The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

THE PRINTS OF THE BEAST by Michael Pearce

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, for such a thing to happen. Christmas Eve! When for the first time since, after the collapse of all my expectations and I had joined Herbert in the Counting House in Cairo, we had managed to take a break together, intending for once to celebrate Christmas in the traditional English style. And now this! The bottle was nothing. Even the mysterious footprints in the sand could surely be explained. But the dead man in the barn-

“Handel, old fellow,” said Herbert, calling me by that pet name he had always used, “something must be done!”

It certainly must. Someone in the village must be told, no doubt the Pasha’s men would have to be informed. In no time the house would be crawling with people.

But.

This was Christmas Eve. Our Christmas Eve, the one we had been planning for so many months. Enough had gone wrong already. And was it now all, at the last moment, to be spoiled?

“Herbert-” I said.

“Yes, old chap?”

“Would it make so very, very much of a difference if the body was not found for a day or two longer?”

“It is certainly very unfortunate that we should come across it just now,” said Herbert, “at the very start of our holiday.”

We both knew enough of the ways of Egypt to recognize that once the body was declared that would be the end of the holiday we had hoped for. Even though the body was, strictly speaking, nothing to do with us, the fact that it had been found on our property, if only our temporary property, meant that in the eyes of the villagers we would, so to speak, own it. At the very least we would have to tell our story, even if we had no story to tell. And we would have to tell it over and over again. The omda would have to hear it. It was too much to hope that he would only have to hear it once. The whole village would have to hear it. Several times. Officials from the nearest town would need to write it down. The Pasha’s men would inevitably become involved and who knows what that could lead to? In their capricious way they might even incarcerate us in some scorpion-infected, plague-ridden hell hole while they made up their minds.

Herbert’s mind was clearly running on similar lines to mine.

“We have responsibilities back in Cairo,” he said.

“Clara!” I said. “The children!”

“The House,” he said, looking grave.

“It would only be a question of postponing,” I said. “We would not really be interfering with the course of justice.”

“In the end it would make no difference.”

“It might even help,” I said, “if we were not there.”

“How so, old chap?”

“It would mean that they were not distracted by unnecessary complications.”

“Complications?”

“The bottle,” I said. “Would they understand it? Abstinence is enjoined on them by their religion.”

“True, true,” said Herbert. “Let us say nothing about the bottle.”

“Nor about the footprints.”

“Nor about the footprints,” agreed Herbert. “They might not believe us.”

“It might lead them astray again. For who knows how speculation or superstition might work on their weak minds?”

“It would only be for a short time,” Herbert remarked, as we moved the body.

After some deliberation we moved it into one of the out-houses. It was a long low building dug out of the ground and lined with bricks and had once, I think, been an ice-house. It had obviously not been used for some time and sand had drifted in and now filled half the space. Yet, situated below ground as it was, and with the roof so well lined, it was still cool enough to arrest the body’s deterioration, which would mean, as I pointed out to Herbert, that the investigation would not be affected.

“True,” said Herbert. “True.”

He seemed, however, a little uneasy.

“It does mean, of course,” he said, “that it will not be possible to bury the poor fellow the same day.”

It was the practice in Egypt to bury the dead on the day that they departed; a sensible, hygienic practice in the heat.

“But, then,” I pointed out, “that could not have happened anyway. They will have to send for the mamur from Toukh and by the time he gets here and has heard all the depositions it will be Tuesday and by then we will have returned to Cairo.”

He still seemed a little troubled, however.

“It is, perhaps, as well, after all, that Clara couldn’t come,” he said suddenly.

At the very last moment, even as the carriages were being loaded, one of the children had developed a stomach-ache.

“It’s just excitement,” Herbert had said. But Clara, a connoisseur in her children’s illnesses, had shaken her head.

“It’s more than that,” she had said. She had suspected that it might be the onset of malaria.

“If you think that, my dear,” said Herbert, “then we shouldn’t go!”

“It seems a pity, though,” said Clara, “when you and Pip have been so looking forward to it.”

And indeed we had. We had been slaving away in the Counting House for nearly two years without a break.

“No, you must go,” she said now with decision. “You go and I will stay here with the children.”

Of course, we dissented vehemently.

“No,” she said firmly, “you must go. I have been thinking for some time that you are both beginning to look rather peaky. And, besides,” she had said, with a smile, and putting her hand on my arm, “you will enjoy recapturing the intimacy of those old bachelor days in London!”

