The Quest of Julian Day Read online

  I was packed off on the next boat to England, and visited the Foreign Office for, I suppose, the last time in my life.

  After questioning me at considerable length about the details of the affair, Sir Roger Thistlethwaite said in that quiet, rather over-cultured voice of his:

  ‘I am prepared to accept your statement that you acted in perfectly good faith, but you’ll appreciate that there is no course open to us than to dismiss you from the Service. It’s a sad pity, you know—a sad pity. Quite a number of us here had looked on you as having—er—almost brilliant prospects.

  ‘Quite, sir,’ I replied, although I thought it a little unnecessary for him to rub it in. With my Double-First and my flair for languages, together with the facts that I am a presentable-looking person, the heir to a baronetcy, the best man with an épée in my year at Oxford and quite a useful shot, all sorts of fine things had been prophesied for me. It was a foregone conclusion that I would get good posts and I myself had even begun to dream of one day averting another world war as Britain’s youngest yet most brilliant Ambassador.

  ‘What do you intend to do?’ Sir Roger asked after a moment.

  ‘I hardly know what to do, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘I fear all Government posts will be closed to you after this,’ he said, ‘and you’ll need all your courage to live this scandal down; but you must try not to let your broken career embitter you. You’re still very young, and if you take my advice, you’ll fling yourself heart and soul into something else at once. Your uncle’s getting on in life and you’re the heir to that place of his in Gloucestershire. How about settling down there and taking the running of it off his hands?’

  ‘I’m not particularly interested in estate management and knowing Uncle Herbert, I rather doubt if he’ll ever have me in the house again when he hears about this.’

  ‘He can’t cut you off, can he?’

  ‘No, fortunately the place is entailed, so he can’t stop its coming to me on his death; and as I inherited my father’s money when I was twenty-one I’m all right for cash.’

  ‘How about going into commerce?’ he suggested. ‘Lots of people do these days and you’ve got plenty of brains.’

  ‘D’you think any decent firm would take me? Once this business gets out my name’s going to stink like mud.’

  Sir Roger tapped his desk thoughtfully with an ivory paperknife. ‘No, that’s just the rub. We have given a new orientation to our policy, of course; always have an alternative ready for just such an emergency, and we’ve been working like stevedores to repair, as far as possible, the damage that has been done. But that meant communicating with every Embassy and Legation on the list and we couldn’t conceal the reason for such an upheaval from the senior members of the Service. Such matters are highly confidential, but even so, there’s bound to be a certain amount of talk, and it is inevitable that your name will be linked with Carruthers’ suicide.’

  ‘Naturally,’ I agreed glumly. ‘They’ll all assume that Carruthers and I sold these secrets to foreign agents between us and that he did the decent thing by committing suicide whereas I hadn’t the guts. I’ve got to face it, sir. My name is going to stink in the Service for generations and as the story gradually becomes common property everyone outside the Service is going to regard me as a leper too.’

  ‘If settling down at Queen’s Acres is impracticable, perhaps it would be wisest for you to travel for a bit.’

  ‘That’s what I had in mind.’

  Sir Roger hesitated for a moment and then went on softly, ‘Have you thought at all what line you mean to take if you run up against O’Kieff or any of his friends again?’

  ‘I’ve hardly had time to consider that yet, sir.’

  ‘You may, you know, if you propose to travel. In fact as you have money and—er almost unlimited time at your disposal, you certainly could, if you felt so inclined.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that I should endeavour to do so?’ I asked.

  He stared at his blotting pad. ‘I suggest nothing. It only occurred to me that you might quite reasonably feel a certain animus against these people for wrecking your career. God knows, you’ve plenty of cause; and I think the Government would owe a considerable debt of gratitude to anyone who succeeded in breaking up their organisation.’

  ‘Are you inferring, sir, that if I could do so, the Government would reinstate me in the Service?’

  He shook his head. ‘Hardly that, I’m afraid; but it is not altogether outside the bounds of possibility that they might consider conferring a decoration on you for services rendered; which, in itself, would be quite sufficient to wipe out the stigma that is bound to attach to you as the result of this affair.’

  ‘With help from the Secret Service it might be done,’ I said impulsively.

  He dropped his eyes for a moment. ‘It distresses me very much to have to say so but while I, personally, believe in your integrity, others may not be quite so willing to do so; therefore any such tie-up is out of the question. You would have to act on your own.’

  ‘In that case I doubt if I should stand much chance of securing evidence against them.’

  ‘If you could secure evidence, well and good; but that is not essential. From our point of view it would, perhaps, be even better if they—er ceased to exist.’

  ‘You mean…’ I hesitated.

  ‘I am not given to looseness of speech, young man, and I mean exactly what I said.’ He seemed quite annoyed that I should question his words, yet it made me positively gasp to believe that this quiet, grey-haired English gentleman was actually suggesting that I should go out and commit murder.

  I stared at him almost doubting that I had heard aright, but his mild blue eyes were now quite unwavering and he went on smoothly, ‘You would have to be careful, of course, to avoid being caught; since, if you were, we could not give you any official protection.’

  ‘I see,’ I said slowly.

