‘We could contact the gendarmerie, if you wish, Professor,’ he said.
‘A bootless exercise.’ Fields waved the idea aside, much to the hotel manager’s relief, Adam noticed. ‘The Chorophylaki may be of use in chasing bandits through the Attic hills but they will prove of no value in a business like this.’
‘I regret to say that the professor is right. They will show little interest in the matter.’ Polly’s anxiety at the thought of gendarmes trampling through his hotel and disturbing his guests was obvious. ‘If nothing has been taken…’ The hotel manager shrugged and left his sentence unfinished. Meanwhile, Adam had found the other drawer from the writing desk, hurled into a far corner of the room, and was now putting it back into position.
The professor was making short circuits of the room, occasionally picking up one of his scattered belongings and throwing it towards the bed. Some landed there, some fell back to the floor.
‘I will send two of the maids to put your room once more into good order,’ Polly said, making towards the door.
‘There is no need,’ Fields called after him. The manager stopped and turned towards the two Englishmen; he looked uncertain what he should do next to placate them. ‘I prefer to do it myself.’
‘As you wish, Professor.’
Polly bowed first to Fields and then to Adam before leaving the room.
Clouds of tobacco smoke and the sound of half a dozen languages greeted Adam as he pushed open the door to the Oraia Ellas. Quint and the professor followed him into the café. At a table to their left, a group of Italians shouted cheerfully, one to another. Further into the room, three young Frenchmen, students perhaps at the École Française d’Athènes, were engaged in heated political debate. As Adam passed, he heard one of them loudly expressing his disgust with the conduct of Napoleon III and his undying support for Gambetta. He looked about the large, rectangular room that was one of the great gathering places for visitors to the city. As always, the place was noisy and full. Slightly to his surprise, he could see none of his fellow countrymen amongst the crowd of the Oraia Ellas’s customers. Equally surprising was the presence of so many Greeks. Usually, native Athenians left the café to the foreigners, but there was no mistaking the nationality of several knots of young men scattered about the room. A number of them were even dressed in the traditional embroidered jackets and white fustanelles that advertised old-fashioned Greek patriotism. Rather incongruously, two of the men so dressed were bent over a billiards table. Adam smiled to himself as he saw how clumsily the clothing forced them to play. He gestured to one of the waiters behind the wooden counter and led the way towards the only unoccupied table in the place. Even in the short time it took for the Englishmen to make their way to it, Adam was aware of the unexpected hostility hanging in the air of the Oraia Ellas. The café was usually a haven for English visitors but the atmosphere today was significantly less welcoming than usual. He glanced towards his companions but neither Quint nor the professor seemed to have noticed anything different. A plump and extravagantly moustachioed waiter came over to their table, looking acutely uncomfortable, and then scuttled away with their order as quickly as he could. There was no doubt that something was amiss. One of the players at the billiards table had straightened up and was staring insolently at Adam, holding his cue as if it was a hoplite’s spear. Across the noise and smoke, the young man stared back. Eventually, the Greek’s eyes dropped and he returned to his game.
The door opened again and Rallis entered, accompanied by Andros, attracting the sort of half-admiring, half-astonished attention he got wherever he went. The professor waved and the lawyer, returning the greeting, began to push his way through the crowd.
‘The Oraia Ellas is in its usual pandemonium, I see,’ he said, as he took his seat. His giant servant, head almost brushing the ceiling, stood behind the chair.
‘A better name for it would be Babel,’ Fields said amiably. ‘Because the language of all the earth is certainly here confounded. Everywhere I turn I hear a different tongue.’
‘Not quite all languages today, however,’ Adam commented. ‘Do you notice we are the only English present?’
Rallis glanced around the room. Adam could see that the lawyer was also surprised by the absence of English faces.
‘It is certainly unusual,’ the Greek said thoughtfully. ‘But it is not just your countrymen who are missing from the happy throng.’ He nodded in the direction of the young Frenchmen. ‘It is perhaps also lucky that the café has no German visitor today.’
‘Ah, yes, the Gaul and the Prussian are currently at each other’s throats, are they not?’ The professor sounded delighted by the fact. ‘The French, as I understand it from the newspapers at the Angleterre, have shown once again that, when it comes to martial affairs, their bark is worse than their bite.’
‘The emperor has gone, I understand,’ Adam said.
‘He is no great loss to the stage of European affairs,’ Fields said, seizing hold of the lapels of his jacket as if about to launch upon a lengthy disquisition on international politics.
‘We’ve got company,’ Quint said shortly, interrupting before the professor could begin.
The other three men looked up to find that one of the billiards players, the one who had glared so markedly at Adam, had left the game and was standing over them.
‘I spit upon you English,’ he said in English and then very nearly did so. Little yellow blobs of phlegm spattered across the wooden floor close to Adam’s foot. The young man began to rise in outrage from his seat but Rallis stretched out his arm to hold him back.
‘Do not rise to his bait, Adam. The man is drunk, I think.’
Certainly a strong smell of spirits had accompanied the Greek to the table. Rallis began to speak to him in his own language, very rapidly and very angrily.
The man responded with equal vehemence. Adam, still held back in his chair, could make out snatches of what he said. The names of Herbert and Vyner could be heard amidst the Greek. After a short burst of invective, the man turned on his heel and marched to the counter where the waiters tended the coffee urns. Only then did Rallis release his grip on Adam.
‘I should have thrashed the impudent wretch, Rallis,’ the young man said. He was enraged by the insult that had been offered him. Only in the distant days of his childhood, during an argument with the eight-year-old son of his father’s housekeeper, had anyone ever spat at him before. ‘Did you see what he did? Why did you hold me back?’
‘I saw how he insulted you. But the Oraia Ellas is no place to fight.’
‘Rallis is correct, Adam,’ the professor said. ‘We cannot indulge in brawling in public, no matter what the provocation.’
‘Why was the man so exercised?’ Adam turned and looked towards the counter where the Greek was laughing with two of his compatriots. Adam was tempted still to stride over to them and knock their wretched heads together. ‘Did I hear something about this Dilessi business?’
The lawyer nodded. ‘Since the killing of Mr Herbert and Mr Vyner, there has been much anger against the English.’
‘Why the devil should that be?’ The young man turned back to Rallis. He had mastered his anger and was now more curious than enraged. ‘It was the English who suffered. Herbert and Vyner were English. They were the ones who were kidnapped by bandits on a perfectly innocent journey to Marathon and then murdered by their captors.’
‘Ah, but it is not as simple a story as you think, Adam. There is much resentment in Greece.’