“Just as well that she couldn’t,” I said now to Herbert, and we returned to the house.

Running along the front of the house was a broad verandah, on which there was a table and some cane chairs with cushions. After the sand storm of the previous day the cushions were covered with sand which had drifted in. Herbert raised the cushions to give them a shake and in doing so uncovered a pair of scorpions.

“How very annoying!” said Herbert, brushing them away. “The headman swore that the house had been cleaned!”

It had, indeed, been flooded, as was the usual custom when a house was about to be reoccupied, to rid it of any infestation.

“I suppose their attention did not extend to outside the house,” I said.

“Yes, but-”

I laid my finger on my lips.

“Now, Herbert,” I said, “did we not swear before we left that we would pay no attention to trifles? That we would put aside all care for the proper discharge of duties in others? Put the Counting House entirely behind us?”

“We did, old chap, we did. And we will!”

He plumped up the cushion and sat down, and I went into the kitchen to find a bottle to replace the one that had disappeared. The sand which had blown in the day before, just after we had arrived, was still there on the floor of the sitting room, and still there were the huge, bestial footprints.

I took the bottle out on to the verandah and poured out two glasses.

“Your health, dear Herbert! And a very good Christmas!”

“And to you, too, my very dear Handel!”

He put the glass down.

“If a strange one.”

“You are thinking of your family,” I said gently.

“I acknowledge it. Of the children especially. The Christmas stockings, you know.”

“We can go back at once, if you wish.”

“No, no. Clara would not forgive me.”

He toyed with his glass.

“And, besides,” he said, “are there not things to be done here?”

“You are still disquieted about the body, Herbert?”

“I am, I must confess. For suppose the body is not to be separated from the strange things that happened last night? If we conceal those things from them, how are they to proceed?”

“You mean, we should disclose -? But I thought we had discussed that, Herbert.”

“Yes, yes. And you rightly convinced me that the strangeness of the happenings here might prey upon their weak minds. But you see where that leads to, Handel?”

“That we should tell-”

“No, no. Not at all. That we should investigate the matter for ourselves and present our findings to them when we have all the answers.”

The house we had secured was in a remote village, about fifty miles from Cairo in the Damiatta direction. It had once been a farm house and was surrounded by plantations of orange trees and fields of dourah, which is the corn they have thereabouts, and cotton. Being closer to the sea, the air was fresher than it was inland and the temperature slightly lower, a mere ninety degrees in the shade and 120 in the sun. At night the temperature fell sharply and we deliberated whether to sleep outside on the verandah or to retreat indoors where it would be warmer. In the end we decided for indoors.

That night, as I lay in my bed, I could hear through the open window as well as the singing of grasshoppers and frogs the distant cry of wolves, answered occasionally by the cries of jackals and hyaenas. Later, there appeared to be a pack of wild desert dogs circling the house. It was, as Herbert had said, a strange place to spend Christmas.

Clara had entrusted me with a veritable mound of presents, among which I was surprised to find a not inconsiderable number for myself. We opened them over coffee on the verandah. I could see that they turned Herbert’s thoughts to home so after a while I crept away leaving him there to muse. He was still sitting there an hour later, when I thought the time had come to direct his mind to other things.

“My dear Herbert-” I said.

He sat up with a start.

“You are right, my dear Handel,” he said. “It is time to begin.”

The facts, such as they were, were that we had arrived the previous afternoon, just as the sun was setting in a red ball of fire above the desert. Even as we looked, it seemed to darken over.

“Is that a sandstorm?” said Herbert. “How untimely!”

We went round the house closing all the shutters. By the time we had finished, the wind was rising and fine particles of sand were beginning to seep through the slats of the shutters. We knew from long experience that there was nothing now to be done but sit it out. We gave ourselves a hasty supper and cleared the plates away before the full force of the storm hit us – there is nothing worse than sand in your food, in your wine, in your mouth. Then we sat down opposite each other and put blankets over our heads and a bottle of wine on the table in front of us. From time to time one of us would put out a hand and refill the glasses, putting a table mat over the glass as soon as it was filled, to keep out the sand. Then we would retreat beneath our blankets.

And then, I suppose, we went to sleep, for the next thing I was aware of was an exclamation from Herbert.

“The bottle, Handel! What have you done with the bottle?”

“On the table.”

“No, it is not!”

I emerged from under my blanket.

“I am sure I restored it to the table. In any case, was it not you who helped last?”

There was a little silence.

“On reflection, Handel, it was. But, then, where the deuce could I have put it?”