  Sir Roger stood up. ‘I need hardly stress the fact that I should, if necessary, categorically deny any suggestion that this conversation had ever taken place. But, as you know, I am one of those whose duty it is to guard the interests of the Empire, and these people are a menace not only to Britain but to law and order throughout the world. Sometimes, when such people are too clever for us to catch in the ordinary way, we have to take certain steps which we all deplore; but there it is. I don’t want you to say yes or no. Just think it over, my boy, and good luck to you, whatever you decide.’

  I did think it over, but it seemed a hopeless task to pit my wits against such a vast organisation as O’Kieff’s, and although I might have succeeded in tracking down and killing one or more of the Big Seven I had no desire to be hanged for murder. There had not been sufficient time for bitterness really to eat into my soul. That only came later. My brain was numbed by the catastrophe which had shattered every interest I had in life, and my one craving was to get away from everyone to some solitude where I could not be reminded of the past and could endeavour to blot the whole horrible business from my memory.

  To have gone to stay with any of my foreign relatives might have lent colour to the rumours I dreaded, so, having resigned from my clubs and had an unholy row with Uncle Herbert, I spent the summer months among the lonely forests and lakes of Finland, licking my wounds. By autumn I was drifting down the Baltic ports, then I settled for a few weeks in Warsaw, but winter was approaching. I hate the cold and I was beginning to get thoroughly fed up with my own company, so I decided to spend the winter in Egypt. The remains of the ancient Egyptian civilisation interested me enormously, but I had to avoid numerous people whom I knew and that brought home to me with appalling keenness the fact that I should never again be able to mix freely with the sort of people I had known before the crash. Each time I thought of the life I should have been leading and everything of which O’Kieff had robbed me, my smouldering anger against him grew. In the spring I moved to the Balkans, working my way gradually up towards the Dalmatian Coast, but my lo
neliness was becoming more than I could bear. I began to crave desperately for some definite employment and, vaguely at first, thoughts of Sir Roger’s suggestion crept back into my mind. I felt that another year of drifting would bring me to the brink of suicide, and by this time I had realised that my own life was quite worthless; useless to my fellow-men and a burden to myself.

  It was November when I returned to London—still with no settled plans—and only then on account of financial affairs which I had to attend to personally. Having attended to these I walked unenthusiastically into Cook’s one morning with the thought of planning another journey further East, and the first person I saw leaning up against the counter was Sean O’Kieff.

  2

  The Quest Begins

  O’Kieff did not recognise me but for that there was a very good reason. It may be that I was over-sensitive about my invidious position; many of my old friends would have stood by me, I am sure, but after receiving one or two grim disillusionments in Egypt the previous winter I had decided to spare all my old acquaintances and myself further cause for embarrassment by growing a beard. After eleven months I possessed a fine, curly, dark-brown barb—an inconvenient appendage, I admit—but one which enabled me to walk down Bond Street without the slightest chance of recognition.

  I took a place next to O’Kieff at the counter and overheard him making arrangements to sail in the S.S. ‘Hampshire’ from Marseilles to Egypt. My thoughts were chaotic. Killing him was one thing and, at that time, I was still not quite prepared to risk my own neck by such a desperate measure, but it did seem that this was a heaven-sent chance to keep him under observation for a spell without arousing his supicions and, perhaps, to find out enough about his activities to get him a long term of imprisonment. It did not matter in the least to me if I went to Egypt or Peru, and before he had finished fixing up his cabin I too had decided to book a passage in the S.S. ‘Hampshire’.

  Directly he had gone I made inquiries and learnt that the ship was sailing from Liverpool two days later. I am a good sailor and like the sea, even in rough weather, so I thought it would be a good idea to sail in her from England. I should then be well dug-in on board before O’Kieff joined her seven days later at Marseilles. The cabins on either side of his were already booked but I managed to get one two doors aft of his, on the promenade deck. Next night I was on the train to Liverpool feeling a changed man already now that after all those dreary months I had once again some sort of motive for existing.

  There was a blanket of mist when we nosed our way out of the Mersey the following afternoon and nearly everybody went straight down to their cabins after dinner that first night out. But the following day clear, winter sunshine and only a moderate sea brought the passengers out on deck with their rugs for the run down the Irish Channel.

  Those passengers were few enough, as people returning East from leave, who form the bulk of the travellers on such liners, naturally prefer to pay the extra cost of the overland journey to Marseilles in order to get the few extra days in England. It is easy enough to lose oneself on a crowd but the very fact of our small numbers made it difficult for me to avoid the others and, as it happened, my deck-chair was put next to that of an, elderly, grey-bearded man who soon displayed a lively interest in the book I was reading.

  He shuffled for a little with a couple of weighty tomes that were lying in his own lap and then leant over. ‘Excuse me, but isn’t that “The Thousand and One Nights”?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I find the original version most entertaining.’

  ‘Of course,’ he chuckled. ‘It’s a grand book. But I commented on it because I see you’re reading it in Arabic—rather an unusual accomplishment for a young man. Perhaps you’re in one of the Services?’

  ‘No. I was in Egypt for some months last winter and amused myself part of the time by learning Arabic; as I’m on my way back there now I thought a little amusing reading was the pleasantest way to polish it up again.’

