Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 75, No. 2. Whole No. 436, February 11, 1980

Arabian Nights in Fez by MacLean O’Spelin

© 1979 by MacLean O’Spelin.

Another adventure of O’Spelin, the sophisticated spy who alternates between exciting exploits in exotic places and peaceful interludes of fly fishing in far-off streams... This tale of a Sultan’s palace, a harem courtyard, of the fragrance industry and secret formulas, of glowing copper and brass, hanging carpets, luxurious cushions, and inviting beds, of clandestine skulduggery, will remind you of magic lamps and bottled jinn — in a phrase, of a thousand and one nights entertainments...

I’ve always liked Fez. And its Hotel Mamounia.

So it wasn’t heartrending when I had to stop trout fishing in the Moyen Atlas mountains in central Morocco, pack my Holbrook rods and Hardy reels, whirl the hired Lamborghini Miura down the cool slopes and out onto the hot desert plain, and check in at the Mamounia. Not heartrending, no, but still a wrench.

My profession is industrial espionage, but my passion is fly fishing. The first supports the second plus other lesser but often costly indulgences. I prefer the indulgences to working. But my funds were running perilously low.

So work it had to be. And sooner than I’d planned. Which fact touched off a series of male-female, masculine-feminine mixups that would have daunted the earliest bird.

Originally, the Mamounia had been a minor sultan’s palace. A cautious fellow, he’d had it built for safety’s sake right into the wall around the medina of Fez. If you’re not sure what a medina is, think of a kasbah — come weez me to zee kasbah, cherie — and you’ll have the idea.

Oh, there are differences. But they’re irrelevant to this tale. Both the medina and the kasbah have thick walls and, inside, a web of labyrinthine passageways linking a jammed-in hodgepodge of Arab dwellings, both rich and poor, artisans’ ateliers, merchants’ stalls, and in Fez’s case the ancient Karouine Mosque.

The Fez medina is vast and right out of the Arabian Nights. Visitors are not barred. But don’t expect a magic carpet or even a red one. There are occasional donkeys but no cars; if you want a tranquil stroll, better hire a trustworthy guide.

The Mamounia is small but deluxe. It, too, is a labyrinth and a guide can be useful. Mine was Monsieur le Directeur himself, a suave young Moroccan in tailor-made suit and white boutonniere. “Welcome, Monsieur O’Spelin — no, it is of no consequence that you are ahead of time.”

He guided me along richly carpeted, romantically dimlit corridors that turned and re-turned at apparent random. We padded up and down short flights of stairs. The small raised numbers on the doors we passed were hard to see and seemed to have no logical sequence.

But we made it safely. M. le Directeur celebrated by bowing me into the two-room suite at the top of the Sultan’s Tower and I slipped him an appreciative wad of Moroccan dirhams which he suavely made dematerialize. I looked a question at him, he held up a warning palm, crossed the room, and unplugged a hammered brass lamp on an inlaid table.

“Bugs in the brasswork, eh, Hamad?” I said and he showed perfect teeth and made a coarse gesture. “Merde a la Sûreté, Mac. Merde aux cops.”

“Betcha,” I said. “Find al-Fassi and send him up the back way, will you, please. And let me have a master key as usual and patch my telephone around the switchboard directly into a trunk line.”

“No sweat.” Grinning at his mastery of Yankee slang, he handed over a big key. Then he pointed a forefinger at me and waggled his thumb. “Bang, bang!”

Hamad was a useful contact, so I laughed politely although I seldom enjoyed his jokes as much as he did. His admirable contempt for the Sûreté was no joke though; he relished thwarting them even though he could scarcely refuse if police routine called for bugged rooms and tapped switchboards in all hotels.

Beckoning me, he went to a window. The Sultan’s Tower was squatter than most towers, but its perch atop the slope of the medina toward the River Fez gave it the illusion of towering. I gazed down over the tightly packed jumble of buildings, gripped by this look back over turbulent centuries.

“No, no, Mac. Directly below.”

