The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet

CHAPTER 8

“I think we ought to go in,” said McPhee.

“There’s no real evidence,” Garvin objected. “Nothing to link him with the grenades.”

“There’s plenty to link him with other stuff.”

“Plenty?”

“That sergeant said it was a recognized route. They’ve been using that chap for years.”

“If what the sergeant says is true,” said Garvin, “and we know him to be a liar.”

“He wasn’t lying this time,” said Owen.

“It’s the lead we wanted,” said McPhee. “What are we waiting for?”

“We’re waiting for something real,” said Garvin.

“Isn’t the box something real?”

“There are boxes going in and out of that place all the time.”

“Ali says he knows those and it wasn’t one of them,” said Owen. “How can he know all the boxes? What about a new supplier?” “He was sure.”

“Might be anything,” said Garvin dismissively. “A new hat for his wife, goods for the shop. We can’t go in just on the word of a street beggar.”

“And of a sergeant,” said McPhee.

“A convicted criminal. Lying to save his skin.”

“Not to save his skin,” Owen pointed out.

“All right, then,” said Garvin. “Lying because he’s been terrified out of his wits. And that’s something else I want to speak to you about.”

“We wouldn’t have found out any other way,” said McPhee loyally, and bore without flinching the look Garvin gave him.

“The question is,” said Garvin, “now that we’ve got some real information-”

Owen did not like the way Garvin kept emphasizing the word “real” today.

“-how do we use it? Wouldn’t it be best simply to put a man on the shop and keep it under surveillance?”

“We don’t have the time,” said Owen. “The Carpet’s next week.” “Suppose the grenades are still on their way?” asked Garvin. “Suppose they haven’t got there yet? Don’t we just scare whoever-it-is off?”

“Suppose they’ve already passed through?” said Owen.

“Well,” said Garvin, “in that case we’ve lost them already. Going in wouldn’t help.”

“We might pick up something,” said McPhee.

“And at least we’d know,” said Owen.

“Suppose they’re there all the time,” said McPhee, “ while we’re mucking around.”

“And suppose they’ll soon be not there,” added Owen, “ if we go on mucking around. Boxes come out as well as go in.”

“Yes,” said Garvin. “I’ll admit that’s a worry.”

He rested his chin on his hand and thought.

“All the same,” he said, “it’s not much to go on. If it wasn’t grenades I wouldn’t look at it.”

“But it is grenades,” said McPhee, “and the Carpet is next week.” “We don’t know-” Garvin began, and then stopped. He thought for a little longer and then he looked at Owen.

“OK,” he said, “you can go in. But on your head be it.”

It was a typical Garvin ending and Owen wanted to ask what he meant, though he had an uneasy feeling that he knew what was meant. McPhee, however, was pleased.

“Good, sir,” he said. “When?”

“This afternoon,” said Owen, “ when everybody’s asleep.”

“Not tonight?” asked Garvin.

“You can see better in the day,” said Owen.

Garvin shrugged.

“All right, then,” he said. “Only yoti’ll have to move fast. He’s a Syrian and he’ll have someone round from the consulate in a flash of lightning. You won’t even get a chance to question him.”

“I’ll see I get a chance to question him,” said Owen.

Soon after two, when the sun had driven people from the streets and most Cairenes were settling deeply into their siesta, Owen’s men went in.

The shutters had been half drawn across the front of the shop to give shade and to symbolize recess but there was a gap in the middle through which the men stepped. An assistant was asleep on the floor, curled up among the brassware. He opened his eyes as the men came in, blinked and then sat bolt upright. One of the men picked him up by the scruff of the neck and put him in a corner, where he was soon joined by two other startled and sleepy assistants brought through from the separate servants’ quarters at the rear of the house.

The family lived above the shop. The first floor contained the dining-room and a surprisingly luxurious living-room, with a tiled floor and heavy, rich carpets on the walls. Above these were the bedrooms, where the man whose name Owen had been given slept with his wife and their five children. Above this again was the room at the front with five latticed windows where the wife’s mother slept and spent most of her days, together with a warren of small storerooms.

Georgiades went straight to these, reasoning that the grenades would most likely be stored in the private part of the house and in a room rarely used by the family. Abdul Kassem, one of his most experienced men, went through to the back of the shop where goods awaiting unpacking or despatch were stored and began to search meticulously through the boxes.

