The Secret War (15 page)

As it was, Lovelace dared not risk bribing Zarrif's own servants to take a message, because he knew that if they
betrayed him he would pay for his indiscretion with his life, and in the face of Zarrif's refusal to allow him to go into Alex it would have been madness to attempt to leave the house in broad daylight.

Sitting there in the quiet room all through the morning, he was aware, although he could not see them, that, from time to time, visitors arrived; presumably to see Zarrif. While he puzzled his brains for a way out of his dilemma, Lovelace wondered upon what strange errands, fraught, perhaps, with far-reaching consequences for countless innocent people, these mysterious visitors came.

He could not bring himself to hate Zarrif as a person. The elderly Armenian had shown him every courtesy—more, he had even momentarily put aside important business to show concern over his new employee's health. Yet Lovelace knew that the man was ruthless, evil, completely callous about everything outside his own personal interests, and engaged in plotting a thing which would bring about incalculable human suffering through a mad lust for power and monetary gain.

By lunch time he had reached no decision. The meal was brought to him on a tray, and deft, silent-footed native servants waited on him.

When he was alone again he confessed to himself that for the moment he was powerless, and decided he must postpone any further action until the coming night. Selecting a book from the shelves he sat down to read, and remained immersed in the adventures of a man in far less delicate situations than he was himself until the shadows drew a veil over the garden and he could no longer see the sails of the native boats upon the river in the near distance.

That evening he dined again with Cassalis. Afterwards Zarrif sent for him, but detained him only ten minutes. When he was free he went up to his room and read till midnight. Once more, after the house had gone to rest, he made a cautious investigation. His
door was locked; the dog and watcher occupied the garden. In an evil temper after his long worrying day, and really anxious now, he went to bed.

On the following morning he was escorted to the back sitting-room and left there undisturbed. The staff were as polite as ever, so he came to accept the fact that he was kept a virtual prisoner only as part of a cautious routine: simply to ensure that he should learn nothing of Zarrif's business.

He attempted to occupy himself with books and papers, but as hour after hour slipped by he became more and more concerned with the apparent impossibility of getting in touch with his friends. Before they left Athens it had been arranged that if Christopher and Valerie succeeded in keeping track of Zarrif's plane they should remain for five days at a prearranged address in any town at which they saw him land. If Lovelace failed to communicate with them during that time they would then proceed a stage further south; on the assumption that Lovelace was too closely watched to send a message and that Zarrif would most probably move, without their being able to witness his departure, towards Abyssinia as the date of his appointment in Addis Ababa drew nearer.

After a little Lovelace flung down his book. His eyes were reading the printed lines, but his brain was not taking in their meaning. He realised, quite suddenly, that he had not the faintest idea what the last chapter he had read had been about. His mind was solely occupied with the knowledge that two of the days during which Christopher and Valerie would remain in Alex, were already gone and that there seemed no more likelihood of his being able to communicate with them during the next three than in those which had passed.

As the brief twilight fell, heralding his third night in Egypt, his nerves were becoming a little jumpy from having to keep so strict a watch upon his tongue at every meal; and wondering what sinister business
brought those visitors whose footfalls he could hear, but whom he could not see, to this mysterious house on the edge of the desert; yet he had no premonition of coming trouble when Cassalis arrived to say that Zarrif wished to see him. He walked across the tiled hall without the least suspicion that anything had gone wrong.

His first intimation of the unusual was the sight of two of the bodyguard standing behind Zarrif's desk with their automatics drawn ready in their hands.

A big, flashily-dressed negro, his face shiny with perspiration, stood in front of the desk. His arms hung loosely at his sides and he seemed to have shrunk a little so that he no longer fitted his smart, white suit of European design.

Lovelace took in the scene at a glance. A second later he felt something prod him in the back. Turning he saw that Cassalis, his shiny jet-black eyes gone hard and soulless, was holding a pistol to his spine.

With a smile which it took a very considerable effort to produce he looked at Zarrif and asked: “What is all this—what's the trouble?”

