They Came to Baghdad (12 page)

I
t had been Victoria's intention to go to bed and to sleep and to leave all problems until the morning, but having already slept most of the afternoon, she found herself devastatingly wide awake.

In the end she switched on the light, finished a magazine story she had been reading in the plane, darned her stockings, tried on her new nylons, wrote out several different advertisements requiring employment (she could ask tomorrow where these should be inserted), wrote three or four tentative letters to Mrs. Hamilton Clipp, each setting out a different and more ingenious set of unforeseen circumstances which had resulted in her being “stranded” in Baghdad, sketched out one or two telegrams appealing for help to her sole surviving relative, a very old, crusty, and unpleasant gentleman in the North of England who had never helped anybody in his life; tried out a new style of hairdo, and finally with a sudden yawn decided that at last she really was desperately sleepy and ready for bed and repose.

It was at this moment that without any warning her bedroom door swung open, a man slipped in, turned the key in the lock behind him and said to her urgently:

“For God's sake hide me somewhere—quickly….”

Victoria's reactions were never slow. In a twinkling of an eye she had noted the laboured breathing, the fading voice, the way the man held an old red knitted scarf bunched on his breast with a desperate clutching hand. And she rose immediately in response to the adventure.

The room did not lend itself to many hiding places. There was the wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a table and the rather pretentious dressing table. The bed was a large one—almost a double bed and memories of childish hide-and-seek made Victoria's reaction prompt.

“Quick,” she said. She swept off pillows, and raised sheet and blanket. The man lay across the top of the bed. Victoria pulled sheet and blanket over him, dumped the pillows on top and sat down herself on the side of the bed.

Almost immediately there came a low insistent knocking on the door.

Victoria called out, “Who is it?” in a faint, alarmed voice.

“Please,” said a man's voice outside. “Open, please. It is the police.”

Victoria crossed the room, pulling her dressing gown round her. As she did so, she noticed the man's red knitted scarf was lying on the floor and she caught it up and swept it into a drawer, then she turned the key and opened the door of her room a small way, peering out with an expression of alarm.

A dark-haired young man in a mauve pinstripe suit was standing outside and behind him was a man in police officer's uniform.

“What's the matter?” Victoria asked, letting a quaver creep into her voice.

The young man smiled brilliantly and spoke in very passable English.

“I am so sorry, miss, to disturb you at this hour,” he said, “but we have a criminal escaped. He has run into this hotel. We must look in every room. He is a very dangerous man.”

“Oh dear!” Victoria fell back, opening the door wide. “
Do
come in, please, and look. How very frightening. Look in the bathroom, please. Oh! and the wardrobe—and, I wonder,
would
you mind looking
under
the bed? He might have been there all evening.”

The search was very rapid.

“No, he is not here.”

“You're sure he's not under the bed? No, how silly of me. He couldn't be in here at all. I locked the door when I went to bed.”

“Thank you, miss, and good evening.”

The young man bowed and withdrew with his uniformed assistant.

Victoria, following him to the door, said:

“I'd better lock it again, hadn't I? To be safe.”

“Yes, that will be best, certainly. Thank you.”

Victoria relocked the door and stood by it for some few minutes. She heard the police officers knock in the same way on the door the other side of the passage, heard the door open, an exchange of remarks and the indignant hoarse voice of Mrs. Cardew
Trench, and then the door closing. It reopened a few minutes later, the sound of their footsteps moved down the passage. The next knock came from much farther away.

Victoria turned and walked across the room to the bed. It was borne in upon her that she had probably been excessively foolish. Led away by the romantic spirit, and by the sound of her own language, she had impulsively lent aid to what was probably an extremely dangerous criminal. A disposition to be on the side of the hunted against the hunter sometimes brings unpleasant consequences. Oh well, thought Victoria, I'm in for it now, anyway!

Standing beside the bed she said curtly:

“Get up.”

There was no movement, and Victoria said sharply, though without raising her voice:

“They've gone. You can get up now.”

But still there was no sign of movement from under the slightly raised hump of pillows. Impatiently, Victoria threw them all off.

The young man lay just as she had left him. But now his face was a queer greyish colour and his eyes were closed.

Then, with a sharp catch in her breath, Victoria noticed something else—a bright red stain seeping through onto the blanket.

