If Cassalis asked to see it, or even caught sight of it when he produced it at the barrier, there would be an abrupt end to the fiction that he was Jeremiah Green, Ras Desoum's messenger to Zirrif from Abyssinia. With confused and miserable misgivings he stood there waiting for the secretary's arrival.
10
The house on the edge of the desert
During the minutes Lovelace spent waiting by the bookstall he felt irritable and anxious. Irritable on account of the long wrangle he had had with Christopher that morning and anxious because, quite apart from any difficulties which might arise if he had to produce his passport, he saw, now he had a chance to think things over alone, that, even though there was no actual evidence to go on, Zirrif might well suspect some connection between the two visits Mr. Jeremiah Green had made him the day before and Christopher's attempt to murder him later. If Zirrif did suspect anything the fat would be in the fire with a vengeance.
In the distance Lovelace caught sight of Christopher and Valerie sauntering, side by side, across the aerodrome towards her plane. The sun was gleaming on her chestnut hair as she stepped out to keep pace with him. He too was bareheaded and, even so far away, his matt white face under the short, dark, curling hair looked like the profile of some young Greek God who had just come to life again. Lovelace was conscious of a warm glow of satisfaction at the thought that he had certainly saved him from a martyr's crown, at all events for the moment, but when they were safely embarked and ready to take the air his forebodings about his own situation returned with renewed vigour.
Cassalis' arrival put an end to his gloomy speculations and concealing his anxiety he gave the Frenchman a friendly smile.
`You are punctual, mon ami,' Cassalis remarked cheerfully. `That is good. Monsieur Zirrif much dislikes to be kept waiting.'
Lovelace felt a little thrill of elation. It seemed that at least he was not suspected of any connection with Zarrif’s unwelcome visitor. `Mr. Zirrif has not turned up yet,' he said, `at least I haven't seen him.'
`You would not,' the dapper secretary replied quickly. `Mr. Zirrif is a very extraordinary man and has many unusual privileges. He keeps his private plane here for convenience but no formalities are required when he and his entourage come or go in it. I left his car only this moment. It has driven straight on to the landing ground. I meet you so you have no delay in passing the officials. Come, let us proceed.'
An ill assorted pair, they walked over to the barrier. Cassalis slim, effeminate, quick stepping and conscious of his own importance, his dark eyes shining like polished jet in his sallow face; the Englishman a good head taller, slower of gait owing to his longer stride, his limbs moving easily with a hidden power, his healthily tanned face an unrevealing mask and his partly lowered lids half concealing his lazy glance.
At the guichet the passport officer greeted Cassalis with a friendly nod and the two exchanged flowery compliments in Greek.
The critical moment had come and Lovelace knew that somehow he had got to divert Cassalis' attention. Putting his hand in his breast pocket he drew out his passport and with it a dozen bank notes which, with apparent clumsiness, he allowed to flutter to the ground.
Murmuring an apology he thrust his passport through the guichet before stooping to pick up his money. Cassalis was already busy collecting some of the scattered notes. It took only a matter of seconds but, when they rose again, the officer had already given the passport the cursory glance which was sufficient to satisfy himself in the case of Cassalis' friend. With a smile of thanks to the official Lovelace slipped the document back in his pocket. As he turned towards the flying field he gave a secret sigh of relief. He was safely over the first fence, at all events.
Zarrif’s plane was a great, grey, four engined monster. Three cars stood near it but he and his suite were already on board when Lovelace and Cassalis went up the gangway.
The machine was divided into four compartments. A kitchenette in the tail; a biggish saloon which accommodated the bodyguard six tough looking customers two of whom Lovelace had seen the day before; a combined dining room and office, and, adjoining the cockpit, Zarrif’s own sanctum.
Lovelace was taken through to him at once. He looked smaller and more narrow shouldered than ever in the daylight yet his green eyes showed him to be a dynamo of mental activity and Lovelace was struck again by the unusual fairness of his skin for an Armenian.
Zirrif pulled at his little goatee beard as he inquired kindly after his new employee's health. On learning that the night's rest had restored him after the previous day's attack he dismissed him with orders that he should remain in the middle cabin with Cassalis.
As the plane moved off Cassalis unlocked a low steel cupboard and Lovelace saw that it contained four machine guns, equipment for fixing them, and several boxes of ammunition. The bodyguards were called in and, obviously following a well established routine, they disappeared with two guns aft and two forward to place them in position. Within ten minutes of leaving Athens the plane had been converted from a private airliner into a powerful fighting machine.
Lovelace forebore to comment but Cassalis gave him a knowing grin. `It is well to be prepared eh, Mr. Green?'
`Yes rather, but er what on earth for?' Lovelace fingered his little upturned moustache and his brown eyes were open wide in bland inquiry.
'Ah, who can tell?' The Frenchman shrugged mysteriously. 'But there are strange people about these days and some of them perhaps use aeroplanes. There are no witnesses in the sky to see what happens and if we were all picked up drowned people would say "this is an accident! Mr. Zirrif is one who has a great aversion to accidents.'
Opening a satchel, Cassalis took out a sheaf of papers, but after a moment he thrust them back again having apparently decided not to start work at once. Instead he settled himself more comfortably and said
`Tell me, Mr. Green, about Abyssinia. As you will have assured yourself from my questions yesterday I know much of the Emperor and his principal ministers. It is my business to do so, but I have never been there.'
'I was only there myself . . .' Lovelace caught himself just in time. Lulled into a false security by Cassalis' friendly acceptance of him as a colleague he had forgotten momentarily that he was impersonating the messenger who had been struck down by fever in the Sudan. He had been about to say quite truthfully, `on a visit to see the Emperor's coronation in 1930.' The slip would have cost him his life. With a hardly perceptible hesitation he managed to substitute '. . . for a few months this winter. What d'you want to know about the place?'
'Of the people, the customs, the country?' Cassalis made an airy gesture; evidently having noticed nothing.
`All three vary tremendously. The ruling caste are the Amhara. They're quite light skinned and have nothing negroid about them except their fuzzy hair and they don't think of themselves as blacks at all. In fact they regard negroes with more contempt than most white people do. They've a culture of their own which was probably quite a high one in pre Roman times but they've been isolated for so many centuries that it became sterile and decadent long ago. They're such snobs that they look down on whites almost as much as they do on negroes. Altogether there's only about two and a half million of them that's roughly a fourth of the total population but they hold all the important posts and are thoroughly hated by the other races of greater Abyssinia; the races they ruled in the dark ages but have only reconquered in quite recent times, I mean.'
`Who are these other races?
'Well, the Gallas are the largest; they're about four million strong. Then there are the Guragis; a mysterious race said to be descended from white slaves brought out of Egypt three thousand years ago. They're the workers of the country. The others despise men who labour and particularly anyone who has anything to do with commerce. The deserts of the east and south are inhabited by the Danakil’s and Somalis; blood thirsty, uncivilized savages. In the mountains to the north on the borders of Eritrea live the Tigres who're not much better. In the west there's a backward race of negroes called Shankalis, and round Harar you find the more cultured Hararis who come from Arab stock. Then a race of black Jews called Fallashas occupy the neighborhood of Gondar. None of them agrees about a single thing except in their hatred of their overlords, the Amhara.'