The King in Check/Chapter 5

HERE followed a tedious hour or two, during which Grim cross-examined the three "honest men," and took down lists of names from their dictation, getting Doctor Ticknor meanwhile to go for the police because Yussuf Dakmar might still be lurking in the neighborhood for a chance to murder Narayan Singh. It was only after the police had carried off the prisoners to jail (where they repudiated their entire confession next morning) that Grim showed us the letter which, like a spark, had fired a powder magazine—although a smaller one than its writer intended.

"It isn't in Feisul's handwriting," he said, holding the feathery Arab script up to the lamplight; "and it's no more like his phraseology than a camel resembles a locomotive. Listen to this:

There followed the Moslem date and the numerical signature over Feisul's indubitable seal. Grim figured a moment and worked out the corresponding date according to our western calendar.

"Leaves six days," he said pleasantly. "It means the French intend to attack Damascus seven days from now."

"Let 'em!" Jeremy exploded. "Feisul'll give 'em ! All they've got are Algerians."

"The French have poison-gas," Grim answered dourly. "Feisul's men have no masks."

"Get 'em some!"

That was Jeremy again. Grim didn't answer, but went on talking:

"They're going to get Damascus. All they've waited for was poison gas, and now there's no stopping 'em. They forged this letter after the gas arrived. Now if they catch Feisul in Damascus they'll put him on trial for his life, and they probably hope to get this letter back somehow to use as evidence against him."

"Go slow, Jim!" Mabel objected. "Where's your proof that the French are jockeying this? Isn't that Feisul's seal?"

"Yes, and it's his paper. But not his handwriting."

"He might have dictated it, mightn't he?"

"Never in those words. Feisul don't talk or write that way. The letter's a manifest forgery, as I'll prove by confronting Feisul with it. But there's a little oversight that should convince you it's a forgery. Have you a magnifying glass, doc?"

Ticknor produced one in a minute, and Grim held the letter under the lamp. On the rather wide margin, carefully rubbed out, but not so carefully that the indentation did not show, was the French word "magnifique" that had been written with a rather heavy hand and one of those hard pencils supplied to colonial governments by exporters from stocks that can't be sold at home.

"That proves nothing," Mabel insisted. "All educated Arabs talk French. Somebody on Feisul's staff was asked for an opinion on the letter before it went. My husband's Arab orderly told me only yesterday that a sling I made for a man in the hospital was magnifique."

The objection was well enough taken, because it was the sort the forger of the letter would be likely to raise if brought to book. But Grim's argument was not exhausted.

"There are other points, Mabel. For one thing, it's blue metallic ink. Feisul's private letters are all written with indelible black stuff made from pellets that I gave him; they're imported from the States."

"But if Feisul wanted to prove an alibi, he naturally wouldn't use his special private ink," objected Mabel.

"Then why his seal, and his special private notepaper? However, there's another point.

"Feisul writes the purest kind of Arabic, and this isn't that sort of Arabic. It was written by a foreigner—perhaps a Frenchman—possibly an Armenian—most likely a Turk—certainly one of the outer ring of politicians who have access to Feisul and seek to control him, but are not really in his confidence. Damascus is simply a network of spies of that kind—men who attached themselves to the Arab cause when it looked like winning and are now busy transferring their allegiance.

"I think I could name the man who wrote this; I think I know the man who wrote that magnifique.' If I'm right, Yussuf Dakmar will notify the French tonight through their agents in Jerusalem. The man who wrote that magnifique' will know before morning that the letter's missing; and it doesn't matter how careful I may be, it'll be known as soon as I start for Damascus.

"They'll dope out that our obvious course would be to confront Feisul with this letter. The only way to travel is by train; the roads are rotten—in fact, no auto could get through; they'd tip off the Bedouins, who'd murder everybody.

