As realization dawned, Andrus blanched.
“I cannot,” he said. “You ask too much.”
“Think of this,” said Owen, “as payment. Payment for the two men who died because of you and the many who might have died.”
“I cannot. I would be ashamed.”
“If you do not, the shame will be not just on you but on your father’s house. ‘There is Andrus,’ they will say, ‘the man who gave money to the Moslems to use against the Copts.’ ”
Andrus buried his face in his hands again.
“Either way there is shame,” said Owen, “but one way the shame is yours and yours alone. The other way the shame is on your father too.”
Andrus sat for a long time. Owen let him sit. When at last Andrus looked up, his face was haggard.
“I will do what you wish,” he said.
“What do you want?” said Osman suspiciously.
“I want you to withdraw all your people from the streets, to send them home and to tell them to stay at home. That is, at least until after the Moulid. They are not to let themselves be provoked by the Copts. After today the Copts will be very anxious not to provoke you, but should some foolish man do so then you are to instruct your people not to respond.”
“What?” said Osman, unbelieving.
“You are to confine yourself to a mosque until after the Moulid. You will not go out in the streets and you will not say anything in public. There are to be no speeches and no sermons. Not until after the Moulid.”
“I shall say what I like and go where I like,” said Osman. “As for the Copts, I will cut their throats and dance in their blood.”
“You will not,” said Owen, who took an equable view of Arab rhetoric.
“No?” said Osman belligerently. “Why won’t I?”
“Because if you do,” said Owen, “I will tell everyone that you are the man who receives money from Copts.”
“I?” said Osman. “I? I receive no money from Copts.”
“You go to Mordecai, don’t you?”
“He is not a Copt. He is a Jew.”
“And where do you think he gets the money from?”
“Not from Copts?” said Osman, with a sinking heart.
“He is just the man in the middle. The Copts bring the money and Osman takes it. Every Friday. On the Sabbath.”
Osman reeled.
“Do you swear this?” he said thickly.
“On the Book.”
Osman shook his heavy, turbanned head from side to side as if bemused.
“I did not know it came from them!” he muttered. “How was I to know? A man came to me and said there were friends with money. They wished to keep themselves secret and therefore I was to go to Mordecai. But how can they be Copts? Copts would not give money for use against Copts. Unless-”
He smashed his great fists on the table.
“They have tricked me. It was a trap. And I fell into it. Fool that I am!” He buried his head in his arms and rolled about the table in his agony. “Fool! Fool!”
“Osman takes money from Copts. So it will be known.”
“Fool! Fool!” groaned Osman. “Oh, the cunning devils! They have beaten me. How shall I show my face? Osman takes Copt money! Oh, the shame of it!”
“If you do as I say,” said Owen, “you will be able to show your face. No one will know about it.”
“The Copts will tell,” groaned Osman.
“They won’t,” said Owen.
Something in his voice made Osman look at him.
“How do you know?”
“I have talked with them.”
“Do not believe them. They are cunning devils.”
“On this occasion,” said Owen, “I think they may be believed.”
“You do not know them like I do,” said Osman.
“They have no choice,” said Owen. “They are in a trap as deep as yours.”
“A trap?” Osman began to sound hopeful. “Of your devising?”
“Yes.”
Osman pounded the desk joyfully.
“They are in a trap. The Mamur Zapt has tricked them. They have tricked me but have themselves been tricked.”
“That’s about it.”
“You swear it? On the Book?”
“On the Book.”
“Then I will go happily to prison.”
“You are not going to prison. You are going to take your people off the streets. Remember?”
“I can’t do that,” said Osman in consternation.
“You must do it. Or I will see to it that everyone in Cairo knows who is the sheikh who takes money from Copts.”
There was a short silence.
“If I do what you ask,” said Osman, “can I be sure that the Copts will do the same?”
“You can be sure.”
“I do not like it.”
“Nor do they.”
“No,” said Osman, beginning to smile. “Of that one can be confident.”
He struck his fist on the table.
“I will do it!” he said.
“At once. Tonight,” said Owen.
Osman nodded.
“At once,” he agreed. “So it shall be.”
He left looking quite pleased. Owen was not sure that whatever lesson Osman had learned had been quite the right one.
Later in the morning Owen paid one of his infrequent visits to the Ministry of Finance. As he was walking along one of the long, green-painted corridors he ran into John Postlethwaite.
“Hello, lad,” said John Postlethwaite. “What are you doing here? Come for a bit of pocket money?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Owen. “Not personally, but for the office.”
“You’ll be lucky. What have you been up to?”
“Not been up to anything. It’s all this trouble between Copts and Moslems. It costs money.”
“Too true. That’s only too true,” John Postlethwaite agreed enthusiastically. “That’s what I’m always saying. However you look at it, it costs money. These colonies are millstones around our necks, as a noble lord of my acquaintance once said. Mind you, he’s a millstone round our necks too, him and all the other lords.”
Owen thought that Paul might not like the turn the conversation was taking so hastily shifted tack.
“The real problem is the levy,” he said.
“Levy?” said John Postlethwaite sharply. “I’ve not heard about that.”
Owen explained.
“A levy is a mistake,” said John Postlethwaite. “It’s bad accounting principle. It’s a one-off business, you see. You do it once and then that’s an end to it. What you want is a charge on something that regularly recurs. You can go on forever then.”
“The Khedive’s insisting on it. He needs the money.”
“What does he need it for?”
Owen thought he hadn’t better mention Monte Carlo.
“Oh, a special function he has in mind, I think,” he said vaguely.
“If it’s an unusual item, then maybe the best thing is a straightforward loan,” said John Postlethwaite. “I don’t normally approve of loans, unless I’m lending, of course, but sometimes they’re the answer.”
At the other end of the corridor Owen saw Ramses come out of a door. He began to edge away.
“Come and see us sometime,” said John Postlethwaite. “I know Jane would like to see you. She gets a bit cooped up in that hotel.”
“Hello,” said Ramses. “What are you after? Still in trouble with the Compensation Fund? I might be able to do something for you next year but there’s not much chance this year, I’m afraid. We’re still stuck in our log-jam.”
“Postlethwaite thinks the levy’s a bad idea.”
“Same here. Unfortunately-”
“He thinks a loan might be better.”
“So it might,” said Ramses, “if anyone could be found stupid enough to lend to the Khedive.”
“I was wondering,” said Owen, “if, in return for the levy being abandoned-”
“A loan? You wouldn’t get your money back.”
“Suppose,” said Owen, “somebody made a loan, and the idea of the levy was withdrawn, and Patros became Prime Minister, couldn’t he raise taxes?”
“He certainly could and almost certainly will.”
“Then the loan could be repaid out of the increase in taxes.”