“Fine,” said the Saint. He put the money in his pocket, lighted a cigarette, and indicated the neglected trio of diaphanously veiled beauties with a gesture of magnificent insouciance. “And now can we go on with the floor show? And may I pick a girl too?”
4
“I still wish you’d kept out of it,” Mr Usherdown repeated miserably, for perhaps the eleventh time. “You shouldn’t have let them trick you into touching that money.”
“I wasn’t tricked,” said the Saint scornfully. “I just decided that if I was going in at all, I might as well go in with a splash. Didn’t you ever play poker? If you were bluffing, in a no-limit game, would you expect to impress anybody with a two-bit raise?”
This was very much later, when they were back in the guest suite, on which the guards had been doubled — which Simon had been tempted to call a two-edged compliment.
“I’ll never forgive myself,” moaned the little man.
“Phooey,” snarled the Saint. “You invited me in, didn’t you?”
“I just happened to hear your name, and I realized who you were. I never thought I’d have had the nerve to pretend to know you like that, right in front of Tâlib and Abdullah. But I was frantic. I thought you might be able to do something.”
“Well, I’m trying.”
“I mean, something sensational, like I’ve heard about you — like fighting our way out of here.”
“Too much of this is like a B picture already, Mortimer. Don’t make it any worse. What did you think I was going to use for armaments?”
“I thought someone like you… you know… would have a gun.”
“I did. It’s in the suitcase I left in bond in Basra. Did you think I’d try to sneak it into a place like this, when I’m supposed to be a peaceful water-diviner? You should know how hysterical it makes little big shoots to think of anybody but their own trigger men having nasty toys that go bang. Do you think my overnight bag wasn’t searched before they brought it up here, and Tâlib didn’t paw me over himself while he was hustling us through the Customs?”
“Perhaps we should have jumped on them at dinner,” Mr Usherdown said weakly. “We didn’t talk it over enough beforehand. I could have distracted their attention while you got the sword away from that eunuch, if that’s what he was, and then you’d have grabbed Yûsuf and taken him for a hostage, and we might’ve fought our way out…”
Simon gazed at him in genuinely sympathetic amazement.
“My God, my public,” he said dazedly. “You must have really seen it like that, with me whacking our way through the infidels like Errol Flynn in his prime… Forgive me, Mortimer, but there was a moment when I dallied with an idea of that kind myself, only I sobered up in the nick of time. I suppose I might have wrought some havoc among the Saracens — with your help, of course — but I’d still have had to get all of us all the way out of this castle. Including Violet. And after that, where would we go? Take a running dive into the Persian Gulf and start swimming through the sharks? Leap onto three conveniently parked camels and gallop off into the dunes? Or just hitch a ride to the airport and talk our way past the local Gestapo on to the next plane out?… Assume that we’ve busted loose, and we’re running: how do you see us getting out of Qabat?”
“I deserve anything that happens to me,” Mr Usherdown said wretchedly. “I think you should forget about us and try to escape on your own. I know we’d be a terrible burden, but perhaps you could make it by yourself.”
The Saint stood by a window and examined the ornamental iron grille across it with professional appraisal.
“Crashing out of this gilded cage is liable to be more than an overnight project, even for me,” he said.
Violet Usherdown helped herself to another chocolate cream from the box beside her.
“That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard from you for a long time, Mortimer. Mr Templar should not feel obligated,” she said with remarkable cheerfulness. “Anyway, you know now that you aren’t in half as much trouble as you were afraid of.”
Mr Usherdown’s eyes took on a slight glaze.
“Nothing worse than having my hands chopped off,” he chattered bravely. “Lots of soldiers have had that happen. And you can get wonderful artificial limbs now. I’ve seen pictures of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if I could even go on divining, with a bit of practice—”
“In a pig’s eye,” said Mrs Usherdown trenchantly. “You wouldn’t be doing me any favors, wanting me to live with a man with nothing but a pair of hooks. I couldn’t stand it.” She shuddered delicately. “I mean, knowing it was on account of me, of course, even though he was most heroic. I would rather be divorced and taken into the Sheik’s harem.”
“But I love you, Vi,” pleaded her spouse. “I couldn’t sacrifice you like that.”
“What is a woman’s life but sacrifice?” she asked. “And it isn’t as if I would have to put up with his old wives, because he has promised me he will give them away. And even if he is getting down to his last few millions we wouldn’t starve to death. When I think of some of the things I’ve had to put up with since I married you, Mortimer Usherdown, I cannot say it is the worst fate that could possibly happen to me, although naturally it is always a shock to a lady to be put asunder.”
Both Mr Usherdown and the Saint looked at her in oddly similar ways for a moment.
Then Simon touched the little man’s arm. “I want some sleep before the performance tomorrow, chum,” he said. “But before I turn in, you’d better dig out those hazel twigs and show me how to make like a real dowser.”
It was quite a large and colorful gallery that turned out in the still bearable warmth of the early morning to watch the Saint set forth on his quest, as if it had been the tee-off of a golf championship. There was a group of about three dozen VIPs, identifiable by their fine robes and arrogant bearing, whom Simon took for the squires of the smaller manors and their personal friends. There were, inevitably, Tâlib and Abdullah, with no less than four of the scimitar-bearing Negroes hovering close behind them to add muscle to their menace. At a respectful distance stood a sizeable crowd of somber and ragged citizens from the town, summoned by whatever served as a grapevine in that grapeless land. A full platoon of the militarily uniformed guards was deployed to keep the common herd at bay — and was also a sobering reminder of the unromantic improbability of the dashing kind of getaway that Mr Usherdown had dreamed of. From the palace entrance had spilled a heterogeneous collection of servants and minor functionaries, including the quartet of musicians, but the dancing girls were not with them, or in fact any other feminine members of the Emir’s household. However, glancing up at the façade, Simon was sure that he could detect a stirring of veils behind every barred window. He might have imagined it, but he even thought that in one of the gratings he saw a timid flutter of pale fingers, instantly withdrawn…
The only woman in plain sight was Violet Usherdown, and the descriptive phrase was not strictly apt, at that, for she had tied a square of brocade over her head in a sort of babushka effect, and fastened what looked like a man’s white handkerchief across the aperture in front in such a way that it masked her completely from the eyes down.
“I’ve got to obey the custom of the country if Yûsuf is going to respect me at all,” she had explained with dignity. “Why, I’ve found out that the women here would rather expose any part of themselves than let a man see their face. That means, if I didn’t wear a veil, all the men would be staring at me — and I know what men are like, Mortimer — as if I was stark naked! When I think how I used to let anyone here see me with a bare face, before I knew what it meant to them, I’m so embarrassed I could blush all over.”