remembered well.
“I ask you this—,” he began, but Holmes put up one hand, saving a proud man from having to plead.
“We will of course come with you,” he said. Then he opened an eye, and added, in Arabic, a phrase translating roughly, “One man’s hunger makes his brother weak.” At the word “brother,” our guest froze; then he nodded, once, both as thanks and as acknowledgment of our right to claim that relationship.
Even I: I had, after all, been to all appearances a boy during the weeks in Palestine. I, too, might claim brotherhood to the formidable Mahmoud.
“You have neglected to tell us what happened to you on the way to Sussex,” Holmes pointed out, settling back into the bench.
“What happened—oh, you mean this.” Ali’s hand went to the gauze on his head. “Stupidity. This country makes a man soft. I imagined I was safe, and walked straight into a situation. It would never have happened in Palestine.”
Holmes abruptly abandoned his languid pose. “You were attacked? Robbed?”
I fully understood the note of incredulity in Holmes’ voice: It was hard to imagine a man with the lightning- fast responses of Ali Hazr falling victim to a common thief.
“No. Caught up in a riot.”
“In
“A small riot. A Guy Fawkes celebration, I suppose—I had forgotten entirely about Guy Fawkes—that joined with a group of unemployed workers and got out of hand.” He saw our unwillingness to accept that truncated account, and reluctantly explained. “When I got into Paddington I had an hour before the Sussex train, so I walked to Victoria instead of taking a taxi or the underground. Just before the station I came up to a knot of men with a pile of wood, as if they were about to light a bonfire on the street. They objected to the police clearing them off; bricks were thrown, truncheons raised. I thought the disturbance was behind me, then something struck me—truncheon or cobblestone, who knows?—and knocked me into the street in the path of a lorry. I managed to roll out of its way, and half fell into the nearest doorway. A pawnshop, as it turned out, where a handful of others took refuge as well. They wanted to take me to a doctor’s surgery, but I could not risk missing the train.”
Riots in London? Ever since the War had ended, and especially in recent months, the unrest of common workers had steadily increased: Men who had spent four years in the trenches were ill equipped to put up with dole queues. I had not known that open battle had broken out.
“It was nothing,” he insisted. “Carelessness and a headache. We must go now.”
The man was in no condition to travel. Indeed, once on his feet he swayed dangerously, and would have fallen but for Holmes’ hand on his shoulder, both supporting and holding him back.
“If we left now,” Holmes told him, “we should merely find ourselves decorating an ill-heated waiting room for several hours. There is no service we can do for the Duke of Beauville that cannot be better done by going prepared.”
The room went abruptly cold as Ali Hazr drew himself up, no sign of weakness in him, his eyes dark with threat and his right hand fumbling at the sash of his borrowed gown as if to draw steel. “You will not call him by that name,” he commanded. Neither of us breathed, and I fought down the urge to retreat at this sudden appearance of Fury in dressing gown and bandage.
“I see,” Holmes replied mildly, although I doubted that he did, any more than I. However, he decided to let pass for the moment what was clearly a basket of snakes, and said only, “Perhaps you might allow Russell and me to pack our bags and take care of a few matters of urgent business. You rest here. I will enquire if Mrs Hudson can assemble you some clothing.”
We left him then, and although I half expected to hear the crash of his collapse onto the carpet, he must have succeeded in making his way to the bed. Only when we reached the main room, where Holmes dived into the heap of letters to extract those most pressing of reply, was I struck by the full scope of the undertaking: I was headed for the country house of a peer, no matter how unlikely a peer. We were full into the season of social week-end shoots, and Saturday loomed near. In something not far from horror, I turned to my husband.
“Holmes! Whatever shall I do? I haven’t a thing to wear.”
CHAPTER THREE
It was not strictly accurate, of course, that I had nothing to wear. True, most of the garments hanging in my wardrobe were not exactly the thing for a country house Saturday-to-Monday, but I could pull together a sufficient number of quality garments (if in somewhat out-of-date styles and hem lengths) to remain presentable. I doubted that Mahmoud, even as the Duke of Beauville, would gather to his bosom the frothy cream of society.
Ten years earlier, my cry might have been more serious: Before wartime shortages had changed both fashion and social mores, even a three-day country house visit would have required a dozen changes of clothing, and more if one intended to venture out for a day’s shooting or to sit a horse. With the relaxed standards of 1923, however, I thought I might be allowed to appear in the same skirt from breakfast until it was time to dress for dinner. Thus, two or three suit-cases instead of that same number of trunks.
I piled a selection of clothing on my bed and, since I knew she would repack them anyway as soon as my back was turned, left Mrs Hudson to it. I found Holmes just closing up his single case, which I knew would contain everything from evening wear to heavy boots.
“You don’t imagine dinner will be white tie, do you, Holmes?”
“If the possibility presents itself, we can have Mrs Hudson send a gown and your mother’s emeralds.”
“I cannot imagine Mahmoud in white tie. But then, I can’t imagine Mahmoud in anything but Arab skirts and
“The revelations have been thought-provoking,” he agreed, surveying the contents of his travelling-razor case and then slipping it into the bag’s outer pocket. “Although you may remember, I said at the time they were not native Arabs.”
“True, but I believe you identified their diphthongs as originating in Clapham.”
He raised his eyes from the trio of books he had taken up, and cocked one eyebrow at me. “Surely you understood that to be a jest.”
“Oh, surely.”
He discarded two of the volumes and pushed the survivor in after the razors. “By the way, Russell, our guest seemed anxious that we wipe those names from our tongues. Our Arab guides are now, I take it, Alistair and Maurice. Or possibly ‘Marsh.’?”
“Not Mr Hughenfort and the Duke of Beauville—or would it be Lord Maurice? Or, not Maurice, what was his first given name? William? What
“I believe the matter will be simplified when we are presented as old acquaintances.”
“Well, if he’s changed as much in appearance as Ali has, it won’t be difficult to call him by another name. You do realise, by the way, what his name means?”
“A pleasant irony, is it not?”
Patrick brought the motor to our door in time for the afternoon train. We loaded our cases in the boot and settled an ill-looking Alistair into the back, well swathed in furs and with two heated bricks at his feet. At the station, we had to help him up into the train carriage—his bruises had now stiffened, and the blood loss he had sustained made him quite vulnerable to the cold November air. We retained the heaviest travelling rug and wrapped him in it against the inadequate heat of the compartment; he was asleep before the train pulled out of Eastbourne.
I nestled down into my own fur-lined coat and, while I watched Alistair Hughenfort sleep, meditated on that peculiar human drive, loyalty.
