THE HOUSE OF THE CROCODILE
The letter had evidently been dashed off in a great hurry. It was short
and written in French, the language in which "Antoun" chose to talk
with foreigners.
Give the bearer two hundred piastres and let him go. Don't try to make
him speak. I have promised this. Then quick to Jarvis Pasha and get him
to raid the House of the Crocodile. Question of hasheesh. We must be
smuggled out when arrests are made--also Bedr, to save scandal.
Not a word as to whether all were safe, or in danger! But I realized
that, for some reason, each instant had been of value. And each instant
was of value now.
Anthony was one who knew precisely what he wanted and why he wanted it.
I obeyed his instructions implicitly. Two hundred piastres went from my
pocket into the hand of the withered Arab, and he was allowed to take
his departure despite a burst of protest from my companions, who
naturally wished the man to be catechised. Once the door had shut
behind the bent blue back, I handed round the letter, which had to be
translated for Sir Marcus, who professed contempt for "foreign
gibberish."
Jarvis Pasha is at the head of the police, has been for many years, and
is the most interesting man in Egypt after the well-beloved "K."
Leaving Sir Marcus to go on with his task of consoling Mrs. East, I
dashed off in my waiting taxi with the Nubian of the silver earrings.
We drove to the Governorat, a big house in a square near what was once
known as the Guarded City, the very heart and birthspot of Cairo:
Masrel Kahira, the Martial, founded under the planet Mars.
I scribbled a line to Jarvis Pasha, and sent it to him in an envelope
with my card. This combination opened doors for me; and three minutes
later I was shaking hands with a tall, thin, white moustached,
hawk-featured Englishman who looked all muscle and bones and brain. Jarvis
Pasha being in the secret of "Antoun's" identity and business in Cairo,
simplified the explanation, and did away with the necessity for a
preface. All I had to tell was the brief story of the girls'
disappearance with Bedr el Gemály, and Fenton's following them into
space; then, how word had come after fourteen hours.
"The House of the Crocodile," Jarvis Pasha said, when he had taken and
read the letter. "H'm! Do you know anything about that house?"
"I know the old stories connected with it," I answered. "If it's
reputation to-day is as sinister as ever----."
"Not at all. Figuratively speaking it has been whitewashed. It's become
a show place--_a monument historique_. This is interesting information
which Fenton sends, but if it came from any one else, I should say he
had dreamed it. He may be giving us the chance of an important _coup_.
Wait a few minutes, and I'll have this thing attended to, Lord Ernest.
But you look upset. Is it that you haven't had lunch, or are you
worrying about the ladies?" "Both," I answered with a sickly grin. "Not
that I mind about lunch. I couldn't have eaten if I'd had the time."
"You haven't as much belief as I have, in your friend," remarked Jarvis
Pasha, "if you think he'd let them come to harm." "They're all in the
same box, apparently," I excused my lack of faith.
"Trust Fenton!" said the Head of the Police. "He was sharp enough to
find the needles in the haystack, and he's smart enough and strong
enough to take care of them when they're found."
On this, Jarvis Pasha went out and left me to my reflections, which
rushed to the House of the Crocodile. Every one who has read or heard
stories of native Cairo, knows the House of the Crocodile, in the
Street of the Sisters, and how, in the later days of Mohammed Ali,
people scarcely dared to name it aloud. The "Tiger" Defterdar Ahmed
built it, for that beautiful Tigress, Princess Zohra, favourite
daughter of Mohammed Ali, who married her off to the fierce soldier
when she became too troublesome at home. Zohra had loved a young Irish
officer who was murdered for her sake, and had no true affection to
give Ahmed or any other. She hated all men because of the murderer, her
own nephew, and vowed that since her love had cost the life of the one
who had her heart, others who dared to love her must pay the same
price. When Ahmed died suddenly, soon after the wedding, those who had
heard of Zohra's vow (and there were many in the harems) whispered
"poison." Never again did the Princess drive out to see the women she
knew; and those who had been her friends were sent away from the door
of the dead Ahmed's palace, over which he had suspended for "luck," a
huge crocodile killed in the far south. But Zohra was beautiful, with
strange eyes which drew love whether she asked for it or not; and
sometimes a small lattice would open in a bay of one of those windows
of wooden lace whose carving was known as mushrbiyeh work because
shirib, or sherbet, used to be placed there to cool. Out of the lattice
would look a wonderful face, as thinly veiled as the moon by a mist,
and then it would vanish so quickly that a man who saw, half believed
that he had dreamed. But the eyes of the dream seemed to call, and
could not be forgotten, any more than the song of a siren can cease to
echo in ears which once have heard.
