"What then?"
"Don't be an ass," said Grim. "You know what."
"Information?"
"Certainly."
"What information?"
"You were sent by the French," said Grim, "to raise the devil
here in Palestine--no matter why. You were trying to bring
off a raid on Judaea. Who are your friends in Jerusalem who
were ready to spring surprises? What surprises? Who's your
Jerusalem agent?"
"If I tell you?"
"I'm not the boss. But I'll see him about it. Come on--who's
your agent?"
"Scharnhoff."
Grim whistled. That he did not believe, I was almost certain,
but he whistled as if totally new trains of thought had suddenly
revealed themselves amid a maze of memories.
"You shall speak to the boss," he said after a while.
I fell asleep then, wedged uncomfortably between two men's legs,
wakened at intervals by the noisy pleading of Mahommed ben Hamza
and his men for what they called their rights in the matter of
Abdul Ali's wallet. They were still arguing the point when we
ran on the beach near Jericho, where a patrol of incredulous
Sikhs pounced on us and wanted to arrest Ahmed and Anazeh's
wounded men. Grim had an awful time convincing them that he was
a British officer. In the end we only settled it by tramping
about four miles to a guard-house, where a captain in uniform
gave us breakfast and telephoned for a commisariat lorry.
It was late in the afternoon when we reached Jerusalem and got
the wounded into hospital. By the time Grim had changed into
uniform and put courtplaster where his eyebrows should have been,
and he, Abdul Ali and I had driven in an official Ford up the
Mount of Olives to OETA, the sun was not far over the skyline.
Grim had telephoned, so the Administrator was waiting for us.
Grim went straight in. It was twenty minutes before we two were
summoned into his private room, where he sat behind the desk
exactly as we had left him the other morning. He looked as if he
had not moved meanwhile. Everything was exactly in its place--
even the vase, covering the white spot on the varnish. There was
the same arrangement of too many flowers, in a vase too small to
hold them.
"Allow me to present Sheikh Abdul Ali of Damascus," said Grim.
The Administrator bowed rather elaborately, perhaps to hide
the twinkle in his eyes. He didn't scowl. He didn't look
tyrannical. So Abdul Ali opened on him, with all bow guns.
"I protest! I am a French subject. I have been submitted to
violence, outrage, indignity! I have been seized on foreign
soil, and brought here by force against all international
law! I shall claim exemplary damages! I demand apology
and satisfaction!"
Sir Louis raised his eyebrows and looked straight at Grim without
even cracking a smile.
"Is this true, Major Grim?"
"Afraid it is, sir."
"Scandalous! Perfectly scandalous! And were you a witness to
all this?" he asked, looking at me as if I might well be the
cause of it all.