“I did not realize it was out of date. It has been months since I used it. The whole thing was arranged within a few hours. I scarcely had time to pack a bag. People are using out-of-date passports all the time. Ask anyone at any international airline. They will tell you. That is why they always check passengers’ passports when they weigh their baggage. They do not want difficulties at the other end. I had nobody to check. The Greek control scarcely looked at the passport. I was leaving the country. They were not interested.”
I knew I was on safe ground here, and I spoke with feeling.
He thought for a moment, then nodded. “It is possible, and, of course, you had good reason not to think too much about the date on your passport. The Egyptians were not going to renew it anyway. That explanation is acceptable, I think. We will go on.” He referred again to the file. “You told the Commandant that you suspected this man Harper of being a narcotics smuggler.”
“I did.”
“To the extent of searching the car after you left Athens.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you still agreed to make the journey.”
“I was being paid one hundred dollars.”
“That was the only reason?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “It really will not do.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
He took a clip of papers from the file. “Your history does not inspire confidence.”
“Give a dog a bad name.”
“You seem to have earned one. Our dossier on you begins in fifty-seven. You were arrested on various charges and fined on a minor count. The rest were abandoned by the police for lack of evidence.”
“They should never have been brought in the first place.”
He ignored this. “We did, however, ask Interpol if they knew anything about you. It seemed they knew a lot. Apparently you were once in the restaurant business.”
“My mother owned a restaurant in Cairo. Is that an offense?”
“Fraud is an offense. Your mother was part owner of a restaurant. When she died, you sold it to a buyer who believed that you now owned all of it. In fact, there were two other shareholders. The buyer charged you with fraud, but withdrew his complaint when the police allowed you to regularize the transaction.”
“I didn’t know of the existence of these other shareholders. My mother had never told me that she had sold the shares.” This was perfectly true. Mum was entirely responsible for the trouble I got into over that.
“In 1931 you bought a partnership in a small publishing business in Cairo. Outwardly it concerned itself with distributing foreign magazines and periodicals. Its real business was the production of pornography for the Spanish- and English-speaking markets. And that became your real business.”
“That is absolutely untrue.”
“The information was supplied through Interpol in fifty-four by Scotland Yard. It was given in response to an inquiry by the New York police. Scotland Yard must have known about you for a long time.”
I knew it would do no good for me to become angry. “I have edited and sometimes written for a number of magazines of a literary nature over the years,” I said quietly. “Sometimes they may have been a little daring in their approach and have been banned by various censoring authorities. But I would remind you that books like Ulysses and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which were once described by those same authorities as pornographic or obscene, are now accepted as literary works of art and published quite openly.”
He looked at his papers again. “In January fifty-five you were arrested in London. In your possession were samples of the various obscene and pornographic periodicals which you had been attempting to sell in bulk. Among them was a book called Gents Only and a monthly magazine called Enchantment. All were produced by your Egyptian company. You were charged under the British law governing such publications, and also with smuggling them. At your trial you said nothing about their being literary works of art. You pleaded guilty and were sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment.”
“That was a travesty of justice.”
“Then why did you plead guilty?”
“Because my lawyer advised me to.” In fact, the C.I.D. Inspector had tricked me into it. He had as good as promised me that if I pleaded guilty I would get off with a fine.
He stared at me thoughtfully for a moment, then shut the file. “You must be a very stupid man, Simpson. You say to me: ‘I am telling you the truth,’ and yet when I try to test that statement all I hear from you is whining and protestation. I am not interested in how you explain away the past, or in any illusions about yourself that you may wish to preserve. If you cannot even tell the truth when there is nothing to be gained by lying, then I can believe nothing you tell me. You were caught by the British smuggling pornography and trying to peddle it. Why not admit it? Then, when you tell me that you did not know that you were smuggling arms and ammunition this afternoon, I might at least think: ‘This man is a petty criminal, but it is remotely possible that for once he is being truthful.’ As it is, I can only assume that you are lying and that I must get the truth from you in some other way.”
I admit that “some other way” gave me a jolt. After all, five minutes earlier he had been pouring me a glass of raki. He meant to put the fear of God into me, of course, and make me panic. Unfortunately, and only because I was tired, upset, and suffering from indigestion, he succeeded.
“I am telling you the truth, sir.” I could hear my own voice cracking and quavering but could do nothing to control it. “I swear to God I am telling you the truth. My only wish is to tell you all I can, to bring everything out of the darkness into the light of day.”
He stared at me curiously; and then, as I realized what I had said, I felt myself reddening. It was awful. I had used those absurd words Harper had made me write in that confession about the checks.
A sour smile touched his lips for an instant. “Ah yes,” he said. “I was forgetting that you have been a journalist. We will try once more then. Just remember that I do not want speeches in mitigation, only plain statements.”
“Of course.” I was too confused to think straight now.
“Why did you go to London in fifty-five? You must have known that Scotland Yard knew all about you.”
“How could I know? I hadn’t been in England for years.”
“Where were you during the war?”
“In Cairo doing war work.”
“What work?”
“I was an interpreter.”
“Why did you go to London?”
I cleared my throat and took a sip of raki.
“Answer me!”
“I was going to answer, sir.” There was nothing else for it. “The British distributor of our publications suddenly ceased making payments and we could get no replies from him to our letters. I went to England to investigate, and found his offices closed. I assumed that he had gone out of business, and began to look for another distributor. The man I eventually discussed the possibility with turned out to be a Scotland Yard detective. We used to send our shipments to Liverpool in cotton bales. It seems that the customs had discovered this and informed the police. Our distributor had been arrested and sent to prison. The police had kept it out of the papers somehow. I just walked into a trap.”
“Better, much better,” he said. He looked almost amused. “Naturally, though, you felt bitter towards the British authorities.”
I should have remembered something he had let drop earlier, but I was still confused. I tried to head him off.
“I was bitter at the time, of course, sir. I did not think I had had a fair trial. But afterwards I realized that the police had their job to do”-I thought that would appeal to him-“and that they weren’t responsible for making the laws. So I tried to be a model prisoner. I think I was. Anyway, I received the maximum remission for good behavior. I certainly couldn’t complain of the treatment I had in Maidstone. In fact, the Governor shoook hands with me when I left and wished me well.”
“And then you returned to Egypt?”
