“Raffles, welcome!” he exclaimed. “Delighted to see you. You remember me, at school? Yorick Hope-Jenyns. I was in old Motley’s house. I got my colours from you in your last year as Captain of Cricket. And, Manders, old fellow — how do you do? This is simply capital! His Excellency has placed you both in my hands. I’ve good billets for you, and a very full programme.” He glanced round. “Orderly!”
“Sir!”
While the brawny ranker took charge of our luggage, Raffles presented Yorick Hope-Jenyns to Ginnie, under the false surname she was using, and introduced Ivor Kern as Ginnie’s uncle.
“Friends met on the ship, Yorick,” Raffles explained. “I see you have a gharri here. You could perhaps suggest a suitable hotel for them, on our way to the billets?”
“Delighted,” said Hope-Jenyns, with an ardent look at Ginnie. And as we set off at a spanking trot in the high-slung, yellow carriage with its red-tasselled white canopy, he continued to look frequently into Ginnie’s eyes under the pretence of drawing her attention to such places of interest as the Casemates, the old Water Gate, and the Moorish Tower. “We are now going up Main Street,” he presently announced. “Yonder is a shop, Miss Ginnie, where I must advise you always to beat them down if you give them your custom — Osmanazar’s Bazaar.”
Between the throngs of Garrison ladies in their bustled summer gowns, twirling parasols languidly as they sauntered by with their escorts in Navy white-and-gold and military scarlet, with here and there a kilt of Highland tartan, I glimpsed, through a doorway hung about with tarbushes, Moorish slippers, camel harness, children’s sailor suits, castanets, and bullfighter’s hats, the shadowy, enigmatic interior of Osmanazar’s Bazaar.
It looked as hot as an oven. And in the gala days that followed I did not envy that ingenious artificer in woods and metals, Ivor Kern, for I knew that the mysterious task Raffles had set him was keeping him occupied for long hours in some shuttered little room in Osmanazar’s rear regions.
As for me, Raffles told me nothing, as usual. He and I shared good billets in Bombhouse Lane with some cricketers who included that graceful batsman, the young Jam-Sahib of Kushghir, who had been at school with us. A non-player myself, I had no other task but the pleasant one of calling each morning for Ginnie at her hotel to escort her to the matches.
Twice we saw the Governor. Each time, it was on the parched brown cricket ground overlooked on one side by the high bastion lined with date-palms, and open on the other to the harbour dazzling with the brass-work and white awnings of the dreadnoughts at anchor, against the background of the bay and the distant white buildings of Algeciras on the Spanish side. The first time we saw the Governor was when he looked in at the pavilion for a moment to shake hands with Raffles and myself and bid us welcome.
“Don’t forget, Raffles,” he said, “I have an important job for you.”
The second time we saw him was later in the week, as he was taking his seat to watch the cricket match in the company of the Port Admiral. He spotted me, where I stood beside Ginnie’s deck-chair, and lifted a hand to us graciously. The game went well, but we were no nearer knowing what His Excellency had in store for Raffles; and as the golden days passed, and the nights brilliant with Balls aboard one or another of the dreadnoughts succeeded each other, I knew Raffles was getting more and more anxious. For each day brought the Karoo Queen, with its prisoner, closer to Gibraltar.
Before we knew where we were, the culminating night was upon us — the night of the Governor’s Ball.
“And still we don’t know what he wants done!” Raffles said grimly, as in full evening dress and opera-hats, scarlet-lined capes over our arms, we walked up the narrow Bombhouse Lane and turned left under the bracket lamp at the corner into the raucous uproar of the fleet at liberty in the grog-shops of Main Street.
Ginnie was waiting for us in the foyer of her hotel. She was a picture in white, a cape of lavender velvet over her arm, her hair smoothly raven, her shoulders ivory. The funereal Ivor Kern stood beside her chair. Raffles dissembled the anxiety I knew he felt, but he was brisk and kept his voice low as he said, “All ready, Ivor?”
“All ready,” said the antique-dealer. “The Karoo Queen s been reported. She’ll be in about midnight. She’ll start discharging and taking in cargo as soon as she’s anchored. Our box is already down at the cargo sheds. It’s consigned as from a Mr. Pascarella to a London firm. Neither exists. The origin of the box will be quite untraceable. It’s marked for the strongroom and will go out to the ship, in the first cargo lighter, as soon as the anchor’s down. Osmanazar’s arranged the other detail, as you asked, and the name of the man concerned is Ibañez. The Karoo Queen is due to sail again at noon tomorrow.”
“Right,” Raffles said. “We shall see you, then, Ivor, a bit before noon tomorrow, when you come out to the ship in the last passenger tender.” He turned to the girl. “Now, Ginnie—”
“Yes, A.J.?” She was keyed to the highest tension. In her shining eyes and quickened breathing was betrayed her excitement at the knowledge of how close the ship bearing her young husband now was, and how few miles of starlit sea still separated them.
“You know what you’re to do?” Raffles said. “Tomorrow morning Ivor will take you to La Linea, the Spanish frontier, and put you on the diligence to Algeciras. From there you will take train to Madrid, go to the address you’ve been given, and wait there. Right? Then, as there may not be time for goodbyes later this evening—” He held out his hand. “Ginnie, my dear, godspeed.”
She looked at him with her eyes of misted violet. She took his hand in both of hers, and pressed her lips to his.
Then we went to the Ball.
Only I, who knew so little else, knew the secret anxiety that gnawed at Raffles’s mind, the anxiety which made him, under the chandeliers of that glittering ballroom, glance so frequently at the ramrod-backed, white-haired figure of the Governor, in his splendour of scarlet mess-jacket and decorations.
The Governor and his lady danced with this guest and with that. There was gaiety in the lilt of the violins. Ginnie waltzed in the arms of the Jam-Sahib. But I stood by the tall windows, open to the purple night where the palm-trees in the grounds were darkly silhouetted against the sky of stars, and I watched Raffles. He smiled as he talked to his dance partner; he had, seemingly, not a care in the world. But he could not keep from glancing at the Governor.
It must have been nigh on midnight when, a dance ending, wide doors were flung open by footmen, disclosing in an adjoining room the silver and crystal of long buffet tables. It was the refreshment interval. A buzz of chatter arose. There was a drift away from the ballroom. The Governor beckoned to a person here, a person there; and, left as by a receding tide, there remained upon the shining floor a small group composed of the Governor himself, his lady, Ginnie, the Jam-Sahib, Raffles, and Hope-Jenyns.
The sultry thumping in my chest deepened. The Governor said something to Hope-Jenyns, and the aide-de-camp went from the room. I had an uncomfortable feeling that I had no business to be here; but just then the Governor spotted me. He came across to me, where I stood by the windows, and the whole group followed.
“Ah, Manders, my friend,” said the Governor, “you’re in this, too, you know. The ladies as a very special privilege, but you fellows by right of having been at the old school.” He rubbed his hands together briskly. “Now, where’s young Hope-Jenyns? Ah, there you are, Yorick! You have it, I see. Put it on the window-seat.”