They stood abashed and awkward.
Rosa came up to them.
“You keep out of it!” she said to Owen. “You keep right out of it!”
Owen called Berthelot in to the Bab el Khalk. This was to be no cozy tete-a-tete in the hotel. He wanted him in his office.
“Monsieur!”
They shook hands.
Nikos went out again, leaving the door open. It was late morning and the shutters of Owen’s room had been closed to keep out the sun. That made it airless if the door was closed. Having the door open had another advantage. Nikos could hear.
There was something different about Berthelot. After a moment Owen realized what it was. Berthelot was braced.
He sat down expectantly on the edge of his chair while Owen took his hat and stick and put them in the corner. Owen came back to his desk and sat down.
“I have asked you to come, Monsieur, because I hope you may be able to help us.”
Berthelot suddenly looked relieved.
“Thank God!” he said.
“ Comment? ”
“Your pardon, Monsieur. I was afraid that…I thought that perhaps you were going to tell me…my uncle…”
“No, no.”
Berthelot’s relief seemed genuine.
“ Mille pardons. It is just that-”
“Nothing new has come through.”
Berthelot visibly relaxed.
“Thank God.” He took out his handkerchief and made to mop his face, then wiped his hands instead. Owen switched on the fan. The great blades above began to whirl noisily, making all the papers on the desk flutter.
Berthelot stopped his wiping and looked at Owen.
“It is strange, n’est-ce pas, to be thankful for that? But one is grateful for small mercies.”
“Not so small.”
Berthelot nodded.
“They will deal in the end,” said Owen.
“Will they? They do not seem anxious to.”
“That is part of the dealing.”
“If one could be sure-”
“I think you can be sure.”
“But if they should lose their heads-”
“This lot,” said Owen, “are unlikely to lose their heads.” Perhaps some bitterness came through, for Berthelot gave him a quick glance.
“Of course!” he said. “You are against us dealing. That is proper of you. But…” He shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t mind if you deal.”
“You don’t?” Berthelot was surprised. “But I thought…the first time…”
“I don’t mind you dealing. It’s just that I’m still going to try to catch them.”
“Of course, of course.” Berthelot looked at his hands. He was still holding his handkerchief. He put it away. “Our interests are different,” he said. “My chief interest is in getting my uncle freed. After that, well, anything I can do to help.”
“Tell me about your dealings with Izkat Bey.”
Berthelot looked startled.
“That is nothing to do with the-the disappearance of my uncle.”
“Tell me about them, nevertheless.”
“They are perfectly normal business dealings. Confidential, of course.” He stopped. “Are you saying-? Well, I did wonder about it myself. But then I couldn’t see why- Well, only in general terms. And, besides, how could they have known about it?”
“Tell me.”
“Very well. Only it is in confidence, of course. Normally, I wouldn’t-but in the circumstances-”
“Yes,” said Owen. “In the circumstances.”
“Well-how much do you know?”
“Just tell me.”
“Very well. Izkat Bey is helping us to buy some land. I won’t say where the land is-”
“On the other side of the river.”
“Well-”
“Sidky’s land.”
“You obviously know all about it.”
“Why Izkat Bey?”
“He was our contact.”
“With Sidky?”
“Of course.”
“Other people would have done for that. Why Izkat Bey?”
“He was also a contact with other people.”
“I won’t ask you to name them.”
“I wouldn’t tell you their names.”
“Just tell me the nature of their interest.”
Berthelot looked puzzled.
“Their interest wouldn’t be commercial, would it?”
“Yes.”
“I thought the person we were talking about wasn’t the sort of person to have commercial interests?”
“Well, call it a financial interest.”
“He expected to make some money out of it?”
“Yes. Not out of our side, of course, the building side. But when it was up and running. Privately, of course. Very privately.”
“He wouldn’t be running it himself?”
“Oh no!” Berthelot was shocked. “He couldn’t possibly.” He hesitated, and then said, “That was, in fact, where we came in. You see, we could offer not just construction facilities and not just the necessary finance, but also a management team. We provided a complete package.”
“What was the nature of the management team?”
“Well, they had to know how to run a business like that. They had to have the Khed-the confidence of the person we are talking about. That wasn’t so easy, actually, because he knows a lot of the people in the business and knows them only too well.”
“Tell me about the business.”
“You know about that.”
“Tell me all the same. The scale, for a start.”
“Oh, big.”
“How big?”
“Well, bigger than Anton’s.”
“ Antons? ” Owen tried too late to keep the surprise out of his voice.
There was a little silence.
“You didn’t know? We were going to Anton for the management team. His syndicate would be putting up some of the necessary finance. We didn’t need them, actually, but we thought it was best to cut them in. Local interests, you know. It always works better that way. It’s bad to upset rivals. And then the Khedive knew him and our contact in Cannes knew him.”
“Was that where it started-Cannes?”
“Yes. Our contact got to know-well, the person we were talking about-when he went there last year. She saw the nature of his interests and got talking. Whether she suggested it or he suggested it, I don’t know. We came in later. She approached us. By then it was a proposition.”
“That you should-”
“Build a salon. Acquire the land, construct a building, independent and self-standing, but equipped with all facilities, install a management team. Obviously a company would have to be created to run it but we weren’t really part of that, except that we have to have somebody to deal with for contractual purposes.”
“Izkat Bey?”
“It had to be secret. No one too close to the Khedive. Anyway, it had to be foreign.”
“To take advantage of the Capitulations?”
“That’s right. It’s a foreign-registered company.”
“Where is it registered?”
“Montenegro.”
“Montenegro!”
“Yes. It has the advantage that it’s claimed by about a dozen countries, all of which would be glad to advance their claims by offering the protection of their nationality to any company registered there and operating internationally.”
“Let’s get this right. You build it, someone else owns it, and someone else altogether runs it?”
“That’s right.”
“How does our friend come in, the person we were speaking of?”
“He inspired it in the first place. The idea may not have come from him, it may have come from our contact in Cannes, but he certainly encouraged it.”
“What does he get out of it?”
“He would probably play there himself incognito. But the main point is to make money. Apparently he’s short of cash-”
“He’s always short of cash.”
“Well, apparently he can’t move a finger financially, it’s all tied up by the British. Before Cromer came, the Khedive could do what he liked-”
“He bloody bankrupted the country.”
“He can’t do that now. In fact he can’t do anything now, not financially, I mean, and he’s sore about it. He wants to find a way of bypassing the controls and the only way he can do that is by some sort of secret operation such as this. He gets a steady income flow, unaccounted for, in return for his influence. He says it’s good, anyway, to have some enterprises in the country which are Egyptian-”