Courier to Marrakesh E-Book

Valentine Williams

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Perhaps Valentine Williams’ finest mystery thriller. Set in WW2, folk singer and guitarist Andrea Hallam gets caught up in a Nazi spy ring while travelling alone in Morocco. Kidnapped by Nazis who believe she holds a dossier on Hitler, the tale travels from entertaining wartime banter to sinister suspense and back again. She is swept into a plot to destroy or blackmail Hitler with some secret documents. But that enterprising villain Clubfoot (Dr. Grundt), wants to retrieve these documents. An exciting and emotional book from beginning to end. „Courier to Marrakesh „ is the last entry in the seven book series about the evil Dr. Adolph Grundt. There are 7 books in the „Clubfoot” series of secret agent action novels, featuring Dr Grundt, an agent of the German government as the „baddie”.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER I

I was dreaming my dream again. Always the same dream–at least, ever since that day at Rabat–with the plane plunging and shuddering and the sleet hissing past the windows. The rough going hadn’t scared our little gang particularly. We had had more than one such on our tour of the war areas–crossing the Irish Sea to Belfast, for instance, or our flight in the sirocco from Gib to Casablanca.

That terrifying dream. Always the same scene. Jack, peering into his cards and joshing me out of the corner of his wry comedian’s mouth, and Laura and Dirk across the gangway, helping Diana with her crossword puzzle. I would always wake up before the actual crash, but filled with such a sense of impending disaster that I would lie there gasping with fright.

This time, somehow, the dream was different. I was still playing gin rummy with Jack, but he was shouting at me, and in such a curious voice. It was high-pitched and hoarse, and seemed to come from a distance...

Then suddenly I was awake. I gazed about me wildly. This wasn’t my little hospital room where I had groped my way back to consciousness. All was dark about me save for a panel of starry sky in the open window at the foot of my bed, but I could make out gay curtains and bright leather cushions on a couch against the wall.

Memory came struggling back. The long, cold bus-ride from Rabat; Captain Stracer, who met me at the terminal, warning me that I was to dine with the American General before my concert; dinner at the General’s and the thrill of being the only woman in a roomful of officers vying with each other to make a fuss of me; and to crown all, the shabby movie-house, crammed from floor to roof with men in uniform, the never-ending encores, the charming friendliness of everyone. As a final reminder, the slender tower of the Kutubiah beyond my window, which Stracer had pointed out to me on my arrival, told me that I was at Marrakesh and that the voice quavering out of the dark was the muezzin calling to dawn prayer.

The hotel had given me one of a series of ground-floor rooms, each with its own little porch looking out across the hotel gardens at the city and the snowy Atlas peaks beyond. In dressing-gown and slippers I ran outside. The air was frosty and still, its emptiness filled by that disembodied voice reverberating against the mountains across the jumble of minarets and domes and flat-topped houses dimly white beyond the gardens. “La illaha illa’llah!” it flung in a closing challenge to the paling sky and ceased.

Silence then. Already, over to eastward, the sky was faintly lemon. The birds were stirring in the palms below the porch and little sounds began to mount from the city, waked into life by the muezzin’s call. This was the real Orient, I told myself, not the bogus thing, debased and defaced by the West, which I had found at Algiers. My spirits soared. I was at Marrakesh and I had a whole week in which to explore this magic city.

For so the doctor at Rabat had stipulated when the Special Service people had come along with this emergency date at Marrakesh: they wanted me to fill in for a party of entertainers held up somewhere along the route. I had sustained a severe nervous shock, my nice Medical Corps major pointed out; there could be no question of my resuming my regular concert routine at present–the Special Service people spoke of further dates after Marrakesh. If he consented to this one concert, it must be on the clear understanding that I was to take things easy for at least a week afterwards and rest every afternoon.

Special Service was quite agreeable. The idea was that from Marrakesh I might go across to Sicily or even Naples–it would take all of a week to book dates. For myself I felt equal to anything; all I wanted was to get out of that damned hospital and into the war again, and so I told the Major. But he was adamant and we left it at that: the one appearance at Marrakesh, a week’s lay-off, and then, if all went well, these dates in Italy. Even so, I was thrilled. To go to Naples, right in the zone of the Armies–I felt I could hardly wait.