"So they'll watch the trains and especially Haifa, where every one going north has to spend the night; and they'll stop at nothing to get the letter back, for two reasons; as long as it's in our hands it can be used to establish proof of the plot against Feisul; once it's back in theirs, they can keep it in their secret dossier to use against Feisul if they ever catch him and bring him to trial. You remember the Dreyfus case?

"I shall start for Damascus by the early train—probably take an auto as far as Ludd. If I want to live until I reach Damascus I shall have to prove conclusively that I haven't that letter with me. Any one known to be in British service is going to be suspected and, if not murdered, robbed. Ramsden has been seen about too much with me. Jeremy might juggle by but he's already notorious, and these people are shrewd. Better hold Jeremy in reserve, and the same with Narayan Singh. A woman's best. How about you, Mabel?"

"What d'you mean, Jim?"

"Do you know a woman in Haifa?"

"Of course I do."

"Well enough to expect a bed for the night at a moment's notice?"

"Certainly."

Mabel's eyes were growing very bright indeed. It was her husband who looked alarmed.

"Well, now, here's the point."

Grim leaned back in his chair and lit a cigaret, not looking at anybody, stating his case impersonally, as it were, which is much the shrewdest way of being personal.

"Feisul's up against it, and he's the best man in all this land, bar none. They've dealt to him from a cold deck, and he's bound to lose this hand whichever way he plays it. To put it differently, he's in check, but not checkmated. He'll be checkmated, though, if the French ever lay hands on him, and then good-by to the Arab's chance for twenty years.

"I propose to save him for another effort, and the only way to do that is to convince him. The best way to convince him is to show him that letter, which can't be done if Feisul's enemies discover who carries it. If Ramsden, Jeremy, Narayan Singh and I start for Damascus, pretending that one or other of us has the letter concealed on his person, and if a woman really carries it, we'll manage. Is Mabel Ticknor going to be the woman? That's the point."

"Too dangerous, Jim! Too dangerous!" Ticknor put in nervously.

"Pardon me, old man. The danger is for us four, who pretend we've got the thing."

"There are lots of other women and I've only got one wife!" objected Ticknor.

"We're pressed for time," Grim answered. "You see, Ticknor, old man, you're a Cornstalk and therefore an outsider—just a medico, who saws bones for a living, satisfied to keep your body out of the poorhouse, your soul out of hell, and your name out of the newspapers. Your wife is presumably more so. There are several officials' wives who would jump at the chance to be useful; but a sudden trip toward Damascus just now would cause any one of them to be suspected, whereas Mabel wouldn't be."

"I don't know why not!" Ticknor retorted. "Wasn't she in here when those three murderers came to finish the lot of us? If Yussuf Dakmar makes any report at all he'll surely say he traced the letter to this house."

"Yussuf Dakmar came no nearer than the street," Grim answered. "He has no notion who is in here. His three friends are in jail under lock and key, where he can't get at them. How long have you had this house? Since yesterday, isn't it? D'you kid yourself that Yussuf Dakmar knows who lives here?"

"I can get leave of absence. Suppose I go in Mabel's place?" suggested Ticknor, visibly worried.

"The mere fact that she goes, while you stay here, will be presumptive evidence that she isn't on a dangerous mission," Grim answered. "No. It has got to be a woman. If Mabel won't go I'll find some one else."

You could tell by Mabel's eyes and attitude that she was what the salesmen call "sold" already; but you didn't need a magnifying glass to detect that Ticknor wasn't. Men of his wandering habit know too well what a brave, good-tempered wife means to encourage her to take long chances; for although there are lots of women who would like to wander and accept the world's pot luck, there are precious few capable of doing it without doubling a fellow's trouble; when they know how to halve the trouble and double the fun they're priceless.

Grim played his usual game, which is to spank down his ace of trumps face upward on the table. Most of us forget what are trumps in a crisis.

