmering horizon.
Even at this noon hour when the world should have been eating lotuses or luncheon, the interminable arbour was crowded with strings of camels, forever going both ways, into Cairo and out, one wondered why —and there were flocks of woolly brown sheep, and donkeys drawing sideless carts in which whole families of veiled women and half-naked children were seated tailor fashion. On we spun, past the Zoo, past scattered villas of Frenchified, Oriental fashion which might have been designed by a confectioner: past azure lakes left by the ebbing Nile, and so into sudden dazzling sight of three geometric mountains in a tawny desert—two, monsters in size, and one a baby trying to catch up with them.
"Oh!" everybody breathed. For these things were beyond words.
Then in a moment more the Great Pyramid had grown so big that it loomed over us, and ate up half the sky—a pyre of yellow flame against a flame of blue.
We were at the end of the shadowy road that leads like a causeway to the desert, and on the verge of the golden, billowing sea which flows round the Pyramids and engulfs the distant Sphinx. Oriental life encircled us, in the foreground of the picture—a long row of waiting camels gaily saddled and tasselled, delicately nibbling bersím green as heaped emeralds—donkeys white and gray, beribboned and beaded—small yellow sandcarts; little white, desert horses and tall brown, desert men; camels snarling, donkeys braying, horses whinnying, and men touting. "Very nice sandcarts—very nice camels! Take ladies and gentlemen quick to Pyramids and Sphinx or Petrified Forest!" Farther on, the big, modern hotel, rather like an overgrown Swiss chalet built by Arabs—a vast, confused building the colour of sand or brown heather honey, with carved mushrbiyeh work lending an Eastern charm to windows, balconies, and loggias, and enough green, flowery garden to give a sensational effect of contrast with the tidal wave of desert poised ready, it would seem, to overwhelm palms and roses. Clustered near, the tiny mushroom village which huddles under the shelter of Cheops' Pyramid. Beyond, the immense upward sweep of golden dunes, culminating in the Great Pyramid itself.
I stayed in the picture only long enough to settle my big children into their quarters, and to see most of them making for the dining-room, agreeably Oriental with its white and red walls, its dome and windows of mushrbiyeh work. Then I darted back to Cairo, in a taxi driven by a Nubian youth, so black that he was almost blue, like a whortleberry. He wore a scarlet tarboosh, a livery of violet, and the holes for silver rings in the tops of his ears were so large that the light shining through gave the effect of inserted diamonds. Unconsciously he made a nice contrast with his modern motor.
He drove with such reckless speed that camels "rubber-necked" to look at us—and whirled me past the fat black gate-keeper into the Ghezireh Palace garden of scarlet paths, moonlike lamps, Khedivial statues, and spreading banyans where each tree continued itself in its own "next number," like an endless serial romance.
I nearly asked for Mrs. O'Brien, but turned her into Jones at the danger point. The face of the concierge, as he said that she was at home, conveyed nothing, yet I could not resist adding, "Are the ladies well?"
"Mrs. East is not very well to-day," he replied. "We have had the doctor; but the young ladies have been out spending the night with friends, I believe. They have not yet returned."
It was a long five minutes before Biddy and I were wildly shaking hands in a huge private sitting-room all red-and-gold brocade and crystal chandeliers, as it had been in the days of Ismaïl. I knew I should be delighted to see her, but I didn't realize that it was going to be quite as good as it was.
"Anyhow, you're all right and safe," I heard myself blurt out.
"I'm safe, but not all right!" she reproached me. "My messenger who went to the train didn't find you from my description, I know, because he came back with my note——"
"Too flattering, was your description, or the other way?" I asked, trying to buoy her up with frivolity.
"You wouldn't joke if you'd read the note. Oh, Ernest, Monny and Rachel have disappeared!"
"Good gracious! But Anthony——"
"He went to look for them, of course; and he's disappeared, too."
"By Jove!" The exclamation sounded inadequate, but I was so taken aback that I had nothing else to say. It seemed impossible that Anthony, instead of averting danger, could be involved in it himself. It was unlike his resourcefulness. I could not believe it of him, and so, when I had time to control mind and tongue, I said as much to Biddy.
"Yes, I felt like that, too, at first," she admitted. "He gives one the impression of being so infallible in any emergency, somehow, as if he'd be above it, and look down on it from his height. But it's more than twelve hours since he went, and he promised to send me word how things were going on if he couldn't get to me himself. No word has come."
"What have you done?" I asked. "Have you communicated with the police?"