Well, I had paid my respects to the American General and given my concert, and here I was at Marrakesh, free to loaf for a whole week. If only Hank were still here! He had certainly been at Marrakesh three weeks before, because he had wired me from there to Rabat. Such a sweet message. He was appalled by my accident, of which he had only just heard as he had been away, but glad that it was no worse. Would I please take things easy and make a good recovery? He was trying to get leave to come up and see me. But he never appeared, and, as he gave me no reply address, I could only write him to his A.P.O. number when I knew I should be at Marrakesh myself, but had no further word from him. When he didn’t show up at my concert I guessed that he must have gone away again. The curious thing was that neither the General nor Captain Stracer nor anyone else I questioned seemed to know anything about him. But, of course, it was a man-size Army now and Hank was only a lowly captain–the trouble was that I had no idea what his job was or where he was stationed.

It was most disappointing. Hank was a dear friend of mine, and if he had been on the spot to take me round, it would have made my holiday quite perfect. Apart from this, I had made a little plan for Hank. I was counting on him to take me to hear this marvellous Marrakesh singing woman, the Sheikha Zuleika, of whom my Swiss friend, Herr Ziemer, had told me, coming on the bus from Rabat.

But, with or without Hank, the exciting thing was to be in circulation again. I had been so restless at home. Before Pearl Harbour life for me had been pretty full, what with my concert and radio work; after five years of it I could still get a kick out of seeing my name on posters outside Carnegie Hall, the Detroit Auditorium, places like that: Andrea Hallam and Her Guitar: In Songs of the Nations. But with our entry into the war things began to happen to Americans outside the narrow circle of safety at home: the Pacific, North Africa, Italy, the Aleutians. I would have liked to have joined up with the Wacs or the Waves, but was sternly told at Washington that my job was to keep up morale, singing to the armed forces. They seemed to like me at the Stage Door Canteens, the camps and naval bases, not only my cowboy and hill-billy numbers, but even the old French and Italian ballads, the Spanish saetas and Portuguese fados, in my repertoire. It may have been my red hair, of course; our sailors and soldiers have never been known to have any particular allergy to redheads. But my heart was not at peace and I never rested until I persuaded Washington to send me overseas to sing at the camps.

That crash at Rabat ended a wonderful trip our little gang had, that summer of ‘43, first in England and Northern Ireland, and afterwards in North Africa. Of our party of five, Jack and Dirk were burnt to death when our plane made a forced landing flying from Algiers to Marrakesh. Of the three girls, I was the unlucky one. Laura and Diana, film starlets from Hollywood, were flung clear and merely bruised. Even so, I counted myself fortunate to have come out with only a damaged shoulder but with the old face intact, thank goodness! Some French soldiers dragged me out unconscious as the plane caught fire. The two men were pinned under the wreck. Laura and Di, the plucky kids, went on with the tour. Everybody was as nice as possible to me at Rabat, but, looking back, it seems to me that I only picked up the threads of my existence once more when this Marrakesh engagement came along.

It was chilly on the porch and presently I went indoors. Digging a warm sweater and a pair of slacks out of my one small suitcase, I slipped into them and set about brewing myself a cup of tea. I had my own tea-basket, the present of a British Guards officer who gave me quite a rush in London. He even wanted to marry me, coming out with his proposal, bless him, as casually as though asking for a match. A nice creature and quite unbelievably good-looking, but not for me, not for little Andrea. If I had been the marrying sort I could have settled down with Hank Lundgren at Milwaukee. It was in the fall of ‘39, soon after war broke out in Europe, that he came up with his proposal. I was only twenty-three then, but already I had carved out for myself a little niche as a singer of folk-songs, many of which I had collected during the three years I spent in Europe on the travelling scholarship I had won in Chicago.

I liked Hank tremendously, but the songs came first. Folk-songs were to me what butterflies and orchids are to the collector, and I could scarcely wait for the war to end to return to Europe on a further voyage of discovery. So I told poor Hank no, and when we entered the war he disappeared into the Army. He went to Europe very soon, probably on account of his languages: he spoke Swedish–he was of Swedish farming stock–German, too. We used to write to one another, but he never spoke of his movements in his letters to me; only of mutual acquaintances he had met, the weather, things like that: actually I had no idea that he was in North Africa until I had his wire from Marrakesh.

