They Came to Baghdad. Агата Кристи

said he never could understand how archaeologists were able to say so definitely how old these things were. Always used to think they must be the most awful liars, ha ha, said Captain Crosbie. Richard looked at him in a rather tired kind of way. No, said Captain Crosbie, but how did an archaeologist know how old a thing was? Richard said that that would take a long time to explain, and Mrs Clayton quickly took him away to see his room.

      ‘He’s very nice,’ said Mrs Clayton, ‘but not quite quite, you know. Hasn’t got any idea of culture.’

      Richard found his room exceedingly comfortable, and his appreciation of Mrs Clayton as a hostess rose still higher.

      Feeling in the pocket of his coat, he drew out a folded-up piece of dirty paper. He looked at it with surprise, for he knew quite well that it had not been there earlier in the morning.

      He remembered how the Arab had clutched him when he stumbled. A man with deft fingers might have slipped this into his pocket without his being aware of it.

      He unfolded the paper. It was dirty and seemed to have been folded and refolded many times.

      In six lines of rather crabbed handwriting, Major John Wilberforce recommended one Ahmed Mohammed as an industrious and willing worker, able to drive a lorry and do minor repairs and strictly honest—it was, in fact, the usual type of ‘chit’ or recommendation given in the East. It was dated eighteen months back, which again is not unusual as these chits are hoarded carefully by their possessors.

      Frowning to himself, Richard went over the events of the morning in his precise orderly fashion.

      Fakir Carmichael, he was now well assured, had been in fear of his life. He was a hunted man and he bolted into the Consulate. Why? To find security? But instead of that he had found a more instant menace. The enemy or a representative of the enemy had been waiting for him. This commercial traveller chap must have had very definite orders—to be willing to risk shooting Carmichael in the Consulate in the presence of witnesses. It must, therefore, have been very urgent. And Carmichael had appealed to his old school friend for help, and had managed to pass this seemingly innocent document into his possession. It must, therefore, be very important, and if Carmichael’s enemies caught up with him, and found that he no longer possessed this document, they would doubtless put two and two together and look for any person or persons to whom Carmichael might conceivably have passed it on.

      What then was Richard Baker to do with it?

      He could pass it on to Clayton, as His Britannic Majesty’s representative.

      Or he could keep it in his own possession until such time as Carmichael claimed it?

      After a few minutes’ reflection he decided to do the latter.

      But first he took certain precautions.

      Tearing a blank half sheet of paper off an old letter, he sat down to compose a reference for a lorry driver in much the same terms, but using different wording—if this message was a code that took care of that—though it was possible, of course, that there was a message written in some kind of invisible ink.

      Then he smeared his own composition with dust from his shoes—rubbed it in his hands, folded and refolded it—until it gave a reasonable appearance of age and dirt.

      Then he crumpled it up and put it into his pocket. The original he stared at for some time whilst he considered and rejected various possibilities.

      Finally, with a slight smile, he folded and refolded it until he had a small oblong. Taking a stick of plasticine (without which he never travelled) out of his bag, he first wrapped his packet in oilskin cut from his sponge-bag, then encased it in plasticine. This done he rolled and patted out the plasticine till he had a smooth surface. On this he rolled out an impression from a cylinder seal that he had with him.

      He studied the result with grim appreciation.

      It showed a beautifully carved design of the Sun God Shamash armed with the Sword of Justice.

      ‘Let’s hope that’s a good omen,’ he said to himself.

      That evening, when he looked in the pocket of the coat he had worn in the morning, the screwed-up paper had gone.

       CHAPTER 7

      Life, thought Victoria, life at last! Sitting in her seat at Airways Terminal there had come the magic moment when the words ‘Passengers for Cairo, Baghdad and Tehran, take your places in the bus, please,’ had been uttered.

      Magic names, magic words. Devoid of glamour to Mrs Hamilton Clipp who, as far as Victoria could make out, had spent a large portion of her life jumping from boats into aeroplanes and from aeroplanes into trains with brief intervals at expensive hotels in between. But to Victoria they were a marvellous change from the oft-repeated phrases, ‘Take down, please, Miss Jones.’ ‘This letter’s full of mistakes. You’ll have to type it again, Miss Jones.’ ‘The kettle’s boiling, ducks, just make the tea, will you.’ ‘I know where you can get the most marvellous perm.’ Trivial boring everyday happenings! And now: Cairo, Baghdad, Tehran—all the romance of the glorious East (and Edward at the end of it) …

      Victoria returned to earth to hear her employer, whom she had already diagnosed as a non-stop talker, concluding a series of remarks by saying:

      ‘—and nothing really clean if you know what I mean. I’m always very very careful what I eat. The filth of the streets and the bazaars you wouldn’t believe. And the unhygienic rags the people wear. And some of the toilets—why, you just couldn’t call them toilets at all!’

      Victoria listened dutifully to these depressing remarks, but her own sense of glamour remained undimmed. Dirt and germs meant nothing in her young life. They arrived at Heathrow and she assisted Mrs Clipp to alight from the bus. She was already in charge of passports, tickets, money, etc.

      ‘My,’ said that lady, ‘it certainly is a comfort to have you with me, Miss Jones. I just don’t know what I’d have done if I’d had to travel alone.’

      Travelling by air, Victoria thought, was rather like being taken on a school treat. Brisk teachers, kind but firm, were at hand to shepherd you at every turn. Air hostesses, in trim uniform with the authority of nursery governesses dealing with feeble-minded children explained kindly just what you were to do. Victoria almost expected them to preface their remarks with ‘Now, children.’

      Tired-looking young gentlemen behind desks extended weary hands to check passports, to inquire intimately of money and jewellery. They managed to induce a sense of guilt in those questioned. Victoria, suggestible by nature, knew a sudden longing to describe her one meagre brooch as a diamond tiara value ten thousand pounds, just to see the expression on the bored young man’s face. Thoughts of Edward restrained her.

      The various barriers passed, they sat down to wait once more in a large room giving directly on the aerodrome. Outside the roar of a plane being revved up gave the proper background. Mrs Hamilton Clipp was now happily engaged in making a running commentary on their fellow travellers.