Yet Lovelace, not having foreseen that Zirrif might stop at a house of his own miles outside a town, had no way of communicating with them. There was no telephone in the room and he would not have dared to use it if there had been. He made up his mind that somehow or other he must get out of the house and in to Alexandria that night. It would be a long and tiring walk but he could get a car to bring him out again and, having made fresh arrangements with Christopher, he should be safely back in his bedroom again before dawn. In the meantime his position would continue difficult and dangerous. The only comforting thought was that neither Zirrif nor Cassalis could have any possible suspicion that he was not Mr. Jeremiah Green.
He dined alone with the Frenchman, who proved an amusing enough companion and seemed glad to have his company. After the meal he seized the opportunity, when they were studying some old prints on the walls, to push his tobacco pouch behind an ornament and then, without protest, he allowed himself to be shepherded upstairs again to his room. Cassalis indicated a long shelf of books and expressed the hope that he would find something there to interest him before wishing him good night with courteous but unmistakable finality.
Knowing he had several hours to wait before he dared attempt anything Lovelace took the hint and settled down to read. He was patient by nature and the time slipped past quickly. By midnight, as far as he could judge, all the lights in the house were out, and, when he listened intently for any sound or movement, the place was so still that he could hear his own breathing.
He dared not remove his shoes; to have been caught carrying them would reveal a guilty intention and, if he ran into one of the gunmen, he meant to excuse his midnight prowling by saying that he had left his tobacco pouch downstairs in the dining room. However he was banking on the man on duty being safely out of the way at some permanent post in the neighborhood of Zarrif’s bedroom. He put out the light, quietly turned the handle of his door, and pulled. It did not yield a fraction. Someone had locked it.
That gave him cause for anxious thought but he came to the conclusion that, since they could have no grounds for suspecting him, they were only treating him as a new comer to the establishment and exercising a precautionary measure by keeping him a prisoner.
He moved over to the window and peered out. It was not a long drop to the ground and somehow he would manage to scramble up again. The garden was still and moonlit. Only the faint howling of a jackal out in the desert broke the stillness. He threw one leg
over the balcony; then paused. A shadow had moved at the foot of one of the palm trees. It was a big dog. It lifted its head, barked once, and subsided into a menacing growl. Lovelace withdrew behind the curtains of the window. As he did so a figure came round the corner of the house. One of the gunmen was on duty in the garden.
Mr. Zirrif apparently made it as difficult for his guests to get out of his establishments as for unwelcome visitors to get in and Lovelace felt there was no alternative but to abandon his attempt for that night at least. As he climbed into bed he recalled Cassalis' statement that `Mr. Zirrif was one who had a great aversion to accidents.'
Next morning a light breakfast was served to him in bed. He had scarcely finished it when Cassalis arrived to say that Zirrif would like to see him at ten o'clock. By the appointed time he was dressed and ready to wait upon the elderly Armenian. For an hour they talked Abyssinia together. Lovelace found it a little easier to sustain the ordeal now that he had had some practice at it and, when the interview was over, asked if there was any objection to his spending the afternoon in Alexandria.
Zirrif looked at him in cold surprise. `My staff are sufficiently well paid to take their recreation only when they have left my service,' he said quietly. `I fear that I may need you at any time.'
For a moment Lovelace thought of mentioning Otto Klinger, whose name Barrotet had given as an associate of the Millers o f God resident in Alexandria, and saying that he wished to see him on business; but that would have meant compromising Klinger with Zirrif if anything went wrong later. His only course was to accept the situation with outward cheerfulness.
After the interview he was given the run of a small sitting room at the back of the house which had a large selection of books in it. From the window he could see over the garden wall and glimpse the slope running down to the turgid, muddy river; a native felucca with a large, triangular sail was tacking up stream, but it was too far off for him to contemplate attempting to use the river traffic as a means of communication with his friends.
He began to study the titles of the books and decided to use one of them for a matter that had been troubling him ever since the previous evening. If he slipped up, as he feared he might from hour to hour, and they searched him, the discovery of his passport would damn him utterly; yet he was loath to destroy it, as its loss might prove a serious handicap if he wished to leave the country at an hour's notice later on. Now, making certain that he was unobserved from the garden, he pulled a heavy volume of Natural History from a lower shelf, jammed the passport well home between the leaves, and replaced the volume in its set.
That done, he felt a trifle easier in his mind. He could always swear he had lost it, and at least they could not now secure any proof of his real identity.
He had rescued his tobacco pouch from the dining room after seeing Zirrif. Filling his pipe, he lit up and sat down to think; to try and plan some way of leaving the house without arousing suspicion. If only the party had stopped at some hotel, as he had naturally assumed they would, there would not have been the least difficulty in his getting in touch with his friends. A carefully worded note slipped into the hand of one of the hotel servants with an adequate tip, when no one was looking, and Christopher would have known the place that Zirrif had selected for his headquarters during his stay in Alex. within an hour.
As it was, Lovelace dared not risk bribing Zarrif’s own servants to take a message, because he knew that if they betrayed him he would pay for his indiscretion with his life, and in the face of Zarrif’s refusal to allow him to go into Alex. it would have been madness to attempt to leave the house in broad daylight.
Sitting there in the quiet room all through the morning, he was aware, although he could not see them, that from time to time, visitors arrived; presumably to see Zirrif. While he puzzled his brains for a way out of his dilemma, Lovelace wondered upon what strange errands, fraught, perhaps, with far reaching consequences for countless innocent people, these mysterious visitors came.
He could not bring himself to hate Zirrif as a person. The elderly Armenian had shown him every courtesy more; he had even momentarily put aside important business to show concern over his new employee's health. Yet Lovelace knew that the man was ruthless, evil, completely callous about everything outside his own personal interests, and engaged in plotting a thing which would bring about incalculable human suffering through a mad lust for power and monetary gain.
By lunch time he had reached no decision. The meal was brought to him on a tray, and deft, silent footed native servants waited on him.
When he was alone again he confessed to himself that for the moment he was powerless, and decided he must postpone any further action until the coming night. Selecting a book from the shelves he sat down to read, and remained immersed in the adventures of a man in far less delicate situations than he was himself until the shadows drew a veil over the garden and he could no longer see the sails of the native boats upon the river in the near distance.
That evening he dined again with Cassalis. Afterwards Zirrif sent for him, but detained him only ten minutes. When he was free he went up to his room and read till midnight. Once more, after the house had gone to rest, he made a cautious investigation. His door was locked; the dog and watcher occupied the garden. In an evil temper after his long worrying day, and really anxious now, he went to bed.