I was sipping my tea and thinking about Hank when my ear caught a faint, moaning sound outside. It was a dull kind of a whisper, rather like a child grizzling to itself. I put down my cup and went outside. On the porch next to mine a woman was lying in a long chair, one hand shielding her eyes against the sunrise, the other pressed to her side. She was dressed in one of those long house-coats to the ground, in white, and her bare feet were thrust into sandals. Her hair, jet black, was gathered in a thick coil resting on her shoulder. She was groaning faintly. “Madame!” I said to her. Then, realising that she was in pain, I swung a leg over the rail and landed at her side.

CHAPTER II

I said in French, “I have the room next to you. I’m afraid you’re ill. Is there anything I can do?”

She took her hand away from her face. Dark eyes gazed into mine. Still clutching her side, she motioned with her head towards the open door behind her chair. “If you would be so kind,” she murmured weakly. “The bottle of drops on the bathroom shelf.”

I flew for the bottle with its dropper and little glass. The bottle bore the label of a Casablanca pharmacy inscribed in ink: Gouttes pour la Comtesse Mazzoli. “Ten drops,” she said in a faint voice. I measured them out and gave her the glass. She did not move after she had taken the drops, lying there with her eyes closed. She was no longer young, for all the wealth and flawless blackness of her hair; but it was easy to see that she had been a dashing creature in her time with her faintly olive skin and lucent black eyes. Presently I saw that her eyes were open. “Thank you, my dear,” she said. “I’m afraid I alarmed you.”

“Are you feeling better, madame?” I asked.

She nodded. “I’ve been having these spasms of pain, but they pass. They fetched the hotel doctor to me last night, an imbecile who insists that I should undergo an operation. As you see, I’m all right again now.”

“I’ve just made some tea, if you’d care for a cup?”

“It would be very nice if it isn’t troubling you too much.”

When I came back with her tea she said, “You speak French well, but you’re not French. The English take their tea with them all over the earth. You’re English, I think?”

I shook my head. “I’m an American–in spite of the tea.”

She crooned a little laugh. “How proudly you say that,” she remarked in very good English. “Like my Roman ancestors with their ‘Civis Romanus sum!’ Stand round a little where I can see you!” She had a warm, caressing voice and a smile that lit up her whole face. She nodded approvingly as I stood in front of her, somewhat conscious of my trousered legs. “Your colouring is lovely, my dear. You might be a Venetian with your auburn hair and white skin–our Titian would have liked to paint you. What are you doing at Marrakesh?”

“I came here to sing to the troops.”

She gave me an indulgent smile. “I’m afraid I’m not young enough to appreciate your American jazz.”

“I sing folk-songs, madame. Ballads. To the guitar.”

She looked at me quickly. “You’re not the one who had the aeroplane accident? Andrea–Andrea–what is the other name?”

“Andrea Hallam, madame. You know me?”

She laughed. “Ah,” she said, “only last week, at Naples, I met a great friend of yours, an American officer. A great, blond Viking of a man with a foreign-sounding name.”

“Not Lundgren, was it? Captain Lundgren?”

She clapped her hands together happily, like a child. “Yes, yes, so was the name–-Captain Lundgren. I met him at a luncheon given for me by my son, who is an officer on the Italian General Staff in liaison with your Army at Naples. Several American officers were there. When he found out that I was leaving shortly for Morocco, he told me about you and your accident, and when I said I might be going to Rabat, I had to promise to look you up. But, alas! I did not go to Rabat after all. Against that, however, I have the good fortune to meet you here.” She gave me a mischievous smile. “He was most empressé, the Captain. He told me you were a great artiste–oh, he said many nice things about you. I think he must be–how does my son say you call it in America?–one of your beaus.”

I laughed. “Hank and I are very old friends.” She smiled. “‘Ank–so Dino called him. Such a funny name! Wait, I show you my Dino.”

She drew from the pocket of her coat a small gold cigarette-case and let me see a snapshot pasted inside. It showed a very dashing young man, tall and slim in the smart Italian cavalry uniform, smiling engagingly and revealing the whitest of teeth in a deeply tanned face. “He’s very good-looking,” I said.

