Valerie paused for a moment. `What made me look up I don't know, but I did, just when the riot was in full swing, and at a second floor window on the opposite side of the street I saw a man aiming a rifle dead at Christopher. I just had time to pull him down as the man fired. The bullet whizzed over our heads and smashed the mirror of an old bureau. Of course, if Christopher had been killed it would have been put down to a stray shot from the street.'
`That's about it.' Lovelace nodded. `Jove! what a narrow squeak. I wouldn't mind betting that riot was engineered specially to cover the attempt. The devils. I suppose they've been on the look out for him in every likely town since he left Long Island. I wonder how they managed to get on to him when he was staying under an assumed name at a little place like the Gordon Pasha, though.'
`Simple, my dear,' Valerie laughed. `Yesterday we ran into a delightful idiot called Bob Tucker just outside the Museum, where we'd been putting in an hour to kill time while waiting for news of you. Bob's one of the nicest bad hats I've ever known. We had drinks together at a near by cafe, and he took a snap of Christopher and me sitting at one of the tables. It was only afterwards he told us he'd turned journalist and persuaded some daft editor back home to send him out as war correspondent to Abyssinia. It never occurred to us at the time, but I'm news, of course, wherever I go,
and there was the picture in Alexandria's leading news sheet this morning with, “World's richest flying girl, Valerie Lorne, and her millionaire fiancé, Christopher Penn, now on vacation on Alex.,” in nice large letters underneath.'
Lovelace gave a rueful grin. `I see. That's what gave you away. Naturally, the moment the enemy saw that they dragged every hotel in the place until they found your description tallied with two people staying at the Gordon Pasha. It would be easy enough for such an influential bunch as they must be to fix up a riot for the purpose of having a shot at Christopher afterwards. I didn't know you were particularly rich, Valerie.'
'I'm not, compared with Christopher's standard, but I'm close on a millionaire in dollars. I'm an orphan and an only child, too, you know, so I live with an aunt when I'm at home, that is, which isn't often. Bob Tucker was interesting about Abyssinia.'
'He's been there and come back, then?'
`Yes. He clung on until his paper refused to send him any more funds. Apparently the Abyssinian censorship is so stringent that the correspondents couldn't get a thing worth sending to their papers so the people at home got fed up with paying good money out for nothing, and recalled nearly all of them. He says it's a lousy country, and God alone knows why the Italians want it.'
'It'll be a very different place when they've been in occupation for half a dozen years.'
`Well, Bob says there's no question about their winning. It's only a matter of time. The climate, lack of roads, and their distance from their bases are the only serious obstacles they have to contend with. Troops of filthy ruffians are still pouring into Addis on their way to the front, though, and if only the Emperor can provide them with enough rifles and cartridges they may hold the Italians up until next year; especially as the rains are due in a few weeks' time.'
Loveless nodded. `Mobilization takes months in a place like Abyssinia where communications are almost confined to goat tracks and every petty chieftain has to be bribed and flattered before he'll consent to bring his followers along to take a hand. Had this chap Tucker any genuine information about the progress of the war?'
'No. He didn't know a thing about it until he got back to Jibuti and saw the European papers. The Italians are said to have reached Lake Tana the day we arrived in Alex., and Badoglio's motorized columns are pushing on, but how long he'll stick the pace nobody has any idea.'
`Lake Tana's only just half way from the Eritrean frontier to Addis, so he's got the worst half of the journey to make yet, and if they get too far ahead of the main army they may get cut off. What had Tucker to say about conditions in the capital?'
Valerie smiled. 'Bob says it's in an unholy mess. The Emperor's somewhere on the battle front, at Dessye, they think, and as nobody has any power to do anything without him the whole machinery of government, such as it was, has seized up. The Press bureau ceased to issue anything, except wild statements that ten thousand Italians had been cut to pieces every day, so the correspondents had to rely on bribing spies to get some sort of news; and since they didn't really know anything either, but just provided any sort of lie they thought might earn them a few thalers, their information became equally unreliable and stupidly fantastic, after a bit. The nobles, who ought to be supporting the Emperor, are drunk most of the time. They laze about, boasting of what they or their fathers did at Adowa in 1896, and how they mean to drive the Italians into the sea. Bob says he had no idea until he went there that any race of blacks could possibly regard white men as their inferiors; but the Abyssinians do, apparently.'
`That's hardly to be wondered at,' Lovelace shrugged, `Comparatively few of them had ever seen a white until about nine months ago, and look at the specimens who have been crowding into the place since: every sort of shady character who thought he might make a bit out of their war. Concessionaries like Zirrif who'd see the whole lot of them slaughtered without a qualm if it happened to suit their book. Armament racketeers who'd sell them dud cartridges, so as to make a bigger profit, if they had the chance. Cashiered officers from half the armies in Europe willing to drive them into battle with machine guns at their backs if they're paid well enough for the job. Phoney Red Cross men laying for a chance to steal the funds, and every other sort of trickster playing half a hundred different games to do the poor devils down.'
`You'd have to get up early in the morning to trick an Abyssinian,' chuckled Valerie. `At least, that's what Bob says. And as for graft, well, he told us that sort of thing wasn't understood in the States at all. Compared with their fuzzy haired officials our tough eggs back home are still in the kindergarten class. He'd hoped to save a bit on his expenses, although I'll admit that's a grand laugh coming from Bob, but he passed up every dime he had in bribery even to get himself allowed to walk round. He's come back dead broke, and I suppose that's why he thought he'd make the price of a few drinks by selling our picture to the local daily.'
Lovelace frowned. `You know that young man's let us in for a packet of trouble, and I'm afraid we haven't had the last of it yet. D'you realise that from now on half the population of Alex. may recognise you and Christopher the moment you set foot in the streets? I expect that nebulous group of thugs we vaguely call the enemy have been questioning the reception clerks in all the hotels with a copy of that paper in their hands ever since they learned that you'd cleared out of the Gordon Pasha. They're bound to run you to earth here before long. If you ask me, we're up against it, Valerie.'
Her face went suddenly grave. 'You you're not thinking of backing out now after, after what happened to you this evening, are you?'
`Good God, no!' He drank off the rest of his grog and smiled at her. `I was never keen on this murder game, as you know, and I wouldn't have come in at the beginning if Christopher's life hadn't been threatened, Then, after the mess up in Athens, I'd certainly have chucked in my hand if it hadn't been for you. But now the thing has become really personal. That cold blooded swine Zirrif did his best to murder me today. Worse, he ordered the death of that poor innocent Negro, the real Jeremiah Green, without the slightest compunction. I've got a score to settle with Mr. Paxito Zirrif, and I mean to move heaven and earth to see he get his deserts.'