Mrs. Pollifax Innocent Tourist Page 8

  Apparently he didn't think her completely mad.

  Closing his eyes to remember, he said crisply, "The tour bus, the black car, and Joseph's taxi."

  "And?"

  He opened his eyes. "You want more? Mountains, gravel, sand, a few stunted trees, the road winding back to town, a woman in black from head to foot, walking with a boy in the opposite direction."

  "Exactly," she said, "but where did they come from?"

  He looked blank. "The woman and the boy? I don't know, a house?"

  "I didn't see any houses up that way," she told him. "It they'd come from the town, we would have passed them on the way, they didn't arrive in a car. Joseph gave me very poor directions about getting to the top of the castle, and while ‘ was looking for a second set of stairs anyone could have walked out of the castle, including that woman and the boy."

  He said in astonishment, "My God, Duchess, you're not suggesting—?"

  "It's just a thought," she said with a smile. "After all, it wasn't so long ago that I was a bag lady. Interesting what a disguise can accomplish, don't you think?"

  She left him looking thoughtful, and returning to her room, she changed quickly into her pajamas, climbed into bed, and turned out the light. Having found the day far more eventful than expected, she immediately fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was decided the next day that Farrell would spend his morning at the castle with his sketchbooks, and Joseph and Mrs. Pollifax would drive to the Dead Sea, after which they would return for Farrell. "But first," said Mrs. Pollifax, with a pointed glance at Farrell, "Joseph and I will take a walk up the road."

  "Walk?" said Joseph. "Not drive?"

  "Not drive."

  "Let me know if anything turns up, it's important I be here. If nothing, see you at noon," Farrell told her.

  As they began their walk up the unpaved road, Joseph said, "Mr. Farrell remains full of hope?"

  "He's very stubborn," she told him, "but I fear that he grows a little desperate by now, having come so far to meet this man."

  "Yes," Joseph said seriously, "he has come very far, and to think that he has been a friend of Dib Assen! And what a friend! We have a saying in my country that 'A friend is a second self and a third eye.' I look upon Mr. Farrell with honor. . . . May I ask what we are looking for on this walk, Mrs. Pollifax?"

  "For a house—a hut—a hiding place, anywhere that a man could hide, namely the man who escaped us after leaving the castle yesterday."

  "But there was no one leaving the castle!" protested Joseph. "No one seen at all."

  "On the contrary," she said, "there was a woman all in black and a small boy that I saw walking up this road, and that Farrell also saw."

  Joseph shot her an appreciative glance. "And you think—you think that perhaps the man we are looking for had a black robe and burqa waiting?"

  "I don't know," she told him, "but they were the only two people on the road, and they weren't in sight when we arrived at the castle."

  Joseph grinned. "You think like a detective, Mrs. Pollifax. Hanan has two very, very old torn copies of books about a girl named Nancy Drew, maybe you too are a Nancy Drew?"

  "Somewhat older," she remarked dryly.

  They had walked some distance from the castle when Joseph halted, staring off to the right at a small rise in the ground. "Someone was there," he said, pointing.

  She saw nothing but followed him across the bare and graveled earth, wondering what had caught his eye. "Look," he said, stopping, and pointed at the ground.

  "A pile of ashes .., a fire?" she asked, frowning.

  He thrust his hand into the ashes. "Still a little warm, and look here—wallah!—a posthole, there should be others." He walked around, studying the earth and indicating three other indentations in the gravel, all of these surrounding the heap of gray ashes.

  "Someone camped here," he said, "and they have gone. Sometime in the night they left. Gypsies or Bedouin, who knows."

  She stood and watched as he circled the hillock, finally nodding. "Two donkeys," he said, "heading south."

  "I see nothing," protested Mrs. Pollifax.

  Joseph smiled at her forgivingly. "Maybe you think like the American Nancy Drew, but you are not Bedouin. Hanan, she would do even better, but surely you can see this very faint print where the gravel turns to sand? This is the print of a donkey, and look—here is his dung—but now the ground grows hard, and there is no way to follow where they went; only Awad Ibn Jazi would have the eyes to follow the tracks."

  "Hanan's friend?"

  He nodded. "She learns from him, he was—is—a famous tracker."

