The Lighthearted Quest (35 page)

“Sure you're fit for it? It's about six hours' run, you know.”

“Oh, I think so. I do really want to be on the spot, in case they turn up. Maybe Purcell could arrange to have that house
in the Kasbah watched for me—I wouldn't put it past him! And I want to go out and see what the Professor has dug up in those graves, if anything.”

“You're completely mad, Julia, God help you!” said Mr. Lynch, laughing.

“Well, I should think you'd be glad to be quit of me and my chums, flooding your house out! I hope you realise what an angel you've been.”

“I like all your chums—the Duke best perhaps, but Reeder's a grand man, and your poor besotted Yank slave is uncommonly nice too. What'll you do about him?”

“Oh, the soft rub-off that turneth away wrath. I thought the drive would be a good opportunity to get that over with.”

“May the Lord have mercy on you for a cold-blooded creature! However, I suppose practice makes perfect.”

“That's about it,” said Julia equably. “But oh Paddy dear, isn't it
sickening
to have missed even speaking to Colin, when he was within
feet
of us, and we'd been so clever?”

In fact the long drive from Casablanca to Tangier, plus the anticipated emotional interlude with poor Steve
en route,
tired Julia more than she had expected. The urgent simplicity and sincerity of the American made the soft rub-off not so easy to administer—Julia, the cool and composed, found herself in tears before she could convince him that she would not marry without love, and that she did not love him “in that way”. She was too shaken and exhausted when she arrived at the Espagnola to think of going to Purcell's; all she craved was her bed, where she ordered supper to be served. But to her dismayed surprise she found herself a heroine and a centre of interest; the manager wrung her by the hand, praising God for her preservation; the other occupants of the pension crowded round, full of eager questions—Julia escaped to the manager's office, whence she rang up Mme La Besse.

“Ah
dieu merci
that you are back!—what an escape! I will ring up Lady Tracy at once; she has been in anguish about you—as we all have. But I must tell you that we have found an
intact
grave!—at last! We only began on it today, and the Professor guards it tonight.”

“How splendid. Shall I come out tomorrow?”

“But yes, if you are able.
Chère enfant,
how glad I am that you are safe! Now I ring Lady Tracy.”

Julia was doing a little hasty unpacking when she was summoned to the telephone again—this time it was Lady Tracy.

“Oh, my dear child, I won't keep you a moment, I'm sure you ought to be in bed, if not in hospital! But I did just want to hear your voice! How merciful that you were not killed, like that poor French policeman, and the Arab waiter—imagine, he was a cousin of'Abdeslem's.”

Julia, rather faintly, made some suitable response, and asked how Lady Tracy was.

‘Oh, quite as well as I need to be. And
Hugh
is back—he arrived today; he says the flowers were marvellous further South. When you are up to it you must come and meet him—in fact I think I shall arrange a small sherry-party.”

Julia said that would be lovely, and as soon as she could rang off. It amused her that in spite of their genuine pleasure at her safe return, both her elderly friends felt constrained to tell her about their own concerns, of which the grave interested her much more than the advent of Hugh.

In the hall the manager confronted her with a neat little man who implored “but two small minutes” with Mademoiselle, a reporter from the
Mensonge de Tanger
—behind him loomed a tall individual with a slight air of habitual inebriation, who said he represented
World Press.
Julia protested.

“No,
really,
Señor Huerta; I'm too tired. They must go away. I'm sorry, but I won't see
anyone.
Is that understood?” Indignant, she went upstairs.

As she was eating her supper in bed, eagerly fussed over by Natividad, the chambermaid, the porter came up to say that a Señorita below wished to see the Señorita, urgently. Damning all journalists Julia told him that she would see
no one,
and to say that she was away. She made Natividad lock the door for good measure till she had finished her supper; when the maid went out with the tray she slipped in again after a moment with a bunch of flowers, a mixed posy of the sort made by Julia's Berber flower-woman; on the card was written—

“Très-respectueusement
J. Purcell.”

“Heaven Purcell!” Julia muttered as she closed her eyes.