“Oh,
no,
” said Victoria, almost as though pleading with someone. “Oh, no—
no!
”

And as though in recognition of that plea the wounded man opened his eyes. He stared at her, stared as though from very far away at some object he was not quite certain of seeing.

His lips parted—the sound was so faint that Victoria scarcely heard.

She bent down.

“What?”

She heard this time. With difficulty, great difficulty, the young man said two words. Whether she heard them correctly or not Victoria did not know. They seemed to her quite nonsensical and without meaning. What he said was, “
Lucifer—Basrah.
…”

The eyelids drooped and flickered over the wide anxious eyes. He said one word more—a name. Then his head jerked back a little and he lay still.

Victoria stood quite still, her heart beating violently. She was filled now with an intense pity and anger. What to do next she had no idea. She must call someone—get someone to come. She was alone here with a dead man and sooner or later the police would want an explanation.

Whilst her brain worked rapidly on the situation, a small sound made her turn her head. The key had fallen out of her bedroom door, and whilst she stared at it, she heard the sound of the lock turning. The door opened and Mr. Dakin came in, carefully closing the door behind him.

He walked across to her saying quietly:

“Nice work, my dear. You think quickly. How is he?”

With a catch in her voice Victoria said:

“I think he's—he's
dead.
”

She saw the other's face alter, caught just a flash of intense anger, then his face was just as she had seen it the day before—only now it seemed to her that the indecision and flabbiness of the man had vanished, giving place to something quite different.

He bent down—and gently loosened the ragged tunic.

“Very neatly stabbed through the heart,” said Dakin as he straightened up. “He was a brave lad—and a clever one.”

Victoria found her voice.

“The police came. They said he was a criminal.
Was
he a criminal?”

“No. He wasn't a criminal.”

“Were they—were they the police?”

“I don't know,” said Dakin. “They may have been. It's all the same.”

Then he asked her:

“Did he say anything—before he died?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“He said Lucifer—and then Basrah. And then after a pause he said a name—a French name it sounded like—but I mayn't have got it right.”

“What did it sound like to you?”

“I think it was Lefarge.”

“Lefarge,” said Dakin thoughtfully.

“What does it all mean?” said Victoria, and added with some dismay: “And what am I to do?”

“We must get you out of it as far as we can,” said Dakin. “As for what it's all about, I'll come back and talk to you later. The first thing to do is to get hold of Marcus. It's his hotel and Marcus has a great deal of sense, though one doesn't always realize it in talking to him. I'll get hold of him. He won't have gone to bed. It's only half past one. He seldom goes to bed before two o'clock. Just attend to your appearance before I bring him in. Marcus is very susceptible to beauty in distress.”

He left the room. As though in a dream she moved over to
the dressing table, combed back her hair, made up her face to a becoming pallor and collapsed on to a chair as she heard footsteps approaching. Dakin came in without knocking. Behind him came the bulk of Marcus Tio.

This time Marcus was serious. There was not the usual smile on his face.

“Now, Marcus,” said Mr. Dakin, “you must do what you can about this. It's been a terrible shock to this poor girl. The fellow burst in, collapsed—she's got a very kind heart and she hid him from the police. And now he's dead. She oughtn't to have done it, perhaps, but girls are softhearted.”

“Of course she did not like the police,” said Marcus. “Nobody likes the police.
I
do not like the police. But I have to stand well with them because of my hotel. You want me to square them with money?”

“We just want to get the body away quietly.”

“That is very nice, my dear. And I, too, I do not want a body in my hotel. But it is, as you say, not so easy to do?”

“I think it could be managed,” said Dakin. “You've got a doctor in your family, haven't you?”

“Yes, Paul, my sister's husband, is a doctor. He is a very nice boy. But I do not want him to get into trouble.”

“He won't,” said Dakin. “Listen, Marcus. We move the body from Miss Jones' room across into my room. That lets
her
out of it. Then I use your telephone. In ten minutes' time a young man reels into the hotel from the street. He is very drunk, he clutches at his side. He demands me at the top of his voice. He staggers into my room and collapses. I come out and call you and ask for a doctor.
You produce your brother-in-law. He sends for an ambulance and he goes in it with this drunken friend of mine. Before they get to the hospital my friend is dead. He has been stabbed. That is all right for you. He has been stabbed in the street before coming into your hotel.”

