They Came to Baghdad Read online

  “Thought you’d gone to Basrah,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench to Crosbie.

  “Got back yesterday,” said Crosbie.

  He looked up at the balcony.

  “Who’s the bandit?” he asked. “Feller in fancy dress in the big hat.”

  “That, my dear, is Sir Rupert Crofton Lee,” said Marcus. “Mr. Shrivenham brought him here from the Embassy last night. He is a very nice man, very distinguished traveller. He rides on camels over the Sahara, and climbs up mountains. It is very uncomfortable and dangerous, that kind of life. I should not like it myself.”

  “Oh he’s that chap, is he?” said Crosbie. “I’ve read his book.”

  “I came over on the plane with him,” said Victoria.

  Both men, or so it seemed to her, looked at her with interest.

  “He’s frightfully stuck up and pleased with himself,” said Victoria with disparagement.

  “Knew his aunt in Simla,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench. “The whole family is like that. Clever as they make them, but can’t help boasting of it.”

  “He’s been sitting out there doing nothing all the morning,” said Victoria with slight disapproval.

  “It is his stomach,” explained Marcus. “Today he cannot eat anything. It is sad.”

  “I can’t think,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench, “why you’re the size you are, Marcus, when you never eat anything.”

  “It is the drink,” said Marcus. He sighed deeply. “I drink far too much. Tonight my sister and her husband come. I will drink and drink almost until morning.” He sighed again, then uttered his usual sudden roar. “Jesus! Jesus! Bring the same again.”

  “Not for me,” said Victoria hastily, and Mr. Dakin refused also, finishing up his lemonade, and ambling gently away while Crosbie went up to his room.

  Mrs. Cardew Trench flicked Dakin’s glass with her fingernail. “Lemonade as usual?” she said. “Bad sign, that.”

  Victoria asked why it was a bad sign.

  “When a man only drinks when he’s alone.”

  “Yes, my dear,” said Marcus. “That is so.”

  “Does he really drink, then?” asked Victoria.

  “That’s why he’s never got on,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench. “Just manages to keep his job and that’s all.”

  “But he is a very nice man,” said the charitable Marcus.

  “Pah,” said Mrs. Cardew Trench. “He’s a wet fish. Potters and dillydallies about—no stamina—no grip on life. Just one more Englishman who’s come out East and gone to seed.”

  Thanking Marcus for the drink and again refusing a second, Victoria went up to her room, removed her shoes, and lay down on her bed to do some serious thinking. The three pounds odd to which her capital had dwindled was, she fancied, already due to Marcus for board and lodging. Owing to his generous disposition, and if she could sustain life mainly on alcoholic liquor assisted by nuts, olives and chip potatoes, she might solve the purely alimentary problem of the next few days. How long would it be before Marcus presented her with her bill, and how long would he allow it to run unpaid? She had no idea. He was not really, she thought, careless in business matters. She ought, of course, to find somewhere cheaper to live. But how would she find out where to go? She ought to find herself a job—quickly. But where did one apply for jobs? What kind of a job? Whom could she ask about looking for one? How terribly handicapping to one’s style it was to be dumped down practically penniless in a foreign city where one didn’t know the ropes. With just a little knowledge of the terrain, Victoria felt confident (as always) that she could hold her own. When would Edward get back from Basrah? Perhaps (horror) Edward would have forgotten all about her. Why on earth had she come rushing out to Baghdad in this asinine way? Who and what was Edward after all? Just another young man with an engaging grin and an attractive way of saying things. And what—what—what was his surname? If she knew that, she might wire him—no good, she didn’t even know where he was staying. She didn’t know anything—that was the trouble—that was what was cramping her style.

  And there was no one to whom she could go for advice. Not Marcus who was kind but never listened. Not Mrs. Cardew Trench (who had had suspicions from the first). Not Mrs. Hamilton Clipp who had vanished to Kirkuk. Not Dr. Rathbone.

