Читать книгу Tales of Secret Egypt - Sax Rohmer - Страница 6

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When the card of Ali Mohammed was brought to me that evening, my thoughts instantly flew to the wall-eyed mendicant of the Sûk en-Nahhasîn, and to Abû Tabâh, the sugar-lipped. I left the pleasant company of the two charming American ladies with whom I had been chatting on the terrace and joined Ali Mohammed in the lounge.

Without undue preamble he poured his tale of woe into my sympathetic ears. He had been lured away from his shop later that afternoon, and, in his absence, someone had ransacked the place from floor to roof. That night on his way to his abode, somewhere out Shubra direction I understood, he had been attacked and searched, finally to reach his house and to find there a home in wild disorder.

“I fear for my life,” he whispered and glanced about the lounge in blackest apprehension; “yet where in all Cairo may I find an intermediary whom I can trust? Suppose,” he pursued, and dropped his voice yet lower, “that a commission of ten per cent—say, one hundred pounds, English—were to be earned, should you care, Kernaby Pasha, to earn it?”

I assured him that I should regard such a proposal with the utmost affection.

“It would be necessary,” he continued, “for you to disguise yourself as an aged woman and to visit the harêm of a certain wealthy Bey. I have a ring which must be shown to the bowwab at the gate of the harêm gardens upon which you would knock three times slowly and then twice rapidly. You would collect the thousand ginêh agreed upon and would deliver to a certain lady a sandalwood box, the possession of which endangers my life and has brought about me the hosts of Abû Tabâh the magician.”

So the head of the cat was out of the bag at last. But there was more to come and it was not a proposition to plunge at, as I immediately perceived; and I parted from Ali Mohammed upon the prudent understanding that I should acquaint him with my decision on the morrow.

The terrace of Shepheard’s was deserted, when, having escorted my visitor to the door, he made his way down into the Shâria Kâmel Pasha. Two white-robed figures who looked like hotel servants, and a little nondescript group of natives, stood at the foot of the steps. At the instant that doubt entered my mind and too late to warn the worthy Ali Mohammed, the group parted to give him passage; then … a terrific scuffle was in progress and one of the wealthiest merchants of the Mûski was being badly hustled.

I ran down the steps, the carriage-despatcher and some other officials, whom the disturbance had aroused from their secret lairs, appearing almost simultaneously. As I reached the street, out from the feet of the wrestling throng, like a football from a scrum, rolled a neat tarbûsh.

Automatically I stooped and picked it up. Its weight surprised me. Then, glancing inside the tarbûsh, I perceived that a little oblong box, together with a quaint signet ring, were ingeniously attached to the crown by means of silk threads tied around the knot of the tassel. I glanced rapidly about me. I, alone, had seen the cap roll out upon the pavement.

A hard jerk, and I had the box and the ring free in my hand. The tall carriage-despatcher, his ferocious efforts now seconded by a native policeman who freely employed his cane upon the thinly-clad persons of the group, had terminated the scuffle.

Right and left active figures darted, pursued for some little distance by the policeman and the two men from the hotel. There were no captures.

A very dusty and bemused Ali Mohammed, his shaven skull robbing him of much of the dignity which belonged to his tarbûsh, confronted me, ruefully dusting his garments.

“Your tarbûsh, my friend,” I said, restoring his property to him with a bow.

One piercing glance he cast into the interior, then—

“O Allah!” he wailed—“O Allah! I am robbed! Yet——”

A sort of martyred resignation, a beatific peace, crept over his features.

“To war against Abû Tabâh is the act of a fool,” he declared. “To have obtained the Bey’s money would have been good, but to have obtained peace is better!”