‘Jerusalem,’ I said. ‘And I don’t relish the idea of spending the night in this infernal spot.’
‘I should say not, my dear man. That would be most uncomfortable.’ He smiled at me, showing exceptionally white teeth. Then he took out a cigarette case, and offered me a cigarette. The case was gold, and on the outside of it there was a thin line of green jade inlaid diagonally from corner to corner. It was a beautiful thing. I accepted the cigarette. He lit it for me, then lit his own.
The stranger took a long pull at his cigarette, inhaling deeply. Then he tilted back his head and blew the smoke up into the sun. ‘We shall both get heat-stroke if we stand around here much longer,’ he said. ‘Will you permit me to make a suggestion?’
‘But of course.’
‘I do hope you won’t consider it presumptuous, coming from a complete stranger …’
‘Please …’
‘You can’t possibly remain here, so I suggest you come back and stay the night in my house.’
There! The Rolls-Royce was smiling at the Lagonda – smiling at it as it would never have smiled at a Ford or a Morris!
‘You mean in Ismailia?’ I said.
‘No, no,’ he answered, laughing. ‘I live just around the corner, just over there.’ He waved a hand in the direction he had come from.
‘But surely you were going to Ismailia? I wouldn’t want you to change your plans on my behalf.’
‘I wasn’t going to Ismailia at all,’ he said. ‘I was coming down here to collect the mail. My house – and this may surprise you – is quite close to where we are standing. You see that mountain? That’s Maghara. I’m immediately behind it.’
I looked at the mountain. It lay about ten miles to the north, a yellow rocky lump, perhaps two thousand feet high. ‘Do you really mean that you have a house in the middle of all this … this wasteland?’ I asked.
‘You don’t believe me?’ he said, smiling.
‘Of course I believe you,’ I answered. ‘Nothing surprises me any more. Except, perhaps,’ and here I smiled back at him, ‘except when I meet a stranger in the middle of the desert, and he treats me like a brother. I am overwhelmed by your offer.’
‘Nonsense, my dear fellow. My motives are entirely selfish. Civilized company is not easy to come by in these parts. I am quite thrilled at the thought of having a guest for dinner. Permit me to introduce myself – Abdul Aziz.’ He made a quick little bow.
‘Oswald Cornelius,’ I said. ‘It is a great pleasure.’ We shook hands.
‘I live partly in Beirut,’ he said.
‘I live in Paris.’
‘Charming. And now – shall we go? Are you ready?’
‘But my car,’ I said. ‘Can I leave it here safely?’
‘Have no fear about that. Omar is a friend of mine. He’s not much to look at, poor chap, but he won’t let you down if you’re with me. And the other one, Saleh, is a good mechanic. He’ll fit your new fan-belt when it arrives tomorrow. I’ll tell him now.’
Saleh, the man from across the road, had walked over while we were talking. Mr Aziz gave him his instructions. He then spoke to both men about guarding the Lagonda. He was brief and incisive. Omar and Saleh stood bowing and scraping. I went across to the Lagonda to get a suitcase. I needed a change of clothes badly.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Mr Aziz called over to me, ‘I usually put on a black tie for dinner.’
‘Of course,’ I murmured, quickly pushing back my first choice of suitcase and taking another.
‘I do it for the ladies mostly. They seem to like dressing themselves up for dinner.’
I turned sharply and looked at him, but he was already getting into his car.
‘Ready?’ he said.
I took the suitcase and placed it in the back of the Rolls. Then I climbed into the front seat beside him, and we drove off.
During the drive, we talked casually about this and that. He told me that his business was in carpets. He had offices in Beirut and Damascus. His forefathers, he said, had been in the trade for hundreds of years.
I mentioned that I had a seventeenth-century Damascus carpet on the floor of my bedroom in Paris.
‘You don’t mean it!’ he cried, nearly swerving off the road with excitement. ‘Is it silk and wool, with the warp made entirely of silk? And has it got a ground of gold and silver threads?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Exactly.’
‘But my dear fellow! You mustn’t put a thing like that on the floor!’
‘It is touched only by bare feet,’ I said.
That pleased him. It seemed that he loved carpets almost as much as I loved the blue vases of Tchin-Hoa.
Soon we turned left off the tarred road on to a hard stony track and headed straight over the desert towards the mountain. ‘This is my private driveway,’ Mr Aziz said. ‘It is five miles long.’
‘You are even on the telephone,’ I said, noticing the poles that branched off the main road to follow his private drive.
And then suddenly a queer thought struck me.
That Arab at the filling-station … he also was on the telephone …
Might not this, then, explain the fortuitous arrival of Mr Aziz?
Was it possible that my lonely host had devised a clever method of shanghai-ing travellers off the road in order to provide himself with what he called ‘civilized company’ for dinner? Had he, in fact, given the Arab standing instructions to immobilize the cars of all likely-looking persons one after the other as they came along? ‘Just cut the fan-belt, Omar. Then phone me up quick. But make sure it’s a decent-looking fellow with a good car. Then I’ll pop along and see if I think he’s worth inviting to the house …’
It was ridiculous, of course.
‘I think,’ my companion was saying,
