“I should have taken him for seventy—well preserved, but seventy.”
Sir Nigel stared, watching Nayland Smith light his pipe.
“Then, for heaven’s sake, if he’s really still alive——”
“I know!” Smith snapped. “He’s over a hundred! I have believed for a long time that he has mastered the secret of prolonged life. He’s a scientific genius. But unless he’s also a Chinese edition of the Wandering Jew I’ll finish him one day!”
“He has certainly proved hard to finish,” Sir Nigel commented dryly.
And as Nayland Smith grinned in rather a grim way, Brian noted a faint mark like a wrinkle appear on the bridge of his nose and realized for the first time that the plaster had been removed.
“If I fail to get him this time, Richardson, it’ll be because he’s finished me! And now, to the job ... As you know, my passport, as well as everything else I had with me, is lost——”
“A new diplomatic passport is ready, Smith.” He glanced at the attache. “You have it there, Arkwright?”
“Here, sir.” The passport was laid on a coffee-table.
“Transport?” Sir Denis snapped.
“A plane manned by Royal Air Force personnel will be at your disposal.”
“And Mr. Merrick?”
“I have made an appointment for him to meet Mr. Lyman Bostock, my United States opposite-number, at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Take your own passport along, Mr. Merrick. It will be exchanged for one giving you diplomatic privilege.”
Brian’s head began to swim. He didn’t know if this was due to Sir Nigel’s old Napoleon brandy or to the miraculous speed with which Nayland Smith got things done.
“And the third passenger?”
Sir Nigel lighted another cigar. “That matter, Smith, I had to pass to Bostock. He has promised me that a passport with a suitable visa will be issued by the United States Consulate and ready for Mr. Merrick to pick up in the morning when he calls for his own. . . .”
When the Embassy car took them back, Nayland Smith got out at the hotel entrance and dismissed the chauffeur.
“To take that official chariot through the Muski tonight, Merrick, would be calculated to start a riot! The bar’s still open. I’m thirsty. So let’s have a drink and then I’ll get a cab.”
Brian thought, as they sat down at a corner table, that Sir Denis looked oddly drawn and very tired. “I’d say you’d had one hell of a time,” he told him, sympathetically.
“Why?” came with almost a fierce snap. “Do I look chewed up?”
“Not at all, Sir Denis! In fact, though I don’t know the details, I consider you have made an amazing come-back.”
Nayland Smith smiled. But even now it wasn’t the happy smile which Brian seemed to remember. Undoubtedly, he had suffered more than he cared to admit.
“I suppose I look as well as I can expect to look.” He took a long drink. “By the way, Merrick, have you had any news from Luxor?”
Brian told him about the message from Mr. Jansen.
“That’s good.” Nayland Smith glanced at his watch. “Time I was moving. Don’t waste regrets on Zoe, Merrick. She’s a charming girl, but her mother was an Arab. These people are unpredictable, you know. Like snow upon the desert and so forth . . . Don’t be late in the morning.” He jumped up. “We must be ready to leave at any hour tomorrow.”
Brian stood up, too. “But where are we going?”
“New York . . . Good night, Merrick!”
* * *
Mr. Lyman Bostock turned out to be another friend of Senator Merrick, as Brian discovered when he presented himself in that gentleman’s office at ten o’clock.
“You might be your father as I remember him at Harvard!” Mr. Bostock declared. “I suppose he got you this appointment as aide to Sir Denis Nayland Smith?”
“Not at all, sir. I got it myself—-just by accident!”
“Is that so?” Mr. Bostock, with his smooth white hair and fresh complexion, his soft, Southern voice, had a gentle manner which made Brian wonder what he was doing in such a smouldering volcano as Cairo. “I naturally supposed, as Sir Denis is acting for Washington, by arrangement with London, that your father had proposed you. You will find your duties exciting.”
“I have found them exciting already!” Brian laid his passport on the desk.
“This is your new passport.” Mr. Bostock passed it across. “When your present employment ends you may be asked to return it: when you will receive your old one—which I am sending to Washington. And now”—he opened an envelope— “here are Dr. Hessian’s papers.” He looked up. His mild, blue eyes twinkled. “Rather irregularly, I confess, he is being admitted to the United States under the quota system! And here is Dr. Hessian’s passport. . . .”
When Brian, back in his room, had put the neat little diplomatic passport in an inside pocket and locked the other documents in a suit-case, he went downstairs and out into the garden.
And he was still lingering over it, wondering how soon they were to start for New York, when a boy came up with a radiogram. Brian tore it open—and felt his heart give a queer little jump.
It was from Lola!
* * *
Brian, I wonder if you realize that you left no address. I have only just found out through Thomas Cook agency where you are. Please reply how long staying in Cairo. Love. Lola.
Brian felt suddenly on top of the rainbow. What a multiple idiot he had been! Waiting, day after day, for a word from Lola—and except that he had told her he was flying to Cairo, leaving her no means of reaching him! But she had found a way. He seemed to be looking again into those grey eyes with their hint of hidden laughter, to hear her voice. And he knew, in this moment, that Zoe had been a distraction; no more. He hoped, as Nayland Smith had encouraged him to believe, that Zoe felt the same way about it.
He suddenly decided to make a dash to the Muski and order five hundred Aziza cigarettes to be sent by air to Lola in London. He knew that she liked Egyptian cigarettes.
Without allowing himself time to change his mind, he went out, jumped in a cab and told the driver to take him to the shop ofAchmed es-Salah in the Khan Khalib. He had good reason to distrust Achmed, but he sold excellent cigarettes. This done, he would at least have time to send a radiogram to Lola before he left Cairo.
And so presently he found himself again passing through those crowded, colourful, dusty streets, listening to cries musical and discordant, the vehicle sometimes nearly running over a tiny donkey and always meeting with some sort of obstruction. Brian found the scene entirely fascinating;
ignored frowning faces, returning their frowns with smiles. He wished he could have made these people understand that he was a friend, that he regretted having to leave so soon a city which he had longed to see. . . .
Achmed sat smoking in the entrance to his cavernous shop.
Brian looked hard into the shadows beyond. But, today, he found no amber eyes watching him.
“Ah, my gentleman!” Achmed greeted him. “You come for my cigarettes. Is it so?”
“It is so. You can mail some to London?”
“Of course. I send many to England, and also to America.”
Brian ordered five hundred Azizas to be sent to Lola, writing the address on a little card which Achmed gave him. He paid the price demanded (which he knew was exorbitant), and a small sum for postage; hurried away. He had kept the cab.
The driver had gone no more than a few hundred yards when he was held up. He had upset and narrowly avoided running over, a very large man riding a very small donkey. The language of the fallen rider, which Brian didn’t understand, was evidently so ornamental, even for an Arab, that a laughing crowd gathered around him. They ignored the driver’s warnings and encouraged the furious victim to further abuse.