At the foot of the tower, perhaps 30 feet down, was an interior walled patio. I remembered that the hotel’s brochure boasted of a harem courtyard built for the Sultan’s ladies to take the air unseen by any eyes but his.

Maybe it was true — anyway, there was a lady there now. Taking the air and the midafternoon sun. On a lounge chair, wearing an eyeshield and a one-piece swimsuit that was modest in our string-bikini and nude-bathing world.

But not so modest that it left her lovely torso completely to the imagination. The swimsuit’s black matched her long hair and complemented the bronze of her lithe body perfectly. From that angle I couldn’t appraise her face systematically, but I was sure its quality matched the rest. Rating: Knockout.

“Madame la Generale Fouchette, Mac. Just your type.”

“Thanks. She’s staying here?”

“Partly. That is, she was born in the medina and maintains a pied-à-terre there. But whenever she’s in Fez she reserves the room with the courtyard. Often she dines here, now and then spends the night.”

Thus began the male-female thing I warned you of. Also the masculine-feminine thing. I’ve lost many battles with grammatical gender in French, but I did know that the feminine title “Madame la Generale” did not mean that the woman was a female general. It meant that she was a general’s wife.

“Her husband is attached to the French Embassy in Rabat and is now on an observation mission on the Algerian border. The lady is lonely, perhaps.”

“Hamad, I follow you like a medina mugger. You’ll see to it that I’m seated close to her table if she’s dining here tonight?”

“No sweat.”

I have a pied-à-terre of my own, a five-room pad on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. Also a twin engine Cessna, fishing camps here and there around the world, a Pantera and a classic BMW 280 °CS and so on. Not many of these playthings are fully paid for. So my cash flow turns negative often, and I have to go to work. Like now.

I left the tantalizing view, got rid of M. le Directeur, and after giving him time to bypass the switchboard taps, telephoned Le Domaine Bigard. M. Louis Bigard, I learned, was in residence although not immediately available.

Good. Bigard spent much of his time at his factory in Grasse in southern France and our appointment wasn’t for three days yet. Time saved already.

Al-Fassi arrived, we pounded each other’s backs, and he told me how his huge family was and I told him how fishing had been. Burlier than most Moroccans, he had a big round face that could beam like the desert sun at dawn. I’d known him for years and trusted him as much as anyone I knew.

The name al-Fassi means “from Fez,” and my friend was always up to date on Fezian affairs. Le Domaine Bigard, he told me, still farmed thousands of hectares and was still operated by the parent company, Parfums Bigard.

I already knew that Louis Bigard was top man because I won’t deal with anyone but the Chief Executive Officer, the CEO, in any concern, but I didn’t know much else about him. Al-Fassi filled me in: a realist, dishonest or honest as the case required; confident to the point of arrogance; fiercely jealous of Parfums Bigard’s international reputation; highly conscious of his exalted position; rough on subordinates.

Fine. Characteristics common to your average hard-nosed half-a-million-a-year-plus-fringes CEO of any nationality. Nobody is worth that kind of money, but those who get it are, I’ve found, easier to deal with than, say, your average vice president. More decisive. Easier — though not easy — to convince that, as a top professional, I was worth the high fees I charged.

I sent al-Fassi off to rent a car less conspicuous than the Lamborghini and to locate Bigard, give him the verbal recognition signal he and I’d agreed on, and set up a meeting at some suitably private spot.

I went back to the window. Madame la Generale had removed the eyeshield, turned on one side, and was reading a book. Long tapering legs. Classic arch to her hip. Distracting. Too distracting. I turned away.

I unpacked, showered, lay down on the bed to review what I knew about what some call “the smell game.” Or, as those in it prefer, “the fragrance industry.” Either way, it does smell. Good and bad. Hyacinth, sandalwood, jasmine smell good. Glandular secretions of musk deer and civet cat smell bad. Some of the game’s end products smell delightful. Some of its business practices smell rank.

