The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other Stories (22 page)

But Lorna lost the rest of the sales talk. Her gaze was fixed, hypnotically, upon one lamp which hung in a comer of that lamp-laden room. The salesman noted her look.

“You are surprised to see such a commonplace model in our collection?” he suggested.

Bram looked where Lorna was looking. Bram, also, became rigid.

“It isn’t for sale, of course. It’s our special museum piece. The original lamp which Dr Fechter, inventor of the Magus process, used in his experiments… I’ll be right back. Pardon me.”

He moved away, intercepting another pair of potential buyers.

Lorna clutched Bram’s hand. “Bram, it’s our lamp!”

“Was our lamp, honey.”

The salesman dashed back. “Interesting, isn’t it, when you consider what it developed into? A common brass lamp, of eastern design but perfectly suited to Dr Fechter’s purpose. He had completed his experiments at the time of his sudden death. The results were contained in this lamp. His widow auctioned all the property and returned to Europe.

“Dr Fechter’s financial partner was abroad. The news took some time to reach him. He hurried back—to find the vital lamp sold. He traced it, though, bought it from the other buyer, who had no idea of its importance, and so recovered the secret. Quite a drama, isn’t it?”

“Quite.” Lorna spoke like a sleepwalker. “What was this financial partner’s name? Do you remember?’

“Of course. Mr Ramoulian, president of the Magus Lamp Corp…”

Out on Fifth Avenue Bram let himself go. “The Prophet’s tomb! The Sherif of Mecca!” He spoke between clenched teeth. “What an inspired liar! The man’s a swindler!”

Lorna held his arm lightly. “Don’t be cross, Bram. Just think calmly. We might have had the lamp for years if Mr Ramoulian hadn’t traced it, and never even guessed it was anything more than just an old lamp. It meant a lot to him. But I don’t know what you’d have said if he’d told you the truth about it—”

“He didn’t have to tell such a big, bad lie!” Bram grumbled. He hailed a taxi. They got in.

“I don’t think I blame him altogether, Bram. Don’t forget, he paid us $2,000. He could have told a smaller lie and got it cheaper. That $2,000 put us on our feet,” Lorna reminded him.

Bram slipped his arm around Lorna. “Maybe you’re right, honey.”

“So it was really Aladdin’s Lamp, after all.”

The streets of Cairo looked dirty, shadow-haunted, vaguely sinister, as Cartaret walked back from the garage where he had parked his Buick. Dusk had fallen, and he thought, as he came to the steps of Shepheard’s Hotel, that once the terrace would have been crowded at this hour. Now it was almost deserted. He had heard no sunset gun boom out from the Citadel, and he wondered if the custom had been abandoned.

He walked through to the reception desk to ask for messages.

The hotel register lay open, and he saw that only one name had been added below his own: “Mrs Parradine—Alexandria.”

A woman was writing a radiogram, and a boy stood behind her guarding some baggage. Presumably the lady was Mrs Parradine. She wore a smart, tailored suit, a beret crushed down on well-groomed hair. She had not removed her sunglasses. Something in the profile struck Cartaret as familiar; but he was sure he had never met Mrs Parradine.

There were no messages, and Cartaret walked into the bar. As a once familiar figure in Shepheard’s, old Abdûl, the bartender, greeted him, and the greeting was returned.

“It is good to see you in Cairo again,
bimbâshi
.”

Abdûl was mistaken in addressing him as
bimbâshi
, a rank he had never held, but Cartaret didn’t trouble to correct him. Abdûl was nearly as old as the sphinx, and even his fabulous memory couldn’t last forever.

“Six years since I was here last, Abdûl.”

Abdûl set a tall glass before him.

“You have not changed, sir. But—” he shook his red-capped head—“Cairo has changed.”

“It seems unfriendly in some way.”

“It is all different,
bimbâshi
. Everything is different. All Egypt is different. We have gone back to the days when I was a boy, the days of the
harêm
and the eunuchs.”