“On the ground, perhaps.”

Herbert stood up and looked around. I heard him give a startled gasp.

“My dear Handel! Look! Look!”

I stood up beside him. The floor was covered with a thin film of sand. And in the sand were some enormous footprints.

They were of bare feet. They entered from the door, made straight across the room, passed the table and then went out through the door which led on to the verandah.

“He… she… it took the bottle,” said Herbert, in a stunned voice.

It could have been any of the three. The foot was large for a man, very large for a woman. Which made one think…

Some ape-like creature? But what ape-like creature existed in the wastes of Egyptian desert? A jackal? Of that size? Preposterous! A hyaena? Ridiculous! It was not to be thought of.

A man, then. That was most likely. The bottle argued for that, too. But, then, would any man round here have a taste for the best Cypriot wine? Would not wine have been against his religious principles? Unless, of course – But the bare feet argued against the presumption that he was an Englishman or a European.

We followed the tracks out on to the verandah. The storm had died down a little now although a thin wind put grit into our mouths and stung our faces. The footprints led to the edge of the verandah and then down and across the yard. In the darkness we had no inclination to follow them.

But the next morning they were still there on the verandah. Out in the yard, however, where the sand had blown more freely, we quickly lost them. There was a new, thick layer of sand which covered everything. Whatever footprints there had been had disappeared.

Around the farm, enclosing the buildings and the yard, was a six-foot-high wall, a barrier against the wild dogs and other unwelcome creatures. Part of the wall was sheltered by one of the outhouses and on that part we found traces of intrusion. The man, or creature, had obviously placed its hands on top of the wall – we could see the marks, although they were less clear than the footprints. The sand on top of the wall was disturbed, as if someone had clambered over. And, down on the other side, where the out-house still gave shelter against the wind and the sand, just for a few yards, were the footprints again. Only not going away from the house but coming towards it.

So much we had seen on that first exploration. But that was not all. For, as we returned to the house, going round the side of one of the out-houses, back in the yard, we came across the body of a man lying face down in the sand. The sandstorm had blown over him and left a layer of sand all over the body. From its undisturbed thickness and from the stillness of the body we had known that the man was dead.

And had been content to leave it so. In Egypt the sight of a dead body is not uncommon: a beggar expired in the street, an infant baby dead in childbirth or abandoned shortly after birth by its mother. After a while you become hardened. You do not normally enquire too closely.

But perhaps Herbert was right. The circumstances were so strange in this instance that inquiry into them could not responsibly be left to others.

“My dear Herbert-”

It was time, yes, to begin.

The first thing to be done was to identify the dead man and the manner of his death.

“Need we?” But Herbert answered himself. “Of course, Handel. You are right.”

Which meant revisiting the ice-house. We pulled the body out into the sun and examined it. It was that of a middle-aged man, a fellah – that is to say, a peasant – from his clothes and general appearance, possibly from the village nearby.

“Where else, out here, could he be from?” asked Herbert.

But that, in my view, raised once more the question of informing the villagers, who, if, indeed, he came from the village, would be able to identify him at once.

There was, however, a powerful argument against this. Examination revealed a savage wound in the neck. The flesh was so badly torn that it was impossible to tell how it had been inflicted. A knife, perhaps? But used with an astonishing degree of violence. What, however, could not be ruled out was…

“I am afraid so, my dear Handel.”

A bite.

And if so, a bite perhaps from that strange creature – if creature it was and not a man, which would have been stranger still – that had invaded our privacy two nights before.

But what effect might this have if it were revealed to the village? Would it not cause alarm and despondency? Terror, even? Might it not lead to acts of despair in a people lacking Christian philosophy?

“No, Herbert. Better to remain mute until we can present them with the answer as well as the question.”

But how to advance beyond the question in the first place?

Herbert bent over the body.

“Handel.”

“Herbert?”

“Do you smell what I smell?”

I forced myself to stoop closer.

“He had been imbibing.”

From his lips, where now the flies buzzed incessantly, came a faint smell of alcohol.

“And consider the fingers, Handel.”

“The fingers?”

They were abraded, as if he had been scrabbling at something.

“The wall?”

We went back to the wall, to the place we had found. What we saw now, inspecting it more closely were faint smears of mud, dried out, of course, but still perfectly clear.

“Handel.”

“Herbert?”

“The fingers, again. Did you see the nails? They were packed with mud.”

“And the knees,” I said. “And the feet. Muddy also.”

“A potter, perhaps?”