Zarrif's green eyes fixed him like those of a snake about to strike. “The trouble is,” he said icily, waving a hand towards the big negro, “that I don't know who you are but
this
is Mr. Jeremiah Green.”

Lovelace stared dumbly at the negro for a moment. He saw that his only chance lay in bluff and stepping forward he thrust out his jaw. “Who is this fellow?” he demanded hotly. “He's lying anyhow!”

“No sah!” protested the black man with an emphatic shake of his head. “I'se Jeremiah Green of Gainesville, Fla.; a citizen of de United States of America. Pastor Donovan gives me dat name in de sight o' de Lawd toirty nine year ago as I kin prove.”

“Perhaps there's some mistake then,” suggested Lovelace. “The name of Green is not uncommon; nor Jeremiah for that matter.”

“He comes from Abyssinia and my agent in Cairo is quite satisfied that he is Ras Desoum's messenger,” Zarrif said sharply, “otherwise he would not have been sent on here to me.”

“Then your agent doesn't know his business,” Lovelace snapped. He knew he was fighting for his life now and must use every possible weapon. “D'you think that an Amhara noble, one of the Emperor's personal friends, would stoop to make a confidant of a nigger?”

Mr. Green of Gainesville, Fla., drew himself up. “For all I'se a coloured man I hopes one day to sit upon de right hand o' de Throne. As de Lawd am ma witness I speak de truth.”

“You claim to be the friend and messenger of Ras Desoum? Next I suppose you'll ask us to believe that you dined every night with the Emperor?” Lovelace inquired sarcastically.

“No, sah! I never saw de Emperor no time tho' I tried mighty hard. I'se an educated man an' dat's why I were chosen by de Brudderhood to take de goodwill o' one Christian people to anudder in de day of dair poisicution by de ungodly. Dem Abyssinian quality may be Christian but dey's a long way from de Baptist Church what sint me over de ocean. Dey wouldn' even shake me by de hand; all 'cept Ras Desoum who do believe in de Lawd jes' de same way as I does. W'en I tells him I'se gwine back home he says to me, ‘Mr. Green, yo'se jes' de very pusson to be ma hon'ble messenger to Mr. Zarrif on yo' way back thru' Eurupp.' Yessah! dat's de truth.”

Lovelace had no doubt whatever that it was. He knew that coloured people all over the world were watching the war with a flaming partisanship for the Abyssinians, and that their organisations were sending the most varied offers of help, in complete ignorance of the Abyssinians' utter contempt for negroes. In happier circumstances he would have felt sorry for the earnest Mr. Green, who had travelled some five thousand miles, only to be treated as a recently released slave, at the end of his long journey, instead of as a brother who had found the Light. As it was Mr. Green had to be discredited at all costs otherwise Lovelace stood very little chance of getting out of that villa alive. He saw that from the cold glitter of Zarrif's eyes and the business-like way in which the gunmen held their pistols pointing at his midriff.

“I suppose you've got a letter from Ras Desoum to Mr. Zarrif, proving your identity?” he asked acidly.

“No sah,” the negro spread out his black hands with their pale palms uppermost. “De Lawd see'd fit to strike his servant in de valley an' po' Jeremiah Green were a mighty sick man. It looked like he were booked fo' Kingdom Come an' dem heathen people stole his letter off him while his eyes were fixed on Heaven. But de Lawd raised his servant up again so he come on heah, jes' de same.”

“They left him his passport.” Zarrif tapped the document which lay in front of him on the desk. “It is all in order. I wish to see yours.”

“It's in my room,” Lovelace lied, thanking his gods that he had had the sense to hide that damning piece of evidence. “I'll go and get it.”

“Stand still!” Zarrif rapped. “Cassalis—you go. Make a thorough search and bring any other papers which you can find down with you.”

The pressure of the pistol was withdrawn from Lovelace's spine and Cassalis left them. Zarrif returned to his work and for the next ten minutes appeared quite oblivious of the fact that anyone else was in the room, but his two men kept their eyes riveted on Lovelace who felt quite certain that if he raised a hand they would shoot him down.