After the beginning of Zohra's widowhood, the noblest and handsomest
youths of Cairo began mysteriously to disappear. They would be well and
happy one day, and the next they would be gone from the places that
knew them. By and by their bodies would be found in a canal; always the
same canal, near the water gate of the House of the Crocodile. Then the
vow of the Princess was remembered: but there was no English rule in
those days, and the police shut their ears and eyes where a daughter of
Mohammed Ali was concerned. Mothers and sisters of handsome young men
shuddered and begged those they loved never to pass through the dark
Street of the Sisters (Sharia el Benât) where the crocodile grinned
over the door, and the vision of a face looked down from a latticed
window. The women thought of the water gate at the back of the house;
the little children, who had heard secret words spoken, thought of the
crocodile, and ran crying past the house; but the handsome young men
thought only of the face, and each one said to himself, "She will not
make _me_ pay the price." Still, as years went on, bodies were seen in
the water from time to time, with a tiny purple spot over the heart to
show the curious that death had not come from drowning. And some, who
looked for lost ones, could not reclaim them from the canal, for bodies
were not always found. As time passed, it seemed to people who hurried
by the house in the narrow street, that the crocodile grew larger and
larger. It was said that it had been fed on the children of men Tiger
Ahmed had murdered in Sennaar.
None dared to say what they believed of Princess Zohra, but when, after
a long imprisonment by her nephew Abbas, in the House of the Crocodile,
she escaped to Constantinople, nobody would live where she had lived,
and the palace fell almost into ruin.
This was the story of the house where Monny Gilder and Rachel Guest and
Anthony Fenton were now. I had heard it talked about by our Arab
servants when I was a child, and had never forgotten, though scarcely
since then had I thought of the tale, until the remembered name and the
horrors attached to it jumped into my mind on reading Anthony's letter.
What had happened in the House of the Crocodile since Zohra's day, I
did not know; but because of the old story it seemed more sinister that
my friends should appeal for help from that place than from any other
in Cairo.
I was not left long alone. Five minutes after Jarvis Pasha went out of
the room to "arrange things" according to Fenton's request, he sent me
a man with whiskey and soda, and biscuits. I drank gladly, and ate
rather than seem ungrateful. But there was a lump in my throat which
would stick there, I knew, until those three were away from the House
of the Crocodile. I was still crumbling biscuits when Jarvis Pasha came
briskly back.
"Well," he asked, "are you braced up now? If you'd like to be in this
business, you can. I'm sending a white superintendent with my police to
raid the house, on the strength of Fenton's letter to you, though until
now the place hasn't been suspected. As I said, it's been a 'show'
house, for some years--ground floor and first story in repair, just as
in Zohra's day--upper floors ruinous, and the public not admitted
there. If anything queer's going on, it must be in the forbidden part:
and the caretaker is mixed up in the show. A pity you felt bound to let
Fenton's messenger off! You can go with my superintendent, Allen, and
reach your friends as soon as my men do. Allen has instructions to let
Fenton and the ladies, if they're found there, slip away, and it's best
for you to be on the spot to save mistakes in identification. Also I've
ordered a closed arabeah to wait for you, as near as possible--my men
will show you where. You'll know it for certain by a red camellia on
the Arab driver's European coat. And by the way, take this Browning, in
case of an attack; which I don't anticipate."
As Jarvis Pasha spoke, he opened the door, and summoned in a brown
young Britisher wearing the tarboosh which denotes "Gyppy" officialdom.
Evidently Allen was prepared for me as I for him, and we started off
together on foot, for it seemed that our destination was not far away.