  "But people were here?" she repeated. "Gypsies or Bedouin?"

  "Yes, a very small tent, a small camp, but there was a fire, for warmth and cooking. No women, or the tent would have been larger, with a muharram."

  "But—could it have been Ibrahim?"

  He said tactfully, "How is that possible? He is not bedu, is he?"

  "No," she sighed. "Or a gypsy. But if the woman in black was really a woman, where did she go?"

  He shrugged. "She has left no prints, who can tell?" Seeing her disappointment he said gently, "Gypsies, they come and go, you know, she may have had business with them."

  "Yes," she said, with a sigh, there was nothing else to be seen, and they returned to the car and began their drive to the Dead Sea, followed discreetly by a dull red sedan.

  When they returned at 12:15 to the castle, Farrell was seated outside in the sun, waiting for them and looking glum.

  "No one came?" she said.

  "Swarms of police were here for about an hour. Inspector Jafer even came up to watch me sketch— probably to make sure I wasn't lying," he said grimly. "Useless to have come this morning. You saw the Dead Sea?"

  She nodded. "It was very white, and so hot that once out of the car I thought I might faint, we sat in the air-conditioned rest house and watched braver people walk down to the shower rooms and the sea."

  "Duchess, we're not doing too well, are we?" Farrell said ruefully.

  "We need a change," she told him firmly. "Joseph would like to show us Jerash, some miles north of Amman, but I find I don't want to see any more ruins just now, I want to see people, he's invited us to his house, and Farrell, his mother has a garden."

  Joseph nodded. "Ever since Hanan met you, she speaks of you; I know my mother would like to meet you, she doesn't say so, but she fusses a little about Hanan going tomorrow to the desert—with me, of course, but also two strangers. I'm sure she'd like very much to know you."

  "Well, I've certainly seen enough of Karak castle," Farrell said bitterly. "I'm rather tired of ruins myself. Incidentally, did the red car show up?"

  "Of course," said Mrs. Pollifax. "They're devoted to us, we were followed down and back, except they disappeared once we neared Karak, but I'm sure they're not far away."

  But even this didn't interest Farrell.

  "The most surprising thing to me about the Dead Sea," she announced, "was that the opposite bank of the sea belongs to Israel. I can't get over how close all these countries are to each other!"

  This received no response from Farrell, either.

  "You're depressed," she told him. "Let's go, Joseph. Mr. Farrell needs cheering up, and I need a garden...."

  Mrs. Pollifax approved at once of the house in which the Jidoors lived. It was two-storied, on a busy street, with a balcony on the second floor from which baskets of flowers hung, and Mrs. Pollifax liked flowers, the house looked squeezed on either side by neighbors, but after they passed through a living room with couches and chairs and a television set, its walls bara except for a picture of King Hussein, they discovered the walled yard behind it was capacious and productive, a grape arbor lined one wall; there were neat rows of beans and cabbage and eggplant, a clothesline, a plastic greenhouse filled with tomatoes, and even more pots of flowers, the surface around the back door had been paved; chairs were scattered across this small terrace, and it he
ld what looked to be an outdoor oven.

  Obviously this was the heart of the house, decided Mrs. Pollifax, the woman picking cucumbers looked up and, seeing Joseph, called out, "Masch' Allah, Youseff! Taib!"

  He called out to her in Arabic and she walked toward them smiling, her cheerful round face flushed from the sun, saying "Ahlan wa sahlan. "

  "Umm," he said, "they are American, you must speak English because I have brought you Mrs. Pollifax and Mr. Farrell."

  But Mrs. Pollifax, courtesy of the nefarious Mr. Nayef, said, "As salam alaikum!"

  "Very nice," she said approvingly.

  "She wants to see your garden," Joseph told her.

  His mother beamed with pleasure. "Yes, yes, but first tea—and with sukar—sugar—and would you like mint? Sit, please!"

  Chairs were pulled up to a table, and Joseph's mother disappeared into the house to return with tiny cups of tea on a tray and a plate of pastries drenched in honey; at once Farrell began to look more cheerful, as for Mrs. Pollifax, she found it lovely to sit in the sun

  and relax; it was peaceful, as gardens always were, and she'd not realized how tension had been mounting without her becoming aware of it. Yesterday had tightened nerves that she could feel thawing now, and as if Joseph's mother saw this, she gave her a friendly nod. "It is taib—good?"