Having entrusted Valerie with any papers which might prove his identity before leaving Athens he knew that Cassalis would find nothing, but that was poor comfort. The sudden disappearance of his passport would turn their present belief that he was not Jeremiah Green into a certainty. His nerve was good but he felt it going now. His hands were twitching slightly as he strove to think of a way out of this horrible impasse. What would they do to him when they had satisfied themselves that he was an impostor? This was a secret war and one in which prisoners would not be allowed to live so that they could fight again another day. He had entered it knowing that, yet he had never quite faced the fact that he might be called on to pay the final penalty in person. Would the gunmen take him out and shoot him, he wondered, or had they some other way which would save them the inconvenience entailed by the disposal of a bullet-riddled body? He strove desperately to think of a plan by which he might save himself but he could not. His brain seemed to have seized up like a motor engine that is white-hot from overwork and lack of oil.

Cassalis returned and with him he brought two more
of the bodyguard. “Search him,” he told the men, and then, turning to Zarrif: “Upstairs there is nothing, Monsieur. No passport or papers of any kind.”

Lovelace was seized from behind and his pockets emptied out on to Zarrif's desk while he cried hotly: “My passport was in my bag this morning. I saw it! Someone's taken it! They must have …”

“No one takes anything in this house without my orders,” Zarrif said quietly. “You have destroyed or hidden it since we left Athens. You are a spy and we have only one sentence for spies—death.”

Lovelace shrugged. “Prove it!” he cried, and, swinging round as the gunmen released him he suddenly caught sight of the negro's face. From black it had turned to greeny-grey, the white-rimmed eyeballs were starting from their sockets, the thick-lipped mouth hung open, and his long arms, dangling at his sides, trembled as though he were suffering from a fit of ague. The man had been badly scared when Lovelace first saw him and was obviously panicky at finding himself in a place where the master of the house kept armed retainers; now, he was frankly terrified, horror-struck at the thought that the gunmen might commit murder before his eyes at any moment.

In a second Lovelace saw that he must involve him too. It was unfair, a rotten thing to do, but if Zarrif could be made to suspect them equally it was unthinkable that he would kill them both. They would be locked up under guard until further investigations could be made and one or other of them proved innocent. A bad enough look-out for him, the guilty party, but it meant time—time in which to think—a few more hours of life—perhaps a chance to escape—anything, anything, was better than being wiped out immediately.

“Listen,” he said firmly, “listen, Mr. Zarrif. My passport's gone—disappeared—I don't know where. But I had it in Athens, didn't I? Cassalis saw me show it at the airport barrier.”

“I suppose that was so?” Zarrif looked at his secretary interrogatively.

“He showed
a
passport,” the Frenchman said slowly, “but the inside of it I did not see.”

“No matter,” insisted Lovelace. “I
had
a passport then. If I were not Jeremiah Green I would never have dared to produce it with Cassalis at my elbow. That would have been too great a risk for any spy to take. Another thing; it was I who brought you the letter from Ras Desoum. You can't deny that, and you've been questioning me for days about the situation in Abyssinia. If I wasn't Jeremiah Green how could I have told you so many things you wanted to know? I had a passport, I had the letter, and I've given you all the information for which you asked.”

Before Zarrif could speak Lovelace drew a breath and jerked his head towards the wretched negro. “Now, what about him? He's got a passport but he's got nothing else. He's only spun you some yarn about having his letter stolen—and another about his being Ras Desoum's envoy. You
can't
be such a fool as to believe that. You know Abyssinia. Is it likely that the Ras would entrust his secret business to a nigger? He's an impostor. He hasn't got a single thing to stand on except that passport and it's faked—I'll bet a thousand pounds to a halfpenny that it's faked.”

“No sah, no sah!” the black man gibbered. “I couldn't go fakin' no passport in a hundred years. I call de good Lawd to …”

“Silence!” snapped Zarrif and his eyes fixed themselves on Lovelace's drawn face. “One of you is lying and I believe it is you. There are many matters which might interest a European if he could obtain access to my house, but what could this coloured man stand to gain?”