The other men fanned out through the house. The first thing was to station a man at every intersection, where one floor gave on to another, or one set of rooms to an independent suite. In that way if anyone made a panic move in one particular direction he would be remarked and intercepted. After that the men began to move efficiently through each room.

McPhee, nominally under Owen’s orders for the occasion, since the police did not possess right of entry without a warrant but the Mamur

Zapt did, began to ferret around the shop itself, poking his stick particularly under the heavy shelving which supported the goods.

The shop was half way along the Musky and catered for both native Egyptians and tourists. The Egyptians came for the fine brassware: the elegant ewers called ibreek, which the Arabs used for pouring water over the hands, the little basins and water-strainers which went with them, old brass coffee-pots, coffee saucepans, coffee-trays, coffee-cups and coffee-mills, fine brasswork for the nargileh pipes, chased brass lantern-ends, brass open-work toilet boxes, incense-burners, inkpots, scales-all of good old patterns and workmanship. The tourists came for the brass boxes and bowls inlaid with silver, the spangled Assiut shawls, the harem embroideries, the cloisonne umbrella handles-a special attraction-Persian pottery, enamel and lacquer, silver-gilt parodies of jewels from the graves of Pharaohs, old, illuminated Korans and pieces of Crusader armour.

Plenty of capital tied up here, thought Owen, and plenty of money to buy other things as well.

He heard raised voices on the floor above, and a moment later flat slippers descending the stairs.

A man appeared. A Syrian.

“Qu’est-ce que vous faites ici, monsieur?” he began hotly as soon as he saw McPhee. The Scot waved him on to Owen and continued searching.

The Syrian was in a blue silk dressing-gown and red leather slippers. Although his house had been broken into in the middle of his siesta and interlopers were downstairs he had taken the time to smooth himself down and make himself presentable.

He repeated the question to Owen and then, registering the nationality, switched to English.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “I am a Syrian citizen. This is an outrage.”

He was thin, middle-aged, grey — haired. The hair was brushed very flat and oiled. There were grey shadows under his eyes, not so much, Owen thought, because he had been disturbed in the middle of his sleep, as that it was a permanent feature of his face, which would always look haggard, worried.

“Where is your authority?” he demanded. “Have you a warrant?”

Owen noticed that he had understood at once that this was a police raid.

“I am the Mamur Zapt,” he said. “I do not need a warrant.”

“The Mamur Zapt!”

Owen caught the momentary flash of concern.

“I demand that a member of my consul’s staff be present! I am a Syrian citizen.”

‘‘In time,” said Owen, and turned away. He did not want to talk to the Syrian until he had something with which to shake him. Like the grenades, for example. But there was no sign yet of any success in the search.

He thought it likely that the Syrian had already succeeded in getting a message out of the house to whatever consular representative it was that he had in his pocket. Owen had posted a couple of men outside to guard against this happening but guessed that the Syrian had made provision for such an eventuality. It would take some time, however, for the man from the consulate to arrive. He could wait a few minutes.

“Let us go upstairs,” he said.

The Syrian looked puzzled and then suddenly acquiesced. Perhaps he thought Owen was going to ask for a bribe. That was probably the way the previous Mamur Zapt had done things.

As they went upstairs Owen said to McPhee: “If anyone comes from the consulate keep him busy as long as you can. Ask him to prove his status. Ask him if he’s got the right place. You know.”

McPhee knew. He was less good at these things, however, than Owen, and a resolute official would soon brush his way past him. It would earn Owen a few minutes, though.

The Syrian went ahead of him into the living-room. Owen deliberately held back.

“I shall be with you in a moment,” he said, and then continued upstairs to the next floor.

"Keep him down there,” he instructed his man on the stairs.

Georgiades came out of one of the doors wiping the sweat from his face. He shook his head as he saw Owen.

“Nothing yet,” he said.

He went into another room.

Owen lingered on the small landing. He knew better than to interfere with the search. Georgiades and his people were all experienced at that sort of thing and there was a pattern to it which he would only disrupt. Georgiades had once told him, too, that there were cultural differences in the way people hid things. Greeks hid things in one sort of place, Arabs in another. Obviously he had not yet found out where Syrians hid things.

Owen could hear the Syrian’s voice raised in protest. He knew he would have to go down and talk to him. The man from the consulate might soon be here.

The Syrian was at the bottom of the stairs, his way up barred by one of Owen’s men. Both fell back as Owen came down the stairs. Owen pushed past them and went on into the living-room. He sat down on one of the low divans and motioned to the Syrian to sit on another before him.

