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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 on to 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 on to 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.

CHAPTER 13

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 hair-do, 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 pin-stripe 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 on to 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.

‘The police came. They said he was a criminal. Was he a criminal?’

‘No. He wasn’t a criminal.’

‘Were they – were they the police?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Dakin. ‘They may have been. It’s all the same.’

Then he asked her:

‘Did he say anything – before he died?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was it?’

‘He said Lucifer – and then Basrah. And then after a pause he said a name – a French name it sounded like – but I mayn’t have got it right.’

‘What did it sound like to you?’

‘I think it was Lefarge.’

‘Lefarge,’ said Dakin thoughtfully.

‘What does it all mean?’ said Victoria, and added with some dismay: ‘And what am I to do?’

‘We must get you out of it as far as we can,’ said Dakin. ‘As for what it’s all about, I’ll come back and talk to you later. The first thing to do is to get hold of Marcus. It’s his hotel and Marcus has a great deal of sense, though one doesn’t always realize it in talking to him. I’ll get hold of him. He won’t have gone to bed. It’s only half-past one. He seldom goes to bed before two o’clock. Just attend to your appearance before I bring him in. Marcus is very susceptible to beauty in distress.’

He left the room. As though in a dream she moved over to the dressing-table, combed back her hair, made up her face to a becoming pallor and collapsed on to a chair as she heard footsteps approaching. Dakin came in without knocking. Behind him came the bulk of Marcus Tio.

This time Marcus was serious. There was not the usual smile on his face.

‘Now, Marcus,’ said Mr Dakin, ‘you must do what you can about this. It’s been a terrible shock to this poor girl. The fellow burst in, collapsed – she’s got a very kind heart and she hid him from the police. And now he’s dead. She oughtn’t to have done it, perhaps, but girls are soft-hearted.’

‘Of course she did not like the police,’ said Marcus. ‘Nobody likes the police. I do not like the police. But I have to stand well with them because of my hotel. You want me to square them with money?’

‘We just want to get the body away quietly.’

‘That is very nice, my dear. And I, too, I do not want a body in my hotel. But it is, as you say, not so easy to do?’

‘I think it could be managed,’ said Dakin. ‘You’ve got a doctor in your family, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, Paul, my sister’s husband, is a doctor. He is a very nice boy. But I do not want him to get into trouble.’

‘He won’t,’ said Dakin. ‘Listen, Marcus. We move the body from Miss Jones’ room across into my room. That lets her out of it. Then I use your telephone. In ten minutes’ time a young man reels into the hotel from the street. He is very drunk, he clutches at his side. He demands me at the top of his voice. He staggers into my room and collapses. I come out and call you and ask for a doctor. You produce your brother-in-law. He sends for an ambulance and he goes in it with this drunken friend of mine. Before they get to the hospital my friend is dead. He has been stabbed. That is all right for you. He has been stabbed in the street before coming into your hotel.’

‘My brother-in-law takes away the body – and the young man who plays the part of the drunkard, he goes away quietly in the morning perhaps?’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘And there is no body found in my hotel? And Miss Jones she does not get any worry or annoyance? I think, my dear, that that is all a very good idea.’

‘Good, then if you’ll make sure the coast is clear, I’ll get the body across to my room. Those servants of yours potter round the corridors half the night. Go along to your room and raise a shindy. Get them all running to fetch you things.’

Marcus nodded and left the room.

‘You’re a strong girl,’ said Dakin. ‘Can you manage to help me to carry him across the corridor to my room?’

Victoria nodded. Between them they lifted the limp body, carried it across the deserted corridor (in the distance Marcus’ voice could be heard upraised in furious anger) and laid it on Dakin’s bed.

Dakin said:

‘Got a pair of scissors? Then cut off the top of your underblanket where it’s stained. I don’t think the stain’s gone through to the mattress. The tunic soaked up most of it. I’ll come along to you in about an hour. Here, wait a minute, take a pull from this flask of mine.’

Victoria obeyed.

‘Good girl,’ said Dakin. ‘Now go back to your room. Turn out the light. As I said, I’ll be along in about an hour.’

‘And you’ll tell me what it all means?’

He gave her a long rather peculiar stare but did not answer her question.

CHAPTER 14

Victoria lay in bed with her light out, listening through the darkness. She heard sounds of loud drunken altercation. Heard a voice declaring: ‘Felt I got to look you up, ole man. Had a row with a fellow outside.’ She heard bells ring. Heard other voices. Heard a good deal of commotion. Then came a stretch of comparative silence – except for the far-off playing of Arab music on a gramophone in somebody’s room. When it seemed to her as though hours had passed, she heard the gentle opening of her door and sat up in bed and switched on the bedside lamp.

‘That’s right,’ said Dakin approvingly.

He brought a chair up to the bedside and sat down in it. He sat there staring at her in the considering manner of a physician making a diagnosis.

‘Tell me what it’s all about?’ demanded Victoria.

‘Suppose,’ said Dakin, ‘that you tell me all about yourself first. What are you doing here? Why did you come to Baghdad?’

Whether it was the events of the night, or whether it was something in Dakin’s personality (Victoria thought afterwards that it was the latter), Victoria for once did not launch out on an inspired and meretricious account of her presence in Baghdad. Quite simply and straightforwardly she told him everything. Her meeting with Edward, her determination to get to Baghdad, the miracle of Mrs Hamilton Clipp, and her own financial destitution.

‘I see,’ said Dakin when she had finished.

He was silent for a moment before he spoke.

‘Perhaps I’d like to keep you out of this. I’m not sure. But the point is, you can’t be kept out of it! You’re in it, whether I like it or not. And as you’re in it, you might as well work for me.’