The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories. Sapper
We had been watching the last belated sightseers hurrying across the gangway after a frenzied dash round Port Said, and now the first faint throb of the propellers heralded the final lap of the journey.
Slowly the gap between us and the shore widened; the native boats, with their chattering owners busily counting the proceeds of their robberies, fell away. And suddenly Jim turned to me with a grin.
"This is the identical boat, old man, in which I first left England. From a glimpse into the smoking-room, the barman is also identical. Moreover, the sun is over the yardarm."
"Your return to respectability has made you very silent," I said with a laugh. "That's your first remark for half an hour."
He looked at me thoughtfully while the barman produced something that tinkled pleasantly in a long glass.
"Your girl all right, old man?"
"Molly!" I stared at him in some surprise. "Why—yes. I saw her being piloted to her cabin with that eminently worthy parson's wife. What makes you ask?"
"Well, I don't mind telling you now what I didn't tell you in Cairo," said Jim quietly. "To be quite candid, I've been distinctly uneasy these last two days."
"But what on earth about?" I asked.
"Our late friends at the Pool of the Sacred Crocodile. Oh! I know what you're going to say—that the place was empty and all that when we went back, and that the birds had flown. But when you know as much about the native as I do, old man, you'll realise that that means nothing. Put it how you will, Miss Tremayne escaped, and one of their chief scoundrels died a nasty death in the process. And a sect of that sort doesn't forgive things like that. So that when I received in Cairo a letter containing a typewritten threat I wasn't altogether surprised."
"But why the devil didn't you tell me?" I cried. He shrugged his shoulders.
"You couldn't have done anything if I had. And I didn't want to run any risk of alarming your girl."
"What was the threat?"
"Terse and to the point," laughed Jim. "It merely stated that, in view of what had happened, all our lives were forfeit, and that they would be claimed in due course."
"How frightfully jolly!" I remarked a little blankly. "Do you think it need be taken seriously?"
Once again he shrugged his shoulders.
"I take it a great deal less seriously now that we've left the country," he answered. "I think that undoubtedly the principal danger has passed, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that we are out of the wood. It may have been merely an idle threat. The fact that absolutely nothing was tried on any of us in Cairo rather points that way. But with these devils you never know. Once you start monkeying with these fanatical sects you're asking for trouble."
He drained his glass and we strolled out on deck.
"However, there's nothing to be done. We can only wait and see if anything happens."
"It's possible," I said, "that the whole thing is designed to have a mental effect only. To make one nervous anticipating things which are never really coming."
"It is possible," agreed Jim gravely. "If so, they succeeded quite well with me for forty-eight hours. Anyway there's your girl, old Dick, and she is betraying no signs of nervousness anticipating you. I'll go down below and pass the time of day with the purser, and incidentally fix up seats for tiffin."
The boat was fairly empty, as a number of passengers had broken their journey at Port Said. And when Jim discovered that he knew the Captain it was a foregone conclusion that we should sit at his table. A cheerful fellow, that skipper: I remember that there was a story concerning him and Jim and a little episode at Shanghai which was never satisfactorily elucidated. And it was he who introduced us to Prince Selim.
"A charming man," he remarked, as Jim made some comment on the empty seat just opposite him at lunch. "Fabulously wealthy, and almost more of an Englishman than an Egyptian. Has a large house in London, and spends most of his time there. I wonder you didn't meet him in Cairo."
The Prince came in at that moment, and it struck me that the Captain's remarks as to his appearance were quite justified. His clothes were faultless with the indefinable hallmark of the West End tailor: his face, save that it was a trifle darker, was that of a European. He was wonderfully good- looking, and when he smiled he showed a row of the most perfect teeth. Moreover, he spoke English without a trace of accent. In fact, a charming man, with a most astounding range of knowledge on all sorts of subjects and a fascinating way of imparting it.
Jim and I both took to him at once. He had travelled all over the world, and travelled intelligently. Most of his life seemed to have been spent in wandering, which gave him a common meeting-ground with Jim. Yet in spite of his roving propensities he was—so I understood from the Captain—an authority on old china, an electrical expert, and a wonderful violinist.
"I happen to know of those three," said the skipper. "But from what I've seen of the Prince, I shouldn't think they exhaust his repertoire by any means."
Strangely enough, Molly didn't take to him. He was unfailingly charming to her, but for some reason or other she didn't like him from the very first.
"I don't know why it is, Dick," she said to me one day, as we were strolling up and down the deck. "He's charming; he dances divinely and he hasn't said a word that I could object to. But—I don't like him. There's something—but I don't know what it is. Probably all imagination on my part, but there you are. And anyway it doesn't matter very much."
"Not a brass farthing, darling," I agreed. "The loss is entirely his. And in all probability we shall never see him again after we land at Plymouth."
The sea was like the proverbial mill-pond. And a voyage in good weather with the girl who is shortly to become your wife is no unpleasant operation. So it is hardly to be wondered at that by the time Gibraltar hove in sight, Jim and his forebodings were forgotten in pleasanter thoughts.
Wandering was all very well—but a little place somewhere in England with a bit of shooting, and fishing, and some hounds in the neighbourhood seemed very much better. In days to come, perhaps, Molly and I would wander again. Japan, Colombo—there were lots of places I wanted to show her. But for the next two or three years, England filled the bill admirably. And in four days we'd be there; we were in the straight for the run home. The Rock was out of sight behind us; life seemed very, very good.
It was just as I was in that comfortable frame of mind induced by life being good that I saw Jim coming along the deck towards me. And the instant I saw his face I knew that something had happened. He glanced round to see that no one was within earshot; then he went straight to the point.
"I found this reposing on the pillow of my bunk an hour after we left Gib."
He held out a sheet of paper, and with a sense of foreboding I glanced at it. There was only one sentence on it, written with a typewriter:
"Remember all your lives are forfeit."
The words danced before my eyes; so much for the quiet life.
"How did it get there?" I asked at length.
"I know no more than you," he answered gravely. "I sent for our lascar at once "—Jim and I were sharing a cabin—"and frightened his soul out. No good; I honestly believe that he knows nothing about it. I've made inquiries from one of the officers about the steerage passengers. He tells me definitely that there are no Arabs or Egyptians amongst them."
He lit a cigarette thoughtfully.
"How it got there," he continued after a moment, "is, comparatively speaking, a trifle. A Scorp may have brought it off at Gib, and given it to one of the lascars; or what is far more likely, it may have been handed to someone before we left Port Said with instructions to put it on my pillow when opportunity arose. And the bustle and excitement at Gib may have been the first chance. No, old man, it doesn't matter how it got there; why is what concerns me. Is it just the continuation of a stupid bluff—or