Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur - Страница 10
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The Lij was a disillusioned man when he disembarked with four of his
senior advisers and made the short journey by lighter to where two
hired open tourers awaited his arrival on the wharf. Hire of the motor
vehicles had been arranged by Major Gareth Swales and the drivers had
been given their instructions.
"Now, you leave the talking to me, old chap," Gareth advised Jake,
as they waited anxiously in the cavernous and gloomy depths of No. 4
Warehouse. "This really is my part of the show, you know. You just
look stern and do the demonstrating. That will impress the old Ethiop
no end." Gareth was resplendent in a pale blue tropical suit with a
fresh white carnation in the buttonhole, and silk shirt. He wore the
diagonally striped old school tie, his hair was brilliantined and
carefully brushed, and the sleek lines of the mustache had been trimmed
that morning. He ran a judicious eye over his partner and was mildly
satisfied. Jake's suit had not been cut in Savile Row, of course, but
it was adequate for the occasion, clean and freshly pressed. His shoes
had been newly polished and the usually unruly profusion of curls had
been wetted and slicked down neatly.
He had scrubbed all traces of grease from his large bony hands and from
under his fingernails.
"They probably don't even speak English," Gareth gave his opinion.
"Have to use the old sign language, you know.
Wish you'd let me have that dead one. We could have palmed it off on
them. They are bound to be a gullible lot, throw in a handful of beads
and a bag of salt-" He was interrupted by the sound of approaching
engines.
"This will be them, now. Don't forget what I told you." The two open
tourers pulled up in the bright sunlight beyond the doors and disgorged
their passengers. Four of them wore the long flowing white shammas,
full-length robes like Roman togas draped across the shoulder.
Under the robes they wore black gabardine riding breeches and open
sandals. They were all of them elderly men, the dense bushes of their
hair shot through with strands of grey and the dark faces wrinkled and
lined. In dignified silence they gathered about the taller, younger
figure clad in a dark western-style suit and they moved forward into
the cool gloom of the warehouse.
Lij Mikhael was well over six feet in height, with a slight scholarly
stoop to his shoulders. His skin was the colour of dark honey and his
hair and beard were a thick. curly halo about the finely boned face,
with dark thoughtful eyes and the narrow nose with its
Semitic beak. Despite the stoop, he walked with the grace of a
swordsman and his teeth when he smiled were glisteningly white against
the dark skin.
"By Jove," said the Lij, in the drawling accent that echoed
Gareth's with surprising accuracy. "It is Forty swales isn't it?"
Major Gareth Swales's composure seemed to fall away, leaving him
tottering mentally at the use of a nickname he had last heard twenty
years before. He had been so branded when his unexpected attack of
flatus had clapped and echoed from the vaulted ceiling and stone walls
of College Chapel. He had hoped never to hear it spoken again, and now
its use took him back to that moment when he had stood in the cold
stone chapel and the waves of suppressed laughter had broken over his
head like physical blows.
The Prince laughed now, and touched the knot of his necktie. For the
first time Jake realized that the diagonal stripes were identical to
those that Gareth Swales wore at his own throat.
"Eton 1915 Waynflete's. I was Captain of the House. I gave you six
for smoking in the bogs don't you remember?"
"My God," gasped
Gareth. "Toffee Sagud. My God. I just don't know what to say."
"Try him with the old sign language, then," murmured Jake helpfully.
"Shut up, damn you," hissed Gareth, and then with a conscious effort he
resurrected the smile that lit the gloomy warehouse like the rising of
the sun.
"Your Excellency Toffee my dear fellow." He hurried forward with hand
outstretched. "What a great and unexpected pleasure." They shook
hands laughing, and the solemn dark faces of the elderly advisers
lightened with sympathetic merriment.
"Let me introduce my partner, Mr. Jake Barton of Texas.
Mr. Barton is a brilliant engineer and financier Jake, this is
His Excellency Lij Mikhael Wasan Sagud, Deputy Governor of Shoo and an
old and dear friend of mine." The Prince's hand was narrow-boned, cool
and firm. His gaze was quick and penetrating before he turned back
to
Gareth.
"When were you expelled? Summer of 1915 wasn't it?
Caught boffing one of the maids, as I recall."
"Good Lord, no!"
Gareth was horrified. "Never the hired help. Actually, it was the
house master's daughter."
"That's right. I remember now. You were famous went out in a blaze of
glory. Talk about your feat lasted for months. They said you went to
France with the Duke's, and did jolly well for yourself." Gareth made
a deprecating gesture, and Lij Mikhael asked, "Since then what have you
been doing, old chap?" Which was a thoroughly embarrassing question
for Gareth. He made a few airy gestures with his cheroot.
This and that, you know. One thing and another.
Business, you understand. Importing, exporting, buying and selling."
"Which brings us to the present business, does it not?" the
Prince asked gently.
"Indeed, it does," agreed Gareth and took the Prince's arm. "Now that
I realize who is buying, it only increases my pleasure in managing to
assemble a package of such high quality." The wooden crates were
stacked neatly along one wall of the warehouse.
"A .
"Fourteen Vickers machine guns, most of them straight from the factory
hardly a shot through the barrels-" They passed slowly down the array
of merchandise to where one of the machine guns had been uncrated and
set up on its tripod.
"As YOU can see, all first-class stuff." The five Ethiopians were all
warriors, from a long warlike line, and they had the true warrior's
love of and delight in the weapons of war. They crowded eagerly around
the gun.
Gareth winked at Jake, and went on, "One hundred and forty-four
Lee-Enfield service rifles, still in the grease-" Half a dozen of the
rifles had been cleaned and laid out on display.
No. 4 Warehouse was an Aladdin's Cave for them. The elderly courtiers
forgot their dignity, and fell upon the weapons like a flock of crows,
cackling in Amharic as they fondled the cold oiled steel.
They hoisted up the skirts of their shammas to crouch behind the
demonstration machine gun and traversed it happily, making the staccato
schoolboy imitations of automatic fire as they mowed down imaginary
hordes of their enemies.
Even Lij Mikhael forsook his Etonian manners and joined in the
delighted examination of the hoard, pushing aside an old greybeard of
seventy to take his place at the Vickers gun and triggering off a noisy
squabble amongst the others in which Gareth diplomatically
intervened.
"I say, Toffee, old chap. This isn't all I have for you. Not by a
long chalk. I've kept the plums for the last." And Jake helped him to
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