She woke after thirteen hours of the solid sleep of youth feeling perfectly refreshed, and went round to Mme La Besse in time to drive her out to the site; there she hastened up to see the new grave. It was some distance down the slope of the
ridge on the farther side, above the lagoon, and Julia's first glance as she topped the rise was for the
Finetta.
Yes, there she lay—but no washing fluttered from her rigging, the cooking apparatus had disappeared from her deck, and the two Arabs were swabbing her paintwork vigorously. Ah!—Mr. Smith had presumably returned, or at least was expected. She must see Purcell tonight and try to fix something about having the house in the Kasbah watched, she thought, as she descended the slope to where Professor Carnforth, rather bleary-eyed, was directing the Berbers' operations—a sleeping-bag and a thermos lay under a rock. Julia had bethought her to bring her own thermos with fresh coffee and some buttered rolls from the Espagnola; the weary man sat down and consumed these gratefully while Julia peered into the partly excavated chamber. In a wall-niche on the left the end of one coffin was already exposed; it appeared to be covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Julia went out into the sun again to ask about this. The Professor expounded, between mouthfuls of
croissant:
yes, certainly; the Phoenicians constantly used Egyptian coffins, which they purchased ready-made—there was a continual passage of vessels to and fro along the whole coast, and what easier than for a quinquereme, coming in ballast to pick up a cargo of wine, oil, and pickled fish at the factory, to bring down a score or so of coffins from the Nile Delta?

They made good progress that day. Three more coffins were quite literally un-earthed, but by the afternoon the Professor was yawning so pitifully that Julia volunteered to take that night's watch. The grave was just at the stage when it would be most tempting to the local Berbers, and Mme La Besse, who had often slept in partly excavated graves in her time, told the Professor that if the old Spanish foreman stayed with her Miss Probyn would be quite all right—he might not resist Berber bribes alone, but he would certainly guard her faithfully. “He can sleep in that empty grave a few yards away, and
she can shout to him in need.” So it was settled that Julia should take Mme La Besse home early, get a few hours' sleep, and drive out to relieve the Professor at eleven.

This suited Julia perfectly. After dropping Mme La Besse she parked the Chrysler outside the Espagnola, ran swiftly down the familiar route through the Gran Socco and the Medina, and walked into Purcell's Bar—there, at her old table, sat the Duke, Reeder, and Edina.

“Here she is, herself!” Angus Ross-shire exclaimed, rising. “So you've got her at last, Edina.”

Edina had risen too, and rather to Julia's surprise kissed her warmly.

“I was beginning to think you'd been kidnapped as well as bombed,” she said—“I couldn't find you anywhere.”

“But Edina, whatever next? When did you turn up, and why?”

“When, yesterday morning—usual plane hold-up at Gib. Why, to look after you—the papers practically had you dead, and everyone was mad with worry; all our fault too, of course. But you don't look too bad,” Edina said, staring rather anxiously at Julia. “Will it show?”

“Far from looking bad, a photograph of her as an ad: for Elastoplast, we thought,” said Angus, who had an affection for his own jokes. “Whisky, Julia? Now you're no longer concussed, alk can do no harm.”

“Yes, thank you, Angus. But Edina, why couldn't you find me? I'm at the Espagnola.”

“My dear Julia, you're
not!
I've been there over and over again, and either you hadn't come, or you'd gone again. I know my French isn't much good, but that manager's worse! ‘She has not come'; ‘she has come, but she has gone'; ‘she is gone again'—the place is a perfect looney-bin!” said Edina indignantly. Mr. Reeder laughed.

“All very well for you!” Edina said to him, in a tone which rather startled Julia—it was the tart casual note of reproof
usually reserved for one's intimates. “And Casablanca was just as bad,” she pursued, turning to her cousin again. “I try your chum Lynch—he's at the Bank; by the time I've found out
what
Bank, he's gone to lunch! When I get him after his wretched lunch, he says you've left for the Espagnola! Well I've told you how useful
that
was.”