  She must get some money—or get a job—any job. Look after children, stick stamps on in an office, serve in a restaurant…Otherwise they would send her to a Consul and she would be repatriated to En gland and never see Edward again….

  At this point, worn out with emotion, Victoria fell asleep.

  II

  She awoke some hours later and deciding that she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, went down to the restaurant and worked her way solidly through the entire menu—a generous one. When she had finished, she felt slightly like a boa constrictor, but definitely heartened.

  “It’s no good worrying anymore,” thought Victoria. “I’ll leave it all till tomorrow. Something may turn up, or I may think of something, or Edward may come back.”

  Before going to bed she strolled out onto the terrace by the river. Since in the feelings of those living in Baghdad it was arctic winter nobody else was out there except one of the waiters, who was leaning over a railing staring down into the water, and he sprang away guiltily when Victoria appeared and hurried back into the hotel by the service door.

  Victoria, to whom, coming from England, it appeared to be an ordinary summer night with a slight nip in the air, was enchanted by the Tigris seen in the moonlight with the farther bank looking mysterious and Eastern with its fringes of palms.

  “Well, anyway, I’ve got here,” said Victoria, cheering up a good deal, “and I’ll manage somehow. Something is bound to turn up.”

  With this Micawber-like pronouncement, she went up to bed, and the waiter slipped quietly out again and resumed his task of attaching a knotted rope so that it hung down to the river’s edge.

  Presently another figure came out of the shadows and joined him. Mr. Dakin said in a low voice:

  “All in order?”

  “Yes, sir, nothing suspicious to report.”

  Having completed the task to his satisfaction, Mr. Dakin retreated into the shadows, exchanged his waiters’ white coat for his own nondescript blue pinstripe and ambled gently along the terrace until he stood outlined against the water’s edge just where the steps led up from the street below.

  “Getting pretty chilly in the evenings now,” said Crosbie, strolling out from the bar and down to join him. “Suppose you don’t feel it so much, coming from Tehran.”

  They stood there for a moment or two smoking. Unless they raised their voices, nobody could overhear them. Crosbie said quietly:

  “Who’s the girl?”

  “Niece apparently of the archaeologist, Pauncefoot Jones.”

  “Oh well—that should be all right. But coming on the same plane as Crofton Lee—”

  “It’s certainly as well,” said Dakin, “to take nothing for granted.”

  The men smoked in silence for a few moments.

  Crosbie said: “You really think it’s advisable to shift the thing from the Embassy to here?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “In spite of the whole thing being taped down to the smallest detail.”

  “It was taped down to the smallest detail in Basrah—and that went wrong.”

  “Oh, I know. Salah Hassan was poisoned, by the way.”

  “Yes—he would be. Were there any signs of an approach to the Consulate?”

  “I suspect there may have been. Bit of a shindy there, Chap drew a revolver.” He paused and added, “Richard Baker grabbed him and disarmed him.”

  “Richard Baker,” said Dakin thoughtfully.

  “Know him? He’s—”

  “Yes, I know him.”

  There was a pause and then Dakin said:

  “Improvisation. That’s what I’m banking on. If we have, as you say, got everything taped—and our plans are known, then it’s easy for the ot
her side to have got us taped, too. I very much doubt if Carmichael would even so much as get near the Embassy—and even if he reached it—” He shook his head.

  “Here, only you and I and Crofton Lee are wise to what’s going on.”

  “They’ll know Crofton Lee moved here from the Embassy.”

  “Oh of course. That was inevitable. But don’t you see, Crosbie, that whatever show they put up against our improvisation has got to be improvised, too. It’s got to be hastily thought of and hastily arranged. It’s got to come, so to speak, from the outside. There’s no question here of someone established in the Tio six months ago waiting. The Tio’s never been in the picture until now. There’s never been any idea or suggestion of using the Tio as the rendezvous.”

  He looked at his watch. “I’ll go up now and see Crofton Lee.”

  Dakin’s raised hand had no need to tap on Sir Rupert’s door. It opened silently to let him in.