Which is where I and other industrial spooks come in. Caesars sloshed themselves with scent, Pharaohs too. Then and now, every flower grower, hunter of musk and ambergris, distiller of floral or animal oils, blender and bottler had his secret processes. Secrets spawn spies.

Using natural ingredients, the French used to dominate the market. Now, using mainly synthetics, the Americans were making deep inroads... Yawning, I tried to guess Madame la Generale’s preference, and drifted off to sleep...

Louis Bigard sported boots, breeches, riding crop. But a Mercedes SL, not an Arab stallion, was tethered alongside the field-machinery shed where al-Fassi dropped me after threading the rented Fiat through miles of the Domaine’s geranium plants. And, yes, Bigard sported a subtly masculine scent.

“O’Spelin? L’espion?” he said, nostrils flaring as if O’Spelin the Spy would also benefit from a-dollop or two from a Parfums Bigard bottle.

Affably I said, “Here to lie, bribe, and steal for you, monsieur.”

Recoiling, he tightened his grip on the crop. But like most CEOs he could face the facts of business life. Recovering quickly, he got down to cases.

Western Flavors & Fragrances of New York’s new scent, J’Excite ($130 per oz.), was a whirlwind smash hit. My job was to get the formula.

J’Excite, he admitted grudgingly, did smell good. But, by duplicating the formula’s synthetics with natural ingredients, Parfums Bigard would have a scent so tenderly aphrodisiacal that it would demolish J’Excite.

Now, American fragrance companies are so security-conscious they barred TV’s pertinacious crew when they tried to do a job on the perfume business. So this op was no pushover — a theme I developed at great length until Bigard agreed to a fee I deemed suitable for delivery of the formula, plus a hefty non-refundable advance against expenses — which would be high.

He didn’t have enough cash with him, and as I wanted enough technical information to keep me from being slipped a recipe for jasmine tea by some totally dishonest WF&F employee, we agreed to another meeting later that night.

I felt downright cheery when al-Fassi stopped the Fiat a few hundred yards from the Mamounia. I’d soon have enough cash for my immediate bills; I had solid contacts in the smell game; I was in time for cocktails before dinner; and I had hopes concerning Madame la Generale.

But operational security came first; so, before walking to the hotel, I passed al-Fassi the master key for use on the inconspicuous doorways the Sultan had had notched into his palace walls so he could fade into the medina if outside invaders thirsted for his blood or flee in the other direction if his own subjects took a notion to parade his head on a spear.

The barroom was intime, the barman knew his business. But I doubted that Madame would drop in. Only the most audacious Moslem woman would dally in public with alcohol or a man not her husband. So I sat where I could watch the entrance to the dining room, and I was on my second martini when Hamad appeared suavely escorting a woman wearing a floor-length jellabah, hood and veil. They disappeared into the dining room; when Hamad reappeared he gave me a high sign.

I downed my drink and he led me to a table three away from where the jellabahed woman sat. “Closer,” I whispered.

The misplaced comic winked. “Trust me, Mac.”

I glared at him and sat down, inwardly fuming. The food was good, though, and the wine, a Moroccan cabernet, excellent. I relaxed and covertly watched Madame. Her eyes were dark liquid, made enormous by some modern version of kohl. As she ate she manipulated the veil, royal blue like her jellabah, so adroitly I got only an impression of aristocratically molded nose and mouth.

As if at the rub of a magic lamp, Hamad materialized to escort her out when she had finished. As she drew near, I looked deep into those eyes — did an ember of interest glow warmly there?

Suddenly Hamad swerved to avoid a scurrying waiter, jarring Madame off balance. Whirling into a pirouette of apologies, Hamad contrived a maneuver that knocked over my glass. I leaped up as the wine found my legs.

Oozing excuses, Hamad swabbed at me with a napkin. Madame murmured quick, soft apologies. Before I quite realized what was happening, Hamad had shunted us into a small private dining room furnished, Moroccan style, with low table, thickly woven rugs, and plenty of luxurious cushions.

“Unforgivably clumsy of me, Monsieur...?”