We walked swiftly through the crowded Mousky (once the fashionable part
of Cairo, before the tide flowed to the modern Isma'iliya quarter), and
after a few intricate turnings plunged into a still, twilight region.
The streets through which we passed were so narrow, and the old houses
so far overhung the path that the strip of sky at the top of the dark
canyon was a mere line of inlaid blue enamel flecked with gold. The
splendid mushrbiyeh windows thrust out toward each other big and little
bays, across the ten or twelve feet of distance which parted them, as
if to whisper secrets; yet the delicate wooden carvings skilfully hid
all that they wished to hide, and only suggested their secrets.
"Now we'll soon be coming to the House of the Crocodile," said Allen.
"By Jove, it's a joke on us, and a smart one, if it's been turned into
a hasheesh den, under our noses. But it must be something new, or we
should have got onto it. The Chief thinks already he can guess who's at
the bottom of the business and who has put the money up: a certain Bey,
in whose service the caretaker was--a rich old Johnny, very old
fashioned, who lives not far off in a beautiful house of the best
Cairene period. He's keen on antiquities, and has been of service to
the government in several ways, though he's a reformed smuggler; and
his only son, dead now, was a hopeless hashash; that's what they call
slaves of the hasheesh habit. I suppose you've read all about the
'Hashashseyn' of the Crusaders' days, whom we speak of as Assassins?
Well, ever since then the Hashasheyn have had a bad reputation; but
this old man I speak of has been pitied for his son's failings, which
he pretends to think a 'judgment for his own past, repented sins.' Now,
Lord Ernest, saunter, please, as if you were a tourist in my charge,
admiring the old doorways."
Two native workmen appeared in front of us, with pickaxes on their
shoulders. Stopping, they threw down their tools. One produced a cord
which he stretched across the street from house to house; and in the
middle he hung a small red flag. Then the pair began to pick in a
leisurely way at the surface of the road, and before we reached the
barrier, an Arab policeman stationed himself by the cord. Glancing
ahead, I saw that the farther end of the narrow lane was blocked in the
same manner.
"This is one trick we have of doing our work quietly," said Allen. "It
always answers pretty well."
I said nothing, but used my eyes. Coming from nowhere apparently, there
were twenty men in the street. A few had crowbars in their hands.
Others, native policemen, carried the canes with which they control the
movements of the people. From the shaded doorway of a large house a
native sergeant of police stepped out as we approached, and saluted
Allen. Over the closed door, a large, dryly smiling, ancient crocodile
hung.
"Have our men come and taken their places?" asked my companion in
Arabic.
"Yes, Effendi," the sergeant answered. "All has been done according to
order. The back entrance which was the water gate before the old canal
was filled up, is surrounded, and the adjoining houses with which some
communication may have been established are watched. Not a rat could
have crawled out since we came, nor could one have gone in. To-day is
the feast of a saint, and these people have their excuse not to open
the house to visitors, for so it is with other show places. Look, it is
written up, that until to-morrow there is no admission." As the man
pointed to a card hanging from a hook, he and Allen smiled at the
cleverness of this pretext for closing the door. In English, French,
and Arabic, the reason was announced in neat print. Probably this was
not the first time the same excuse had been used in the same way.
"They must have taken alarm at something, and thought they were being
watched," Allen said to me. "That's why they've sported their oak. I
expect we shall make a haul, as--for everybody's sake concerned--they
wouldn't dare let their clients out, to fall into a trap. Yes, that's
why! Or else--"
He stopped, and I did not ask him to go on, for I knew that to ask
would be useless. Yet I guessed what he had meant to say, and why he
had stopped. He didn't wish to alarm me, but it was in his mind that
the house had teen closed because of something planned to happen
inside. And that something might be connected with my friends. We
should soon know!
My first thought was that we were to get through the door, by breaking
it in, or by forcing those on the other side to open for us. In an
instant, however, I realized that my idea was absurd. It would take an
hour to batter down that thick slab of old cedarwood, and Allen had
said that he wanted to do things quietly. No, the brown sergeant was
not here to open the door, but to see that it did not open unless for
our benefit.