  The traveller had only one small reading lamp alight and had placed his chair beside it. As he sat down again, he gently slipped a small automatic pistol onto the table within reach of his hand.

  He said: “What about it, Dakin? Do you think he’ll come?”

  “I think so, yes, Sir Rupert.” Then he said, “You’ve never met him have you?”

  The other shook his head.

  “No. I’m looking forward to meeting him tonight. That young man, Dakin, must have got guts.”

  “Oh yes,” said Mr. Dakin in his flat voice. “He’s got guts.”

  He sounded a little surprised at the fact needing to be stated.

  “I don’t mean only courage,” said the other. “Lots of courage in the war—magnificent. I mean—”

  “Imagination?” suggested Dakin.

  “Yes. To have the guts to believe something that isn’t in the least degree probable. To risk your life finding out that a ridiculous story isn’t ridiculous at all. That takes something that the modern young man usually hasn’t got. I hope he’ll come.”

  “I think he’ll come,” said Mr. Dakin.

  Sir Rupert glanced at him sharply.

  “You’ve got it all sewn up?”

  “Crosbie’s on the balcony, and I shall be watching the stairs. When Carmichael reaches you, tap on the wall and I’ll come in.”

  Crofton Lee nodded.

  Dakin went softly out of the room. He went to the left and onto the balcony and walked to the extreme corner. Here, too, a knotted rope dropped over the edge and came to earth in the shade of a eucalyptus tree and some judas bushes.

  Mr. Dakin went back past Crofton Lee’s door and into his own room beyond. His room had a second door in it leading onto the passage behind the rooms and it opened within a few feet of the head of the stairs. With this door unobtrusively ajar, Mr. Dakin settled down to his vigil.

  It was about four hours later that a gufa, that primitive craft of the Tigris, dropped gently downstream and came to shore on the mudflat beneath the Tio Hotel. A few moments later a slim figure swarmed up the rope and crouched amongst the judas trees.

  Thirteen

  It had been Victoria’s intention to go to bed and to sleep and to leave all problems until the morning, but having already slept most of the afternoon, she found herself devastatingly wide awake.

  In the end she switched on the light, finished a magazine story she had been reading in the plane, darned her stockings, tried on her new nylons, wrote out several different advertisements requiring employment (she could ask tomorrow where these should be inserted), wrote three or four tentative letters to Mrs. Hamilton Clipp, each setting out a different and more ingenious set of unforeseen circumstances which had resulted in her being “stranded” in Baghdad, sketched out one or two telegrams appealing for help to her sole surviving relative, a very old, crusty, and unpleasant gentleman in the North of England who had never helped anybody in his life; tried out a new style of hairdo, and finally with a sudden yawn decided that at last she really was desperately sleepy and ready for bed and repose.

  It was at this moment that without any warning her bedroom door swung open, a man slipped in, turned the key in the lock behind him and said to her urgently:

  “For God’s sake hide me somewhere—quickly….”

  Victoria’s reactions were never slow. In a twinkling of an eye she had noted the laboured breathing, the fading voice, the way the man held an old red knitted scarf bunched on his breast with a desperate clutching hand. And she rose immediately in response to the adventure.

  The room did not lend itself to many hiding places. There was the wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a table and the rather pretentious dressing table. The bed was a large one—almost a double bed and memories of childish hide-and-seek made Victoria’s reaction prompt.

  “Quick,” she said. She swept off pillows, and raised sheet and blanket. The man lay across the top of the bed. Victoria pulled sheet and blanket over him, dumped the pillows on top and sat down herself on the side of the bed.

  Almost immediately there came a low insistent knocking on the door.

  Victoria called out, “Who is it?” in a faint, alarmed voice.

  “Please,” said a man’s voice outside. “Open, please. It is the police.”

  Victoria crossed the room, pulling her dressing gown round her. As she did so, she noticed the man’s red knitted scarf was lying on the floor and she caught it up and swept it into a drawer, then she turned the key and opened the door of her room a small way, peering out with an expression of alarm.

