[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

place in the rear. The country and the way of life were foreign to me, but not
completely so to Holmes; the distractions that kept me from looking too
closely at just what it was Ali and Mahmoud were doing with us would not apply
to him. It was as if two people were blindfolded and led around in circles,
one of them a stranger who did not know what was happening, the other a person
who knew exactly where he was and yet allowed himself to be led about as well,
thinking it a great joke. I could not understand it, and I was too cold and
uncomfortable to try.
 You re certain you d recognise Ali s jackal noise? I asked after a while.
 He has not made the signal, Holmes said firmly.  They are still in the
house.
 Raiding the pantry and having a kip in the soft beds, I don t doubt.
 Don t be peevish, Russell.
I fell silent. Another twenty minutes passed. In the two hours we had lain
there, nothing had changed except that the rooster in the village had been
joined by another perhaps a mile off. At two hours and a quarter Holmes
breathed again in my ear.
 Something is moving near the house.
Before I could react I felt more than saw a dark shape moving across the
ground towards us.
 Ya walud, came the now-familiar voice, pitched low.
 Here, Ali, said Holmes.
The man had the eyes of a cat, and picked his way by starlight over the uneven
ground to where we lay.
 There is a problem with the safe. Mahmoud cannot persuade it to yield, and
the dog and the guard will awaken soon.
 Does he wish me to try?
 You said you knew modern safes. It is difficult to express nuances of doubt
and disapproval in a whisper, but Ali managed.
 I will come, said Holmes, and rolled cautiously off the wall, sending a
minor shower of stones off the cliff and rousing the dog of the house below,
but not, fortunately, the human inhabitants. Holmes made to follow Ali into
the blackness, then paused.  By the way, Russell, I meant to wish you many
happy returns. Although I suppose by now I am a day late. He vanished before
I could respond, but in truth I had quite forgot that it was my nineteenth
birthday. For which I had received a sunburnt nose, a matching set of
blisters, a bone-deep bruise on my right heel, a stomach clenched tight with
hunger, and whatever bruises my current wall-top position might leave me with.
Page 21
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
All in all, one of the more interesting collections of birthday presents I had
ever received.
Much cheered, I resigned myself for another lengthy wait. To my surprise, less
than half an hour later there was another motion of a shadow approaching, and
Ali reappeared, much agitated.
 The safe is open, but that foolish man insists on looking at everything it
contains. You must tell him to close it so we can leave. There is no more
chloroform.
I followed Holmes example and allowed myself to roll off the wall, only to be
knocked breathless by a large stone in the belly. Gasping as silently as I
could, I got to my feet and staggered after Ali and into the house.
From the outside it had seemed a large building, and moving through the dark
rooms over smooth marble floors and thick carpets, through air scented with
cooking spices and sandalwood confirmed my impression that this was indeed
one holy man who did not embrace poverty.
We turned into a corridor towards a dimly lit rectangle and entered the room,
Ali closing the door silently behind us. I looked at the two unshaven men in
dirty headgear and robes, bent over the papers, then at the man in garish
dress beside me, and could only hope that the guard Ali had chloroformed did
not wake, because if he had a whit of sense he would shoot before asking any
questions.
Holmes sat on a low stool in front of the wall safe, rapidly but methodically
sorting through the stack of papers on his knees. As we came in I saw him
pause over a letter, open it, glance at it, and slip it with its envelope into
the front of his robe. Mahmoud was looking more animated than I had ever seen
him, standing over Holmes and clasping his hands together as if to keep from
wringing them, or applying them to Holmes throat. Ali held out one hand to
me, gesturing with the other to the two men.
 Tell him, he insisted.  Tell him we must go.
I studied Holmes for a minute, and thought I recognised the disapproving set
to his features. I turned to Ali.  What is he looking for?
 We only wish to retrieve one letter. We have found it. We must be gone.
 Is it possible that this mullah could be a blackmailer? I asked. Ali s eyes
slid to one side and Mahmoud growled something about the man in truth not
being a mullah, both of which I read as affirmatives.  Holmes doesn t much
care for blackmailers, I commented, but added to the man himself,  It will be
getting light out in another half hour.
The only sign Holmes gave that he had heard me was a slight increase in the
speed of his examination. There was no budging him, until twelve long minutes
later he had reached the end of the stack, having removed several more papers,
and stood to put the remainder back into the safe. In a flurry of activity Ali
and Mahmoud returned the furniture to its place, closed and reset the safe,
straightened the lithograph of Jerusalem that covered it, and hurried us out
the door.
The sky was beginning to lighten. Mahmoud locked the villa s door and we
slipped among the shadowy shapes of fragrant trees towards the front wall
(this one high, well maintained, and topped by broken glass) that protected
the grounds from the road. Again Mahmoud took out his picklocks and applied
them to the gate, unlocking it and relocking it after us. A groggy bark came
from the back of the house, but we were away, down the hill, across two
switchbacks in the road and the terraces of olive trees they wove through. We
retrieved the possessions that we had left there, harmless bundles of
provisions and armloads of firewood bound with twine, and finally rejoined the
road some distance from the house. When dawn came we were just another quartet
of stolid Arab peasants about our business. Half an hour later a lorry of
British soldiers passed us without slowing, its dust cloud applying another
layer of grime to our clothes and skin.
When we neared our camp site we could see two figures, squatting like
gargoyles just outside the front edge of the black goat s-hair tent belonging
to Mahmoud and Ali. One was a young man, swathed in many layers of
Page 22
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
dust-coloured fabric; as we approached he stood up to thrust his wide,
callused feet into a pair of once-black shoes that lacked laces and were far
too big for him, but were the necessary recognition of an Occasion. The woman
at his side remained hunched on the ground, a small heap of faded black with
the married woman s red strip of embroidery travelling up the front of her
dress. Her head and upper body were wrapped in the loose shawl called a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]