"Sir Marcus Lark has. He was at the ball, and has been very good. But it's for Mrs. East's sake, mostly. One feels he's glad it happened, to give him the chance to win her gratitude—or something. He's been back and forth all day; and I'm expecting him any minute. Mrs. East has been fainting and hysterical, and everything early Edwardian, so I sent for a doctor. But she's better on the strength of sal volatile and eggnog, and she's promised to see Sir Marcus."
"Now tell me what happened, from the beginning," I said, when I had made Biddy sit down by me on the sofa, and was trying to warm a cold little hand in mine.
What it all amounted to, told disjointedly, was this: Since Monny had had an inspiration the day after our arrival in Cairo, to give Rachel Guest a lot of her new unworn clothes, Rachel had become quite girlish and "flighty." She had lost her puritan primness, and behaved more in accordance with her slanting eyes than with her bringing up. She giggled like a schoolgirl rather than a schoolmistress, tried to make herself look young, and copied Monny in the way she tilted her hat and dressed her hair. No harm in this; but it had seemed to Biddy that Rachel deliberately incited the girl to do things which "Antoun" disapproved. Brigit fancied that Bedr's influence had been at work, for knowing as he did that "Antoun" would gladly have given him marching orders, he took pleasure in thwarting his superior when he could do so with safety. Bedr had been clever in enlisting the girls' sympathy for his soul. As for Biddy, she had disliked him from the first, and imagined that he had tacked himself onto our party as a spy, upon the receipt of orders from America, he having learned most of his English there. The idea appeared so far-fetched that she had abandoned it. Now, however, it was again hovering at the back of her mind.
Bedr had told Rachel stories of the fascination of hasheesh smoking, and had said that no stranger knew Cairo who did not visit one of the "best houses" where hasheesh, though forbidden, was still secretly smoked. He had assured her that there were several which were "perfectly respectable," even for the "nicest ladies and gentlemen;" and Rachel, probably at his suggestion, had tried to persuade Monny to make the expedition. Monny had mentioned it to "Antoun," in the presence of everybody; and as Rachel and Bedr had looked guilty, Biddy guessed that they had wished to keep the plan a secret.
"Antoun" had perhaps too brusquely vetoed the idea. He said that there were no such houses, which could be visited by ladies, and that it was absurd to think of going. That word "absurd" stung Monny. She began to protest that Bedr knew Cairo as well as Antoun did, and was as likely to be right. "I don't see why we shouldn't go, if others do," she persisted, "and I've always longed to know what a hasheesh dream was like, ever since I read De Quincey. A little, just once, could do us no harm, and Rachel says——"
But what Rachel had said was evidently not for publication. Miss Guest stopped her with a hand on hers, and a "Dear Monny, please don't let us think of it any more, if Antoun Effendi disapproves. Maybe it was a silly idea, and we've plenty of amusing things to do every minute."
Monny was apparently contented to let the idea slip, and Brigit had thought that, in the excitement of getting ready for the ball, she and Rachel had really forgotten it. Then, before writing me, she had overheard Rachel say to her friend, "It's for twelve o'clock sharp." And Monny had answered, "Won't it be great! Does Bedr think——" But she had stopped short at sight of Brigit.
Even this did not suggest to Biddy a visit to a "hasheesh den," for various other plans had been broached and discouraged by "Antoun." She did not feel that, as she was not supposed to know his real status, she could go "blabbing" to him; and fearing that mischief was on foot, she had wished for me. When I didn't arrive, she soothed herself by reflecting that, after all, she need only keep a sharp watch over Monny when midnight drew near. None of the party intended to dance, and so it would be easy, Brigit thought, to "have an eye upon the girls."
Monny had bought Oriental costumes for herself and Rachel. They were rather conspicuous, luckily for Biddy's plan, for among the many gorgeous dresses in the Casino she had no difficulty in tracking those two. Until half past eleven, she told herself, she need not be on the alert every instant; but therein had lain her mistake. Sir Marcus Lark had appeared, dressed (more or less) as a Roman officer of the Occupation days, he having heard Mrs. East remark that, "whatever anybody said, it was her favourite period." The lady, of course, had not missed such an opportunity to appear as Cleopatra. She had brought a costume with her from New York; and while Biddy "lost herself" in watching the effect of this magnificence on Sir Marcus, the girls vanished.