  A dark-haired young man in a mauve pinstripe suit was standing outside and behind him was a man in police officer’s uniform.

  “What’s the matter?” Victoria asked, letting a quaver creep into her voice.

  The young man smiled brilliantly and spoke in very passable English.

  “I am so sorry, miss, to disturb you at this hour,” he said, “but we have a criminal escaped. He has run into this hotel. We must look in every room. He is a very dangerous man.”

  “Oh dear!” Victoria fell back, opening the door wide. “Do come in, please, and look. How very frightening. Look in the bathroom, please. Oh! and the wardrobe—and, I wonder, would you mind looking under the bed? He might have been there all evening.”

  The search was very rapid.

  “No, he is not here.”

  “You’re sure he’s not under the bed? No, how silly of me. He couldn’t be in here at all. I locked the door when I went to bed.”

  “Thank you, miss, and good evening.”

  The young man bowed and withdrew with his uniformed assistant.

  Victoria, following him to the door, said:

  “I’d better lock it again, hadn’t I? To be safe.”

  “Yes, that will be best, certainly. Thank you.”

  Victoria relocked the door and stood by it for some few minutes. She heard the police officers knock in the same way on the door the other side of the passage, heard the door open, an exchange of remarks and the indignant hoarse voice of Mrs. Cardew Trench, and then the door closing. It reopened a few minutes later, the sound of their footsteps moved down the passage. The next knock came from much farther away.

  Victoria turned and walked across the room to the bed. It was borne in upon her that she had probably been excessively foolish. Led away by the romantic spirit, and by the sound of her own language, she had impulsively lent aid to what was probably an extremely dangerous criminal. A disposition to be on the side of the hunted against the hunter sometimes brings unpleasant consequences. Oh well, thought Victoria, I’m in for it now, anyway!

  Standing beside the bed she said curtly:

  “Get up.”

  There was no movement, and Victoria said sharply, though without raising her voice:

  “They’ve gone. You can get up now.”

  But still there was no sign of movement from under the slightly raised hump of pillows. Impatiently, Victoria threw them all off.

  The young man lay just as she had left him. But now his face was a
queer greyish colour and his eyes were closed.

  Then, with a sharp catch in her breath, Victoria noticed something else—a bright red stain seeping through onto the blanket.

  “Oh, no,” said Victoria, almost as though pleading with someone. “Oh, no—no!”

  And as though in recognition of that plea the wounded man opened his eyes. He stared at her, stared as though from very far away at some object he was not quite certain of seeing.

  His lips parted—the sound was so faint that Victoria scarcely heard.

  She bent down.

  “What?”

  She heard this time. With difficulty, great difficulty, the young man said two words. Whether she heard them correctly or not Victoria did not know. They seemed to her quite nonsensical and without meaning. What he said was, “Lucifer—Basrah.…”

  The eyelids drooped and flickered over the wide anxious eyes. He said one word more—a name. Then his head jerked back a little and he lay still.

  Victoria stood quite still, her heart beating violently. She was filled now with an intense pity and anger. What to do next she had no idea. She must call someone—get someone to come. She was alone here with a dead man and sooner or later the police would want an explanation.

  Whilst her brain worked rapidly on the situation, a small sound made her turn her head. The key had fallen out of her bedroom door, and whilst she stared at it, she heard the sound of the lock turning. The door opened and Mr. Dakin came in, carefully closing the door behind him.

  He walked across to her saying quietly:

  “Nice work, my dear. You think quickly. How is he?”

  With a catch in her voice Victoria said:

  “I think he’s—he’s dead.”

  She saw the other’s face alter, caught just a flash of intense anger, then his face was just as she had seen it the day before—only now it seemed to her that the indecision and flabbiness of the man had vanished, giving place to something quite different.

  He bent down—and gently loosened the ragged tunic.

  “Very neatly stabbed through the heart,” said Dakin as he straightened up. “He was a brave lad—and a clever one.”

  Victoria found her voice.