Two of Allen's men were unfolding a curious ladder like a lattice,
which they made secure with screws when they had stretched it to full
length. Then, up it went to one of the beautiful mushrbiyeh windows
which, on the level of the story above the ground floor, bayed
graciously, overhanging the street. One man standing below held the
ladder firmly in place, while another, small and lithe as a monkey and
enjoying the task as a monkey might, ran up to the top that leaned
against the window. Evidently he was a skilled worker, for before I
knew what he would be at, he had with some small, sharp instrument,
prized out without breaking it, one of the sections of carved lattice.
This he tossed lightly down to a man who caught it, and as he and four
others after him slipped through the opening, the sergeant knocked on
the closed door, under the swinging form of the crocodile. Nobody
answered. But three minutes passed, and then suddenly there was the
sound of a falling bar, and a very old, very dark man, with a white
turban and a white beard, peeped out.
"Thieves!" he cried in Arabic. "Thieves break in at the windows!"
He was making the best of a bad business, I guessed, and hoped somehow
to justify himself to the police. But though he was gray with fright,
he forgot to look surprised.
My Arabic was not equal to the strain of catching all the gabble that
followed: the old man protesting that it was right to close the house
to-day; that if it were the police and not thieves who broke in, it was
unjust, it was cruel, and his son Mansoor, the caretaker, would appeal
to all the Powers. Before he had come to the end of his first breath,
he was hushed and handcuffed, and hustled away; and another man sprang
forward from behind the angle of a screen-wall inside the entrance. He
was young, and looked strong and fierce as an angry giant, but at sight
of Allen and the rest of us, he stopped as if we had shot him. Perhaps
he had not expected so many. In any case, he saw that there was nothing
he could hope to gain by violence or bluster. All he could do was to
protest as his father had done, that this visit was a violation of his
right to close the house on a holiday.
"Don't be a fool, Mansoor," said Allen, who evidently knew him. "You
understand very well that isn't why we are here. You've jot a hasheesh
den upstairs, above the public show rooms. A nice trick you thought
you'd played us, but you see you didn't bring it off."
By this time we were inside the house, having thrust the caretaker in
again, and passing the three tortuous screen walls of the entrance,
into a courtyard. Several young Arabs dressed as servants stood there,
large-eyed, and stricken at sight of their giant master held by four
policemen. But there was not a sign of our men who had crawled through
the window, and I was impatient to go where they had gone.
There was no sound of scuffling, no sound at all, except the crying of
some startled doves, and Mansoor's voice, swearing by the Prophet's
sacred beard that if anything were wrong he was not the one to blame.
There were those above him who must be obeyed or he and all that were
his would be put out of life; but I cared too little for him, or what
might become of him and his, to listen much. I looked up and saw at the
left of the courtyard, with its several closed doors, a short flight of
steps with a mounting-block, and a doorway leading to a winding
staircase. Round the court went a gallery, supported with old marble
pillars, and underneath on one side was a large recess, the takhtabosh,
raised slightly above the level of the courtyard, and having a row of
wooden benches round its three walls. Here the caretaker and his male
relatives and friends had evidently been smoking their nargilehs and
drinking coffee; our arrival had disturbed them in the midst.
Suddenly, into the frightened mourning of the doves, broke a sharp
sound of cracking wood. "Come along!" cried Allen. "They'll be past the
barrier in a minute!" And leaving Mansoor and the others to be dealt
with by subordinates, he led the way up the steep stairs, at a run.
We did not stop at the first story, the "show" part of the House of the
Crocodile; but catching a glimpse of a latticed balcony off the
landing, all lovely mushrbiyeh work, and a great room of Persian tiled
walls and coloured marble floor, beyond, we dashed up another flight of
stairs to the story above. These stairs were of common wood, and
somewhat out of repair. At the top was a door of carved cedarwood like
those below, but rough in execution, faded, and with here and there a
starpoint or triangle of the pattern missing, leaving a hole in the
thick wood. On this door was nailed a large card with the notice in
English, French, and Arabic, "Forbidden to the Public."