“O’Spelin. MacLean O’Spelin,” I said as her hand touched my forearm sympathetically. “My fault entirely. My chair must have been jutting—”

“Oh, no, monsieur, the fault was mine.” We went on like that for a few moments and then Hamad reappeared magically bearing a blanket, a towel, and a pair of trousers I recognized as mine. Damn good planning, I had to concede as he screened me with the blanket while I changed. A waiter produced brandy for me, mint tea for her. He and Hamad vanished.

I arranged cushions; she loosened her veil slightly. I played it slow and easy, making a leading comment or two, and touching her hand when pouring tea. She made no return signals. But she made no move toward leaving until, regretfully, I had to call it quits or miss my meeting with Bigard.

I escorted her to her room — followed her lead, more accurately. Up, left, down, left again, right, and so on. There’s something about following a well-made woman in a well-cut jellabah. They don’t hang like tents as men’s do, but such formless things should be sexless. Not so, somehow. Hints of hidden treasures?

At her door she held out her hand. I took it, there was a fleeting pressure, and she was gone. Scarcely erotic, but I was satisfied with progress to date.

I wandered a bit but finally got back to my room. Al-Fassi was waiting and I retrieved the big key, then we left the hotel by an almost invisible door.

After the expense money changed hands, Bigard instructed me loftily on the difference between floral oils and fixative oils, on the rudiments of the distilling process (a ton of flowers yields a pound of oil), and other facts. I tried to set up a contact plan with him for my return, but he insisted on the security of an indirect transfer of formula and final payment.

It wasn’t crucial, and frankly I’d seen enough of M. le CEO. Via al-Fassi, I’d signal my return; Bigard would send back contact instructions for me with a cutout of his choice. He didn’t trust us — fair enough.

When al-Fassi dropped me off, I peeled some bills from my new roll for him, said good night, and sauntered to the hotel’s front entrance. It was always locked at that hour but instead of waking the concierge I let myself in. Like a genie from a bottle, Hamad appeared, pretending not to be eaten with curiosity as to how I’d fared with Madame. I gave him some dirhams for a job well done but, as he walked along with me toward my room, I ignored his hints for a blow-by-blow account. Giving up at the short corridor leading to my door, he said, “Gotta split, Mac. Sweet dreams of heavenly houris.”

Damn clown. I unlocked the heavy door and felt for the switch. Before I found it the bedlight snapped on. There, sitting up in my bed, was Madame la Generale Fouchette, bare bosom gleaming. By God, I thought, smiling at her silkily, this will be an Arabian Night.

It was my last smile for a time. Clutching the sheet to her chin, eyes blazing like obsidian on fire, she loosed a volley of Arabic that rocked me onto my heels. A flanking volley caught me in a crossfire as a nightgowned maidservant burst in from the other room.

In Arabic, Madame snapped at her. Instantly she subsided. In French, Madame snapped at me, “How dare you presume — leave! Leave at once.”

My lower jaw subsided. Blankly I gaped around the room, then back at Madame gracing my bed. Problem was, it wasn’t my bed.

Sort of wigwagging my hands, I retreated, stammering, “M-mille pardons, ma-madame. Erreur, erreur.”

Debonair as a sneak thief with the shakes, I groped for the door, slunk around it, eased it shut. Damn that gag-happy, low-comedy camel of a Hamad!

When I reached the lobby he was gone and I’d regained some of what I like to think of as my usual aplomb. Hell, maybe the idiot had thought he was doing me a favor.

This time, without him along to steer me subtly the wrong way, I paid attention to my route. The master key was still in my hand but before using it I verified the room number. My room, my bed, thank God. Sleep came slowly, though, so I conjured up a picture of Madame in my — in her bed. Gleaming bosom, yes, of course. But hadn’t I seen the ghost of a smile just before I’d slunk out? Yes? No? No — I must have imagined it.

Before I left for New York the next day, I informed Hamad what I thought of him (he denied everything), arranged for the hotel to garage the Lamborghini, and wrote a message of apology to Madame — erreur, erreur.

