It was getting dark when he left the police post and made his way swiftly across the town towards the little villa on the outskirts which they used as their interrogation centre. It was set apart from other habitations in a grove of trees. This was useful as there were no neighbours to be bothered or made curious by the sounds of beating, or the more refined types of ill-treatment which were so often necessary in order to obtain information; and victims did sometimes scream in the course of a “treatment”. The house was deserted now and the way ill-lit. Donner loosened his pistol slightly in its leather holster under his armpit. One never knew. In the darkness the tattered garden round the house looked melancholy in the extreme. But, undeterred by aesthetic considerations, Donner mounted the steps and opened the front door, switching on the lights as he did so. They revealed a large barren room with peeling walls, and an old cupboard empty of anything save scurrying mice. Its only furniture was a pock-marked desk over which hung a dusty unshaded light-bulb. A water-tap dripped obscurely in a dirty kitchen. Donner turned it off, frowning. Someone must have left it on after the last “Water-Cure” — a refinement which consisted of pouring water from a teapot up the nostrils of clients until such time as they decided to tell the truth. Donner seated himself at the desk in a creaky swivel-chair, placed his pistol at hand on the desk, and opened a copy of the Illustrated London News which he had thoughtfully brought with him in case his wait should be a long one. He had business of his own to transact that night. The anonymous letter had arrived as usual at his house, summoning him to the rendezvous. His wrist-watch ticked on. He read with concentration, shaping the words with his lips. He had not been at it long before there was a tapping at the shutter — two long and three short. He took his pistol in hand and went to the front door, opening it to admit the little figure of the Jew. “Ah, Abraham,” he said with a kind of frowning benevolence. The old man nodded his bearded head and said “Good evening.” Donner shut the door and locked it. Then he stalked back to his desk and sat behind it with a businesslike air, rubbing his hands. The Jew came softly up to the desk. Donner allowed his pistol to lie once more before him, moving it slightly to one side in order to make room for the bundle of papers his visitor carried.
“What have we got?” said Donner briskly.
“Twelve identity cards to be signed, sixty pounds.” He began to count out money from a slab of notes. Donner suddenly exploded. “Twelve!” he exclaimed in an outraged tone. “You asked for fourteen. Seventy pounds, Abraham. That’s my price.”
“Two died on the voyage,” said the little man in a meek voice.
“I can’t help that,” said Donner with bristling moustache. “You made the bargain, not me. It’s not my affair if they die.”
“Very well,” said Abraham softly, “seventy it is.”
Donner beamed at him. “That’s better,” he said with subsiding truculence and added “Put it on the table.” He watched the counting of the notes carefully, then gathered them up and put them in his capacious wallet. “All right,” he said, and detached a fountain-pen from his breast pocket. The little man laid a bundle of identity cards on the desk and Donner began to sign them, his tongue protruding slightly from between his teeth as he concentrated on the task. He signed them in the name of a predecessor of his who had held the post years before and who, being now dead, was obviously beyond recall if there were any questions asked. The cards were all greatly antedated in order to take advantage of the residence laws.
The little Jew said: “As a matter of fact, there were two children born on the trip as well. I suppose you don’t want to charge for them?”
Either Donner was too obtuse to sense the contemptuous cutting edge of the remark, or else he did not feel disposed to regard himself as insulted. He raised his great head and took on his most innocent expression, blue eyes wide with reproach. “My dear Abraham,” he said, “you are joking. After all, I am British, you know, my boy.”
“So it would seem,” said the little man, scratching his ear. These subtleties were too much for Donner. He waved a hand and said: “I told you I was being transferred, didn’t I? I won’t be much use to you in Syria, will I?”
“You never know.”
“Anyway, I don’t know the exact dates yet — but keep in touch. There may be ways.”
“We will.”
Donner blew on his signatures, disposing the cards across the desk in order to let them dry the better. Suddenly he got a shock, for the name Judith Roth stared up at him from the piece of pasteboard. There was no mistake. He was overtaken by a sudden feeling of irresolution. Should he ask Abraham directly… it might make him feel suspicious. As he signed the card he thought furiously, comparing the photograph with the memory of the newspaper cutting. It almost seemed the same picture. His brain worked at top speed, exploring the possibilities. Was there any way he might turn his find to his personal benefit? Donner’s self-interest was a plant of long and sturdy growth: the old Irish Constabulary had planted it, the war had nourished it. After all, the sale of dispensations is one of the oldest police habits in the world. He had a sudden brainwave. With his head still lowered over his work, he asked casually: “Where are you going to send them all this time? Up north?”
“Mostly to Galilee — the women to Ras Shamir.”
Donner almost chuckled at the ease with which he had extracted this piece of information. He finished the cards and watched Abraham gather them up with a whispered “Thank you.” They shook hands and Donner saw his visitor out, carefully locking the door behind him. Then he carefully sorted out the money in his wallet, took up his pistol and turned out the lights. He shut the front door behind him and set off down the dusty path towards the lights of the town. He was in the best of possible moods. But there was some hard thinking to do. In a matter as complicated as scientific research he was somewhat out of his depth — the subject was a larger one than he was used to handling. And yet… the echo of the word “money” sounded pleasantly in his memory. After all, there would be no comeback from a mere Jew if such papers were lost; and if he, Donner, could possess himself of them… He ordered a large Arab meal at the “Saad” and ate with gluttony.
While he could not form any clear thoughts about his own intentions as regards Judith Roth, he was filled with a pleasant premonitory sense that his luck was holding firm, that things were moving his way. Of course, he would keep the information to himself until he had explored all its possibilities; if the girl had something saleable it might be possible to prise it away from her. Who knows? She might even be anxious to pay him in order to remain “undiscovered”. Donner called for his bill in a throaty voice, feeling the fatness of his wallet with satisfaction: apart from the money paid him for the signatures he also possessed a large sum of the office’s funds — part of the secret vote set aside for confidential work. He had of course signed the green voucher in the regulation manner, but he had stated that it would be used to pay informers and for “special investigations”, and of course no receipts were expected from these tenebrous transactions. As a matter of fact… but why labour the point? Donner turned them to his own uses and quite a lot of his money went to little Coral Snow. It was with his inamorata in mind that he took a taxi now to Jaffa and set the bead curtains of the Montgomery Club swinging with a heave of his huge shoulders. A band played sagging Levantine jazz. Coral was standing in a group of girls at the bar, engaged in the none-too-elegant act of picking her front teeth with her little fingernail. She was clad in a kimono of tawdry vivacity, a Woolworth inspiration based on vague dreams of the summer palace at Pekin. It was very suitable for little blonde Coral with her fox-terrier face and her honest little eyes. “Humphrey!” she cried out with pleasure, and moved to meet him; Donner smiled broadly and rolled towards her with an air of complacent indulgence. “I hoped you’d come this evening. I was waiting for you, Humphrey — I was going to give you till eleven.”