Читать книгу The Road to Bagdad - George Fort Gibbs - Страница 5

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Slim and Michael Gay sat in the bar smoking. Slim was talking.

“I wonder what has called Ronald Barker back into the East so suddenly. I read just before sailing from New York that he had been for two weeks in London at the Foreign Office.”

“Oh, just this mess in Palestine probably,” Gay put in.

“But the mess in Palestine has been a mess for a long while. Must be something else—some special job he’s been sent out to do. It seems as if it might hook up with what Camilla heard—”

“Do you think she could have dreamed all that or invented the whole thing just for the hell of it?”

“No, she’s not a mischief-maker. This Barker has a lot of enemies and a few of them seem to be aboard ship with us. How they got here, God knows, but our friend had better look sharp.”

“Don’t you think we’d better tell the Captain? If there’s anything in the yarn—”

“That’s Camilla’s lookout. She seems already to be on pretty good terms with the fellow. Here they come now. Good chance to do your good deed for the day, two good deeds, give him a drink and save his life.”

But Camilla and Barker, declining Slim’s invitation, passed through the bar and went out on deck.

“Let her save his life,” Michael growled.

“Yeah. And you can give me his highball.”

They watched the other two go out and stand for a moment at the rail of the outside café.

“I guess you and I aren’t mysterious enough for her mood to-day, Michael.”

“Only aboard two days and she leaves us high and—”

“Not dry, Michael, thank God....”

The shores of France were a mere stretch of mist in the moonlight when Ronald Barker and Camilla went out on deck. Captain Simpson had paid tribute to the pirates of the Mediterranean by steering a northerly course on the way to Naples.

The conversation that Camilla had overheard had added to her curiosity about her traveling companion. What was the reason these men wanted him to die? Why was he going to the East and what was his mission that aroused such animosity? Slim had insisted that one of the men must be Asad, if it wasn’t Torelli, but Camilla assured him that she would have recognized the voice of either of them. There were many other potential enemies of Ronald Barker, of course—the Egyptian, an Armenian, several Syrians engaged in commercial pursuits.

Camilla thought it wise to lose no time in telling Ronald Barker of her eavesdropping adventure. He listened gravely, making no comment until she had finished when all he said was one word, murmured, “Already?”

It was put in the form of a question to himself which showed that he was aware of enemies and was ready to anticipate them.

“Have you spoken to any one else of this conversation?” he asked her then.

“Slim McManus and Michael Gay,” she replied frankly. “I was just bursting to tell somebody but I’ve sworn them to secrecy. It seemed as though you ought to hear before any one else did.”

“Thanks. Please don’t speak of it again. I’m able to take care of myself.”

“But if anything happened to you Captain Simpson would never forgive me.”

“Nothing will happen,” Barker said easily. “I’m used to being disliked and I’ll be on my guard.”

“Well, you can’t blame me. I’ve done what I could to help.”

He smiled. “Has any one else been talking about me?”

“Yes, practically everybody. Don’t you know that being silent and mysterious is just another way of advertising yourself from the roof-tops?”

“Ah! That’s bad. You see, I had expected to get into Egypt without being noticed.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late now. The news of your travels must have reached the ship before you did.”

Barker lighted Camilla’s cigarette and his own and then, shrugging, gave a short laugh.

“Oh, well, I don’t think there’s much damage done. I’m accustomed to losing myself. In Cairo I shall disappear—vanish into the world.”

“I don’t think that would be very polite of you after I’ve taken the trouble to save your life....”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that I shouldn’t see you again. I thought maybe I could turn up from time to time, like a jinni in a bottle, invisible to everybody but you.”

Camilla laughed. “Of course that’s very nice, I don’t mind gin in bottles if it’s good gin. Are you sure you’re a good jinni?”

“I’ll try very hard to be good,” he said.

“I’d feel much happier if you’d tell me what it’s all about.”

“Oh, yes, of course. You want to know why people want to get me out of the way?”

“Don’t you owe me that?”

“There’s a saying in Arabic that what you whisper to one woman all the world will hear.”

“Other people seem to know all about you.”

“What else have you heard?”

“Oh, just gossip, I suppose. If people don’t know anything they’ll invent something. So they say that you’re a secret agent of the British Government.”

“What else?”

“That you pop up in unexpected places bearing a palm leaf in one hand and an automatic in the other.”

“I’m sure you’re drawing on your imagination.”

“I am. But I’m awfully good at it, don’t you think?”

“A perfect wizard. What else is there to tell you?”

“Oh, just details, just the gory details.”

Barker laughed like a man who had discovered a new pleasure.

“You’re a rare one. You’ve got the whole thing pat. What else?”

“I think that’s about all. But wouldn’t it be much better if you told me the whole truth so that I won’t have to invent things and get them all mixed up. Won’t you tell me about yourself?”

“There’s not much to tell, except that I was born in New York, won a Rhodes Scholarship, that I came East just out of Oxford to study Arabic and Eastern problems and that I’ve been mixed up in them ever since. My friends out here know what I want to do. I understand the Arabians, I’ve lived with them for many years. I know the Jews, too—I’ve been helping with their colonization plans—but each nation thinks I’m a partizan of the other so both suspect me. Both nations claim Palestine as their own. Both are right. The Jews have wandered over Asia Minor for five thousand years. The Arabs—”

“Yes?”

“Well, they were in charge when General Allenby marched in. Of course, you know, when the British came to keep order and run things, the Jews were very cocky. The immigration, especially from Germany, began. They bought land, they threw away the primitive farm implements of the Arabs, cultivated the farms with modern American machinery and turned a desert into the fabled land of milk and honey, raised good crops of grain and oranges which they sold to all the world at good profit. That was when the real trouble began. The Arabs tried to get their property back. The Jews naturally refused, since they had made it four times as valuable as when they had bought it. Instead of the Jew it is now the Arab who is a man without a country.”

“You put it very clearly. And now the Big Brother separates them by a corridor all the way to the sea.”

“A corridor that has too many doors, Miss Dean. And the peacemaker is very likely to get the worst of it.”

“I imagine the Big Brother will be able to look out for himself.”

“Not without giving one, perhaps both, of his little Brothers a spanking.”

“I can’t imagine you sitting on the side-lines to cheer ...”

To that he made no reply as his own thoughts were elsewhere.

“What I can’t understand,” he said in a moment, “is how people aboard the ship found out that I was expected. You see,” he went on more deliberately, “east of Suez I am not generally known as Ronald Barker, but as something quite different.”

He paused and she waited but he said nothing more for a while. Evidently he thought that he had gratified her curiosity enough.

“The name of Barker was the one they used,” she said experimentally.

“It’s quite extraordinary, because I left England at a few hours’ notice and flew direct to Marseilles just in time to catch the Orizaba.”

“Only a wireless from London could have preceded you,” she suggested. “Your enemies must have received a message before the ship reached Marseilles.”

“Excellent. I shall have to give you a letter to Scotland Yard, or better still, take you on as my assistant in this particular job.” He laughed.

“How thrilling! Will you?”

“At any rate you can help me find from the Purser the list of those who came aboard at Marseilles.”

“Or better yet see what messages came to the ship by wireless.”

“I’ll have to get permission about private wireless messages.”

“I’m sure I’d better go with you. You’re not fit to be aboard this ship alone.”

“Perhaps you’re right again,” he said with a grin.