Cartaret made a rapid mental calculation, but was unable to decide whether those were the days of the Turks or of the Pharaohs.

“You mean business is slack?”

“Not at all. It is just different. Some of those we used to call the pasha class have much power now. They do things they would not have dared to do. Who is to stop them?”

“I don’t know. What sort of things?”

Abdul glanced suspiciously around the nearly empty bar and then bent forward across the counter.

“For visitors who like adventure,” he whispered, “this is the time to come to Egypt. Let me tell you something that happened not long ago. You remember the young Syrian Aswami Pasha used to bring in?”

Cartaret recalled her quite well, for Military Intelligence had posted him to Cairo during the latter part of the war. Aswami, a handsome fellow of Turco-Egyptian vintage, had a nice taste in girl friends. The Syrian Abdûl referred to was a beauty in her sullen, Oriental fashion, and at that time probably no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. He had once heard Aswami call her Sirena, but never knew her other name.

She had passed by his table one night, as she and Aswami went out together. Unseen by her escort, Sirena had favoured Cartaret with the age-old smile of Eastern women. Her darkly fringed eyes were of a strange amber colour, speckled with green like the eyes of a tigress…

He nodded. “I remember her, Abdûl.”

Abdûl’s voice dropped still lower. As Cartaret had greeted him in Arabic, he continued in that language.

“Aswami surprised her with another man! In the garden of the villa.”

Picturesque, and obscene, details followed in true Arab style. But, as Abdûl whispered on, Cartaret drew back, horrified—

“They were dragged into the villa,
bimbâshi
, and they…”

“Stop, Abdûl! Such a thing is impossible—today! There are still police in Cairo.”

Abdûl extended brown palms which spoke a universal language.

“Have I not said,
bimbâshi
, that it is all different? What I tell you is true. I have a grandson who works in the garden.”

Cartaret passed his tumbler to be refilled. As ice tinkled in the glass:

“Who was the man?” he asked.

Abdul, back turned, shrugged heavy shoulders.

“I don’t know. I only know that he has disappeared. The Syrian girl is still at the villa.”

Cartaret suspected that Abdûl knew the man’s name perfectly well. He knew, too, that when an Arab says “I don’t know” it is sheer waste of breath to ask any more questions.

* * *

The dining room seemed fairly full when Cartaret went in to dinner. But there was no one there he knew. Although he took a good look around, he failed to see Mrs Parradine. He gave his mind over to memories—particularly to those associated with Aswami Pasha.

Aswami’s luxurious villa at Bûlak contained many treasures, he had been told, feminine and otherwise, the latter including a collection of rubies made by Aswami’s father and said to be the second finest in the world. Cartaret tried to recall the men he had known who had found Sirena attractive, and succeeded in compiling quite a list. Although unable to credit Abdûl’s statement, entirely, he made up his mind to try again to learn the name of the man concerned. If the facts were as stated, he would be horribly disfigured for life.

The story had left a bad taste in his mouth, which a bottle of perfectly sound Bordeaux failed to remove. He went out into the lounge, with its fretwork pillars and arabesques. It reminded him of a
harêm
, and he began to glance suspiciously at his neighbours, wondering if those who looked like wealthy Egyptians favoured the medieval customs of Aswami Pasha.

He ordered brandy with his coffee.

Then he saw Mrs Parradine.

She was seated, alone, in an alcove. She had changed into a simple dinner frock but still wore the tinted glasses. Cartaret supposed that she suffered from eye strain. He began to study her. What was it about Mrs Parradine which seemed so familiar?

This vague memory irritated Cartaret. He got into that frame of mind everybody has known; when a name goes darting around the brain like a mad hare that can’t be captured. He was watching her, as she sipped coffee, when a boy went across to her table and handed her a message.

She read it, and seemed to Cartaret to become suddenly restless. Once, he had an impression that she was considering him in a furtive way. And then, just as suddenly, she became passive again, bending over the table to pour more coffee.