  "Very taib" said Mrs. Pollifax. "And we have your permission for Hanan to join us tomorrow and show us her camel?"

  "Ah, that Hanan!" exclaimed Mrs. Jidoor, laughing. "She will show you many camels."

  "In her cowboy boots," Farrell said, grinning.

  Mrs. Jidoor nodded vigorously, "She will be here from school very presently and you will see her."

  Joseph smiled. "She has many plans for you; she first wishes you to meet Awad Ibn Jazi, who lives in the small village of Arb'een, near the King's Highway, she hopes he may drive us in his pickup truck across the desert to our grandfather. But also," he added wryly, "she wishes Awad to show you the half-buried fort that he knows about from his days in the badiya."

  "She hasn't seen it?"

  "Once, three or four years ago, Awad showed it to her," said Joseph. "She was very young, and she would never be allowed to ride out and look for it again, too many things can happen in the desert; a camel may go lame, one may get lost, carry too little water . . , and who among us has time to go with her? Our grandfather has many sheep, he is rich in sheep and head of our tribe, with many responsibilities."

  Mrs. Pollifax, startled, said, "Does that mean—are you saying your grandfather's a sheikh?"

  Joseph nodded proudly. "Yes, but we call it shaykh."

  "Well—there you are, Duchess!" said Farrell. "Your first shaykh."

  Mrs. Pollifax remembered Switzerland and a playboy sheikh named Yazdan Kashan, who had tried very hard to dispose of her, but she only smiled and said to Mrs. Jidoor, "I'd like to see your garden now." Leaving Farrell—who promptly fell asleep in the sun—the two women moved into the garden to inspect each row and indulge themselves in garden talk.

  In midafternoon Hanan arrived home in her school uniform and was astonished at the sight of them. "You are here" she cried excitedly, waking Farrell with a start. "You wish to go now!"

  Her mother walked toward her, chiding her sternly in Arabic, and Hanan stammered, "Assif—qfwan! I mean sorry—excuse me. Please!"

  Farrell, catching Mrs. Pollifax's eye, said, "We could, you know."

  "Could what?"

  "Go now." He shrugged helplessly. "What's here for me, after all? It's turning out to be quite hopeless; I've spent four mornings at the castle, and if it was Ibrahim the other day, he'll scarcely dare return. Would you! What's more, the inspector mentioned to me this morning—with some crossness, I might add— that representatives from the Iraqi Embassy demand to see the room at the castle where their man was killed, the place will be swarming with officials, off and on."

  "Oh dear," said Mrs. Pollifax, wincing. "Your trip here was for nothing?"

  He sighed. "What else can I think? But somehow I can't leave yet, not carrying such a heavy sense of failure. Not yet at least. I'm not used to failure, I admit, and since we've three more days before our flight home, maybe I can get rid of the sour taste of this, Duchess. Call it a vacation, maybe. Besides," he added, recovering his humor, "after seeing you on a horse, I'd really enjoy seeing how you manage a camel."

  She laughed, but she was not fooled.

  "So what do you say?" Turning to Joseph, he said, "Can we go with Hanan now? It'll be light for some hours yet."

  "You are restless," Joseph said shrewdly, and nodded. "I feel your discouragement and share it, for I too had so hoped—but yes, we could go now, at least as far as Arb'een before darkness comes, and that is where Awad Ibn Jazi lives."

  "What should we pack and take?" asked Mrs. Pollifax, thinking this was just the thing, an excellent antidote to Farrell's gloom and her worry about him. It would be like going on a picnic, or an overnight camping trip, a delightful venture into the unknown and a relief from the events of the last several days.

  "Sweaters for the night," said Joseph. "Clothes for riding. Sandals? Sunglasses. Hanan, go and pack your kit and fetch the jug for water.. ., we will then drive to the hotel, so Mr. Farrell and Mrs. Pollifax can add what they need, and—we will go Hurry, Hanan."