In New York it took me a day, through a solid source in a petrochemical firm that supplied WF&F, to get a fix on a knowledgeable target individual there, then another day to manufacture an accidental encounter with him.

A harried, rumpled, likable Assistant Chemist. I wined and dined him. In a week he seemed ripe. Over a fine meal at Box Tree I propositioned him.

No, he wouldn’t sell the formula. Yes, he had four kids to send to college, yes, he had a first and second mortgage and high-interest loans on two cars that needed replacing, but no, no, no.

I sensed that he had another problem, though, a trickier one. It took me three days to worm out the admission that a key ingredient in WF&F’s hot new J’Excite was rhodinal, a floral oil made from flowers, not petroleum. He simply hadn’t been able to come up with a substitute. He was paid to create synthetics. He had failed. He was scared stiff he’d lose his job if he admitted his failure.

To protect his family’s livelihood, he’d arranged a clandestine supply of rhodinal. I admired his enterprise and told him so.

Because of his position, he had no problem working rhodinal into the blend. But the synthetics-oriented U.S.A. didn’t produce enough of the proper type of geranium. He was down close to the bottom of his hidden rhodinal vat.

I knew where there were miles of geraniums, the right kind. If I could assure him a steady supply, would he trade that for the J’Excite formula?

He stewed for a couple more days, growing even more rumpled. Finally, over dinner at Le Cygne, he capitulated. I left for Morocco the next day.

At the Mamounia I growled at Hamad to find al-Fassi and when he showed, I sent him off to tell Louis Bigard that he and I must meet because, although I had what he wanted, there were ramifications.

Bigard balked, implying to al-Fassi that I was simply trying to squeeze him for more money. Instead, he stuck to the original plan and sent me a curt note with contact arrangements: “J’ai choisi une personne qui sera au Cocktail Mamounia vers sept heures ce soir. Elle portera quelque chose de rouge” The person he had chosen would be in the Mamounia bar about seven this evening. She’d be wearing something red.

She. Elle. Surprising. But okay with me. He had more at stake than I, so he’d select somebody he rated A-1 in the trustworthy department. The recognition signal was amateurish, any female might wear something red. But she’d be alone, so all I risked was an icy stare if I braced the wrong woman.

I hit the bar about five to seven. There were a couple of male singles, no female, so I sat where I could watch the entrance. Just as my martini arrived, Hamad entered, dapper as ever in dinner jacket and boutonniere. He started my way but a self-styled prankster was the last person I wanted around now. Ferociously I scowled him off. He paused, seemed about to come on again, when, fortunately, my contact appeared, hesitating in the doorway.

Brushing past Hamad I approached the woman although not with my usual aplomb. But she had to be the one. She was a she (definitely). She was alone. Her jellabah was a soft carmine, accented by a veil of a slightly lighter tone. My heavenly houri, spiced with red.

Bigard’s houri, rather. For him to choose her as go-between, their connection had to be very close. As if she were his mistress of long standing. Disappointing. I’d have credited Madame la Generale with far better taste.

She took my hand to draw me away from the doorway. “I have received the message. We have many things to discuss, you and I. Come, please.”

Once again I found myself in her room. But this time she was so close that her body touched my side as she whispered, “We cannot talk here, we are not really alone.” She gestured at the room. “The ears of the police.”

“I understand,” I said, a little hoarsely. “Where?”

The great eyes glinted conspiratorially. “In one hour come to my medina home. Here, I have written the route.”

Gently she pushed me toward the door. Outside, I drew a deep breath. Clandestine operating at its best, by God! Seductive fragrances (hers was jasmine — real). A beautiful veiled temptress-cut-out. Secret formulas. A rendezvous in the depths of a Moorish medina. Come weeze me to zee kasbah, keed.

Al-Fassi was standing by in my room; he too was surprised. He’d never heard Madame’s name linked with Bigard’s in medina gossip. “Très discret.”

Her husband was not so discreet, he added. The General was notorious for the girls he had cached from Marrakesh to Tangier. Who could blame a beautiful wife for a discreet arrangement of her own?