“My brother-in-law takes away the body—and the young man who plays the part of the drunkard, he goes away quietly in the morning perhaps?”

“That's the idea.”

“And there is no body found in my hotel? And Miss Jones she does not get any worry or annoyance? I think, my dear, that that is all a very good idea.”

“Good, then if you'll make sure the coast is clear, I'll get the body across to my room. Those servants of yours potter round the corridors half the night. Go along to your room and raise a shindy. Get them all running to fetch you things.”

Marcus nodded and left the room.

“You're a strong girl,” said Dakin. “Can you manage to help me to carry him across the corridor to my room?”

Victoria nodded. Between them they lifted the limp body, carried it across the deserted corridor (in the distance Marcus' voice could be heard upraised in furious anger) and laid it on Dakin's bed.

Dakin said:

“Got a pair of scissors? Then cut off the top of your under-blanket where it's stained. I don't think the stain's gone through to the mattress. The tunic soaked up most of it. I'll come along to you in about an hour. Here, wait a minute, take a pull from this flask of mine.”

Victoria obeyed.

“Good girl,” said Dakin. “Now go back to your room. Turn out the light. As I said, I'll be along in about an hour.”

“And you'll tell me what it all means?”

He gave her a long rather peculiar stare but did not answer her question.

V
ictoria lay in bed with her light out, listening through the darkness. She heard sounds of loud drunken altercation. Heard a voice declaring: “Felt I got to look you up, ole man. Had a row with a fellow outside.” She heard bells ring. Heard other voices. Heard a good deal of commotion. Then came a stretch of comparative silence—except for the far-off playing of Arab music on a gramophone in somebody's room. When it seemed to her as though hours had passed, she heard the gentle opening of her door and sat up in bed and switched on the bedside lamp.

“That's right,” said Dakin approvingly.

He brought a chair up to the bedside and sat down in it. He sat there staring at her in the considering manner of a physician making a diagnosis.

“Tell me what it's all about?” demanded Victoria.

“Suppose,” said Dakin, “that you tell me all about yourself first. What are you doing here? Why did you come to Baghdad?”

Whether it was the events of the night, or whether it was something in Dakin's personality (Victoria thought afterwards that it was the latter), Victoria for once did not launch out on an inspired and meretricious account of her presence in Baghdad. Quite simply and straightforwardly she told him everything. Her meeting with Edward, her determination to get to Baghdad, the miracle of Mrs. Hamilton Clipp, and her own financial destitution.

“I see,” said Dakin when she had finished.

He was silent for a moment before he spoke.

“Perhaps I'd like to keep you out of this. I'm not sure. But the point is, you
can't
be kept out of it! You're in it, whether I like it or not. And as you're in it, you might as well work for
me.
”

“You've got a job for me?” Victoria sat up in bed, her cheeks bright with anticipation.

“Perhaps. But not the kind of job you're thinking of. This is a serious job, Victoria. And it's dangerous.”

“Oh, that's all right,” said Victoria cheerfully. She added doubtfully, “It's not
dishonest,
is it? Because though I know I tell an awful lot of lies, I wouldn't really like to do anything that was dishonest.”

Dakin smiled a little.

“Strangely enough, your capacity to think up a convincing lie quickly is one of your qualifications for the job. No, it's not dishonest. On the contrary, you are enlisted in the cause of law and order. I'm going to put you in the picture—only in a general kind of way, but so that you can understand fully what it is you are doing and exactly what the dangers are. You seem to be a sensible young woman and I don't suppose you've thought much about world politics which is just as well, because as Hamlet very wisely remarked, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.'”

“I know everybody says there's going to be another war sooner or later,” said Victoria.

“Exactly,” said Mr. Dakin. “Why does everybody say so, Victoria?”

She frowned. “Why, because Russia—the Communists—America—” she stopped.