She laughed and shut the case. “A bad boy! He breaks all the women’s hearts. He is my only child. I had not seen him since Italy entered the war, because I was in France and he was called up to do his military service. But on the fall of Mussolini he threw in his lot immediately with the Allies, and it was through him I was able to obtain permission to go to Naples and visit our estates outside the city. You see,” she went on, “though we are Italians, we have always been anti-Fascist, we Mazzolis. I turned my back on Italy before the madness of Mussolini and the weakness of our King launched our unfortunate country into a senseless war. I made my home in France until Hitler seized the whole country after the Allied landing in North Africa, and I escaped to Casablanca, where I have a small property. I, have only come back now because I have pressing business to attend to, here in Marrakesh, and very soon, perhaps tomorrow, already, if I can find a place on the plane, I go back to Italy.” She laughed rather scornfully. “And to think that, having come all this way, I should go into a nursing-home just so that some idiot of a French surgeon can earn fifty thousand francs by cutting me up!”

But I was burning with curiosity about Hank. “Did Captain Lundgren say anything about coming to Marrakesh?” I asked.

She glanced up in surprise. “Why, haven’t you seen him?”

I shook my head. “If he was here, he’d certainly have been at my concert last night.”

“But he is here–at least, he was yesterday afternoon. Because I saw him.”

“Where?”

“In a car with some officers as I drove from the airport–about five o’clock, it would have been.”

“Are you sure it was he?”

She laughed. “Your big, blond bear isn’t easy to mistake, my little one.”

I stared at her in bewilderment. “Well, all I can say is that none of the Americans here seem to know anything about him.”

She smiled at me. “Don’t look so tragic, child. He may be attached to the French–had you thought of that? I seem to remember that there were French officers in the car with him. If I were you I should enquire for him at the Bureau des Renseignements.”

“The Bureau des Renseignements?”

“That’s it. There’s a branch in every Moroccan town of any size. The hotel porter will direct you.”

The ringing of the telephone within the bedroom interrupted her.

“It’s that dolt of a doctor,” she announced. “He said he’d call first thing to see what sort of a night I had.” She gave me back my tea-cup and went inside. Putting her hand over the mouthpiece, she spoke to me from the room. “He’s still talking about an operation,” she explained. “He wants some famous surgeon–a Dr. Clauzel–to see me.”

“Wouldn’t it be wise to have a second opinion?” I said.

“But I have no time to go into hospital now, I tell you.”

“Isn’t that something for the doctors to decide?”

She gave an impatient shrug. But into the telephone she said, “After lunch, then. But tell Dr. Clauzel not a minute later than three, because I have an appointment at five.”

She hung up and stood there an instant, clutching her side. “I’m afraid the pain is coming back,” she told me. “I’m doing nothing this morning–I think I’ll rest quietly in bed until Dr. Clauzel comes. Run away now, child! Perhaps you would come back after lunch and hear what the specialist says.”

As I returned to my room I am afraid I was thinking more about Hank and why the heck he hadn’t let me know that he was at Marrakesh than about the poor Countess and her pains.

CHAPTER III

I may seem dumb, but it never occurred to me that Hank might be off on some hush-hush job. As I say, I hadn’t the faintest idea what his particular line in the Army might be, but seeing that he was in the radio-manufacturing business in private life, I had always imagined that he had something to do with communications or, maybe, the Quartermaster Corps. Since the Countess Mazzoli had met him in Naples, he might well be attached to the Fifth or the Eighth Armies, in which case it was quite understandable that no one at Marrakesh knew anything about him. A lot of transport went through Marrakesh and he might have been merely passing through when the Countess had seen him on the previous day. However, her suggestion that he might be working with the French here seemed worth following up. The thought uppermost in my mind was that I was to be only a week at Marrakesh and time was slipping away. I should never forgive myself if I discovered that Hank had been here all the time and we had never met.

If I had been longer than a few hours in Marrakesh I should probably have known enough about the Bureau des Renseignements to have stayed clear of it. But in my ignorance of Moroccan affairs all I saw was that, since ‘Bureau des Renseignements’ means ‘Information Bureau’ in French, the Countess’s idea was a good one. Even the French sentry on the door and the orderly who made me fill out a pass did not bother me, because it seemed natural that a military information bureau should be run by soldiers. After a longish wait I was conducted upstairs to a door inscribed Le Colonel P. Freitas, État-Major.

