“There isn’t a doubt on that point,” Grim answered. “Why else should Scharnhoff open a fruit-shop? The license for it was taken out by one of Noureddin Ali’s agents, whose brother deals in fruit wholesale and owns that barn. Narayan Singh tracked some suspicious packages to that place four days ago. They’ll start to carry it into the city hidden under loads of fruit just as soon as the morning crowd begins to pour in. We only need let them get the first consignment in, so as to have the chain of evidence complete. Are you sure your men will let the first lot go through?”
“Absolutely. Just came from giving them very careful instructions. The minute that first load disappears into the city they’ll close in on the barn and arrest every one they find in there. But what are you gloomy about?”
“I’d hate to miss the big fish.”
“You mean Noureddin Ali ?”
“It looks to me as if he’s been a shade too wise for us. One man swore he saw him on the wall this morning, but he was gone when I sent to make sure. We’ve got all the rest. There are five in Djemal’s Cafe, waiting for the big news; they’ll be handcuffed one at a time by the police when they get tired of waiting and come out.
“But I’d rather bag Noureddin Ali than all the others put together. He’s got brains, that little beast has. He’d know how to use this story against us with almost as much effect as if he’d pulled the outrage off.”
He had hardly finished speaking when Narayan Singh’s great bulk darkened the doorway. He closed the door behind him, as if afraid the other Sikhs might learn bad news.
“It is true, sahib. He was on the wall. He is there again.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Surely. He makes signals to the men who are loading the donkeys now in the door of the barn. It would be a difficult shot. His head hardly shows between the battlements. But I think I could hit him from the road below. Shall I try?”
“No, you’d only scare him into hiding if you miss. Oh hell! There are three ways up on to the wall at that point. There’s no time to block them all—not if he’s signalling now. He’ll see your men close in on the barn, sir, and beat it for the skyline. Oh, damn and blast the luck!”
“At least we can try to cut him off,” said Goodenough. “I’ll take some men myself and have a crack at it.”
“No use, sir. You’d never catch sight of him. I wish you’d let Narayan Singh take three men, make for the wall by the shortest way, and hunt him if it takes a week.”
“Why not? All right. D’you hear that, Narayan Singh?”
“Atcha, sahib.”
“You understand?” said Grim. “Keep him moving. Keep after him.”
“Do the sahibs wish him alive or dead?”
“Either way,” said Goodenough.
“If he’s gone from the wall when you get there,” Grim added, “bring us the news. You’ll know where to find us”
“Atcha”
The Sikh brought his rifle to the shoulder, faced about, marched out, chose three men from the platoon in the street, and vanished.
“Too bad, too bad!” said Goodenough, but Grim did not answer. He was swearing a blue streak under his breath. The next to arrive on the scene was Suliman, grinning with delight because he had won all the money of the other urchins, but brimming with news in the bargain. He considered a mere colonel of cavalry beneath notice, and addressed himself to Grim without ceremony.
“My mother brought out oranges in baskets and set them on benches on both sides of the door. Then she went in, and I heard her scream. There was a fight inside.”
“D’you care to bet, sir?” asked Grim.
“On what?”
“I’ll bet you a hundred piastres Scharnhoff has tried to make his get-away, and they’ve either killed him or tied him hand and foot. Another hundred on top of that, that Scharnhoff offers to turn state witness, provided he’s alive when we show up.”
“All right. I’ll bet you he hangs.”
“Are you coming with us, sir?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for a king’s ransom.”
“The back way out, then.”
Grim beckoned the Sikhs into the room, left one man in there in charge of Suliman, who swore blasphemously at being left behind, and led the way down a passage that opened into an alley connecting with a maze of others like rat runs, mostly arched over and all smelly with the unwashed gloom of ages. At the end of the last alley we entered was a flight of stone steps, up which we climbed to the roof of the house on which I had seen Grim the night before.
There was a low coping on the side next the street, and some one had laid a lot of bundles of odds and ends against it; lying down, we could look out between those without any risk of being seen from below, but Goodenough made the Sikhs keep well in the background and only we three peered over the edge. About two hundred yards in front of us the Dome of the Rock glistened in the morning sun above the intervening roofs. The street was almost deserted, although the guards at either end had been removed for fear of scaring away the conspirators. We watched for about twenty minutes before any one passed but occasional beggars, some of whom stopped to wonder why oranges should stand on sale outside a door with nobody in charge of them. Three separate individuals glanced right and left and then helped themselves pretty liberally from the baskets.
But at last there came five donkeys very heavily loaded with oranges and raisins, in charge of six men, which was a more than liberal allowance. When they stopped at the little stone house in front of us there was another thing noticeable; instead of hitting the donkeys hard on the nose with a thick club, which is the usual way of calling a halt in Palestine, they went to the heads and stopped them reasonably gently. So, although all six men were dressed to resemble peasants, they were certainly nothing of the kind.
Nor were they such wide-awake conspirators as they believed themselves, for they were not in the least suspicious of six other men, also dressed as peasants, who followed them up-street, and sat down in full view with their backs against a wall. Yet I could see quite plainly the scabbard of a bayonet projecting through a hole in the ragged cloak of the nearest of those casual wayfarers.
They had to knock several minutes before the door opened gingerly; then they off-loaded the donkeys, and it took two men to carry each basketful, with a third lending a hand in case of accident. Only one man went back with the donkeys, and two of the casual loafers against the wall got up to saunter after him; the other five honest merchants went inside, and we heard the bolt shoot into its iron slot behind them.
“How about it, Grim?” asked Goodenough then.
“Ready, sir. Will you give the order?”
We filed in a hurry down the steps into the alley, ran in a zig-zag down three passages, and reached another alley with narrow door at its end that faced the street. Grim had made every preparation. There was a heavy baulk of timber lying near the door, with rope-handles knotted into holes bored through it at intervals. The Sikhs picked that up and followed us into the street.
The mechanism of the Administration’s net was a thing to wonder at. As we emerged through the door the “peasants” who were loafing with their backs against the wall got up and formed a cordon across the street. Simultaneously, although I neither saw nor heard any signal, a dozen Sikhs under a British officer came down the street from the other direction at the double and formed up in line on our lefthand. A moment later, our men were battering the door down with their baulk of timber, working all together as if they had practised the stunt thoroughly.
It was a stout door, three inches thick, of ancient olivewood and reinforced with forged iron bands.