Perhaps he just came down the steps and took an arabeah.’
There was a row of the horse-drawn Cairo cabs to the left of the steps.
‘Naturally,’ said McPhee, with a certain edge to his voice, ‘one of the first things I did was to check with the arabeah-drivers.’
‘I see.’
‘I also checked with the donkey-boys.’
‘He surely wouldn’t have—’
‘No, but they would have seen him if he had come down the steps.’
‘And they didn’t?’
‘No,’ said McPhee, ‘they didn’t.’
‘Well, if he’s not come down the steps he must have gone back into the hotel. Perhaps he went for a pee …?’
‘Look,’ said McPhee, finally losing his temper, ‘what do you think I’ve been doing for the last two hours? They’ve turned the place upside down. They did that twice before they sent for me. And they’ve done it twice since with my men helping them. They’re going through it again now. For the fifth time!’
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry!’ said Owen hastily. ‘It’s just that …’ He looked along the terrace. It was packed with people. Every table was taken. ‘Was it like this?’
‘Yes. Everyone out for their tea.’
‘And no one saw what happened?’
‘Not so far as I have been able to discover.’
‘You’re sure he was there in the first place? I mean—’
‘He was certainly there. We know, because a waiter took his order. It was his usual waiter, so there’s no question of wrong identification. When he came back the old man was gone. Disappeared,’ said McPhee firmly, ‘into thin air.’
‘Naturally you’ve been along the terrace?’
‘Naturally I’ve been along the terrace,’ McPhee agreed.
‘Friends? Relations? Is he with anyone?’
‘His nephew. Who is as bewildered as we are.’
‘He wasn’t with him at the time?’
‘No, no. He was in his room. Still having his siesta.’
‘There’s probably some quite simple explanation.’
‘Yes,’ said McPhee. ‘You’ve been giving me some.’
‘Sorry!’ Owen looked along the terrace again. ‘It’s just that …’
‘I know,’ said McPhee.
‘This is the last place you would choose if you wanted to kidnap someone.’
‘I know. The terrace at Shepheard’s!’
‘About the most conspicuous place in Cairo!’
The manager of the hotel came through the palms with two men in tow. One Owen recognized as the Chargé d’Affaires at the French Consulate. The other he guessed, correctly, to be the nephew of the missing Frenchman. The nephew saw McPhee and rushed forward.
‘Monsieur le Bimbashi—’
He stopped when he saw that McPhee was in conversation.
McPhee introduced them.
‘Monsieur Berthelot—’
The young man bowed.
‘Captain Cadwallader Owen.’
Owen winced. The middle name was genuine enough but something he preferred to keep a decent secret. McPhee, however, had a romantic fondness for things of the Celtic twilight and could not be restrained from savouring it in public.
‘Carwallah—?’ The young man struggled and then fell back on the part he recognized. ‘Capitaine? Ah, you are of the military?’
‘C’est le directeur de l’intelligence britannique,’ said the man from the Consulate.
‘Not at all,’ said Owen quickly. ‘I am the Mamur Zapt.’
‘Mamur Zapt?’
‘The Mamur Zapt is a post peculiar to Cairo, Monsieur Berthelot,’ McPhee explained. ‘Captain Cadwallader Owen is, roughly, Head of the Political Branch. Of the police, that is,’ he added, looking at the Chargé d’Affaires reprovingly. He wasn’t going to stand any nonsense from the French.
‘Politicale,’ murmured Monsieur Berthelot doubtfully, only half comprehending.
‘We hold you responsible for Monsieur Moulin’s safety,’ the Chargé said to Owen.
‘I will do everything I can,’ said Owen, choosing to take the remark as referring to him personally and not the British Administration in general. The French had previously shared, under the system of Dual Control, in the administration of Egypt and had been edged out when the British army had come in to suppress the Arabi rebellion, something they unsurprisingly resented. ‘However, I doubt whether this is a political matter.’
‘Politicale?’ The young man was still having difficulties.
‘I only deal with political matters,’ Owen explained. ‘Assassinations, riots, that sort of thing. I suspect this will turn out to be a routine criminal investigation. The police,’ he simplified, seeing that Monsieur Berthelot was not entirely following.
‘The police? Ah, the Bimbashi—’
‘Well, no, actually.’
Owen wondered how to explain the Egyptian system. The Egyptian police fell under one Ministry, the Ministry of the Interior. Criminal investigation, however, fell under another, the Ministry of Justice. When a crime was reported the police had to notify the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, as the Department was called. The Parquet would then send a man along who would take over the investigation from the police and see it through.
He looked at the Chargé for help. The Chargé shrugged his shoulders.
‘It’s like the French system,’ he said, ‘quite.’
Egyptian criminal procedure was in fact based upon the Code Napoléon, a product of an earlier French administration.
‘Ah!’ Monsieur Berthelot was clearly relieved.
‘Has the Parquet been notified?’ asked the Chargé.
‘Yes,’ said McPhee.
‘I’d better get on to them,’ said the Chargé, ‘and make sure they send along someone bright.’
He started back into the hotel.
‘Tell them to send El Zaki,’ Owen called after him. ‘Mahmoud el Zaki.’
‘Thanks,’ said the Chargé, and disappeared indoors.
‘And now, Monsieur,’ said Owen, turning to the bemused young man, ‘about your uncle …’
Monsieur Berthelot was in fact able to tell them very little. Like his uncle and in common with almost everyone else in the hotel, he had taken a siesta after lunch. His had been more protracted than his uncle’s and he had still been in his room when the Assistant Manager had knocked on his door. He had gone at once to his uncle’s suite but found that he had not returned there after going down to the terrace. He had then gone down to the terrace and walked right along it, thinking that perhaps his uncle, unusually, had been taken up by some acquaintances.
Unusually? His uncle did not care for companionship, perhaps? Well, it wasn’t so much that, it was just that his uncle generally preferred to be on his own when he got up from his siesta. He was like that in the morning, too, preferring to breakfast alone. He was always, the nephew said, ‘un peu morose’