“Or someone working on the canal?”

The fields around the village were irrigated by a system of canals which drew water off the Nile and fed it over the surrounding land. The system worked well and to it was due the astonishing abundance of the fields. But the abundance came at a price. The canals had to be maintained as they quickly became choked with sand. Every year, in the dry season, after the Inundation, gangs of labourers descended on the system and worked to make it good again, digging out the sand, repairing the sides, and re-piling the earth on the raised banks which protected it against the wind and the sand.

The work was heavy and was not done voluntarily. A corvee had been introduced by means of which villagers were compelled to give their labour. Although the work was in their interest, the villagers saw the benefit as going largely to the Pasha, and it was bitterly resented.

We walked down to the village, passing women hoeing in the fields. One of them, an unusually tall black lady, straightened her back and looked at us. The others continued their labour indifferently.

The canal was on the other side of the village. What we had hoped to see, I do not know. What we saw were men up to their chests in water digging out sand and throwing it up on the sides while others went along moving the sand back and forming banks. Behind them, patrolling steadily, was a man with a long whip, the overseer, usually the Pasha’s man, exercising the whip whenever he thought fit.

We went back to the village. It was a small one, just a few houses clustered around an open space which served as a square, one or two tebaldi trees and beneath them a well. Women were dipping a bucket into the well and filling their pitchers, and, not far away, a group of men were sitting, the village elders.

One of them rose as we went past. It was the village omda, the headman, whom we had met when we arrived. He asked us if the house was to our liking. We said it was; only the sand had blown in during the storm. He said he would send a woman up to clean through the house again. She had done it earlier, he said apologetically, only at this time of year, when there were frequent sandstorms, it was hard to keep it like that.

I said that to us, after Cairo, the village seemed very peaceful. He said that all the men were away working on the canal. He hoped they would not be away for too much longer as there would soon be a need for them in the fields.

We asked him if he found it difficult supplying the necessary labour for the corvee. He shrugged.

“They know it has to be,” he said.

I asked if any of the villagers tried to evade it. He said that if they did it would fall upon the family and on the village, so on the whole people didn’t.

Herbert asked if anyone at work ever tried to slip away. Seldom, said the omda, for then the whole gang was flogged. He seemed about to add something, then stopped; then burst out that in fact it had happened only a few days before. A man had disappeared. “The wound is still fresh in our minds,” he said. He pointed to a woman filling her pitchers alone by the well. The other women had departed.

“That is his wife,” he said. From now on, he said, or at least until he gave himself up, his wife would have to fill her pitchers alone.

“And what if he never comes back?” Herbert asked.

The headman did not answer directly. He said only that the Pasha’s reach was wide.

We walked back up to the house in silence.

“We know now, at any rate, the identity of our man,” Herbert said, throwing himself into one of the chairs on the verandah.

And yet the mystery had only deepened. We now knew who the poor fellow was. But how had he met his end? And for what reason?

We could now understand, we thought, the explanation for his presence in the farm. He had fled from the gang working on the canal and, seeking refuge, climbed over the wall, believing the farm-house to be still deserted. There, at least, he would be safe from the wild beasts outside.

Was it not possible, however, that in doing so he had come face to face with a creature wilder than any of those he feared?

There were other questions. Had he been pursued to the farm? Or had he come there and inadvertently stirred an inhabitant who, or which, had turned on him perhaps in panic and killed him?

All this seemed possible and likely. What did not seem possible or likely was the tale told by the footprints: that some one or thing should enter the room while we were actually in it, our heads covered, it is true, but nevertheless there, pick up the bottle and then walk calmly out with it and disappear into the sandstorm.

Later in the afternoon, after we had enjoyed the splendid Christmas lunch that Clara had prepared for us, the woman that the omda had promised came up to clean the house again. It was the woman we had seen on her own beside the well. Perhaps the omda had sent her up in pity, knowing that without her husband she would be in need of any recompense that we might offer.

She was a sturdy peasant women in her thirties, bare-legged and bare-footed, though without her face covered, as it would perhaps have been in the town. While we were enjoying our coffee and brandy, she set to work in the kitchen and soon had swept it clean. Then she came into the dining room with her brush. She saw the footprints, there, still in the sand that covered the floor, and stopped.

Then, without a word, she swept the floor clean and afterwards moved on to the bedrooms.

“There goes our chance,” said Herbert quietly, “of keeping this from the village.”