Without alarming Mrs. East, Brigit had begun to search. She asked everybody she knew in the ballroom if the girls had gone out, and inquired in the cloakroom; but the two had been seen by nobody. It was as if they had melted into air; and Brigit began to suspect that they must have covered up their brilliant dresses with dominoes smuggled into the Casino. Willis Bailey was at the ball, but he had developed a flirtation with Miss Guest, and Biddy felt that he was not to be trusted as a confidant. Perhaps, too, he had helped the girls to disappear. It seemed cruel to frighten Mrs. East, when the scheme, whatever it was, might be no more than an innocent freak; so Biddy said nothing to Queen Cleopatra or her Roman attendant. She slipped across the garden to the hotel, and sent an Arab messenger off in a taxi with a note to the address "Antoun" had told her would find him. In less than an hour he arrived, and when he had listened to her account of what had happened, he said after a minute's reflection that the ladies had almost surely gone with Bedr to some hasheesh den, or a place masquerading as such. "Antoun" consoled Biddy as well as he could, by saying that no harm would come to Miss Gilder or Miss Guest. Bedr would know too well on which side his bread was buttered to take his clients where insult or danger could reach them. Off "Antoun" went to look for the missing ones though, and assured Biddy that she should have news as soon as possible.
It was not till three o'clock that she had begun to be very anxious, and had disturbed the harmony of Sir Marcus Lark's duet with Mrs. East. Even then she would not have spoken had she not feared that the ball would break up, and there would be no man to appeal to!
Sir Marcus had been inclined to smile at the notion of danger; but he, like Anthony Fenton, was ignorant of any private qualms which troubled Brigit O'Brien. She could not tell him who she was, and that she considered herself far from being a "mascot" to her fellow-travellers. If she had told, and added that she feared enemies who might for certain reasons make a mistake in Monny's identity, he would have laughed his hearty laugh, and said that such melodramatic things didn't happen, even in Egypt.
"But you know," Biddy appealed to me, "that melodramatic things have happened to me and those near me. I'm not even sure that poor Richard's death was natural, though I watched over him like a hawk in those dreadful days when he was fearing every shadow, and we were flitting from pillar to post, with Esmé. Through Richard two men were electrocuted. He used to get threatening letters forwarded from place to place, always signed with the same initials, and he wouldn't tell me what they meant. It was because of them that he hid Esmé in a convent-school before he died; for she was threatened as well as he. I, too, for the matter of that! Not that the child or I had done the organization any harm; but Esmé is of his blood, and they may have thought I had more of their secrets than I really have. I've not used the name of O'Brien for years now, and I've moved about so much that sometimes I have felt I must be safe. Still, I ought perhaps not to have gone to visit Esmé, though she wrote and begged me to, for special reasons I needn't bother you with: a curious little love romance which I fear must end badly. I didn't think of danger to Monny; but you see, as I've told you, the convent isn't far from Monaco. I got off the Laconia there, to visit Esmé, and when I came on board again, Monny and Mrs. East and Rachel came with me. They'd been in Italy and France, and had picked up Miss Guest, who was only too enchanted to batten on Monny's kindness and dollars. It was I who had engaged their staterooms, on a cable from Monny, long before. And if there were a spy anywhere, he might have the idea that I wanted to smuggle Esmé out of her convent by a trick, and—"
"But almost every one must know Miss Gilder's face from her photographs in newspapers," I broke in, on a stifled sob of Biddy's. "She couldn't be mistaken for another girl, as an unimportant young person might."
"I'm not sure. Those photographs were snapshots, and very bad, as you must know if you've ever seen any. Monny never gave a portrait of herself to a newspaper, and it's years since they got hold of a good one. Besides, if she weren't mistaken for Esmé O'Brien, that wretched Bedr might have made up a plot to have her kidnapped for ransom. It was the thing Monny's father was always afraid of—absurdly afraid of, I used to think."
"I think so still," I said. "Such things don't happen—anywhere, to a grown-up girl."
"What about Raisuli in Tangier?" Biddy challenged me. "He used to kidnap people whenever he liked. And so do lots of brigands."
"We haven't to do with brigands."
"Oh, what's in a name? And I wouldn't put anything past that horrid Bedr."
"As Anthony said to you, he knows which side his bread's buttered."
"But if he hopes some one will give him more butter for being wicked than he can get from us for being good?"
"Let's not think of far-fetched contingencies, dear," said I. "Now you've told me all, I will try to do something—"
"May I come in?" boomed a big voice at the door. "I knocked and nobody answered, so I thought the room would be empty—"
Biddy dropped my hand like a hot potato. She had jumped up so quickly from our sofa that Sir Marcus Lark's observant eyes could hardly have seen us sitting there together.
"Of course, come in," she said. "Have you anything to tell? But I'll call Mrs. East. She won't like you to begin without her."
Biddy darted off to an adjoining room, leaving me alone with my employer.
