The Lighthearted Quest (28 page)

Still a little curious about the yacht's name, Julia rang up their house in the Kasbah that night when she got home—only to learn that the family had gone off some weeks earlier to South Africa for several months. But her curiosity about the yacht with the familiar and unusual name was still not satisfied, and on her next free day—four days a week was her stipulated contract with Mme La Besse—she strolled round to the Consulate-General and once more saw the young and courteous vice-consul.

Had they a Lloyd's Register? Julia enquired.

“I think so, Miss Probyn. But can I help at all?” the polite young man asked.

“Well, perhaps—I just wondered who the owner of a yacht called the
Finetta
is.”

At the name “Finetta” a faint disturbance became evident on the rather ingenuous face of the polite young man.

“The
Finetta
—oh, well, yes, she was here at one time.”

“Where is she now?” Julia asked innocently.

“I've no idea.”

Whose name had she been registered in, Julia wanted to know.

“Well, she has changed hands since then—she was sold getting on for a year ago.” He continued to look uncomfortable.

“Was there some trouble about her?” Julia asked—the young man's disquiet was so manifest that “trouble” of some sort stood out a foot.

“Actually yes—there was.”

“What, smuggling or something?”

But the vice-consul would not be drawn any further. If Miss Probyn wanted the owner's name she could probably get it, he said, from Lloyd's representative in Tangier, whose name and address he furnished her with. Julia thanked him, and apologised so charmingly for bothering him that he relented to the point of saying—

“The owner's name was certainly not Monro. Wasn't it a Mr. Monro that you were asking about before?”

“Yes. Anyhow I'll see this Lloyd's functionary—thank you so much.” And on she went to the Lloyd's agent.

This individual glanced at her rather curiously when she asked in whose name the
Finetta
had been registered up to a year ago, but turned up some files.

“Mr. John Grove,” he read out. Julia got the impression, she couldn't have said why, that the man had known the name all along, and that looking in the files was just a piece
of what the theatre calls ‘business'. “Do you know him?” he asked, she thought slightly suspiciously.

“No—I never heard that name. I expect there's some mistake. And whose name is she registered under now?”

“Mr. Charles Smith,” the man said without troubling to refer to the files again.

“Thank you. I am so sorry to have bothered you. For some reason I thought she might have belonged to one of the Monteiths.”

“Good Lord no!” the man exclaimed, taken by surprise—“What an idea! Mr. Monteith! He never had anything to do with
that
outfit!” He paused. “Do you know Mr. Monteith?”

“Well, they're neighbours of ours in Scotland, and one of the daughters is called Finetta—that gave me the idea,” said Julia, with her usual serene vagueness.

“I assure you all the same that there is no connection whatever,” the Lloyd's man said, very repressively.

“And Mr. Smith?” Julia asked.

“Oh, he's a man who is fond of sailing, and comes out here, so I understand, for his health from time to time.”

“Is he here now?”

“Ah, that I couldn't say. The yacht isn't in the harbour at the moment, anyhow, so he may have gone off cruising somewhere.”

The devil he may, Julia thought to herself, and not so far off either—but she thanked the Lloyd's man, and wandered back to the Espagnola. She didn't for a moment believe that Mr. Smith was actually on the
Finetta
now—crews, whether Arab or British, don't normally hang out their washing and do their cooking on deck while the owner is aboard. Probably the whole thing wasn't in the least important—it was just a bit funny. She must ask Purcell some time about Mr. Grove—he would be sure to know all the dirt. Or Lady Tracy.

In fact it was Lady Tracy whom she asked about the
Finetta
at that point. She had nothing particular to do for
the rest of the afternoon, and decided to go up to the pink house and find out if the old lady had any hints and tips to offer about Marrakesh.

Lady Tracy greeted her with her usual affection, and said that she had some news for Julia—“Though negative, I am afraid. The
Frivolity
is in, and I've learned
all
their names—and none is Monro. But one is a Duke!”