  ‘Were you engaged at one of the “digs”, by any chance?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid I’m an idle dog,’ I confessed. ‘I don’t do any job at all.’

  ‘I see,’ he said with a rather disapproving look. ‘Well, let me introduce myself. My name is Walter Shane. If you’re interested in ancient civilisations you may perhaps have heard of me.’

  ‘Of course.’ I looked up with quick interest. ‘Who hasn’t heard of Sir Walter Shane, the famous Egyptologist? It’s a great pleasure to meet you, sir.’

  ‘That’s nice of you,’ he smiled benignly at me over his thick spectacles. ‘And what may your name be?’

  ‘Julian Day,’ I told him; and, incidentally, the one concession the Foreign Office had made on my leaving the Service was to grant me a passport in the pseudonym I had taken, to save me unnecessary complications on my travels.

  We talked till lunch-time, and a most interesting old gentleman Sir Walter proved to be; to me, at least, as I have always been fascinated by the history of ancient civilisations. He told me a lot about the various ‘digs’ he had superintended during his many winters in Egypt and the only thing which struck me as a little strange about him was his unnatural reticence in speaking of his plans for the coming winter.

  For some years past, apparently, his daughter had been very closely associated with him in his work, and for a reason which he did not specify she had elected to remain in Egypt all through the summer. He was meeting her there and they would proceed to Luxor. But after that his plans, for a professional archæologist, were curiously vague.

  At first I thought he was travelling on his own, but at lunch I saw him sitting with a youngish couple and afterwards, when he came on deck again, he introduced them to me as Mr. and Mrs. Belville. They were a delightful pair and very soon, in that astonishingly quick way in which shipboard acquaintances develop, I was on most friendly terms with them.

  Their association with Sir Walter rather puzzled me at first, as although Harry Belville was a charming fellow—kind, generous to a fault and possessing a most attractive ingenuousness—it was quite clear that he hadn’t got a brain in his head. He hardly knew Gothic architecture from Greek, let alone which mattered among the thirty-three dynasties of the Pharaohs who ruled Egypt for some five thousand years, and his wife, Clarissa, was little better informed on such subjects.

  Her mind was much the quicker of the two but it revolved mainly round having a good time, clothes, cocktails and the sort of amusing nonsense that one reads in magazines like ‘The New Yorker’. It was she who had the money. Her father had been something to do with manufacturing hats at Luton and had left her with quite a useful fortune so that Harry, who, I learnt later, had barely enough to keep himself in cigarettes, did not have to work. Part of their charm was the obvious way they adored each other and their almost comical uneasiness if they were separated for upwards of an hour; although they had been married for the best part of five years.

  He was not much to look at—a medium-sized, rather fat chap with thinning, fairish hair—whereas she was definitely attractive. Her immense vitality, piquant little face and crop of flaming red curls would have gained her plenty of admirers anywhere. I think his attraction for her lay in his unfailing good-temper and something rather stolid but extremely sound about him; because, although Harry’s education had stopped short at the level of the Upper Fourth in his public school, he had an extremely good fund of hard common-sense.

  By the time we rounded Gib. I had solved the mystery of what the Belvilles were doing in the company of such an erudite old man as Sir Walter. For some time past the Egyptian Government has exercised absolute control over all ‘digs’. No one is allowed to excavate without a permit any more. The Government supply a portion of the funds and the labour, while making use of the European experts who come out; but any antiquities discovered in these ‘digs’ remain the sole property of the Government.

  Sir Walter had tumbled on a new site the previous winter that he wished to investigate without th
e Government’s knowledge or assistance. But like so many men who devote their lives to science, he had very little money of his own and, somehow or other, he had had to raise private funds for the necessary labour. He had been about the matter cautiously during the past summer in England and had apparently been unsuccessful until he had thought of approaching his daughter’s old school-friend Clarissa. After consulting her beloved Harry she had agreed to put up the necessary cash and as they had never been to Egypt they decided to accompany Sir Walter on the trip.

  This I gathered from half-confidences and hints, mainly dropped by Harry after we had had a few drinks together on numerous occasions in the bar. Although the business seemed a very harmless type of illegality, they would have got into considerable trouble if the Egyptian Government had found out their intentions, hence their secrecy, and I was still completely ignorant of the details of their plans when we reached Marseilles.

  I spent the afternoon in my cabin while the swarm of passengers came on board, but O’Kieff duly joined the ship there and I saw him that night at dinner. He had not changed much in the last eighteen months except that he was a trifle greyer and his sharp features looked more than ever as if they had been chiselled out of granite.

  Owing to the influx of new passengers, Sir Walter had very kindly asked me to join his table, as otherwise I should have had a lot of strangers put at the one where I had previously been sitting; and the new arrangement quite naturally resulted in my becoming more intimate than ever with him and the Belvilles.

  O’Kieff was travelling alone, except for his valet, but he soon gathered a little crowd of acquaintances about him; which was hardly to be wondered at owing to his wealth and the brilliance of his conversation. I kept out of his way as far as possible and, although we passed quite close to each other on several occasions, he never showed the least sign of recognition.