The Colonel was a lanky, angry-looking French officer with a dyspeptic red nose, high, bald forehead, and straggling moustache. His manner as he enquired my business was extremely brusque. When I explained that I wanted to locate Captain Lundgren, American Army, who was believed to be at Marrakesh, he said, “I regret. I have no information.”

“He was at Marrakesh yesterday,” I pointed out. “As the Americans don’t seem to know anything about him, I thought he might be attached to the French.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I suggest you apply to General Headquarters, North Africa.”

I bristled a little. “Look, Colonel,” I said in my best French, “this is purely a personal matter. I’m an artiste, a singer, and I came to entertain the American troops. This Captain Lundgren happens to be a friend of mine, and if he’s at Marrakesh I’d like to see him. But I couldn’t possibly start bothering Headquarters Algiers about a thing like this.”

His air was stony. “I regret. I am unable to assist you.”

“Is there anyone at Marrakesh who can?”

“I have no information to give you.”

It was like talking to a brick wall. “So you said before. I’m asking you to direct me to someone who has.”

“Such information does not fall within the functions of this organisation,” he answered tartly. “The Bureau is not responsible, and formally refuses to assume responsibility, for the activities of foreign agents in territory subject to French rule.”

“Excuse me,” I broke in. “Captain Lundgren isn’t a foreign agent. He’s an American officer. One of your allies, Colonel.”

“This is French territory. The fact that you and your English friends often overlook this fact does not alter the position.”

I stared at him, his tone was so bitter. “Why do you speak of the English as though they were only friends of ours? Aren’t we all in this together?”

He sucked in his drooping moustache. “Some of us have long memories. Alliances we must accept, but certain friendships we are willing to forgo.” He thrust my pass at me. “I have the honour to bid you good day, mademoiselle.”

I felt the tears pricking at my eyeballs as I left him. They were tears of sheer rage. How dared he, how dare any Frenchman, take such a tone after the way France had let England, her ally, down, and at a time when British and American boys were giving their lives to complete the job that France had left unfinished? What kind of an information bureau was this, anyway? I felt like going right back in there and giving the old buzzard a piece of my mind. To ease my feelings I blew my nose.

Before I had time to put my hanky away a figure in khaki came bounding up the stairs, three at a time. I recognised the forage-cap and battle-dress of a British officer. “Perhaps you can tell me,” I said. “Am I right here for the Marrakesh Information Bureau?”

He was a tall, young man, wearing a captain’s stars, with a straight nose and very black eyebrows. He had a cool, grey eye that now surveyed me carefully and, as I thought, rather haughtily.

“This is the Bureau des Renseignements,” he replied with caution.

“Is it, or isn’t it, the Information Bureau?”

He appeared surprised. “Not in the sense you mean, the American sense. You’re American, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

He gave a superior smile. “I thought so. This outfit has nothing to do with an information bureau as you and I understand it. It’s the organisation that handles all native affairs and acts as liaison between the French administration and the natives.” With humorous gleam in his eyes he went on, “You wouldn’t by any chance have been asking old F. where to buy silk stockings or something?”

“Certainly not. And who’s old F.?”

“Colonel Freitas. I could tell you’d been having a set-to with the blighter when I spotted you just now having a quiet blub.”

“Having a what?”

“A short cry into your hanky. He is a stinker, isn’t he?”

“He certainly is. But I wasn’t crying.”

“Okay. I’ve no idea what you tackled the old serge-polisher about, but I believe I can tell you what he said to you. He informed you that whatever it was you wanted, it couldn’t be done, and to kindly get the hades out. Or words to that effect. Am I right?”

I laughed. “You must have been listening at the key-hole.”

“I don’t have to. I know the old boy. He takes a pretty dim view of us, and that goes for you Americans, too. You see, he had a brother in the French Navy when our chaps went after their Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, and it has warped his outlook. He turns thumbs down on principle on all requests from you or us. He’s not the only one of his kind, as you’ve probably discovered if you’ve spent any time in French Morocco. The French Committee at Algiers is weeding these babies out, but it takes time. Old F. isn’t the top man, but he’s a complete whizz at his job. He knows these monkeys like nobody’s business, especially the large and somewhat unsavoury gaggle of local sheikhs.” He broke off. “What’s your trouble?”

“I’m trying to locate an American officer I know, a Captain Lundgren.”