“Oh, lovely!” said Julia. “The harbour-master said one was a lord—all the same to him no doubt.” Nothing but yachts today, she thought, and being now certain that Colin was in the interior she couldn't have cared less about the crew, or passengers or whatever they were on the
Frivolity.

“I wanted to ask you about another yacht, Lady T. darling,” the girl said then. “What was all the scandal about the
Finetta?
Do tell me—I'm sure you know.”

“Oh, my dear, that was a
horrible
business! There were three or four young men on her, I believe quite nice creatures, just smuggling away perfectly innocently—cameras and things from Gibraltar, and American cigarettes, and perhaps a little currency from here—just what everyone else does,” said Lady Tracy serenely. “But suddenly one of them started carrying
drugs!
—quite unbeknown to the others, I gather;
they
said so, and no one gave a moment's credit to anything
he
said,” said the old lady, something approaching harshness appearing most unexpectedly in her voice.

“And what happened?”

“Oh, the Zone Police and Interpol caught him, and he was sent to prison in the end.”

“And the others?”

“They disappeared. I heard they were all quite furious with this wretched creature, and it seems they really weren't involved—I know my nephew thought they were not—though I believe Interpol still has its eye open for them. Such a
hideous
brush to be tarred with!” said Lady Tracy indignantly.

“Goodness
yes
. And the yacht?—the
Finetta?”

“Oh, I've no idea what happened to her. I suppose someone bought her, or perhaps the others went off in her. Hugh would have known,” said Lady Tracy, vaguely.

Julia guessed Hugh to be the tiresome botanical nephew but didn't trouble to confirm the fact. Useless creature!

“How long ago was all this?” she asked.

“Now let me think. It was some time last spring—would it have been April or May? Wait”—the old lady rang the brass handbell. “Feridah will know,” she said.

“What, about the drug-running?” Julia was genuinely startled.

Lady Tracy chuckled.

“No, no!—though quite a number of the richer Moors do use hashish and things, of course. No, but she will remember when Nilüfer's goat—you remember, the pretty woman who lives down on the slope—had three kids. It all happened at the same time.”

Julia was entranced by this rather unusual method of establishing facts about drug-smugglers. She watched with her usual pleasure the graceful movements of the Arab maid as she glided in and hung affectionately over her aged mistress. A prolonged nattering in Arabic ensued.

“It was April the 13th,” Lady Tracy pronounced triumphantly, while the lovely Feridah and her veils slid out again. “'Abdeslem brought the third kid up here, and we reared it on a bottle. And that very same evening Hugh came in and told me about this horrible Mr. Glade.”

“Grove?” Julia murmured.

“Oh, yes, it
was
Grove. So alike, glades and groves—all pure Milton,” said the old lady. In fact since Lady Tracy had mentioned the previous April or May, sums had begun to do themselves, almost unbidden, in Julia's head: last April was just nine months from this January, when up at Glentoran she had been shown Colin's last letter, in which he said
that one of his chums had left the boat! There might be nothing in it, of course—just one of those coincidences; but it was worth remembering. However for the moment she put that aside and turned to her more immediate preoccupation, which was Marrakesh.

“Lady Tracy, can you keep a secret for about five days? Because if so I want to ask you something.”

“Dear child, I once kept a quite
lurid
secret for forty years!—by which time of course it had lost most of its luridness. What is it?”

“Well, I don't want Mme La Besse to know too soon, and be upset just with this Cambridge V.I.P. coming,” said Julia slowly, “but I'm going to Marrakesh in about ten days.”

“Poor Mme La Besse! Yes, she will be terribly fussed. However I suppose it is something to do with your cousin, or you wouldn't leave her just then.” Julia nodded. “In that case you must go,” the old lady pursued. “Do you think there is really a chance of your seeing him down there?”

“A faint chance. But I have to try.”

“Of course. I do hope you succeed.”

“Anyhow I shall see Marrakesh,” said Julia.

“Oh, yes—such an exquisite place. You are going with friends I hope? Do they know it well?”

