“Who was that man, Sidky?”
“You know the man,” said Sidky, glancing at Nikos. “Otherwise I should not have told you. Izkat Bey.”
“Did he tell you what he wanted the land for?”
“He wanted to build there.”
“Building is fine,” said Owen, “but it seems a waste of such good land.”
“That is what I told him. ‘If you want to build,’ I said, ‘there is plenty of land for that. Try Rhoda Island.’ I know about the island,” Sidky explained, “because my camels carry rubble for the building works there. That is why I am rich. It is not the farming. Farming is an honest trade and my fields yield well, but there is no money in it. With the money I made from farming I bought camels and with the camels I carry rubble. That is how to make money.”
“And you have made enough money to be able to move away from your village and into the city.”
“I sometimes think that was a mistake. My wife tells me it was. She preferred the village. She would still like to go back there. And perhaps we will one day.”
“It will not be the same. Especially if Izkat Bey builds on your land.”
Sidky shrugged. “I am getting old now,” he said. “My days of working are past. We have not been blessed with sons, so there is no one to work the land after I am gone. It would have to be sold anyway. My daughters’ husbands could work the land but they are not that sort.” Sidky stared sadly at his cap. “I have three daughters,” he said to Owen. “Three!”
“Three!” said Owen in commiseration. “And no sons?”
“No sons.”
“For a man such as you,” said Owen, “the dowries expected would have been considerable.”
“They were,” Sidky agreed fervently. “And still they expect more! It is my daughters now. ‘Our children will need providing for,’ they say. ‘Sell the land! Then after you have gone you will know that your grandchildren and their children and their children’s children will be able to hold up their heads with honor.’ ”
“Honor is not just how much money you have.”
“Try telling them that!” The wrinkled face broke into a smile.
“How many grandchildren have you?” asked Owen, laughing.
“None so far.”
Nikos disapproved of this levity.
“Have you any idea what is to be built?” he asked.
Sidky shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“Izkat Bey already has a fine house. Surely he does not need another?”
“A man like Izkat Bey needs a grand house in the city. This is too far out.”
“Then what does he intend?”
“In this he speaks for others.”
“What do they intend? To build and sell?”
“No. I asked him that. They wish to build and keep.”
“And you have no idea what they wish to build and keep?”
“I know only that it is good that it is by the river.”
“Why is that?” asked Owen. “I could understand if they were going to keep and farm. But to keep and build!”
Sidky hesitated.
“They spoke of coming and going by water. They said it would be more secret that way.”
“I do not understand.”
“Nor I,” said Sidky, “but I do understand the money they have offered.”
When Sidky had left, Nikos came back into the room.
“I do not understand,” he said. “Are they going to build a brothel? Someone like Izkat Bey? With the Khedive behind him?”
“The Khedive is not interested in brothels,” said Owen, as the glimmerings of an idea came to him.
It was still early in the morning and the stonework of the terrace was deliciously cool to touch. In another twenty minutes or so the sun would come creeping over it and then the stone would warm very quickly until by midday it would give your hand quite a burn if you touched it. Just now, though, the sun was on the other side of the Street of the Camel, warming up the inferior donkey-boys opposite.
There was, of course, no one on the terrace but from inside the hotel came wafts of coffee as breakfast was served to the early risers. There were few street-vendors in evidence yet- the snake charmer had arrived but had not yet let the snake out of its basket-and the arabeah-drivers were still asleep in their cabs, but the donkey-boys, the superior ones on this side of the street, were already stirring.
A heavily laden forage camel came along the street and stopped beside them. Two of the donkey-boys helped the driver to release its load and then, as the berseem fell to the ground, took forks and spread it for the donkeys.
One of them looked up at Owen standing on top of the steps.
“I wouldn’t stand there if I were you,” he said. “You might disappear!”
The donkey-boys fell about laughing.
Lucy Colthorpe Hartley came out of the front door of the hotel.
“Hello,” she said. “You do start early!”
“So do you, Miss Colthorpe Hartley.”
“I haven’t been sleeping too well,” she said.
“How is your mother?”
Lucy made a grimace. “She’s rather shattered, poor dear. The doctor gave her some pills last night to help her to sleep but they didn’t work, not for a long time. She was tossing and turning half the night. I thought she’d never get to sleep. I knew there wasn’t much point in me trying to go to sleep so I did get up.”
The smell of fried onions drifted up to them. It didn’t come from the hotel but from further along the terrace where, squatted in a circle down in the street, the donkey-boys were having their breakfast.
Lucy turned and faced him.
“Are you getting anywhere?” she asked.
“No,” he answered honestly.
She sighed.
“I’m not blaming you,” she said. “I know it’s hard. Still it’s puzzling. Is there anything in this Senussi business?”
“There may be.”
“You wouldn’t be holding out on me, would you?”
“No.”
“It’s the thought of-well, that they may not be amenable to reason.”
“I don’t think you need assume that.”
“If they were terribly fanatical-”
“They may not be Senussi. And even if they were, that doesn’t mean they’re not amenable to reason.”
“It’s the way they’ve played with poor Monsieur Moulin, first agreeing, then not agreeing.”
“There could be a lot of reasons for that.”
“Yes.”
She looked along the terrace. The vendors were beginning to appear. Some of them, noticing her interest, showed their goods half-heartedly in her direction.
“I come out here every morning,” she said, “while I’m waiting for Mummy to come down to breakfast. Of course Daddy gets down about an hour later. I like to come out here, though, while it’s still fresh and cool. It’s one of the nicest times of the day in Egypt. That and the evening. It doesn’t feel the same now, though. I keep telling myself that when Daddy gets back it will be the same again, but I don’t think it will. I don’t think it ever will.”
She turned to go back into the hotel. Owen went in with her, looking for Mahmoud. He was anxious to make things up. He didn’t feel himself to blame, not in the least, but he knew from experience that he would have to make the first move. It was harder for Mahmoud to unbend, perhaps because his Arab pride was involved, than it was for Owen. He knew he would only have to make a conciliatory sign and Mahmoud would come down at once from his high horse.
Mahmoud, however, was nowhere to be found. It was unlike him. Usually he arrived at the job early and stayed late. Perhaps he was working somewhere else.
Owen needed to talk to him anyway. He had become convinced that a possible key at least to Moulin’s disappearance and perhaps to Colthorpe Hartley’s, too, lay in the unidentified dragoman. He had felt, especially in the conversation with the strawberry-seller and the flower-seller, that he was on the verge of getting somewhere. There was already a difference between their account of what happened on the terrace and that of the filthy-postcard-seller, and he felt that given a little more time he might be able to expose it and drive the postcard-seller into a corner. However, he didn’t want to go in too hard, as that would confuse the strawberry-seller and flower-seller and scare the filthy-postcard-seller; but nor did he want to go in too soft as, judging by the previous conversation, it would be only too easy to get lost in the labyrinthine confusion and vagueness of the vendors’ responses. What he needed was some guidance from Mahmoud and Mahmoud was nowhere to be found.