He looked up quickly, breaking into a smile. “I say, not our Hank?”

I was radiant. “That’s him. You know him?”

He laughed with a flash of white teeth against his sunburn. “I say, you wouldn’t be the girl whose picture he carries, the one with the banjo?”

“It’s a guitar.”

“Sorry; I meant to say guitar. He told us you were absolutely stunning, and now that I look at you I see that for once our Hank wasn’t indulging in the old American custom of shooting a line. You were in a plane wreck, weren’t you? What a ghastly experience for you! Are you over it now?”

“Quite, thanks. I was singing here last night.”

“I know. I couldn’t go as I was on duty.”

“Tell me about Hank!”

He wagged his head. “I’m afraid you’re both out of luck–especially Hank.”

“You mean, he isn’t here?”

“That’s right.”

“He was in Marrakesh yesterday afternoon.”

“Was he?”

“And again three weeks ago, because he wired me from here. Did he go back to Naples?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “He comes and goes like the wind.”

“He was in Naples last week.”

“Was he?”

I began to get mad. “Well,” I said, “if you won’t talk, you won’t.”

He nodded calmly. “That’s right.”

“And I’ll tell you something else,” I declared wrathfully. “I believe that old F., as you call him, knows all about Hank and his comings and goings, and won’t say, either.” He made a deprecatory movement of his shoulders. “And don’t tell me there’s a war on,” I added, “because in America, too, we know there’s a war on. It’s what they tell us when the laundry doesn’t come home or the groceries are left at the wrong house, and I’m sick of hearing it.”

He gave a dry laugh. He had taken off his cap with its gay scarlet insert and gilt badge and was staring down into the lining. “Well,” he remarked, “there’s not much of a war on in this ghastly hole–at least, not so you’d notice it; but there is across the water in Italy.”

“Sure, and that’s where Hank is, though why everybody should make such a mystery out of it is beyond me. I may be going to Naples myself, so perhaps I’ll meet up with him.”

“Too bad he isn’t here,” he commented. “Who’s looking after you in Marrakesh?”

“Captain Stracer. He’s Special Service. Do you know him?”

He nodded briefly. “Kind of earnest, isn’t he?”

I laughed. “Very. And full of rules and regulations. He gave me one long lecture on security on the way from the bus to the hotel. Do you suppose I could ask him to ring Headquarters and find out something about Hank for me? I mean, I don’t want to miss Hank again if I go to Naples.”

He shook his head. “Lay off Hank. And for the love of Mike, not a word to Stracer about your having tackled old F.!”

“Why not?”

He almost jumped down my throat. “Good God, girl, don’t you realise you’re under Army orders? You can only approach the French through the Americans–that means Stracer, and so on, up the ladder. If Stracer knew you’d been enquiring for Hank at the B.D.R. he’d throw a thousand fits. They’d court-martial the pair of you, I shouldn’t wonder.”

I was appalled. “You’re not serious?”

“Aren’t I, though? Look, do you want some good advice? Maybe you’ll come across Hank in Italy: till then, forget him!”

I stared at him in perplexity as realisation slowly bubbled up inside me. “Forget him?”

“That’s what I said–forget him!” His tone changed. “Look, if you’re going to be here for a day or two, I’d love to show you round. Today’s a wash-out, unfortunately, as I’ve a brace of British M.P.s on my hands.”

“Are you in the Provost-Marshal branch?”

He laughed aloud. “Not military police, darling–members of Parliament. You know, bluebooks and post-war planning–that stuff.”

“Public Relations, are you?”

He groaned. “You may well ask. You’d think I was by the stream of trippers they make me nursemaid. No, I’m Intelligence, the same as Hank.”

The truth at last! Why hadn’t I guessed it before? Wasn’t Intelligence just a polite way of saying Secret Service? So that was why everybody had been so cagey! But how could I ever have pictured Hank, my sweet, lumbering old Hank, in the Secret Service? It was too thrilling.

The young man went on, “Today I have to buy these two blokes lunch, show them the sights, and take them to tea at el Glaoui’s. He’s the Number One wog in these parts, Pasha of the Atlas and no end of a loud clamour.”

Well, it was clear that I had missed Hank. An idea came into my head. “Have you been long at Marrakesh?” I asked.