Everything in the room was low, the divans, the tables, even the lamps. There were no chairs. There were no sideboards or shelves, no wall furniture of any kind to detract from the sumptuous carpets on the walls. On some of the little tables that were scattered around beside the divans there were fine boxes and bowls, all of silver.

A door opened at the far end of the room and a woman’s face looked in. The Syrian waved her irritably away. She looked worried.

The Syrian himself had lost his apprehension and was waiting, almost confidently, for Owen to begin. Owen guessed that he was still thinking in terms of a bribe.

Owen decided he would try to shake him.

“You sometimes have British soldiers among your customers,” he said, more as a statement than a question.

The Syrian looked slightly puzzled.

“Not often,” he said. “The pay is not good,”

“Among your suppliers,” said Owen.

“No,” said the Syrian, too quickly, “no, I don’t think so.”

After a moment he said: “I deal mostly in brassware and silverware. With a few things for the tourists. If an officer’s wife, perhaps, brought me a family heirloom I might consider that. But I don’t really deal in English things.”

“Do you keep a list of customers?”

“In my head,” said the Syrian. “Only in my head.”

Owen wondered whether it would be worth going through the books. Georgiades would not have time, though. McPhee could do it but Owen wanted him in the shop to take care of the man from the consulate. None of the other men would be any good. In any case it would probably be pointless. It would be as the Syrian said; the customers who mattered would be in his head.

The Syrian still waited expectantly.

“You don’t deal in anything else?” Owen asked. “Arms, for instance?”

For the tiniest flicker of a second Owen thought he saw the face register. Then it returned to its normal impassivity.

“No,” said the Syrian. “I don’t deal in arms. Except-” he smiled. “-Crusaders’ arms. Was that what you meant?”

Owen ignored him. He desperately needed something from Georgiades if he was to make anything out of this exchange. Out of the whole raid, for that matter. They had staked everything on being able to find something incriminating. If not the grenades, then at least something. Now it all seemed to be evaporating.

The Syrian’s air of expectancy had disappeared. He now knew what Owen had come for. Knew, and was not bothered.

“And now I have to ask you,” said the Syrian, “to what do I owe this outrageous visit?”

Owen said nothing.

The Syrian leaned forward even more confidently.

“Even the Mamur Zapt,” he said with emphasis, “cannot get away with this!”

And now Owen’s ears caught what perhaps the Syrian had already heard. A new voice had entered into debate with McPhee downstairs.

“I shall complain to my consul,” said the Syrian. “It is not just as a private citizen but also as a foreign national that I have rights.” Georgiades appeared at the door.

“Wait there!” said Owen to the Syrian. Outside, Georgiades showed him two revolvers, new, still heavily greased from the store, of the same type as the one used by Mustafa.

“That’s all,” said Georgiades apologetically.

“Every little helps,” said Owen, “and it helps quite a bit just at the moment.”

He went back into the room.

“My people have found British Army equipment,” he said coldly. “Stolen from British Army installations. Now in your possession.” The Syrian spread his hands. “The guns?” he said. “They were stolen? The man swore they had been officially disposed of as surplus to Army needs.”

“New ones?”

The Syrian shrugged apologetically. “I am afraid I do not know new ones from old ones. I am not a military man, I bought them for protection. I have a lot of valuable silver.”

Owen could hear the man from the consulate coming up the stairs. “I am sorry if I have done something illegal,” said the Syrian, “but I hardly think it warrants an invasion on this scale.”

“This is an outrage,” began the consular official as Owen brushed past him. “I shall complain-”

A grim-faced McPhee was waiting downstairs. They left the shop without a word. Outside, a small crowd had gathered, sensing that something exciting was going on.

“Make way! Make way!” snapped McPhee, still upset.

The bright white glare of the street was dazzling after the cool darkness of the house and they stopped momentarily to adjust.

Georgiades came running round the corner.

“The roof!” he shouted. “The roof!”

He plunged back into the shop. Two of his men rushed in after him.

Abdul Kassem appeared from a sidestreet.

“There’s a man on the roof!” he said, and doubled back.

Owen ran after him, closely followed by McPhee, closely followed by the entire crowd.

The sidestreet bent round into a wide square from which they could look back at the roofline.

At first they could see nothing.

Abdul Kassem pulled them to one side and pointed.

“There! There!”