"What do you think of this affair?" I wanted to know. "Well," said he, "I can only judge other men by myself. If I had such a chance to appear a hero in the eyes of a pretty woman as Fenton has, I'm afraid I'd be tempted to take advantage of it, even if I had to play some trick to make myself indispensable. Now you see in a nutshell what I think. Captain Fenton will certainly rescue those young ladies from a trap if he has to make the trap himself."
I was disgusted, and shrugged my shoulders. "You have a poor opinion of Fenton," I said.
"On the contrary, I think very highly of his intelligence. I'm not worrying about any one of the three, though don't mention it to Mrs. East or Mrs. Jones that I said so. I've come to tell them that my men have searched Cairo and found nothing. Not the police, you know; I haven't applied to the police after all. I thought Fenton would be furious. And anyhow it might make talk. But I've paid the best dragomans in town to look sharp; and they know as much about this old place as the police do, if not more. By the way, Lord Ernest, did Corkran say anything to you about an intention to throw over his job on the Candace?"
"No. He said he was going to call on you, that's all."
"He did call. I was out—on this business, as it happens. He waited, and I found him, making himself at home in my sitting-room—which I use as a kind of office. I wish I knew how many of my letters and papers he'd had time to read."
"Surely he wouldn't—"
"I shouldn't say 'surely' was the word. I'd gone out in a hurry and left things scattered about—which isn't my habit. When I came back, it struck me that my desk looked a bit tempting for a man with a retired conscience. I was going to keep him on the Candace, rather than fuss, because it wasn't so much his fault as mine that he was the wrong man in the place. He couldn't do any harm in Jerusalem, it seemed. Let him wail in the Jews' Wailing Place, if he'd any complaints, said I to myself. I thought he was too keen on money to resign because his silly pride was hurt. But to my surprise, he informed me that he'd come to 'hand in his papers,' as he called it. So much the worse for his pocket and the better for mine! Only it struck me as d—d queer, considering Corkran's character. I wanted to ask if he'd spit out any venom to you."
"Not a drop," said I. But I, too, thought it queer, considering Corkran's character, and the fact that having resigned of his own free will, he could hardly expect Lark to pay his way home. It even occurred to me to wonder if the resignation were not a sudden thought of the Colonel's. He had spoken several times of going on to Palestine, and had mentioned the trip that morning. Had Sir Marcus said something inadvertently, which had so piqued Corkran that he threw over his appointment on the impulse? Or had he perhaps been dishonourable enough to glance at a letter, in which Lark referred to him in terms uncomplimentary?
As I asked myself these questions, Mrs. East came in with Brigit, and Sir Marcus forgot me. His face said "What a woman!" And anxiety was becoming to Cleopatra. It gave to her that thrilling look which only beautiful Jewesses or women of Latin race ever wear: a look of all the tragedy and mystery of womanhood since Eve. "What news of them?" she asked Sir Marcus, when she had given a ringed hand and an almond-eyed glance to me.
"No news exactly," said the big man, "but I feel sure your niece and her friend are safe—"
"My niece and her friend!" exclaimed Cleopatra, ungratefully frowning. "Why do you say nothing of 'Antoun?' Does nobody care what becomes of him?"
As she spoke, there was a knock at the door. One of the Arab servants of the hotel announced that a man had a letter for Mrs. Jones.
"Mrs. Jones?" cried Biddy. "I am Mrs. Jones. Where's the letter?"
"That man not give it to us. He say he see you or not give it at all."
"Well, why didn't you send him up?"
"Arab mans not let in hotel, if peoples don't ask for them."
"An Arab! Not—not—is he a stranger?"
"Yes, Missis. Very low man. Never comed before."
"Bring him here—quick!"
Five minutes passed. We tried to talk, but could think of nothing to say. Then the servant returned, ushering in a dwarfish Arab in a dirty white turban, and the shabby black galabeah worn only by the poor who cannot afford good materials and the bright colours loved by Egyptians.
"From Antoun Effendi?" asked Biddy, in excitement, as he held out a piece of folded paper, not in an envelope.
The man shook his head. "He spik no English," explained the servant who waited.
"You talk to him," Biddy appealed to me, while Cleopatra told the hotel footman that he might go. But I had no time to question the messenger. Biddy cried out as she unfolded the paper. "Why, Duffer, inside it's addressed to you! It says:
"'For Lord Ernest Borrow. To be opened by Mrs. Jones in his absence.'"
Within the outer wrapping was a second folded paper, of the same kind. They looked like sheets torn from a notebook. And I saw that the address, scrawled in pencil, was in Anthony's handwriting.