“You see,” said Dakin. “Those aren't your own opinions or words. They're picked up from newspapers and casual talk, and the wireless. There are two divergent points of view dominating different parts of the world, that is true enough. And they are represented loosely in the public mind as ‘Russia and the Communists' and ‘America.' Now the only hope for the future, Victoria, lies in peace, in production, in constructive activities and not destructive ones. Therefore everything depends on those who hold those two divergent viewpoints, either agreeing to differ and each contenting themselves with their respective spheres of activity, or else finding a mutual basis for agreement, or at least toleration. Instead of that, the opposite is happening, a wedge is being driven in the whole time to force two mutually suspicious groups farther and farther apart. Certain things led one or two people to believe that this activity comes from a third party or group working under cover and so far absolutely unsuspected by the world at large. Whenever there is a chance of agreement being reached or any sign of dispersal of suspicion, some incident occurs to plunge one side back in distrust, or the other side into definite hysterical fear. These things are
not
accidents, Victoria, they are deliberately produced for a calculated effect.”

“But why do you think so and who's doing it?”

“One of the reasons we think so is because of money. The
money, you see, is coming from the wrong sources. Money, Victoria, is always the great clue to what is happening in the world. As a physician feels your pulse, to get a clue to your state of health, so money is the lifeblood that feeds any great movement or cause. Without it, the movement can't make headway. Now here, there are very large sums of money involved and although very cleverly and artfully camouflaged, there is definitely something wrong about where the money comes from and where it is going. A great many unofficial strikes, various threats to Governments in Europe who show signs of recovery, are staged and brought into being by Communists, earnest workers for their cause—but the funds for these measures do
not
come from Communist sources, and traced back, they come from very strange and unlikely quarters. In the same way an increasing wave of fear of Communism, of almost hysterical panic, is arising in America and in other countries, and here, too, the funds are not coming from the appropriate quarter—it is not Capitalist money, though it naturally passes through Capitalist hands. A third point, enormous sums of money seem to be going completely out of circulation. As much as though—to put it simply—you spent your salary every week on things—bracelets or tables or chairs—and those things then disappeared or passed out of ordinary circulation and sight. All over the world a great demand for diamonds and other precious stones has arisen. They change hands a dozen or more times until finally they disappear and cannot be traced.

“This, of course, is only a vague sketch. The upshot is that somewhere a third group of people whose aim is as yet obscure, as fomenting strife and misunderstanding and are engaging in cleverly camouflaged money and jewel transactions for their own ends. We
have reason to believe that in every country there are agents of this group, some established there many years ago. Some are in very high and respectable positions, others are playing humble parts, but all are working with one unknown end in view. In substance, it is exactly like the Fifth Column activities at the beginning of the last war, only this time it is on a worldwide scale.”

“But who are these people?” Victoria demanded.

“They are not, we think, of any special nationality. What they want is, I fear, the betterment of the world! The delusion that by force you can impose the Millennium on the human race is one of the most dangerous delusions in existence. Those who are out only to line their own pockets can do little harm—mere greed defeats its own ends. But the belief in a superstratum of human beings—in Supermen to rule the rest of the decadent world—that, Victoria, is the most evil of all beliefs. For when you say, ‘I am not as other men'—you have lost the two most valuable qualities we have ever tried to attain: humility and brotherhood.”

He coughed. “Well, I mustn't preach a sermon. Let me just explain to you what we do know. There are various centres of activity. One in the Argentine, one in Canada—certainly one or more in the United States of America, and I should imagine, though we can't tell, one in Russia. And now we come to a very interesting phenomenon.

“In the past two years, twenty-eight promising young scientists of various nationalities have quietly faded out of their background. The same thing has happened with constructional engineers, with aviators, with electricians and many other skilled trades. These disappearances have this in common: those concerned are all young,
ambitious, and all without close ties. Besides those we know of, there must be many many more, and we are beginning to guess at something of what they are accomplishing.”

Victoria listened, her brows drawn together.

“You might say it was impossible in these days for anything to go on in any country unbeknownst to the rest of the world. I do not, of course, mean undercover activities; those may go on anywhere. But anything on a large scale of up-to-date production. And yet there are still obscure parts of the world, remote from trade routes, cut off by mountains and deserts, in the midst of peoples who still have the power to bar out strangers and which are never known or visited except by a solitary and exceptional traveller. Things could go on there the news of which would never penetrate to the outside world, or only as a dim and ridiculous rumour.

“I won't particularize the spot. It can be reached from China—and nobody knows what goes on in the interior of China. It can be reached from the Himalayas, but the journey there, save to the initiated, is hard and long to travel. Machinery and personnel dispatched from all over the globe reaches it after being diverted from its ostensible destination. The mechanics of it all need not be gone into.

