Captain Quelch had, that morning, received a couple of wirelesses which he had told the operator to say nothing about. Eager for news of my missing reels, I had been with him in the Radio Room when he had dropped in on his way to the bridge. One wire was from Goldfish and this he showed me, but the other he folded and placed inside his white cotton jacket. He wore civilian clothes, this morning, apart from his cap and had the air of a man going courting, I said. He laughed. I was not far from the truth, he told me, tra-la-la. Was the Goldfish message of any immediate interest?
title change needed try old stop await new star arriving air alex imminent stop do not proceed until you have started stop we have prince of india stop we do one location reel for this stop ignore all previous messages stop confirm egyptian chariot track stop s.g.
The telegram is in my scrapbook. It is what is left of the evidence of my fame. Mrs Cornelius has more things in her boxes, she says, but lately she told me that the rats had got into the paper as the maggots got into the clothes in her cellar, so I suppose my clippings are returning to the slime as maggots crawl across the frozen moments, the rotting stills of long-since-crumbled celluloid. I only have this because, absent-mindedly, I forgot to show it to the others. I was thrown out, I think, by the notion of a rival actor coming to break up our circle just as things were going well again. Was the star a Constance Bennett or a Barrymore? Goldfish was famous for his sudden decisions to introduce ‘quality’ - or more money - into a project. I put this unpleasant idea from my mind and, in doing so, forgot the wire until I found it again, much later. By noon, after the excitement of the British welcoming party, we were receiving yet another visitor who, by his appearance, could be none other than the captain’s brother, Professor Quelch, who came aboard, swinging his way up with a sprightliness which cost him most of his breath by the time he was on deck attempting to apologise. ‘Awfully sorry - dashed train - always late - should have left earlier - my fault - how do you do. Malcolm Quelch.’ And I grasped a bony, weather-beaten hand extending from a body even more angular than his brother’s. ‘Hope you people got my wire. I replied as soon as -’ A sign from Captain Quelch silenced him and he shook my hand with silent, bewildered fury while waiting for his brother to rescue him.
‘How could you have known we were arriving, Malcolm? The papers, I suppose! Something from Casablanca? I say, isn’t it amazing what communications have come to?’ Clearly Captain Quelch had planned for our arrival to coincide with his brother’s, so that a good British guide should at once be available to us. I saw nothing wrong in this. Captain Quelch’s chief concern was for our safety. He knew that he could trust his brother to look after us with the same conscientious good sense as he had. I, for one, was grateful.
‘Keepin’ it in ther family are we, gents?’ Mrs Cornelius grinned at the world in general. ‘Enjoy a drink, do yer, prof?’
Only just recovering himself, the tall academic, whose sallow features resembled ancient papyrus, whose jaw was if anything more lantern, his nose more a predatory beak, than his brother’s, and whose grey-blue eyes had the quality of a faded tomb-painting, turned what became a mild blink upon my friend. ‘Not at all, madam. I am a strict teetotaller born. My family are all TT.’
‘Totally tipsy, wot?’ Laughing, she slapped him on the back. He wore a crumpled European suit which, like his skin, had turned yellow in the Egyptian sun. He had removed his panama as he came aboard. His black, greying hair was stuck thinly against his scalp by sweat which he now attempted to mop with a handkerchief so well-laundered that it was almost startling against that otherwise somewhat weathered figure. He gave up a small, uncertain smile. I shall never know the reason why she accepted one person as readily as she rejected another. For my part I was glad I had purchased, very reasonably from Captain Quelch, a long-term supply of coca. His brother seemed something of a prig and would probably be shocked at any suggestion of his helping me obtain an illicit drug. Egypt was famous for its drug traffic. British-run customs people were forever alert on the seas and in the deserts, where the camel trains brought hashish, opium and heroin along the old trade-routes from Asia. But I did not wish to misjudge Malcolm Quelch. Perhaps one needed such people in Egypt to remind us to maintain at all times our European standards. He was what the Greeks call kalokagathos, the perfect gentleman. And a scholar, as I was to discover very quickly. He asked if we had enjoyed the ‘innumerable laughter of the waves’ - ‘kymaton anerithmon gelasma, as Aeschylus has it?’
‘Sorry, I wosn’t payin’ attention the first time neiver,’ said Mrs Cornelius, offering him a hug around his bony shoulders and causing his mouth to pop open in surprise as she bellowed good-humouredly into his face. ‘You’ll do, prof. Ho! Ho!’
The ill-named Wolf Seaman came pounding around the deck in a running costume which displayed the very hairs of his body, he had grown so plump. The suit alone was tight enough to provide the agony on his face as he came to a florid stop before us and glared through sweat and tears at the newcomer. ‘Good afternoon? Sir.’
‘This is Perfessor Q. - Don Q’s better-educated bruwer.’ Her arm tightly about Quelch’s waist, Mrs Cornelius steered him like a salvager with a new prize towards her would-be Svengali, her surly paramour. ‘Perfessor, this is Sweden’s greatest artist since ‘Ans Andersen. ‘E’s made orl sorts o’ posh pictures. An’ I’ve bin in some of ‘em meself.’ This with one of her smiles at the disconcerted archaeologist who lifted his hat to Seaman and to everyone else, as if he had just stepped by accident into a play in which he was expected to perform a part. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘viva, valeque, I must say.’