Half obscured by the small minaret of a mosque they saw a man on the flat roof of one of the houses. He appeared to be dragging something.

“That’s him!” cried McPhee exultantly. He pulled out his revolver.

“Don’t shoot, for Christ’s sake!” said Owen. "It’s grenades up there!”

Another man suddenly appeared on a roof some way to the right of the first man. It was Georgiades. He began running across the roofs. Two other men emerged and raced after him.

The first man disappeared behind a parapet.

“He could come down anywhere!” said Owen in agony.

He looked around. He still had four men with him.

“You take those two,” he said to McPhee, “and try and get round behind him on that side. I’ll take the others!”

McPhee ran off instantly.

Abdul Kassem did not wait for Owen but set off through the backstreets on the near side.

They soon lost sight of the roofs.

“Christ!” said Owen again. “He could come down anywhere.”

They came out into a long street which ran roughly parallel to the man’s course.

“You stay here,” Owen said to the other constable. “You can see the whole street.”

He himself ran on after Abdul Kassem. The Egyptian was much better than he was at this sort of thing. He knew, or was able to sense, the pattern of the tiny, twisting streets. Owen knew he was holding him back.

“You go on,” he gasped. “Try and get in front of him.”

Abdul Kassem shot off.

Owen came to a corner and stopped. His heart was pounding and his eyes were blinded with sweat. He took out a handkerchief to wipe his face and tried to think. There was no point in just running aimlessly along the street. He needed to know where the man was. He had a vague sense of him being to the right and heading northward, but in this warren of tiny streets forever twisting back on themselves that did not help much.

He walked along until he came to a square and then tried to look up at the roofs, but the square was small and the houses which surrounded it so high that he could see very little. He needed to be up higher.

At the corner of the square was a little mosque with a minaret rising above it. He ran over to it and tried to go in but the door was heavily bolted. Still, the idea was a good one, and as he ran on he kept his eye open for a mosque that was not barred.

The street narrowed still further and then opened out into a kind of piazza which did not seem to have any way out of it. Exactly opposite him was a sebil, a fountain-house, whose steeply curved sides, guarded with grilles of intricate metalwork, rose up high to an arcaded upper storey. It was approached by a sweeping flight of steps with an ornate marble balustrade.

Without stopping to think, Owen ran straight up the steps. At the top, set in among the arcades where it would be cool, was an open recess obviously used as a kuttub, a place where little children received their first lessons in the Koran. The kuttub was empty, but an old man lay sleeping against a pillar.

Besides him another flight of stairs, much narrower, led up to the roof. Owen leaped up them and came out on to the flat top of the arcades.

To one side, behind him, he could see out over modern Cairo as far as the Nile and the brown desert beyond it. To the other was the fantastic skyline of old Cairo, with its minarets and cupolas, the high towers of the mosques, the arcades and domes of the old houses, and in among them the flat spaces where people came up to take the evening air.

Now, with the sun still very hot, the roofs were deserted. There was no movement, anywhere.

He felt a hand plucking at his sleeve. It was the old man. Owen could see now that he was blind. He had found him by hearing alone.

“I will show you the way down, father,” he said.

But the old man could get down without his aid. He kept asking Owen what he wanted. Owen explained lamely that he was looking out over the roofs in search of a thief. The old man shook his head, whether in disbelief or commiseration at the world’s iniquity. He kept touching Owen’s arm. He was obviously puzzled. Something about Owen, the accent, perhaps just the bodily presence, told him that Owen was a foreigner.

Owen apologized again, excused himself, and descended to the ground. Half way down he met a black-veiled woman carrying a bowl for the old man. She shrank back against the wall as Owen passed.

Little streets, so little they were hardly streets, ran off from the piazza on every side. There seemed nothing to tell one from another. It came over Owen how pointless it was trying to intercept a man in this maze.

He made his way back to the Syrian’s shop.

McPhee arrived at almost the same moment.

“Like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said. “Useless!”

One of the men who had been with Georgiades on the roof came out of the shop carrying a large box.

“Thank Christ for that!” said McPhee. “At least we’ve got something.”

A moment later Georgiades himself appeared. He was mopping his face with a large blue handkerchief.

“The next time we do this,” he said to Owen, “it had better be in the cooler part of the day.”

“You didn’t get him,” said Owen.

Georgiades shook his head regretfully.

“No,” he said. “What a waste! After running over the roofs of half Cairo!”