“But one man got interested in following up a certain trail. He was an unusual man, a man who has friends and contacts throughout the East. He was born in Kashgar and he knows a score of local dialects and languages. He suspected and he followed up the trail. What he heard was so incredible that when he got back to civilization and reported it he was not believed. He admitted that he had had fever and he was treated as a man who had had delirium.

“Only two people believed his story. One was myself. I never object to believing impossible things—they're so often true. The other—” he hesitated.

“Yes?” said Victoria.

“The other was Sir Rupert Crofton Lee, a great traveller, and a man who had himself travelled through these remote regions and who knew something about their possibilities.

“The upshot of it all was that Carmichael, that's my man, decided to go and find out for himself. It was a desperate and hazardous journey, but he was as well equipped as any man to carry it through. That was nine months back. We heard nothing until a few weeks ago and then news came through. He was alive and he'd got what he went to get. Definite proof.

“But the other side were on to him. It was vital to them that he should never get back with his proofs. And we've had ample evidence of how the whole system is penetrated and infiltrated with their agents. Even in my own department there are leaks. And some of those leaks, Heaven help us, are at a very high level.

“Every frontier has been watched for him. Innocent lives have been sacrificed in mistake for his—they don't set much store by human life. But somehow or other he got through unscathed—until tonight.”

“Then that was who—
he
was?”

“Yes, my dear. A very brave and indomitable young man.”

“But what about the proofs? Did they get those?”

A very slow smile showed on Dakin's tired face.

“I don't think they did. No, knowing Carmichael, I'm pretty sure they didn't. But he died without being able to tell us where those proofs are and how to get hold of them. I think he probably
tried to say something when he was dying that should give us the clue.” He repeated slowly, “Lucifer—Basrah—Lefarge. He'd been in Basrah—tried to report at the Consulate and narrowly missed being shot. It's possible that he left the proofs somewhere in Basrah. What I want you to do, Victoria, is to go there and try to find out.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You've no experience. You don't know what you're looking for. But you heard Carmichael's last words and they may suggest something to you when you get there. Who knows—you may have beginner's luck?”

“I'd love to go to Basrah,” said Victoria eagerly.

Dakin smiled.

“Suits you because your young man is there, eh? That's all right. Good camouflage, too. Nothing like a genuine love affair for camouflage. You go to Basrah, keep your eyes and ears open and look about you. I can't give you any instructions for how to set about things—in fact I'd much rather not. You seem a young woman with plenty of ingenuity of your own. What the words Lucifer and Lefarge mean, assuming that you heard correctly, I don't know. I'm inclined to agree with you that Lefarge must be a name. Look out for that name.”

“How do I get to Basrah?” said Victoria in a businesslike way. “And what do I use for money?”

Dakin took out his pocketbook and handed her a wad of paper money.

“That's what you use for money. As for how you get to Basrah, fall into conversation with that old trout Mrs. Cardew Trench tomorrow morning, say you're anxious to visit Basrah before you go off to this Dig you're pretending to work at. Ask her about a hotel.
She'll tell you at once you must stay at the Consulate and will send a telegram to Mrs. Clayton. You'll probably find your Edward there. The Claytons keep open house—everyone who passes through stays with them. Beyond that, I can't give you any tips except one. If—er—anything unpleasant happens, if you're asked what you know and who put you up to what you're doing—don't try and be heroic. Spill the beans at once.”

“Thank you very much,” said Victoria gratefully. “I'm an awful coward about pain, and if anyone were to torture me I'm afraid I shouldn't hold out.”

“They won't bother to torture you,” said Mr. Dakin. “Unless some sadistic element enters in. Torture's very old-fashioned. A little prick with a needle and you answer every question truthfully without realizing you're doing it. We live in a scientific age. That's why I didn't want you to get grand ideas of secrecy. You won't be telling them anything they don't know already. They'll be wise to me after this evening—bound to be. And to Rupert Crofton Lee.”

“What about Edward? Do I tell him?”

“That I must leave to you. Theoretically, you're to hold your tongue about what you're doing to everybody. Practically!” His eyebrows went up quizzically. “You can put him in danger, too. There's that aspect of it. Still, I gather he had a good record in the Air Force. I don't suppose danger will worry him. Two heads are often better than one. So he thinks there's something fishy about this ‘Olive Branch' he's working for? That's interesting—very interesting.”