“Six months, on and off. Before that I was in the real war. Dunkirk, then Crete. Why?”

“I wondered whether you knew anything of a singer called the Sheikha Zuleika.”

“Of course. She’s supposed to be the best of the Marrakesh singing women.”

“Is she very wonderful?”

He gave a shrug. “That depends. Moorish singing’s an acquired taste, rather like olives. If you like your singing through the nose...”

“A man I met on the bus told me she’s extraordinary. I’m crazy to hear her.”

“That could be arranged, I think. Where are you stopping?”

I told him the name of my hotel and he said he would call me. “If you’re at a loose end this afternoon towards sundown,” he suggested, “why not take a look at the Djemma el Fna–the market-place, you know? It’s as good as a fair, with snake-charmers and fire-swallowers and jugglers and I don’t know what. It’s smelly but picturesque. You’ll enjoy it.”

I nodded. “I read about the Djemma el Fna in my guide-book.”

“The hotel will get you a guide, or you might make our friend Stracer take you.” He paused. “You’ll want to watch your step in Marrakesh. There are some queer birds about.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “I must fly. I have to beard old F. in his den about this bun fight up at the Glaoui’s.” For a moment his bright glance rested on my face. “To blazes with parliamentary institutions!” he cried. “Why aren’t you lunching with me instead of these dreary politicians?”

“Because I’m lunching with Captain Stracer, for one thing.”

He made a face at that. “We both seem to be out of luck, don’t we? How about lunch tomorrow if I can shake my old men of the sea?”

“I’d love it.”

“Good. What did you say your name was?”

I laughed. “I didn’t. But it’s Andrea Hallam.”

“Of course, the girl with the guitar. Mine’s Leigh, Nicholas Leigh. I’ll ring you.” With that he crammed on his cap, gave me a brisk salute and, with a perfunctory rap on the Colonel’s door, disappeared inside.

I was quite sorry to see him go. With his cheerful cynicism and complete self-assurance he was unlike most young men of his age I had met. He had a knack of putting you at your ease which was very likeable–I felt as though we had known one another for years. He was Secret Service, too, evidently: I felt quite excited to think that I had been talking to a British Secret Service man. As I went off to lunch with Stracer I wondered what that conscientious officer would say if he knew how I had spent my morning.

CHAPTER IV

Rabat had evidently passed on the doctor’s orders about me, because Stracer sternly vetoed my suggestion that he should take me to see the market-place later in the afternoon. For the rest of the day I was to relax and get over the fatigue of my concert: tomorrow, if I felt equal to it, would be time enough to visit the Djemma el Fna. Going to my room after lunch to lie down, I suddenly remembered the Countess and my promise to look in on her and hear Dr. Clauzel’s report.

Both doctors–the hotel doctor and the specialist–were with her when I tapped at her door. I would have gone away; but she called to me from her bed to come in. Dr. Clauzel, a tall, bearded Frenchman with an air of authority, was saying, “But Madame la Comtesse must understand that it’s not a question of days, but of hours.”

She looked very ill. Her face had a greyish tinge and her forehead was damp. But her spirit was indomitable. “My dear Dr. Clauzel,” she cried almost lightly, though she was obviously in pain, “I didn’t come all the way from Naples on urgent family business in order to go into hospital. Surely the operation can wait for a day or two. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

He shook his head. “Tomorrow will be too late, madame, if the appendix should burst. Come, Dr. Bartolomé here has made all the necessary arrangements. A room is reserved at my clinic and the ambulance will be here at four-thirty. Be reasonable, my dear madame: no private affairs can be more urgent than your health, your life, perhaps. And if you find yourself lacking a little in courage, I feel sure that your friend”–he glanced towards me–“will be happy to escort you to the hospital. At half past four precisely, then, the ambulance will be at the door. Please do not keep it waiting, for I shall be ready to operate at once.” He turned to the hotel doctor. “Come, cher ami!” At the door he beckoned me outside. “If you’ve any influence with her, see that she comes into hospital,” he said. “She’s playing with her life.”

I went back to the Countess. She was tossing restlessly. “I hope you’re going to be sensible,” I said.

“I don’t know what to do,” she answered. “The man I’ve come all this way to see expects me at five. And that’s only the beginning.”

“Can’t you put him off? Do you want me to telephone him?”