He looked down at the big box.

“We got this, though,” he said. “When I got close to him he put it down and ran.”

The Syrian came out of the shop with the man from the consulate in attendance.

“ This your property?” asked Owen, indicating the box.

“Yes,” said the man from the consulate.

“I have never seen it on my life before,” declared the Syrian solemnly.

“It’s a box of grenades,” said Owen.

“You heard my client,” said the man from the consulate. “He has never seen this in his life before. You have made a mistake.”

“And so have you,” said McPhee, taking the Syrian by the arm. “What are you doing?” said the man from the consulate, stepping between them.

“Taking him to the police headquarters,” said McPhee.

“You cannot do that,” said the man from the consulate. “He is a Syrian citizen.”

“Caught redhanded,” said McPhee indignantly, “with the arms in his possession.”

“He knows nothing about the arms!” said the man from the consulate. “Someone else had put them there!”

“Oh, yes,” said McPhee sarcastically. “Who?”

“I don’t know,” said the man from the consulate. “It’s not my job to find out. It’s your job.”

"We have found out,” said McPhee.

“I don’t know about that,” said the man. “It would have to be tested in a court.”

“That’s exactly what I’m planning,” said McPhee.

“A Consular Court,” said the man.

“A Consular Court?” said McPhee incredulously. “The man’s been caught with arms in his possession.”

“A Mixed Tribunal, then.”

Even when a foreigner could be proved to have transgressed against the law of his own country he had the right to be tried by his own Consular Court. Where there was a dispute between foreigners, or between foreigners and Egyptians, the case was heard by a Mixed Tribunal, on which the majority of the judges were foreign. But that applied only to civil cases, and it had yet to be established whether this fell into that category. It almost certainly did not.

“Anyway,” said the man from the consulate, “you certainly cannot arrest him.”

“We’ll see about that,” said McPhee grimly, producing a pair of handcuffs.

“I protest!” said the consular official. “My client is a native Syrian and is outside your jurisdiction.”

Owen was tempted to let McPhee go ahead. At any rate, it might give the Syrian a shaking. But it was not worth the trouble. They would have to release him at once.

“Leave him for the time being,” he said to McPhee. “We shall be taking this up,” he said to the official.

It was possible, in certain circumstances, which included a threat to security, to expel a foreigner from the country; but it took a long time.

“I shall be taking this up, too,” said the man. “This is a gross invasion of Syrian territory. I shall be lodging an official complaint.”

“Do!” said Owen.

The consular official took the Syrian by the arm and they went back into the shop. McPhee was purple with fury.

“It makes you lose heart,” said Georgiades.

“We’ve got the grenades anyway,” said Owen.

“Not all of them,” said Georgiades.

“What?”

“Haven’t you looked?” He flipped back the top of the box. Three grenades were missing.

McPhee swore.

“When did he take them?” asked Owen. “Or were they missing before?”

“I think he took them when he left the box,” said Georgiades. “He seemed to fumble inside the box. The lid was open when I got there.”

McPhee and Owen exchanged glances. Three was enough. Enough with the Carpet coming on.

“Got nowhere,” said Owen.

“Could be worse,” said McPhee. “At least we’ve got these. You did well,” he said to Georgiades.

Georgiades shrugged. He was as disappointed as they were.

One of the constables shouldered the box and they started off along the street. Owen felt too depressed to say anything.

They had just turned the corner when there was a shout behind them. A small boy came running up.

“Ya effendi!” he hailed Owen.

“What is it?”

“I bring a message,” he panted, “from Abdul Kassem.”

Owen turned sharply. He had forgotten about Abdul Kassem.

“What is it?”

The boy hung back.

“He said I would be well rewarded,” he said.

“And so you shall,” said McPhee, bending down to him. “How much was spoken of?” “One piastre,” said the boy.

“Oh-h!” said McPhee, affecting incredulity. “A whole piastre?”

“Half a piastre,” admitted the boy.

McPhee fumbled in his pocket. “Here is a half piastre,” he said, “which you shall have when you have spoken. The other half I might let you have if I think you have told me correctly.”

The boy nodded.

“Abdul Kassem says: Come quickly.”

He held out his hand.

“Is that all?” asked McPhee.

“Yes,” said the boy.

“Come quickly? Where to?”

“Give me another piastre,” said the boy, “and I will take you.”