Al-Fassi could easily follow her directions, he said, but even though it was dark and a fine rain was falling, my Western face and clothes were not advisable. Big face beaming, he made for the door. “I shall produce the cloak of invisibility, O sublime master.” Another gag-a-minute Moroccan comic.

When he returned, I removed my jacket and he engulfed me in an enormous hooded jellabah. It smelled of camel. As I stumbled after him out one of the Sultan’s private exits, it clutched at my feet and legs.

I got the hang of it — had to or lose al-Fassi swiftly gliding, like an outsize wraith, through the twists and turns of the almost silent medina.

When the sun sets, most Fez-medina Arabs retreat indoors and close all shutters, making the tight slanting passageways as dark as mine shafts. Sliding and slithering over uneven cobblestones made slick with rain, I quickly lost all sense of where we were. Occasionally we passed shapes as anonymously shrouded as we and once I flattened against a building to let someone astride a tiny donkey squeeze by.

Haroun al-Fashad wouldn’t have been as clumsy, but I felt a kinship with that other master of disguise. I began almost to hope for a glimpse (at a safe distance) of the 40 thieves prowling, scimitars at the ready.

Abruptly al-Fassi stopped before a massive carved door and told me he’d wait nearby. I felt around for a bell, gave up, and hammered with my fist. The great door groaned open. A hawk-nosed manservant in a red tarboush and a costume like a Shriner’s looked me over warily. I shoved the hood back off my head. He nodded gravely and bowed me inside.

He helped me struggle out of the jellabah and hung it on an oak peg. A trace of sandalwood floated in the air; I hoped it masked the smell of camel.

He led me to a small interior courtyard roofed with glass, two stories up. Glowing copper and brass and hanging carpets and soft cushions were everywhere. The Shriner produced the mint tea of welcome, poured it from an antique silver pot, then glided away on red slippers with turned-up toes.

I’d taken one swallow when Madame appeared. No jellabah, no veil. Just a sheer something vaguely Moorish and some jeweled slave bracelets.

She sank to a cushion next to mine. “My house is your house, ami.”

Naturally it had occurred to me that this femme might be fatale, that the whole Arabian charade was designed to relieve me of the formula without the formality of a cash payment. Well, it would take thumbscrews; I’d memorized it. “Merci, madame. But, you see, there are complications—”

“Of course, mon cher MacLean. I am a complicated woman. But all will become sweetly simple, enchantingly simple.”

I followed that — more or less. Cash for goods delivered can add up to a sweet simple deal. But, enchanting? I tried again. “It’s a question of substituting a natural for a synthetic.”

“There will be nothing synthetic between you and me.” To prove it, she pivoted with natural grace, easing her body across mine, and gently drew my head down. The sheer something slid from one shoulder.

“A — about the formula,” I said huskily into the black cloud of her hair.

“You and I will have our own formula, cheri.” She tilted her head to look at me. “Ah, when you broke into my room, driven by tempestuous passion, I knew.” Her laugh was silvery. “Your face that night — so stricken with desire, so foolish, so frightened at your own temerity. I knew then that we were destined to create a new formula, a formula of love, my foolish faun.”

Great God. Déja vu? Was I in the wrong room with the wrong woman again? “I really have to see Louis,” I ventured. “Details to work out.”

“Who is this Louis? Can he matter? Not when you are you and I am I.”

Well, hell, I went along with the gag. I kissed her. Wouldn’t you?

Hammering at the street door jolted us apart. She sprang to her feet. “Quickly, cheri. You must flee.”

“Flee? Where? How? Why?”

The hammering grew thunderous. The hawk-nosed Shriner glided in, looking questioningly at Madame. “Show monsieur another exit,” she ordered, eyes blazing but voice controlled. To me, “Horrible men hired by my husband. He exposes me to ridicule by his public womanizing, yet because I am Moslem I am his property — go, cheri, fly. If these men seize you, I promise you will never emerge from the medina. Fly.”

