anything other than an Arab boy. He had no clue that he was facing Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell.”
“Because his information was incomplete.” He sounded so tired.
“But why? Was it because his informant didn’t know? Or could it have been because his commander didn’t care to tell him?”
“Russell…”
“It doesn’t fit, Holmes,” I continued desperately. “Everything we know about Bey makes it unlikely that he would suddenly decide to become political. He was more than satisfied with his position in the Old Serai, torturing prisoners and… well.” I thought perhaps I ought to abandon that line of argument. “He seems to be in two places at once, killing Mikhail one night and the
“What Amir says makes a good deal of sense,” said Mahmoud. I turned and stared at him in disbelief.
“So you suggest that instead of merely cleaning up the rest of the gang,” Holmes said, “we should be looking out for the other head. Perhaps the—if I may use the word—mastermind.”
“It is a valid hypothesis, Holmes,” I said. To my relief, he smiled.
“Very well. In which case, I think we ought to move quickly. In my experience, master criminals, political or otherwise, tend not to wait about for one to catch them up.”
The one glaring unexplored strand in this tangle was the house in the Moslem Quarter that had been used by Bey and his men to bring in the larger pieces of equipment, the tools and explosives that they had not dared carry through the Souk el-Qattanin. That heavy, iron-studded door in the roof of the Cotton Grotto opened into a house, and the occupants of that house had to have some part in the plot.
Unfortunately, there was no way of matching our knowledge of the grotto with the map of the streets overhead, not with any precision. Holmes took out the thin, damp, much-abused map and spread it out delicately on the floor. With purpose, a degree of energy returned to our little band.
After some thought, we decided that the house must be on the south side of Haret es-Saadiyeh, possibly in the vicinity of a cul-de-sac alley that cut into the block of buildings. We could, of course, turn the entire search over to Allenby, leaving his soldiers and police to seal off the area and do a house-by-house search, but none of us seriously considered that option; in that we were agreed.
We did need an authority figure, however, to keep us from being arrested for loitering or house invasion by an over-zealous soldier. All three of us looked at Holmes.
“Do you still have that uniform, Holmes?” I asked.
He sighed. “I regret to say I do.”
“Then you can be responsible for keeping the police off our backs.”
“While you… ?”
It was my turn to sigh. “While I get into the grotto and knock on that door. Loudly.”
“Very, very loudly,” said Mahmoud. He and Ali (particularly Ali) looked pleased at this division of labour, and I reflected that I, too, would much prefer to be assigned the task of standing on a street corner or roof top, waiting to catch the fleeing rats that my subterranean pounding would, with any luck, dislodge.
“Why do men always get the fun jobs?” I complained, and took out my pocket-watch. “What time should I begin?” I looked at the timepiece, then held it unbelieving up to my ear. It had not stopped; it was barely 2:30. Allenby would still be at the Haram, talking.
“Forty minutes if I run,” Holmes answered.
Even considering the diminutive nature of the Old City, I thought that forty minutes would have him shedding
“Shall we say fifty?”
“Forty-five, Russell.”
“Very well.” As we all stood to go, I added pointedly, “I trust that one of you will let me know when I can stop pounding.”
“
Damnation,” I said aloud, startling two black-shrouded women balancing jugs on their heads. The gate to the grotto that Holmes and I had locked behind us now stood wide open, and I could see movement within the entrance. I touched the handle of the gun Holmes had given to me, and went forward.
It was not exactly relief I felt when I saw the archaeological Jacob occupying the cave mouth, but at least I would not have to shoot anyone to be allowed inside. Although I soon began to wonder if it would not have been simpler for all concerned if I had just drawn my weapon and ordered them out of my way. It might well have been kinder.
“Hello, Jacob,” I said, when I had reached the entrance. “Terribly sorry, but I was never introduced to you properly, and I don’t know your surname.”
That good gentleman just gaped at me, blinking furiously with the effort of reconciling an educated English voice with the visage before him, and wondering where on earth he had seen it before.
“Mary Russell,” I suggested. “We met the other evening over the dinner table. Dressed rather differently.” I tugged off my turban to allow him the clue of my blonde hair, and he stepped back violently. I could only pray that he did not suffer from a heart condition, and I laughed as if it was all a great joke. “I know, I know—it’s going to take some explaining, but there is an explanation, I promise you. Only not just now. It’s urgent that I go into the grotto and make some noise, to show some friends above the location of the access door. Do you know the door I mean? No? Then perhaps you’d like to see? And—might I borrow that ladder?”
The accent, the femininity, and the appeal to his curiosity disarmed him, to the extent that he trailed along after me, mouthing frail objections. He even offered to carry the stout cudgel I had brought along for the purpose of noisy pounding. His men, three highly entertained Christian Arabs, followed in a procession, carrying the ladder across the uneven floor of the grotto.
I looked at my pocket-watch, and up at the concealed door with the ladder propped beside it, and wished, not for the first time, that I smoked. Cigarettes do give one something to do while one waits, instead of reviewing grammar or making conversation. I decided that Jacob deserved some slightly more detailed explanation of events, if for nothing else than to reward him for not flinging me to the police, so in the seven minutes left before I could begin my rat-flushing racket, I told him a much-abridged and quite misleading tale with the essential goal intact: to bash away at that door up there until someone came to stop me. I stretched out the embroidery until it was time to begin, so as to avoid his no doubt pressing questions, and then stood up, seized the cudgel, and rammed it up over my head into the sturdy wooden door.
The boom was satisfying; the spray of dust and flakes of rusted iron that settled over me less so. I coughed, sneezed furiously, and squeezed my eyelids together, continuing to hammer away blindly. It was a strain, and about one blow in three missed the wood and bashed into solid rock, sending a jolt along my spine that rattled my teeth. After about a minute of this lunacy I felt something patting my boot, and Jacob’s voice raised above the echoing din. He was offering to take my place.
In the end we all took turns, perched on the creaking ladder, walloping away at the iron-hard door. Jacob the gentleman obviously thought me insane and was waiting for me to tire so he might lead me away and put a cool cloth on my fevered brow, but the three Arabs were having a fine time.
I was taking a turn on the ladder, and beginning to think Jacob might be right about my mental state, when between one blow and the next the door suddenly went hollow. I nearly dropped the cudgel onto the heads below, fumbling to exchange it for the gun in my belt. The door scraped open, my audience gasped, and I was looking over the sights of the revolver at: Ali. A grinning, blood-streaked Ali who had patently succeeded in conquering the house above.
“So, you wish to shoot me this time?” he asked politely, and I reflected that each time I nearly killed him, he became increasingly friendly towards me. His broad hand reached down. I let the battering ram fall onto an unoccupied patch of floor, stuck the revolver back into my belt, and reached up to take his hand and be hauled bodily through the hole. He kicked at the door, and I could only call a hasty “Thank you!” through the gap before it was down and bolted again. I agreed: this was no place for introducing Irregulars.