  Mrs. Pollifax gave Farrell a kind glance. "We will have an adventure," she told him. "It will be relaxing."

  Hanan had disappeared. Farrell, playing the good sport, lifted one of the empty teacups and held it up. "To Hanan's desert, then ..."

  CHAPTER 11

  Inspector Jafer was anything but relaxed. Back from his visit to Karak castle that morning, he sat in his office reflecting on the complications of a foreigner—and an Iraqi at that—found dead in Karak. His men had returned there to photograph again and measure the dimensions of the small room, and they had found added drops of blood that had seeped into the earthen floor. But while an incensed Iraqi embassy called it murder, the inspector was not so sure. Tests on blood samples, taken yesterday from the dead man, had established that they did not match the blood staining the dagger, still fixed in his hand by rigor mortis, as they were of a very different blood type, O.. . .

  Jafer had begun to suspect that the dead Iraqi had been the aggressor, had attempted to kill the man he'd attacked, and that the blood on the dagger belonged to his mysterious victim who had disappeared. It was proving difficult to convince the embassy that the only wound inflicted on the dead man, whose name was Fareeq Chalki, was the contusion on the back of his head, where it had struck the wall. Someone had fought hard, knocking him down, and it was the inspector's growing conclusion that this was what had killed him, he was quite sure that tests on the samples of blood taken from the floor and wall would confirm that they were not Fareeq Chalki's, and the Iraqis would not like this at all.

  He sighed. Jordan preserved an extremely delicate balance in the Middle East, after long decades of anti-Israel anger the king had signed a peace treaty with Israel, and this did not sit well with Jordan's Islamic conservatives who made up the opposition. During the Persian Gulf War, Jordan had maintained a supportive relationship with Iraq, although lately this had cooled, especially since Saddam's two sons-in-law and his daughters had defected to Jordan and had been granted asylum by the king. In Jordan, their presence had met with indifference from other Iraqi defectors, who distrusted them, and after six months they had stunned the world by appealing to Saddam, who promised them forgiveness, and by returning to Iraq, where three days later they were murdered. Saddam had not forgiven them after all; would he forgive Jordan for giving them asylum? The situation was worrisome, the Gulf War had earned them new enemies and had cost them a great deal: unemployment was high; they remained in the awkward position of depending upon Iraq for oil imports, but also on the allied countries— and the United States in particular—for economic aid, their wise and resourceful king had walked such a tightrope for more than forty years, but now this had happe
ned, just when they could ill afford an irate neighbor; in fact, at this moment Iraq, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of war, was moving its troops around in a very provocative manner, which puzzled and worried the United States as well as Jordan.

  He sighed, he had made a full report to his superior of what his men had found at Karak castle, the details only a little more comprehensive than the report his chief would have received from the police at Karak. To this he had added his interview in Amman with the woman who had discovered the body, taking care to describe the curio she said had been given her on the flight to Jordan without her knowing it. Usually it was hashish, not a curio, that was planted on traveling tourists, a habit that customs was very apt at discovering, but a curio was something of an oddity, he remained puzzled, though, as to how she and her friend had learned the plaque concealed a key. "Fell on the floor and it broke open," Mr. Farrell had told him, which was scarcely credible, but he'd accepted it for the moment. It had been even more difficult to accept the woman's tale of being followed by a dark red sedan, and he'd put it down to paranoia, until both Farrell and the guide, Joseph Jidoor, had confirmed this.

  Without comment he'd fully reported all this in his statement, detailing as well the woman's explanation of how she was sure the plaque had been dropped into her carry-on bag by a man seated next to her named Nayef. Jafer had dropped the key and the tissue paper into an envelope, labeled it, and placed it in his desk. Eventually his superior would read his report, but he had been occupied all morning fielding calls from the Iraqi embassy. However, he'd scheduled a conference for the department at five o'clock.

  It was four o'clock when his chief virtually burst into his office, brandishing Jafer's report and looking almost apoplectic.

  "Sir?" Jafer said, rising from his desk.

  "Nayef," sputtered his superior.

  "Nayef?"

  He rattled the pages of the report. "This woman says the man next to her on the plane from New York called himself Nayef?

  Inspector Jafer nodded.