“Now I won’t hear a word from you against Jenkins—not one word! You’re to investigate the thieving that’s going on down here, but I shall make a point of telling Jenkins myself this afternoon that you are here in his interest as much as anyone’s.
“Now—is there anything I can do to simplify matters for you in any way?”
“I ought to have Catesby’s assistance, sir.”
“But he’s under arrest.”
“Catesby needs time and opportunity to hunt up evidence in his own defense, sir.”
“He has made no such request to me. It would have to come from him, not you.”
“I’m his next friend. If it comes to a court martial I shall defend him.”
“I see. You propose to ignore my wigging and fall foul of the brigadier in that way, don’t you?”
“Absolutely no, sir! I’ll carry out your orders to the letter.”
“All right; I’ll trust you. A note shall go to Jenkins asking him to release Captain Catesby’s parole for fourteen days to enable him to look up evidence. Anything else?”
“You’ve heard of the iblis, of course?”
“The leper who dances in the moonlight? Yes. He’s quite a problem. I was for having him hunted and bagged alive. The P.M.O. wants him interned as a danger to the health of the whole neighborhood, though where the—he’d intern him I don’t know. But some politician has been pulling strings. It seems the leper is a religious mystic held in high regard by the Moslems, and orders have come that he’s not to be interfered with.”
“They say in the lines that this iblis is the captain of the thieves.”
“I know they do. I’ve known of things ten times more improbable.”
“In that case,” said Jim, “whatever politician pulled the strings is probably interested in the thieving.”
“The order to let the leper alone came from Egypt.”
“Why not override it on the ground of military expediency?”
“Because, the war’s over, Grim, and the politicians are getting the upper hand. The way is being paved for civil government, and for every once that I override the political department I get ten defeats. I’m disposed now to let the politicians mix their own litter and lie in it.”
Jim was a lot too wise to ask permission after that to tackle the iblis. It was sufficient that he had no orders not to tackle him. But he was more mystified than ever. Just as Sir Henry Kettle had done that morning, General Anthony seemed to be deliberately leaving the course unobstructed which, if Jim could find it, might lead to Jenkins’ undoing. Why in thunder couldn’t they tackle Jenkins outright, he wondered.
* * * * *
He went straight to Jenkins’ ten and sent his name in by the orderly, but was kept waiting five minutes while the brigadier whistled a tune; for there is nothing like cooling a junior’s heels, according to some folk.
“Can you tell me anything, sir, that might lead to the discovery of who stole the TNT?” he asked when he was admitted.
“Hah! So our wonderful, astute American has come for assistance, eh? I thought you were such an expert intelligence officer that you never needed anyone’s advice? Glad to come to me after all, eh? What anticlimax! I dare say you wish now you’d made that apology a little more humble and less technical?”
There was no one else in the tent, although there might have been some eavesdropper listening behind it, for Jenkins knew no limits when his own advantage was in question. Jim took a grip on himself, and smiled.
“I’ve been rebuked twice this morning for what I said to you the other day. Twice I’ve pledged myself to make amends, if I can, buy getting all possible credit for you out of the clearing up of this thieving business.”
“Oh!”
If there was one thing more than another on which Brigadier-General Jenkins prided himself it was his ability to read men and take advantage of their peculiarities. Next to that he considered his claim to success lay in swift appraisal of subsurface reasons—political judgement in other words.
Jim Grim he assessed as one of those slaves of integrity, who value their own word above all other considerations; a slave, moreover, who had no influential backing. He did not doubt that whatever Jim had promised to do he would do, whoever might be discommoded in the process. There were only two men who could have made Jim promise—Kettle and Anthony—and only someone higher up still who could have actuated them; therefore somebody attached to headquarters in Cairo must have been pulling more than usually effective strings.
There might even have come definite instructions from the Foreign Office in London that the way must be paved for Brigadier-General Jenkins’ appointment to a civil post. The day of civil government was rapidly approaching. He himself had worked all the backstairs wires. There were more unlikely things.
Jenkins was no simpleton. He understood perfectly that both Kettle and Anthony detested and despised him; and, blinded by his own conceit, he supposed they would be willing to praise him with their tongues in their cheeks in order to get rid of him.
“Soho!” he remarked, and whistled a bar or two.
Jim, loathing him, skin, bone and stuffing, stood with a straight face, waiting while the brigadier turned his stalwart back to think.
“So we’re to pull together, are we, eh? Well—I’m not vindictive. I’d half a mind to ruin your career—d’you know that? I won’t stand insolence from any man. Nemo me impune lacessit; that’s my motto. I’ve got teeth, and I like the world to know it. However, as you seem eager to reinforce a lame apology by doing the right thing, I’ll bet bygones be bygones and we’ll forget the incident.”
Jim’s memory was reputed to be a trifle more retentive that that, had Jenkins stopped to think, but the brigadier was full steam ahead already on the track of self-advancement with the terminus in view. The brakes weren’t working.
“Sit down. Now this thieving that has been going on in the camp is a perfectly scandalous business. There’s no excuse for it. Not counting that TNT, which was returned to store—thanks to some extent, I believe to your efforts—the Army has lost a hundred and nine rifles in three months, to say nothing of countless rounds of ammunition—blankets—groceries—soap—underclothing— and stores of all kinds. Incompetence, of course. Best not to mention names.
“Between you and me, I’ve been waiting for the Army auditor to check things up and discover how much is missing. That’s done now. They know in Cairo just how much remissness there has been.
“Now’s the time, then, for somebody to get credit for changing that state of affairs. You’re a man who’s had rapid promotion; there’s no need to tell you that the paving of the short cut consists of other men’s mistakes. Very well. Somebody will have to pay; but what is that man’s poison may turn out to be your meat and mine. D’you get my meaning?”
“Perfectly.”
“Have a cigar. It’s obvious to the meanest intelligence—or at least it ought to be obvious, you’d think—that these thieves have a headquarters. Any general with half an eye would recognize signs of the thieves being organized. That means they’ve got a leader—perhaps two or three men, but more likely one—directing all of them. Is that much clear?”
“Sounds obvious.”
“It is. My notion of a good commanding office is a man with his ear to the ground, who listens, and knows what the men are saying. Any man with only one ear, and that half full of wax, would know that it’s common talk in this camp that the captain of thieves is a notorious leper. Have you heard of him?”
“Yes.”