“I've no idea. They're not madly learned. Is there anything I especially ought not to miss?—that's what I wanted to ask you.”

“Oh, indeed, yes. The Saadian Tombs are unbelievably lovely; you must see them—though even the
least
cultured people would probably take you there.”

Julia scribbled in a little book.

“And then you must see the Apartment of the Favourite in the Palace that Marshal Lyautey used as his headquarters. He put Edith Wharton in it!” said Lady Tracy, with antique glee.

“No!”

“Yes, he did!—
absit omen,
we all said—when she went to stay with him. The Palace itself is nineteenth-century and really nothing except for its vastness—and showing how gay and elegant even quite late buildings can be in Morocco; but the apartment is fascinating, when you think of that
ultra
American woman living in such surroundings. Wait—I'll get you her book.” The old lady struggled to her feet, and with Julia's arm perambulated her bookcases till she found the volume, and handed it to her young guest.

“She saw so
much
—Lyautey thought a good deal of her, and she was on the spot so early, before the interior was really opened up at all. It wasn't a
good
book,” Lady Tracy mused, “although she was such a good writer—Africa muddled her; it often seems to muddle Americans.”

“And
how!” Julia said, thinking of Steve.

“Ah, you find that? But there are things in it about Morocco that you will find nowhere else. Bring it back—she wrote what they call ‘a sentiment' in it for me!”

“I will,” said Julia.

With Professor Carnforth's advent imminent, Mme La Besse kept her young secretary on the run practically nonstop, and Julia's conscience about taking leave at this juncture smote her to the extent of causing her to offer to work six days instead of four in the ensuing week, and to work late on all of them—too late for it to be of any use going to the bar to ask Purcell about the
Finetta,
since the place would be full. Indeed she was so busy, and by nightfall so tired, that for the moment she more or less passed the
Finetta
up. Certainly it was an odd affair, and the yacht's unusual name suggested a link with Colin, while the dates undoubtedly fitted in with his last letter—but it was all too indefinite to bother about.

Julia chose the moment for telling her old employer that she wanted to take another fortnight's leave with some care—in fact a few minutes after she had fetched the eminent man in the Chrysler from the airport, and deposited him in
Mme La Besse's ugly little house. By mentioning the subject hastily, over drinks, and in a stranger's presence, she hoped to avoid a scene, but she was wrong. Mme La Bessse emitted a screech which caused the Professor to jump and drop his cocktail, breaking the glass.

“Now
you will leave me? Now, NOW? Just when I need you most? Oh,
c'est une saleté!”

“I'm not going till Monday; that gives us all this week,” said Julia mildly. “I am so terribly sorry, but I can't help it—I must go.”

“What is a
week?
And why ‘must' you go?”

“Because I have to.” Professor Carnforth watched with interest how the slow, calm firmness of this pretty young woman—who looked so silly but who drove so uncommonly well—gradually mastered the rage and dismay of the so much older one, by whom (for some reason) she appeared to be employed. Still suffering from suppressed indignation, Mme La Besse at last accepted the inevitable, and even sealed the reconciliation with a bearded kiss. And next day they all drove out to the site and began the examination of the headland.

One of Mme La Besse's great merits was knowing when she was beaten. Of course she was dying to show Professor Carnforth the factory site, in detail and at length; but when he said firmly that though he hoped to see that later, graves he had come for and with graves he would begin, she shook with chuckles and gave way. She also suggested that he and Julia should proceed ahead to the summit of the headland, while Achmet and Abdullah could haul her up after them.

As the advance party toiled upwards through the clogging white sand between those strange bronze-toned rocks—

“You are interested in archaeology?” the Professor asked Julia.

“Oh God, no! I don't know the first thing about it.”

The Professor had been a surprise to Julia. In her usual
total ignorance of matters academic she had expected someone very old and untidy, with moths flying out of his clothes and probably a long beard—whereas Carnforth was relatively young, clean-shaven, rather good-looking, and neat in his dress to the point of nattiness. He had a nice voice and a pleasant laugh, which emerged at this frank statement.