The Snake-Catcher’s Daughter. Michael Pearce
next morning one of the orderlies came in in great agitation.
‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘the Bimbashi’s donkey is not here.’
Owen laid down his pen.
‘Someone’s stolen it?’
‘No, no. It has not been here all morning. The Bimbashi has not come in.’
This was unusual. McPhee, the Deputy Commandant, always came in.
‘A touch of malaria, perhaps,’ said Owen, picking up his pen again. ‘Send someone to find out.’
A buzz of excited chatter outside his door told him when the someone returned.
‘Well?’
‘Effendi,’ said the orderly, with a long face, ‘the Bimbashi’s not there.’
‘He has not been there all night,’ put in another of the orderlies.
‘Hm!’ What members of the Administration did in the night was their business and it was normally wisest not to inquire. McPhee, however, was not like that. He was very puritanical; some would say undeveloped. He was the sort of man who if he had been in England would have joined that strange new organization, the Boy Scouts. After some consideration, Owen went in to see Garvin.
Garvin, also, took it seriously.
‘He’d have let us know if it was work, wouldn’t he?’
‘It can hardly be play,’ said Owen.
‘He won’t be sleeping it off, certainly,’ said Garvin. Owen thought that the remark was possibly directed at him.
‘What I meant was, that he’s not one to let his private life interfere with his work,’ he said, and then realized that sounded unnecessarily priggish. Garvin tended to have that effect on people.
‘What was he doing yesterday?’ asked Garvin. ‘Was it something he was likely to get knocked over the head doing?’
Apparently not. The office had been quiet all day. Indeed, it had been quiet all week. The weather, hot always, of course, had been exceptionally so for the last fortnight, which had brought almost all activity in Cairo, including crime, to a standstill.
‘You’d better get people out looking for him,’ said Garvin.
Owen didn’t like Garvin treating him as just another deputy. The Mamur Zapt reported – in form, of course – to the Khedive and it was only for convenience that Owen was lodged in the police headquarters at Bab-el-Khalk. However, he quite liked McPhee and wasn’t going to quibble.
Garvin, in fact, was genuinely concerned and wasn’t doing this just as an administrative power game.
‘Get them all out,’ he said. ‘They’ve got nothing better to do.’
It was now nearly noon and the sun was at its hottest, and this was therefore not the view of the ordinary policeman. If turned out now they would probably make for the nearest patch of shade.
Besides, what were they to look for? A body? There were thousands of places in Cairo where bodies might be lying and usually it was simplest to allow them to declare their presence later – in the heat it would not be much later – by their smell. There was, however, an easier solution.
‘You all know the Bimbashi’s donkey,’ said Owen. ‘Find it.’
‘Look for a donkey?’ expostulated Nikos, his Official Clerk. ‘You can’t have the whole Police Force out looking for a donkey!’
‘Why not?’
‘It sounds bad. Have you thought how it would look in the pages of Al-Lewa?’
Owen had not. He could just imagine, though, what the Nationalist press would make of it. The newspapers would be full of it for weeks. He stuck doggedly, however, to his guns. Nikos changed tack.
‘How much are you offering for information?’ he asked practically.
‘It’s McPhee, after all.’
‘Five pounds?’
‘Good God, no!’ said Owen, shocked. ‘We’d have the whole city bringing us donkeys if we offered that. One pound Egyptian.’
‘I thought, as it was an Englishman –’ suggested Nikos.
‘One-fifty.’
‘And in the police –’
‘Two pounds,’ said Owen. ‘We’ll make it two pounds. That is my limit.’
‘It ought to be enough,’ said Nikos, who believed in value for money.
Word went out to the bazaars by methods which only Nikos knew and Owen sat down to await results. They came by nightfall.
‘What the hell is this?’ said Garvin.
Owen explained.
‘It’s like a bloody donkey market,’ said Garvin.
Owen went down into the courtyard to sort things out. Nikos watched with interest. Believing that decisions should be taken where knowledge lay, which certainly wasn’t at the top, Owen enlisted the aid of the orderlies, whom he stationed at the entrance to the courtyard.
‘You know the Bimbashi’s donkey,’ he said. ‘All the others are to be turned away.’
Within an hour the usual torpor of the Bab-el-Khalk was restored.
By now it was dark.
‘You stay here,’ he ordered.
The orderlies, appeased by the prospect of a few extra piastres and full of self-importance at their newly-significant role, were quite content to stay on. Meanwhile, Owen went down to the club for a drink.
‘I gather there’s some problem about McPhee,’ said a man at his elbow.
‘Maybe,’ said Owen, non-committally.
‘Not been knocked on the head, has he? I wouldn’t want that to happen. He’s a funny bloke, not everyone’s cup of tea, but I quite like him.’
‘I dare say he’s all right.’
His neighbour looked at him.
‘Like that, is it?’
Owen gave a neutral smile.
‘You’re not saying? Fair enough. Only I hope he’s all right.’
Owen, who had previously regarded the eccentric McPhee as much with irritation as with affection, was surprised to find that he felt rather the same.
‘What’s happened to the drink this evening?’ he asked. ‘It’s bloody lukewarm.’
‘It’s the heat,’ someone said. ‘Even the ice is melting.’
Owen decided to go back to the Bab-el-Khalk. He put down his glass and headed for the door, spurred on by hearing someone say, ‘Sorry I’m late, old man. Couldn’t get here for the donkeys.’
There were, indeed, a lot of donkeys outside the Bab-el-Khalk. Since they were refused entry into the courtyard, they congregated in the square in front of the building, blocking the road. Garvin was just leaving the building as he arrived.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ he said.
Unaccountably, there were about half a dozen donkeys inside the courtyard.
‘What are they doing here?’
The orderlies looked embarrassed.
‘We thought they might be the Bimbashi’s donkey,’ they said.
‘You know damned well they’re not!’
‘It’s not always possible to tell in the dark,’ muttered