Julia, sipping whisky, laughed rather weakly. A little checking of times made what had happened clear. Edina had first called at the Espagnola just half-an-hour before she and Steve arrived; the second time she, Julia, had refused to see her, thinking that she was a reporter. And today she had been out at the site, when Edina, twice, went again. “Just a second,” Julia said when this had finally been elucidated—she left them, went over to the bar, and held out her hand across it to Purcell.

“Thank you for the flowers, very much,” she said.

“You are really all right? This will not be too disfiguring?” the half-caste asked, like Edina with an anxious glance at her forehead.

“Usen't women to marry German officers for their duelling scars?” Julia said. “Please don't worry, Mr. Purcell.”

“I warned you that it would be speculative, but I never thought anything like this would happen,” he said ruefully—then he leant across the bar and lowered his voice. “Did you see him?”

“Not to speak to—the bomb interrupted us! But I have an idea that they'll soon come here—could you keep tabs on that house in the Kasbah for me?”

“Oh, they are back—they arrived yesterday.”

“Well, look, now I
must
see him”—Julia was beginning, when Angus Ross-shire's arm was slung round her shoulder.

“Precious Julia, come back and drink. And Mr. Purcell, to whom you naturally want to talk, must for once break all his rules and join us. Purcell, you can't refuse to drink Miss Probyn's health.”

Purcell did not refuse. There was no one else in the bar, and he sat with them, saying little but smiling quietly, while Edina expounded to Julia her secondary concern with camel-hair, and hence with camels.

“Oh, for camels you must go to Settat—it's full of them.” She explained where Settat was, and Edina said that she should hire a car and drive there from Casablanca—“The sky, thank God, is the limit, where expenses are concerned.”

“In that case do go on to Marrakesh—it's so beautiful.”

“My
dear
Julia!—and have her blown up too? What a notion!”

“I don't think Edina will be blown up, Angus,” said Julia, slanting a glance at Purcell, who gleamed at her in response.

“I remember saying, at this very table, that we should all pile up in Marrakesh, but not, I hoped, be wrecked,” said the Duke. “In fact you and I, Julia, damn nearly did pile up there for good.”

The cheerful inconsequent talk went on, but Julia noticed presently that Edina and Mr. Reeder returned to what was apparently an unfinished conversation about sheep, marginal land, hill-cattle subsidies, and similar highly technical subjects, while the Duke and Purcell discussed what forms of drink paid best in bars. When other customers, including the bunch, came in Purcell had to leave the party, and Reeder startled Julia by asking them all to dine with him at the Minzah “to celebrate”. The Minzah is Tangier's most expensive hotel, and as they walked there through the picturesque crowds and the vivid lamp-lit evening, in twos—Edina and Reeder, Julia and Angus Ross-shire—Julia expressed slight misgivings at this extravagance on the part of the
Vidago's
mate.

“Oh, don't worry about that. I found out about him on the way up. He's one of the Northumberland Reeders; they have a most lovely place in the Cheviots. He took to the sea, I gather, because he can't get on with his father; no wonder,
I met him once, and he's a most cantankerous old party. There's an older brother who'll come into the property, but a remote aunt of Mollie's married one of them, and left all she had to this man—it all came back to me afterwards. He can afford to feed us on caviare, if he wants to! But he's a most splendid fellow—Edina will be lucky indeed if she gets him.”

Julia was startled a second time.

“Goodness, do you think there's any question of that?”

“Well watch them. I should say Yes. They haven't done badly in forty-eight hours.”

“How did they meet?”

“She was in Purcell's when Reeder and I went in the morning we arrived.”

Julia did watch the pair during dinner—at which in fact they were given caviare—and decided that Angus, sharp old thing, was not so far out. She recalled the mate's interest in Edina, and his questions about her, on board the
Vidago;
in particular what he had said when she told him that her cousin was black-haired and slender—“If I meet her, I'm sunk!” It was plain that Mr. Reeder, if not actually sinking, had already taken a heavy list.

It was easy to escape early from the party on the score of fatigue. The Duke drove her to the Espagnola, where she collected her duffle-coat, torch, a thermos of coffee and some food and wine; at the last moment she snatched a pillow off her bed, threw the lot into the Chrysler, and roared off into the Moroccan night.