An elderly Egyptian had entered.

Fat and hairless, he provided the missing link in Cartaret’s uneasy imaginings of those days of the
harêm
and the eunuchs mentioned by Abdûl. Obviously, the Egyptian was looking for someone. His prominent eyes swept the lounge in a questing stare. But he was apparently disappointed. He turned slowly and went out again.

Cartaret saw Mrs Parradine’s glance following the obese figure.

Then, she looked swiftly but unmistakably in his own direction. On a slip of paper taken from a large satchel purse which swung from her shoulder she scribbled something. She slipped the note under an ashtray, stood up and crossed to the elevator.

Cartaret continued to watch her. She was very graceful, well poised. As the boy opened the gate, she turned for a moment, stared directly at Cartaret, then back to the table she had just left, then at Cartaret again.

The elevator went up.

He took a quick look about the lounge. No one had seen what had happened, for Mrs Parradine had been screened by the alcove. He stood up, yawned—and changed his place.

The note under the ashtray said:

“Room 36 B at 10.30. I
must
see you. Don’t disappoint me.”

Cartaret walked into the bar.

It had filled up with men who looked like officials of some sort, but none of whom he knew; a totally different set from that to which he had been accustomed. He got himself a double Scotch and carried it to a seat in a corner where he could be alone.

What was he to make of this note?

That it was meant for a love tryst he dismissed as an idea too ridiculous to be considered. Without the glasses, Mrs Parradine might be a pretty woman. She had an exceptionally good figure. But grey hair and assignations with strangers didn’t mix.

What, then, did it mean?

She
must
see him! What on earth about? And why couldn’t she have spoken to him in the lounge, instead of inviting him to her room?

The whole thing was utterly incomprehensible. Cartaret decided that it must be linked with that elusive memory. Perhaps after all, they met at some time. Why the devil didn’t she take off those tinted glasses?

Restlessly, he wandered out on to the terrace. A cool breeze had sprung up, but the sky was cloudless, the night lighted by a perfect crescent moon.

At the foot of the steps the head doorman was talking to a portly Egyptian.

Cartaret stared.

It was the man who had come into the lounge seeking someone…

Cartaret went back to the bar and ordered another double Scotch.

This business called for careful thought. He would have liked to ask Abdûl if he knew anything about Mrs Parradine, but Abdûl was too busy for conversations and he didn’t care to make such an enquiry at the desk.

Was he right in supposing that the entrance of the fat Egyptian had alarmed Mrs Parradine? Cartaret believed he was. He finished his drink and went out to talk to the doorman, whom he knew slightly. The doorman had gone off duty; another had taken his place.

And that fat Egyptian had disappeared.

Cartaret wandered back into the lounge. It was beginning to empty, and he sat down and lighted a cigarette. He had dined late, and ten-thirty was not far off. Even now, he remained undecided. Some queerly underhand game was afoot. Of this he had become certain. Where did
he
fit into the pattern?

He was far from a wealthy man, no bait for blackmailers. And he had never aspired to the cloak of Don Juan.

What should he do?

A clandestine visit to a woman’s room might compromise both of them. And what was its object?

Cartaret, at this crucial hour, might have failed to keep his mysterious date, except that curiosity, perhaps, is the last instinct humanity loses. At twenty-seven minutes after ten he crossed to the elevator and stepped out on the third floor.

Not until that moment did he recognise the fact that his own room also was on the third.

* * *

His watch told him that he had two minutes in hand when he walked along the corridor to No. 36 B. Astonishment on receiving Mrs Parradine’s note might have been responsible for his absent-mindedness. But No. 36 B proved to be next to No. 34 B and 34 B was Cartaret’s room.

He paused, staring at the closed door.

Had she deliberately chosen this room because his own adjoined it? Was he being drawn blindly into some web of intrigue?

Again, he hesitated. No amorous urge drove him. There was nothing to excuse his walking into a trap.