“He has no telephone.”

“Could I take a message?”

She shook her head. “I must see him myself.”

“But that’s out of the question. You heard what Dr. Clauzel said?”

She sighed. “I must bow to fate, it seems. Yet I must have at least a word with this man. Wait!” She clutched my hand. “The place where I was to meet him is on the way to the clinic. I could stop and explain matters to him, that is, if you really would go with me, because, to tell you the truth”–she gave me a wan smile–“I feel in need of support.”

“But of course, madame,” I said.

She insisted on walking to the ambulance when it came, but, once we had helped her in, seemed glad enough to stretch out on the bed. We were crossing a busy square when she said to the native chauffeur, who spoke French, “Stop at the silk shop on the next corner.”

Like all native shops the store, abutting on a crowded lane, was open to the street. Seeing the ambulance stop, the proprietor, a fat Arab in monkey-jacket and baggy trousers, waddled out to us. The Countess asked for Safi. “At once, madame!” The merchant bustled back to his shop.

A cavalcade of Moors, about a dozen picturesque figures swathed in burnouses, suddenly appeared at the entrance to the lane. There was a lot of confusion and shouting as the heads of the cortège tried to clear a passage, the people scattering to right and left before them. I noticed that the natives in the street bowed low before one of the riders, a little old man with eyes that peered sharply from under the hood of his burnous. His burnous, of the purest white, was of the finest weave, and his mule, a magnificent animal, was white, too. As I watched, a native ran forward and obsequiously kissed the old man’s knee. Our driver turned his head. “It’s el Kintafi, important sheikh, who lives in the mountains,” he explained. “Now he goes to the mosque to say his prayers.”

The merchant was back, smiling greasily, at the kerb. Safi was not there, he announced in lisping French; he was to be found at the Café el Kahira up the street, and he pointed along the lane. I was suddenly aware that the Countess was bowed forward, as she sat up among her pillows, her hands pressed to her side. “I can’t go on,” she gasped between clenched teeth. “This pain ... Oh, what am I to do?”

“Where is this café?” I asked the merchant.

“Very near, mademoiselle. Just at the top of the street before you come to the Djemma el Fna. Very small café–Café el Kahira.”

I turned to the Countess. “You go on to the hospital. I’ll see this man for you. What am I to tell him?”

She flung me a grateful glance. “Oh, would you?” She fumbled at her neck. “Ask for Safi–will you remember the name? He will give you a small package.” She laid a heavy locket on a gold chain in my hand. “This will tell him you come from me.” She was growing breathless. “You will bring this package to me at the clinic, yes? The Clauzel clinic, 47 rue Suleiman...”

Wondering what I had let myself in for, I slipped the locket into my bag. It was a handsome antique piece set with small pearls and displaying the miniature of a girl with the ringlets and sloping shoulders of the Byronic period. “You may count on me,” I said.

One of the cavalcade of Moors, which was still blocking the lane, was having trouble with his mount, a wicked-looking mule that was snorting and squealing and lashing out with its hoofs. The rider, a huge man in a burnous of coarse brown frieze, kept his seat and, raising the heavy crop he carried, brought it down brutally on the beast’s head. He was so close to us that he had to swing his mount aside to avoid our fender and I had a glimpse of a gross, hairy face, of burning, savage eyes, under his monk-like cowl. The sudden movement lifted the edge of his robe as it hung down over his saddle and I perceived that one of his feet, as it rested in the broad Moorish stirrup, was encased in a clumsy surgical boot.

There was a sharp ejaculation at my side. The Countess was peering through the window as the cavalcade went clattering by. I had opened the door when she called to me. “One thing more,” she said in a curiously strained voice. “I want you to give Safi a message from me.” She made a little pause, twisting her thin hands together. “Tell him this.” She was gazing at me with a sort of consuming intentness. “Tell him, ‘Bianca says, Be careful. He is here.’”

She made me repeat the words after her. I felt like saying, with Alice in Wonderland, ‘curiouser and curiouser.’ But she was so agitated and evidently in so much pain that I couldn’t bring myself to question her. I only said, “I won’t forget. And you’ll be seeing me at the clinic very soon.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, “thank you a thousand times!” I got out then and watched the ambulance speed away, with the Countess sunk back among her pillows, her eyes closed.