By the time he had completed his circuit of the square the moon had come out and was lighting up the roofs of the houses. The minaret he had noticed earlier had lost its colours and become a mysterious silver, and as he turned back up the road towards the hotel he found that the sand underfoot, where the moon fell upon it, had changed to silver too.
In the street outside the hotel it was as bright as day. A knot of men suddenly burst into it. The knot became two groups which surged around each other. There were shouts and cries and the flash of knives in the moonlight.
One of the men fell and another man stooped over him. Seymour saw the knife and shouted. The man looked up, startled. The man beneath rolled away.
Seymour shouted again and began to run towards them. The knot wavered and then broke up and in a moment there was only the man lying there.
Seymour bent over him. There was something wet and sticky on the front of his shirt and he was holding his arm across his chest. Seymour moved it away to see the extent of the damage and the man gave a little moan.
He became aware that someone was standing beside him and spun round. The man stepped back and held up his hand apologetically.
‘Pardon!’ he said.
The man on the ground looked up.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ he said, in French.
The other man knelt down beside him.
‘Are you all right?’
‘No, I’m bloody not!’
‘Can you stand?’
The man grunted and put out a hand. His friend took it and helped him up. The wounded man gave a little gasp.
Then he put an arm round his friend’s shoulders and stood for a moment, swaying.
A door opened and light fell down the hotel’s steps.
A woman’s voice said:
‘I will not have this! Not in front of the hotel!’
‘Sorry, Chantale!’ said the wounded man humbly.
‘It started further up the road,’ explained his friend. ‘I don’t know how it came to drift down.’
‘See it doesn’t happen again!’
She went back inside. It was the receptionist.
The wounded man said something to his friend and the two wobbled across to Seymour. They stopped in front of him and the wounded man detached his arm from his triend’s shoulders and made a little formal bow.
‘To you, Monsieur, I owe thanks.’
‘It was nothing.’
‘Ah, but it was something. I shall not forget.’
They all three shook hands formally in the French way, and then the two men set off up the road, the one supporting the other.
The receptionist was back behind her desk, head down. She gave Seymour a little flicker of acknowledgement but barely looked up from her writing. Seymour started off up the stairs.
A porter was just coming down. He glanced at Seymour and then said something to the receptionist. This time she stopped her writing and looked up.
‘There is blood on your coat,’ she said, matter-of-factly. ‘Take it off and I will have it cleaned for you. It will be ready for you in the morning.’
The affair was otherwise dismissed. So this is how it is, thought Seymour, in Tangier?
When he came down the next morning she was there at her desk, writing again. She jumped up when she saw him.
‘I am afraid you have caught us out,’ she said. ‘I did not expect to see you so early. I had to send your coat out and it’s not back yet. My people here couldn’t quite get the blood all off but there’s a good little tailor in the square who is used to this sort of thing.’
Used to this sort of thing? Blood on your coat?
‘It will be ready, I promise you. I can send someone down immediately. But…’ She hesitated. ‘Were you thinking of wearing it? Here in Tangier?’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ll be too hot. People don’t usually bother with jackets in Tangier.’
‘I have to see the Consul.’
‘He won’t be wearing one, either,’ she said drily. ‘What you could do is get Ali to make you up something in lightweight suiting. He would do it very nicely and you would have it by this evening. And it wouldn’t cost you much. Two pounds.’
‘Two pounds?’
‘Yes. He might suggest more, but just say you’re a friend of Chantale.’
‘Thanks. I’ll think about it.’
It didn’t take long. When he stepped outside, the heat hit him like a hammer.
‘Where did you say this tailor was?’
‘In the square. His name is Ali. He’s very good. And you can pick up the jacket at the same time.’
It was the tailor he had noticed the previous evening. When Seymour went in he was sitting on the counter, sewing. All the shopkeepers sat on their counters. The things they sold were stacked on shelves around the walls.
‘Ali?’
‘Monsieur?’
‘I think you’ve been cleaning a jacket for me.’
‘Ah, yes.’
He climbed down off the counter and reached up behind a curtain.
‘Thank you.’
The coat was spotless.
The tailor weighed it in his hands. ‘Good cloth,’ he said.
‘But a bit heavy for here, perhaps. I was wondering if you could make up something for me?’
‘I certainly could. Would you like to look at my materials? This one, for instance. Just right for you.’
‘How much?’
‘Six pounds.’
‘Chantale said you would do it for two.’
‘Ah, Chantale? Well, that’s a bit different. Yes, well,’ — regretfully — ‘I suppose I could do it for two.’
He held the cloth up against Seymour.
‘That girl,’ he muttered to himself, ‘will be the ruin of me.’
Then he brightened.
‘But also, perhaps, the making of me!’
A man came into the shop, saw Seymour and slipped out again.
The tailor asked Seymour to put on a dummy jacket and then began to mark it with chalk.
The man came back, bringing a friend with him.
‘Hello, Ali!’
‘Idris! And Mustapha, too.’
They seemed familiar. He suddenly realized. They were the ones he’d met the previous night.
Seymour’s jacket was lying on the counter. The wounded man came across and touched it.
‘That his jacket?’
‘Yes. I’ve just been cleaning it-’
‘It’s on me.’
‘Why this sudden generosity, Mustapha?’
‘It’s my blood.’
‘Oh!’ The tailor tut-tutted.
‘That business last night?’
‘Yes.’
The tailor shook his head.
‘You ought to keep out of things like that,’ he said to Seymour.
‘I’ll try not to make it a habit.’
‘No, but really… You’re a stranger here?’
Idris broke in.
‘That’s just what I said to Mustapha. He’s a stranger here, I said. And doesn’t know any better.’
‘Just as well he didn’t know any better,’ growled Mustapha.
‘Yes, I know, but, all the same, he ought to keep out of it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Seymour, ‘I have every intention of doing that.’
‘Did you know,’ asked Ali, ‘that he’s a friend of Chantale?’
‘What? Oh, my God!’ said Idris. ‘She’s not best pleased with us just at the moment.’
‘Maybe you ought to keep out of things yourself for a bit, too,’ suggested Ali.
‘That’s just what I said to Mustapha this morning!’ said Idris.
‘Yes, but how can I keep out of things and let a friend of mine wander round like an innocent?’ asked Mustapha.
‘Look, I know he’s your friend now. He’s a friend of mine, too. But-’
‘Everyone in the bilad knows he’s my friend. Or soon will.’
‘I know, I know. But-’
‘It would look bad,’ said Mustapha, ‘if something happened to him. A friend of mine and I let something bad happen to him! What would people say! I could never show my face again.’
‘Well, I know. I couldn’t, either. A friend of yours is a friend of mine. It would look bad.’