“You will say in the note you use me as bait to catch others.”
Inspector Chafik thought: He is clever. There is a chance such a request might be approved. But he said, “It is known you work alone. Furthermore, I am not in the mood to write such a note.”
Ali struck him with the blackjack. Helmy kicked him, then pulled him to his feet. They had him between them, knocking him from side to side; when he fell down they lifted him again and beat him again. He heard screams, recognized his own voice, thought: How demeaning that I should evidence pain!
“Well?” Helmy asked.
The Inspector tasted blood, screwed up his face in disgust and said, “This does not help. Your arrest is inevitable.”
They did it over again. All Chafik said was, “My work is finished and I am now expendable.” He began to recite from the Koran in a high voice which gradually became unclear, then incoherent. Unconsciousness released him from the agony of waiting for the next treatment.
He did not hear the sound of feet on the stairs, but he revived with the crash of the door. He heard Helmy’s oath and the violence of gunfire and somebody familiar who shouted, “Dogs! Devils!” The guns talked once again; then there was silence and the Inspector dared raise his head.
Near him was the body of the Turk. The other man crouched against the wall, coughing blood. The room was filled with police, among them Sergeant Abdullah.
Chafik said, “Did I rub a magic lamp?” He laughed hysterically, but managed to check himself when Abdullah raised him.
“Praise to the Merciful One!” exclaimed the sergeant. “If it had not been for the boy—”
“The boy?”
“Sir, I refer to the waif. He was in the back of your car, apparently waiting for you, hidden on the floor. He saw you struck. With commendable restraint he remained silent while you were driven to this place. Then he ran back, found me at headquarters, and so—”
“Faisal!”
“That is his name, sir. I detained him in your office.”
Chafik said humbly, “God works in strange ways.” Then he added urgently, “Let us go there quickly.” Moving, he was reminded of pain and was glad to lean on Abdullah.
In his office he stood and looked at Faisal. The boy was asleep in a chair, check on his arm, his face smeared with recent tears. In sleep his little hands were clenched into fists and he stirred restlessly and once murmured, “My father...”
The Inspector said, “May I be forgiven!” Then he quoted in excellent English, “I have a little shadow, he goes in and out with me—” After a pause he added, “But the use of him I do see.”
He went to the telephone and was again reminded of a dozen pains. He dialed the number and, waiting for his wife to answer, his eyes were lender, but hearing her voice he said casually, “I will be with you soon, Leila. I fear I am a little bruised and have ruined good clothes, but it is not important. And I have to announce a decision.” He drew himself up and said very firmly, “I have decided to make an adoption.”
There was no answer. He rattled the telephone and shouted, “Leila! You hear me? I am adopting a boy.”
The voice of his wife came mildly. “I hear you, my man. All Baghdad hears you. Please come very quickly. I have had Faisal’s room waiting for him these three days, now.”
Really it was quite simple
by Evelyn E. Smith
May we make two comments by way of introducing Evelyn E. Smiths prize-winning story — one about the author and the other about her story... About Miss Smith, we would simply like to quote from her letter to your Editors: “I had been planning a longer and more orthodox story for submission to the EQMM contest, but, as the deadline grew closer and I found myself afflicted by an influx of European visitors, I realized that I would never be able to make it, so I wrote “Really It Was Quite Simple’ instead. I’ve always thought the locked-room setup was such a lot of trouble to go to just to kill someone.”... And about Miss Smith’s story, we would simply like to quote one readers reaction: “If the Editors don’t buy this story. I’ll just go out and commit suicide!”
I must confess I’m utterly baffled,” young Biestleigh murmured in slack-jawed admiration as Colonel Whikehart riffled the deck of cards and, for the tenth successive time, pulled out the one previously specified. “I haven’t the foggiest notion how you do it.”
A massive gust of laughter turned Sir Odo’s equally massive body to a quivering jelly. “Hand quicker than the eye, eh, Whikehart?” he inquired.
“Just a question of knack,” the Colonel agreed with modesty. “Picked it up in India.”
“Cards are meant to be played with, not with, if you see what I mean,” said Pottridge impatiently. “How about a spot of bridge, chaps?”
The other three smiled vaguely.
“Looks fairly simple to me,” Sir Odo commented, inspecting the Colonel’s maneuvers with the cards through his eyeglass. “— Not that I mean to be disparagin’, old boy. .”
“Quite,” agreed the Colonel. “It is fairly simple.”
“I daresay,” Sir Odo continued, “it’s the sort of thing you might even manage to teach the young fella here. Make him popular with the ladies.”
Young Biestleigh flushed to the roots of his fair hair. “I’m afraid not, sir,” he protested. “About the cards, that is. I’m fearfully bad at complicated things. Why, when I read a thriller, I never understand precisely how the murderer did it, even when it’s carefully explained in pages and pages at the end.”
“Well, you’re not a readin’ man, Biestleigh.” Sir Odo explained kindly.
“Take those locked room jobs,” the youth went on, warmed by interest in his subject almost to the point of articulacy. “Never can understand how they’re done — even when it turns out the fella locked the door from inside with a bit of siring and stabbed himself with an icicle. How did he do it, actually, and why, I want to know?”
“Now you’re getting into psychology,” Sir Odo reproved. “Deep stuff; take hours to explain to you. Anyhow, those locked room affairs are utterly preposterous.” He wrung scotch out of his mustache with a practised gesture. “Wouldn’t work in reality.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the Colonel, absently letting the cards slide through his supple fingers. “I’ll lay you a fiver that I can shut myself up in a room with young Biestleigh here; and, at the end of ten minutes, you can come, find all the doors and windows — except the one you come in by, of course — locked, young Biestleigh dead, and no sign of me.”
“Done!” said Sir Odo promptly. He and the Colonel shook hands.
“I say there,” protested Biestleigh. “The fact is, you’re going a bit too fast there; I’m not in this thing with you chaps, you know,”
“Come now, lad” — Sir Odo clapped him on the shoulder — “surely you don’t think old Whikehart has any chance of escaping from a locked room? Think of how silly he’ll look when we break in and find him still footling about your body.”
“No,” young Biestleigh said with a firmness uncommon in him, “I really must decline. My mother — you know — she wouldn’t like it.”
“Elfreda always was such a stuffy girl,” Sir Odo pouted. “Daresay we’ll have to try it with an orphan sometime. You an orphan, Pottridge?”
“No, I am not,” replied Pottridge curtly. “And now that this damn silly nonsense is off, how about that game of bridge?”
“I have it!” Sir Odo’s globular countenance became transfigured with joy. “We don’t need to have a dead body at all! I mean to say, you could simply disappear from the locked room without killing anyone first, couldn’t you, Whikehart?”