“I’ll take a chance on Basra,” said the Saint amiably. “I’ve nothing against this charming place, but I’ve already been here a week.”
“I’ve been here for six years,” said the manager neutrally. “But I’m surprised the Saint couldn’t find any excitement in Egypt.”
Simon Templar grinned lazily.
“I leave this territory to Sax Rohmer,” he murmured. “I liked it better in Cinemascope, anyhow — in a nice air-conditioned theater. Your ruins are wonderful, but the Nile just doesn’t send me without Cleopatra. Maybe I’ll come back when you start running time machines.”
“Well, if I’m still here, I hope I can be a bit more help to you then.” The manager fumbled out a carefully folded sheet of paper and a pen. “I know it’s a frightful bore, but would you mind very much doing an autograph? I’ve got a young son who thinks you’re the greatest man who ever lived, and I’ll never hear the last of it if I let you get away without a souvenir.”
“You should have brought him up with more respectable heroes,” Simon said, writing his name.
“And that little stick-figure drawing with the halo — your Saint trademark… Would you?”
“Sure.” Simon drew it. “How do you feel about a drink?”
“Thanks, old chap, but I’ve still got a spot of work to do.” The manager recovered his pen and paper, and put out his hand. “The station officer will be looking out for you at Basra. Have a nice trip, Mr Templar, and come back and see us.”
“Just as soon as you can make me that date with Cleopatra.”
Simon sat down again as the manager hurried away. The friendly smile faded from his tanned face as inevitably as the memory of that whole encounter would presently fade. It had been pleasant indeed, but it was still only part of the routine of travel.
And exactly three seconds later, as a direct result of it, nothing could even remotely be called routine.
His hand was grabbed off the table and practically taken away from him by a little man whom he had never seen before in his life, who pumped it and clung to it with the almost hysterical fervor of a parent greeting a long-lost son or a politician looking for a vote.
The little man beamed from ear to ear, and his little brown eyes were bright with terror, and he said in a frantically pleading undertone, “My name’s Mortimer Usherdown. Please pretend you’re an old friend of mine. Please play along with me. Honestly, it’s one of those life-and-death things…”
“Well, Mortimer,” said the Saint automatically. “Long time no see.”
He patted Mr Usherdown on the shoulder, and gently reclaimed his other hand. The little man with the big name sank into the nearest chair as if his knees had melted. He had a round button-nosed face that made one think of a timid gnome, topped with thinning wisps of mouse-colored hair; he might have been five years on either side of fifty. His trembling could be felt rather than seen as if he were sitting on some kind of delicate vibrator.
“Gosh, this is a break, running into you here, Simon,” he said, still with that fixed and desperate grin. “If I could have picked anyone out of the whole world to run into now, I’d have asked for you.”
He looked up abruptly, and Simon looked up with him, as two other men loomed over them, crowding close to the table with unmistakable intent to be noticed.
“Oh,” Mr Usherdown said, as though he had momentarily forgotten them. “These are two friends of mine—”
The two men did not look like friends of anyone, except possibly some Middle Eastern Ali ben Capone. They were obviously Arabs of some kind and did not care who knew it, since although they wore conventional Western suits of fascinatingly inaccurate fit, with what appeared to be striped pajama tops taking the place of shirts and hanging gaily out below the hem-line of their coats, their heads were still shrouded in the traditional red-patterned cowls bound to their brows by what looked like two quoits of heavy black rope. But even making allowance for the fact that the typical seamed and aquiline Arab face, especially when bearded, has a cast of intolerant cruelty that only a Tuareg mother would have no misgivings about, the two specimens that Mr Usherdown introduced exuded less natural kindliness than any couple of their race that Simon had seen up to that date.
“This is Tâlib,” the little man said, indicating the taller and lankier of the two, whose suit was a couple of sizes too loose. “And Abdullah.” The other was shorter and broader, and his clothes were too tight. “This is Mr Templar, a very old friend of mine,” Mr Usherdown said, completing the introductions.
The two Arabs also sat down.
“I’m glad everyone’s so friendly,” murmured the Saint. “Who’s got the cards? Shall we cut for partners, Mortimer, or do you and I take these two on?”
‘Tâlib speaks English.” Usherdown warned him quickly.
“How you do?” said the tall lanky one, to prove it.
“Mr Templar is in the same business that I am,” Usherdown explained — or it was apparently intended for an explanation.
“Ah,” said Tâlib, with interest. “He is a hot dog, I bet.”
He leaned his elbows on the table with a solidity which not only underlined the impression that he was there to stay but added a certain air of possessiveness to his presence which spread out to include the Saint in its orbit.
Simon lighted a cigarette while he tried to make sure of his cue. Although Mr Usherdown had most of the conventional earmarks of a Milquetoast type, his current state of suppressed panic reached an almost psychopathic intensity. But Tâlib and Abdullah, for their part, had none of the reassuring air which might have been expected even of the local counterpart of the men in white coats. They were not actually as conspicuous as their description might sound to anyone who has not seen that cosmopolitan crossroads which shuffles together not merely the costumes and countenances of Europe and Arabia but also Afghans, Indians, Pakistanis, Burmese, Thailanders, Malays, Chinese, Japanese, and every sect and subdivision in between, in what is probably the maddest mixing-bowl of this airborne age; but the aura of self-confident menace about them was as internationally obvious as that of any two dead-pan goons in a gangster movie. Yet it seemed preposterous that they could reduce even such a mild-looking person as Mr Usherdown to something so close to quivering paralysis in such a crowded and brightly lighted modernism as the Cairo airport bar.
Simon glanced calculatingly around the swirling jabbering room, adding up a little knot of transient American GI’s, a trio of British officers identifiable even in mufti, and a couple of Egyptian policemen in uniform quietly studying everyone, and found it hard to believe that even such a frightened goblin as Mr Usherdown wouldn’t have dared to call the bluff of two goons who tried to crowd him in such a setting. But it was still a wild possibility that had to be methodically disposed of.
He estimated the extent of Tâlib’s idiomatic accomplishments with another blandly analytic glance, and said, “Spill it, Mortimer. Do you want me to clobber these fugitives from a road show of Beau Geste?”
“Oh, no,” said the little man hastily. “Not on any account, please. Their religion doesn’t allow them to drink. But I’ll have a brandy, if I may.”
He was quite fast on the uptake, at any rate, or perhaps fear had lent wings to his wits as it might have to another man’s feet.
Simon stopped a passing waiter and relayed the order, along with another Peter Dawson for himself.
“What on earth are you doing here, Mort, old boy?” he asked, trying to offer another opening.
“I’ve just been up to Greece. For Hazel.”
“And how is the dear girl?”
“Who?” Mr Usherdown looked blank for a moment. “Oh, do you mean my wife? Violet?”