When she had finished she went home. Herbert and I sat out on the verandah wondering what we should do. If she revealed what she had seen, the whole village would be up here. They would rout around and almost certainly come across the body in the ice-house. And then, as Herbert pointed out, it would not look good for us. We decided that in the circumstances we would have to revise our plans. We would go to the omda first thing in the morning and disclose the presence of the body.

That night I found it hard to get to sleep. Inside the house it was insufferably hot so I moved my bed things out on to the verandah; but there the bright moon light made it almost as clear as day. I lay awake, listening to the cries of the jackals and the wild dogs, and the distant cry of a hyaena.

In the end I could stand it no more and got up. I did not wish to disturb Herbert but walked out into the yard. In my mind were strange memories – the memory of someone else who had once been fleeing from bondage and in his flight had come across a small boy. From that boy he had received a helping hand and that helping hand had stayed with him for the rest of his life. It had transformed his life, made it different not just from what it was but from what it might have been. It had put a light into the darkness of his mind, an ignis fatuus, perhaps, a false light, like those marsh gases or corpse lights that dance in graveyards, but nevertheless a light, and, on reflection, I would not have had it otherwise.

Now my mind was turning over uneasily another poor creature who had fled from bondage: for was it not bondage, where work was enforced with the whip?

Flight, flight: did we not all flee from pain? And hadn’t I, too, eleven years before fled from pain by leaving England? But was not that flight a false light, too? I had thought to distance myself from a cruel but broken woman. But can one ever distance oneself from one’s own heart? I knew now that if I had my chance again I would not distance myself but try, in whatever way I could, to mend what was broken. But chances, I have learned, do not come twice.

Thus musing, I turned on my heel, and, as I did so, I caught what seemed to be a movement in one of the out-houses. For a moment my blood froze. Could it be that our visitant of the first night had returned?

I roused Herbert and together we went over to the barn the noise had come from. There it was again! Something was definitely moving inside.

There were two doors. Herbert went round to the one at the rear while I stood by the main entrance. Something was coming towards it. It came very quietly, a soft padding of bare feet. It came through the door. I seized it and called for Herbert’s aid.

It was not as I had expected. Smaller, softer. Weaker. It struggled in my grasp. Herbert came running. I shifted my hands to get a better grip.

And then I nearly let go! The form beneath my hands was unmistakeably that of a woman.

I pulled her out into the moonlight. Herbert came rushing round the corner of the barn, saw her and stopped.

It was the woman who had been cleaning the house for us earlier.

“What are you doing here?” he said sternly.

She spat at him.

I dragged her towards the house. She resisted for a moment and then suddenly submitted.

On the verandah she sat silently and at first would say nothing.

Then she burst out:

“Where is he?”

Herbert and I looked at each other. Could we tell her?

“Who?” I said, temporizing.

“My man.”

“Your husband?” said Herbert.

She nodded impatiently.

Herbert and I looked at each other again.

“He is gone,” said Herbert.

She sat there still for a moment. Then-

“So he is gone,” she said. Her whole body seemed to slump. “So he is gone,” she said again. She shrugged. “I knew it,” she said bitterly, “I knew it when I saw-”

She stopped.

“He was not a good man,” she went on, after a moment. “He used to beat me. Especially when he had been drinking. He went with other women. I complained to the omda and the omda told him he would have to leave the village if he couldn’t mend his ways. But still he drank, and still he went with them. One especially. I told him I would denounce her to the omda and he would have her stoned. He begged me not to. He swore he would put her aside and be a good husband to me in future. He cried. He always cried after he had been drinking. And he said he would mend his ways. He had said it before, but this time I believed him.

“And I was right to, for he did try to put her away. And she was angry and taunted me, saying I was no good to a man, that I would never bear him children. And then she taunted him, saying that he was not a proper man. Still he would not go with her; but he went back to drink. He could not do his work properly. The Pasha’s man berated him and whipped him, and one day he could stand it no longer and ran away.

“He came home to me and I said: ‘If you stay here, they will find you. Hide yourself in the old farm-house and I will bring you food.’ But then I heard that you had moved in, so I dared not. But when I came up this afternoon I brought food for him. But I could not find him. I thought perhaps he had fallen asleep somewhere, so tonight I came again. But again I could not find him. And now you tell me he is gone.”

“Handel, old chap-” began Herbert.

I knew what he was thinking. We could not continue with our deception. It was cruel to this unfortunate woman. Let the consequences be what they would, we would go to the omda in the morning and declare all.

