“There is no reason why you should wait,” he said to him. “I am ready to hear what you have to say. Only not here. Can we go into the house?”
“Of course!” said the man.
He stepped aside and made a gesture of invitation.
“It is the house of Andrus,” said Owen. “Where is Andrus?”
“I am Andrus,” the man said.
The crowd opened and they walked through.
As he pushed past, someone in the crowd cried out. Owen looked up quickly but it was only an idiot, and he was a Copt, anyway. His head sagged to one side and his lips drooled. He called out again and this time Owen heard what he said.
“A death for a death!”
Owen turned in a flash, caught hold of him and threw him to one of the constables.
“Take him away, for Christ’s sake,” he said.
The constable’s hands closed round the idiot as round a rabbit. As the boy was borne away he cried out once more: “A death for a death!”
“The boy is crazed,” Owen said to those round about him. “To talk of such things when the only death in the affair is that of a dog!”
“So far,” said Andrus.
Owen had hoped to disperse the crowd by going inside, but it didn’t work. They followed him into the house. Cairenes had no sense of privacy, and they all wanted to know what was going to happen next. Owen was used to the publicness of Egyptian life and didn’t really mind, especially now that the tension seemed to have eased, though he would have preferred fewer bodies in the room.
The room occupied the whole ground floor of the house. It wasn’t a proper house but one used exclusively for visiting the dead. Coptic religious practice required attendance at the cemetery on specified nights of the year to remember and honour the dead, and many of the wealthier Copts kept “houses” in the cemetery just for that purpose. Like most such houses, this one consisted of two storeys, although the ground-floor room, a large room rather like a council chamber, was carried through in the middle of the house into the floor above. At this point a heavily ornamented balustrade ran round it creating a narrow promenade from which arches gave onto the apartments beyond. The upper floor was reserved for the women. As Owen made his way across the ground-floor room he was conscious of veiled, dark-gowned figures peeping down at him discreetly from behind the arches. The lower room had, as was common in well-to-do Egyptian houses, a sunken floor, at one end of which was a raised dais with leather cushions. This was where Owen was taken.
As he sat down, people pressed round him. A turbanned head craned intimately over his left shoulder, and as he slightly adjusted his position he found himself rubbing bristly cheeks with another head which was inserting itself on his right-hand side. The lower room was now so packed that people had opened the shutters in order to lean through the windows. All were entirely engrossed.
Andrus had sat down on the cushion opposite him. He was a thin, severe man in his late fifties with a gaunt face and prominent eye-sockets. His eyes looked very tired, which was not surprising if, as Owen supposed, he had spent the whole night at his prayers.
“Well, Andrus,” he said, “let us begin. And let us begin with what happened last night. Speak to me as one who knows nothing.”
“Very well.”
Andrus paused to glance round the ring of onlookers, as if to make sure they were all attending.
“We came here to pass the night of the Eed el-Gheetas,” he said, “as we usually do. You are aware of our custom, Captain Owen?”
Owen registered, as he was intended to, the correct use of his name and rank.
“We come here on feast days and also on some other occasions to honour our dead. I was especially anxious to come on this occasion as it is the anniversary of my father’s death. He died four years ago. We spend the night in the house-”
“Not in the tomb?”
“Not in the tomb, no. We go there in the morning. First we have to prepare ourselves. We do that by keeping vigil.”
“All through the night?”
“All through the night. We start at dusk.”
“Did you go straight to the house? When you arrived, I mean? Or did you visit the tomb?”
“The others went to the house.” There was a touch of disapproval in the words. “I went to the tomb.”
“And you saw nothing untoward?”
“Not at the tomb, no.”
“Or anywhere else?”
“There are always Moslems about in the necropolis nowadays,” said Andrus coldly.
“But they weren’t doing anything untoward?”
“No,” said Andrus, with the air of one making a concession.
“How long did you stay at the tomb?”
“Not long. I paid my respects and then went on to the house.”
“Where you stayed all night?”
“Yes.”
“And again you saw and heard nothing untoward?”
“We were praying,” said Andrus tartly.
“Of course. But you might have-”
“We did not.”
Ordinarily, Owen would have probed but there was an impatient finality about the words. He moved Andrus on.
“Then in the morning-?”
“We went to the tomb.”
“Where you found-?”
Andrus made a gesture of disgust as if he could hardly bring himself to speak of it.
“Where you found-?” Owen prompted again.
“A dog!” Andrus spat out. “At the very door of my father’s tomb!”
He glared round dramatically. Totally involved, the crowd gave a sympathetic gasp.
“I feel for you,” said Owen tactfully. “I feel for you. But…” He hesitated and chose his words with care. “Is there not a possibility-I ask only to make sure-that the dog came there by accident?”
“Accident?” said Andrus incredulously.
“There are lots of dogs in the cemetery,” said Owen, “and some of them are old and sick. Might not one of them, knowing that its time to die had come-”
“Have dragged itself across the graveyard until by chance it arrived at my father’s tomb?”
“Yes.”
“-and then, with its last breath, climbed up a flight of six steep steps and forced open the heavy door that was barred against it? Pah.”
Andrus made a gesture of derision. The crowd laughed scornfully.
“First, it was a joke. Now it is a fairy tale.”
Owen went patiently on.
“The door was barred?”
“Yes.”
“Not locked?”
“I unlocked it the night before when I came first to the tomb.”
“But left it barred? Are you sure?”
“Surer of that,” said Andrus, with a sidelong glance at the crowd; “than that the dog lifted the bar itself.”
The crowd laughed with him.
“The point is important,” Owen insisted. “If the door were open, the dog could have come there itself.”
“It was brought,” said Andrus, “by other dogs. Moslem ones.”
“Where did you find the dog? Inside the tomb?”
“In the doorway. Half inside, half out.”
“And dead?”
“Quite dead,” said Andrus.
“You say it was Moslems.”
“I know it was Moslems.”
“Did anyone see them?”
Andrus hesitated. “No one has said so.”
“I will ask. And I will ask more widely. It may be that someone saw them bring the dog into the cemetery.”
“There are dogs in the cemetery enough.”
Owen shrugged. “I will check, anyway. I will also ask those in your house.”
“I speak for them.”
“It may be that one of them heard something or saw something that you did not.”
Now it was Andrus who shrugged his shoulders.
“It may be that no one saw anything or heard anything. They came like thieves in the night.”
“It is important, however, to check. Then we might establish whether it was indeed Moslems.”
“Who else could it have been?”
“Copts. Have you any enemies?”
“Only Moslems,” said Andrus.
He seemed stuck on this. Owen could not tell whether it was some personal bitterness or whether it was the general bitterness which he knew Copts felt for Moslems. If it was the latter, he was surprised at its intensity. If that was widely shared, then it was worrying. There was the possibility of a major explosion. And any little spark could set it going.