"I guess it's up to you, doc," he said, turning toward Ticknor. "There's nothing in it for you. Feisul isn't on the make; I don't believe he cares ten cents who is to be the nominal ruler of the Arabs, provided they get their promised independence. He'd rather retire and live privately. But he only considers himself in so far as he can serve the Arab cause. Now, you've risked Mabel's life a score of times in order to help sick men in mining camps, and malaria victims and Lord knows what else. Here's a chance to do the biggest thing of all"

"Of course, if you put it that way," said Ticknor, hesitating.

"Just your style, too. Nobody will know. No bouquets. You won't have to stammer a speech at any dinner given in your honor."

"D'you want to do it, Mabel?" asked Ticknor, looking at her keenly across the table.

"Of course I do!"

"All right, girl. Only, hurry back."

He looked hard at Grim again, then into my eyes and then Jeremy's.

"She's in your hands. I don't want to see any of you three chaps alive again unless she comes back safe. Is that clear?"

"Clear and clean!" exploded Jeremy. "It's a bet, doc. Half a mo' you chaps; that's my mine at Abu Kem, isn't it? I've agreed to give the thing to Feisul and make what terms I can with him. Jim and Rammy divvy up with me on my end, if any. That right? I say; let the doc and Mabel have a half-share each of anything our end amounts to."

Well, it took about as long to settle that business as you'd expect. The doctor and Mabel protested, but it's easier to give away a fortune that is still in prospect than a small sum that is really tangible—I mean between folk who stand on their own feet. It doesn't seem to deprive the giver of much, or to strain the pride of the recipient unduly.

I've been given shares in unproven El Doradoes times out of number, and could paper the wall of, say, a good-sized bathroom with the stock certificates—may do it some day if I ever settle down. But the only gift of that sort that I ever knew to pay dividends, except to the printer of the gilt-edged scrip, is Jeremy's gold mine; and you'll look in vain for any mention of that in the stock exchange lists. The time to get in on that good thing was that night by Mabel Ticknor's teapot in Jerusalem.

It was nearly midnight before we had everything settled, and there was still a lot to do before we could catch the morning train. One thing that Grim did was to take gum and paper and contrive an envelope that looked in the dark sufficiently like the alleged Feisul letter; and he carried that in his hand as he took to the street, with Narayan Singh following among the shadows within hail. Jeremy and I kept Narayan Singh in sight, for it was possible that Yussuf Dakmar had gathered a gang to waylay whoever might emerge from the house.

But he seemed to have had enough of bungling accomplices that night. Grim hadn't gone fifty paces, keeping well in the middle of the road, when a solitary shadow began stalking him, and doing it so cautiously that though he had to cross the circles of street lamp-light now and then neither Jeremy nor I could have identified him afterward.

Narayan Singh had orders not to do anything but guard Grim against assault, for Grim judged it wise to leave Yussuf Dakmar at large than to precipitate a climax by arresting him. He had the names of most of the local conspirators, and if the leader were seized too soon the equally dangerous rank and file might scatter and escape.

Down inside the Jaffa Gate, in a dark alley beside the Grand Hotel, there are usually two or three cabs standing at any hour of the night ready to care for belated Christian gentlemen who have looked on the wine when it was any color that it chanced to be. There were three there, and Grim took the first one, flourishing his envelope carelessly under the corner lamp.

Yussuf Dakmar took the next in line, and ordered the driver to follow Grim. So we naturally took the last one, all three of us crowding on to the rear seat in order to watch the cabs in front. But as soon as we had driven back outside the city gate Yussuf Dakmar looked behind him and, growing suspicious of us, ordered his driver to let us pass.

It would have been too obvious if we had stopped too, so we hid our faces as we passed, and then put Jeremy on the front seat, he looking like an Arab and being most unrecognizable. Yussuf Dakmar followed us at long range, and as the lean horses toiled slowly up the Mount of Olives to headquarters the interval between the cabs grew greater. By the time we reached the guard-house and answered the Sikh sentry's challenge there was no sign of Grim in front, and we could only hear in the distance behind us the occasional click of a loose shoe to tell that Yussuf Dakmar was still following.