Swiftly the Shriner led the way, handing me my jellabah just before I ducked out through a low door somewhere in the rear of the house.

They had thought of that. Two of them. They charged.

Their eyes were accustomed to the dark, but all I could make out were two onrushing blurs. I flung the heavy jellabah at the blur on my right. It enveloped him, tangled his legs, sent him sprawling. I heard the clang of a knife on the cobblestones. The other blur lunged.

I spun away. His knife grazed my hip. Swinging back, I set myself, right-crossed him where I estimated his face was. Bulls-eye. I felt his nose splat.

I heard the first one coming at me from behind. Diving for the ground, I rolled, frantically groping for the jellabah. Had he recovered his knife?

I never learned. Shouting joyfully, “I am here, O victorious warrior,” al-Fassi hauled number two thug up from where I’d dropped him, slammed him into number one with such force that both toppled instantly and lay still.

“Hamad, you scrabbling desert scorpion,” I said, once again minus my usual aplomb. “Was it your idea of a boffo gag to tip off the General’s thugs? Never mind, I’m going to feed you in bite size to the medina rats. Slowly.”

“Mac, Mac,” he said reproachfully. “Where is your sense of humor? I did not dream you’d be attacked. Just frightened a little. Besides, you should not have been off with a woman when you and I had business to do.”

We were in my room. I had cleaned up, patched the graze on my hip, and sent al-Fassi to fetch Hamad. He’d arrived smiling and impeccable from his shining shoes to his bravura boutonniere, a big red carnation. Quelque chose de rouge. Something red. Louis Bigard’s chosen person.

He had the cash from Bigard. But I hadn’t earned it yet. So, after a few more comments on the nasty end that inevitably awaited all impractical jokers, I sent him off to insist on a meeting with Bigard.

By the time we all got together at the machinery shed, Bigard was pacing irritably. When I told him he had to supply my chemist friend with rhodinal brewed from Le Domaine’s geraniums, he refused flatly.

But my instructions on how to handle the clandestine shipments, plus my hard-nosed “No rhodinal, no formula,” brought him reluctantly around.

I reeled off the formula. “Merde!” he said when I came to benzyl acetate, an artificial jasmine. “Impossible,” he snapped at adipic acid, a synthetic fixative. “Natural jasmine and pure musk in such quantities will bankrupt me.”

It wouldn’t help much, but I offered to cut my fee because I hadn’t had to pay my chemist. Sourly and without thanks, he accepted. Cash changed hands.

He’d stew a while. But he’d use the two synthetics. Today’s CEO knows when to stick to time-honored natural ways and when to compromise.

The next day I said an affectionate goodbye to al-Fassi and unleashed the Lamborghini. As I drove, I pondered. And finally I realized why I’d thought Madame was Bigard’s cutout rather than Hamad. Erreur, my erreur. The old masculine-feminine trap. In French there’s little rhyme or reason why one noun and its pronouns are masculine and others feminine. But I’d always figured that with people, il was he, elle was she.

Not always so. For some strange Gallic reason the noun personne, person, is feminine. Thus its pronoun is elle. Even if the person in question is a man. Confusing? Well, any male-female thing can be confusing, n’est-ce pas?

Speaking of which, I’d learned through al-Fassi that Madame intended to punish her husband by basing herself at the Ritz in Paris for an extended jewelry-shopping spree. A sound female decision.

Soon Louis Bigard would make his decision, too. Parfums Bigard would start down the synthetics trail. While, unknowingly, Western Flavors & Fragrances of New York would be sullying its precious petrochemical derivatives with the real thing, a natural floral oil. Kind of comical.

In fact, my Arabian Nights in Fez had had moments resembling a Feydeau farce. With O’Spelin the Spy as chief goat.

I chuckled and let the car out a notch. Goat or not, I’d ferry from Tangier to Spain, cut on up to Zurich and chuckle all the way to my unnumbered Swiss bank account. And then Paris.

I’ve always enjoyed Paris. And its Hotel Ritz.