The first thing in the morning we went down to the village and asked to see the omda. The villagers had sensed that something was toward and had begun to gather. The omda came out of his house and sat down on a bench in front of it. He had chairs brought for Herbert and myself. As the crowd grew deeper I grew more and more concerned about what we had to say.

But then something surprising happened. The cleaning lady stood up first.

“Omda, I have come to declare a fault,” she said.

“Speak on.”

“I helped my man when he fled in fear from the Pasha’s man.”

“So?” said the Pasha’s man, who was standing at the back of the crowd, fondling his whip.

“He came to me at our house and I said: ‘If you stay here, they will take you. Go to the old farm-house and hide there.’ I meant to take him food.”

“And did you, Amina?”

“No. At least, I did: but I could not find him. Because by then he had fled.”

“Fled, Amina?”

“Yes, omda. With this woman.”

She was pointing at a woman in the crowd, the big, dark woman we had noticed among the hoers.

“I?” said the woman. “I?”

“Yes, you, Khabradji.”

“But I am here!”

“And he is not. But you know where he is, Khabradji.”

She looked at the omda.

“That is what I have come to declare, omda,” she said, and sat down.

Hands pushed Khabradji forward.

“She lies, omda. It is not so!”

Amina rose again.

“You were in the house with him.”

“Not so!”

“It was so. I saw your footprints.”

“What!” said Herbert and I simultaneously.

“They will confirm it,” said Amina, turning to us.

I stood up.

“Certainly, we saw footprints in the sand,” I said. “But whose they were-?”

“We thought they might be of some strange beast!” said Herbert excitedly.

“Strange beast?” said the omda, raising an eyebrow.

“They were large and-”

“Large, certainly,” said the omda, looking at Khabradji. Everyone laughed. She looked self-conscious. Evidently her size was a by-word in the village.

“- but no strange beast!” said the omda.

The crowd laughed again.

Herbert stood up.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “And yet in that mistake truth lies. Khabradji, you were certainly in the house. We saw your footprints. You came right into the room where we were sitting. And now, Khabradji, I have a question for you: did you take the bottle?”

“Bottle?” said the omda.

“Bottle?” said Amina.

Herbert turned to her-

“I know, alas, that you are familiar with bottles, Amina. Because of your husband. But was not Khabradji, too? So let me ask my question again: did you take the bottle that was on the table?”

“I – I -” stuttered Khabradji.

“I think you did, Khabradji.”

“Well, what if I did?”

“What did you do with it?”

“Do with it? I – I drank it.”

There was an amazed laugh from the crowd.

“No, you didn’t. You took it out and gave it to Amina’s husband.”

“What if I did?” muttered Khabradji. “What if I did?”

“Where is he, Khabradji? cried Amina suddenly. “Give him back to me!”

Khabradji seemed to shake herself.

“Give him back?” she said. “That I cannot.”

She sat down, as if she had said all she was going to.

I rose from my place.

“But, Khabradji,” I said, “that is not all, is it? You gave him the drink, yes; and then what?”

“I do not know,” muttered Khabradji.

“I do. When he had drunk and was stupefied, you killed him.”

“Killed him!”

There was a gasp of horror from the crowd.

“Killed him?” cried Amina, and made to throw herself at her rival. Hands held her back.

Khabradji now rose in her turn.

“Yes,” she said, calmly. “I killed him. With my hoe. While he lay dulled and sleeping.” She looked at Amina. “I was not going to let you take him back. While I was in the field, I saw him running and guessed where he was going. That night I went to the farm-house myself and found him. I pleaded with him to come back to me. But he would not and spoke bad words. I was angry and rushed from him. But then I looked into the house and saw the bottle and the evil thought came to me: why should not I be revenged? So I took the bottle to him and let him drink; and then I killed him.”

As we were leaving, I heard one villager say to another:

“What was all that about a beast?”

“There wasn’t one.”

“Odd that they should think there was. Strange minds these Englishmen have!”

“Superstition,” said the other villager. “That’s the problem.”

All in all it was an odd Christmas indeed. But it had one effect that was lasting. It had taken my mind back to another time when my life had become strangely bound up with that of a poor fugitive. Indeed, it was that which had ultimately led to my flight to Egypt. Reflecting on that, I realized that I had left unfinished business behind me. It occurred to me that the time had come to return to England and address it. Perhaps, too – I confess it – it was the children’s Christmas stockings, bringing home to me that there was more to life than work in a Counting House. Anyway, I went back to England, expecting not great things now but very little: finding, however, when I got there more than I had ever dared to expect.