Greenmantle, John Buchan [big screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Mesopotamia. I remember him years ago in Aleppo. He talked bad French and drank the sweetest of sweet champagne.”

I looked closely at the paper. The “K” was unmistakable.

“Kasredin is nothing. It means in Arabic the House of Faith, and might cover anything from Hagia Sofia to a suburban villa. What’s your next puzzle, Dick? Have you entered for a prize competition in a weekly paper?”

“Cancer,” I read out.

“It is the Latin for a crab. Likewise it is the name of a painful disease. It is also a sign of the Zodiac.”

“v. I.,” I read.

“There you have me. It sounds like the number of a motorcar. The police would find out for you. I call this rather a difficult competition. What’s the prize?”

I passed him the paper. “Who wrote it? It looks as if he had been in a hurry.”

“Harry Bullivant,” I said.

Sandy’s face grew solemn. “Old Harry. He was at my tutor’s. The best fellow God ever made. I saw his name in the casualty list before Kut.⁠ ⁠… Harry didn’t do things without a purpose. What’s the story of this paper?”

“Wait till after dinner,” I said. “I’m going to change and have a bath. There’s an American coming to dine, and he’s part of the business.”

Mr. Blenkiron arrived punctual to the minute in a fur coat like a Russian prince’s. Now that I saw him on his feet I could judge him better. He had a fat face, but was not too plump in figure, and very muscular wrists showed below his shirt-cuffs. I fancied that, if the occasion called, he might be a good man with his hands.

Sandy and I ate a hearty meal, but the American picked at his boiled fish and sipped his milk a drop at a time. When the servant had cleared away, he was as good as his word and laid himself out on my sofa. I offered him a good cigar, but he preferred one of his own lean black abominations. Sandy stretched his length in an easy chair and lit his pipe. “Now for your story, Dick,” he said.

I began, as Sir Walter had begun with me, by telling them about the puzzle in the Near East. I pitched a pretty good yarn, for I had been thinking a lot about it, and the mystery of the business had caught my fancy. Sandy got very keen.

“It is possible enough. Indeed, I’ve been expecting it, though I’m hanged if I can imagine what card the Germans have got up their sleeve. It might be any one of twenty things. Thirty years ago there was a bogus prophecy that played the devil in Yemen. Or it might be a flag such as Ali Wad Helu had, or a jewel like Solomon’s necklace in Abyssinia. You never know what will start off a jehad! But I rather think it’s a man.”

“Where could he get his purchase?” I asked.

“It’s hard to say. If it were merely wild tribesmen like the Bedouin he might have got a reputation as a saint and miracle-worker. Or he might be a fellow that preached a pure religion, like the chap that founded the Senussi. But I’m inclined to think he must be something extra special if he can put a spell on the whole Muslim world. The Turk and the Persian wouldn’t follow the ordinary new theology game. He must be of the Blood. Your Mahdis and Mullahs and Imams were nobodies, but they had only a local prestige. To capture all Islam⁠—and I gather that is what we fear⁠—the man must be of the Koreish, the tribe of the Prophet himself.”

“But how could any impostor prove that? For I suppose he’s an impostor.”

“He would have to combine a lot of claims. His descent must be pretty good to begin with, and there are families, remember, that claim the Koreish blood. Then he’d have to be rather a wonder on his own account⁠—saintly, eloquent, and that sort of thing. And I expect he’d have to show a sign, though what that could be I haven’t a notion.”

“You know the East about as well as any living man. Do you think that kind of thing is possible?” I asked.

“Perfectly,” said Sandy, with a grave face.

“Well, there’s the ground cleared to begin with. Then there’s the evidence of pretty well every secret agent we possess. That all seems to prove the fact. But we have no details and no clues except that bit of paper.” I told them the story of it.

Sandy studied it with wrinkled brows. “It beats me. But it may be the key for all that. A clue may be dumb in London and shout aloud at Baghdad.”

“That’s just the point I was coming to. Sir Walter says this thing is about as important for our cause as big guns. He can’t give me orders, but he offers the job of going out to find what the mischief is. Once he knows that, he says he can checkmate it. But it’s got to be found out soon, for the mine may be sprung at any moment. I’ve taken on the job. Will you help?”

Sandy was studying the ceiling.

“I should add that it’s about as safe as playing chuck-farthing at the Loos Crossroads, the day you and I went in. And if we fail nobody can help us.”

“Oh, of course, of course,” said Sandy in an abstracted voice.

Mr. Blenkiron, having finished his after-dinner recumbency, had sat up and pulled a small table towards him. From his pocket he had taken a pack of Patience cards and had begun to play the game called the Double Napoleon. He seemed to be oblivious of the conversation.

Suddenly I had a feeling that the whole affair was stark lunacy. Here were we three simpletons sitting in a London flat and projecting a mission into the enemy’s citadel without an idea what we were to do or how we were to do it. And one of the three was looking at the ceiling,