They found Abdul Kassem waiting outside an old Mameluke house in the Haret el Merdani. Soon after they had separated he had had the same idea as Owen. He had remembered that there was a ruined mosque nearby with its tower still standing, had climbed up that and then had had a good view of the rooftop chase. He had seen Georgiades closing on his man, watched the man stoop and do something to the box, and then had seen the man run off in the direction of the Mosque Darb el Ahmah, whose distinct turquoise cupola had stood out among the other rooftop features. He had descended from his own tower and run to the mosque, arriving just in time to see the man slip out of the mosque itself and cross the square in front of it. While on the tower he had had a good look at the man and was sure that this was the same man. No, he had not been carrying anything, not in his hands, but Abdul Kassem thought he had something stuffed in the front of his shirt, for it bulged and hung rather than billowed. He had followed the man down a sidestreet and seen him slip through the door of this house. And then he had sent the boy.

“Good work!” said Owen.

McPhee was looking at him.

“OK,” said Owen. “In you go!”

The great gate of the house was slightly ajar, probably to let a breeze blow through the courtyard. McPhee threw it wide open and the men rushed in. A porter, asleep in a recess of the entrance, opened his eyes as they went past, and then jumped up.

The men fanned out. They knew the structure of a Mameluke house and worked through systematically. The main reception rooms opened off the courtyard, and there were various recesses in there where a man could hide. The other rooms on the ground floor were either servants’ rooms, mostly cluttered around the main entrance, or storerooms. It took the men almost no time to work through them all.

Georgiades looked at Owen inquiringly. Nearly the whole of the upper portion of a Mameluke house was given up to the harem. There were no proper bedrooms in the Western sense of the word. Any room which was not being used for anything else would serve. Beds were just a few cushions, a pillow and a padded blanket, which was rolled up in the daytime and put in a cupboard.

The Mamur Zapt’s traditional right of entry extended, uniquely, to harems but it was not one to exercise without thinking about it.

“There’s no alternative,” said Owen.

Georgiades shrugged and ran up the stairs, closely followed by his delighted men. As they spread through the upper part of the house there were startled shouts and screams.

McPhee remained below.

“I’ll see no one gets out this way,” he said, a little straightly.

Owen followed his men upstairs. The first room he came to, the main room of the harem, extended through the whole first floor of the house, from the old latticed windows at the front to the small oriels at the back. It was dark and cool, so dark that at first he could not see anything at all. Then his eyes picked out various women on divans, sitting bolt upright with shock.

Afterwards, when Owen was questioned at the club, he had to admit that he took in very little. He was looking for the man and as soon as he saw the harem was occupied he knew it was unlikely the man would be there. He had scanned the room to make sure and that had been that.

Required to furnish more detail, he had been at a loss. No, they were all dressed. They had not been wearing veils, true. No, he hadn’t noticed their faces, it had been dark. What had they been doing? Chatting, as far as he could see. Oh, and one or two were embroidering or sewing or something.

“Sewing! You are a great disappointment, Owen!”

No, he had seen nothing erotic, or particularly exotic for that matter, either. His impression was they they were just having a good gossip.

“They must have been bored to death!” said someone.

“And you did nothing about it, Owen!” said someone else. “I begin to have doubts about you.” Etcetera.

What he did not tell them was that he had seen someone he knew.

He had been about to move on up to the next floor when his eye had picked out a face against the gloom.

It was Nuri’s daughter, the one he had met at the party.

Her face had been rigid with anger.

“You!” she said. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know it’s forbidden?”

“I’m looking for a man.”

“Here? You must be mad!”

“He came in.”

“Into the harem?”

“Into the house,” Owen admitted.

“He has not been in here,” she said. “Nobody has come in here. No man would come in here.”

“I am sorry, then,” said Owen, turning away.

“You don’t just go bursting into people’s houses like that!” she said. “Not even if the man we’re looking for may have had something to do with the attack on your father?” asked Owen.

Georgiades appeared from upstairs and shook his head. He glanced round the room and pointed to a small door which Owen had taken to be the door of a kazna, a large cupboard in which such things as bedclothes were kept.

“Does that go anywhere?”

“Why not go in and find out?” said Zeinab.

Georgiades’s hand was almost on the handle when the door opened of its own accord.

“What is the meaning of this?” said a harsh, unpleasant voice which struck Owen as oddly familiar.

Georgiades fell back.

A man came into the room, short, stocky, bare-chested, dressed only in red silk pantaloons.

It, was Guzman.