"What a grand idea to install a hasheesh den here!" I could not help
thinking as I followed at Allen's heels to the head of the stairs,
where two of his men worked with crowbars to prize open that
theatrically dilapidated door. Behind the pair who worked were the
others who had entered by the window below; and hardly had we taken our
places in the strange _queue_, when with a loud groan the door gave
way. The couple in front almost fell into a dark passage on the other
side, and my heart leaped, for I half expected to see them driven back
upon us by an attack with knives or pistols. But the dim vista seemed
to hold only silence and emptiness as I peered over men's shoulders;
and as we crowded in, Allen pushing ahead to take the lead, nothing
stirred.
The passage was but a gallery, like that below, but instead of being
open, it was closed in with lattice of mushrbiyeh work, so that, though
those within could look through, it was as secret for those outside as
if it had been enclosed by a solid wall.
The darkness was patterned with light, like ebony thinly inlaid with
gold, for the afternoon sunlight trickled into the delicate loopholes
of the carvings, and we began to see what Enterprise had made of this
ruinous upper story. The floor had been dilapidated and unsafe; but new
boards had been placed over it, covered with Egyptian-made matting and
rugs to deaden sound and give an appearance of comfort. We walked
quickly along to the end where this closed gallery turned at right
angles, and there found another door, new and rough, evidently but
lately put up. It was not so strong as the old one; and it yielded in a
few minutes to the furious industry of our men with their crowbars.
They lifted the door from its broken hinges, leaning it against a wall;
and as we passed through, an Arab pulled aside a thick curtain which
filled in a doorway. He was evidently a servant, and seeing the police,
showed no sign of surprise, but only of a most humble resignation which
disclaimed responsibility and begged for mercy.
In silence the man was taken into custody; and Allen and I, with three
of the four policemen, passed into the region behind the portière.
There, all was dusk, save for the faint light sifting down from a
carved wooden dome in the ceiling, partly curtained; and a dark lantern
flashed out a long revealing ray. The men ran to pull back heavy cloth
hangings which entirely covered the latticed windows, and would allow
lamps to be lit at night without being seen from street or courtyard.
Instantly sunshine pierced the carved interstices, and let us see what
Enterprise had done for his clients. We were in the antechamber of a
long, beautiful room. The old, coloured marble of the durkááh--the
lower level of floor nearest the entrance--had been repaired with new;
the dilapidations of a fountain were almost hidden by pink azaleas in
pots; the liwán, on the next level, had a good rug or two; and the
diwáán, at the farthest and highest end, was furnished with red-covered
mattresses and pillows. The low wall-benches of marble were set here
and there with glass bowls of roses and syringa; and tiny cedarwood
cupboards high in the tiled walls were open to show coffee cups,
tobacco jars, and pipes made of cocoanut shells with long stems of
cane.
Four men, who had apparently been lying on the mattresses, stood up and
faced us, not fiercely, but with something of the attendant's
resignation. Two were in European clothes, with the inevitable
tarboosh; and two, equally well dressed, were old fashioned and
picturesque in the long, silk gown and turban style which "Antoun" and
other lovers of the ancient ways affected. They were of the "Effendi
class," and might be merchants or professional persons. A turbaned man
with a black beard Allen knew, and greeted in Arabic, "Hussein Effendi!
Who would have thought to see you here!"
"Why not?" answered the other, with a melancholy smile and shrug of the
shoulders. "There is no harm, really, but only in the eyes of the
English. We are caught, and we cannot complain, for we have had true
delight: and we have known, since the alarm came last night, that we
might have to pay for our pleasure."
"So you had the alarm last night?" said Allen, looking as if there were
nothing surprising or puzzling in that.
"Yes, why should we not admit it now? Word came that a watch had been
set outside, both back and front, and none of us dared leave the house.
We consented to be locked in, though there is one in another room who
wished to get out and run the risk. That was not permitted, for the
sake of others; and to prevent him from taking his own way in spite of
prudence, we let ourselves be shut in, with only one attendant who took
through the holes in the door such little food as we needed. We had
begun to hope that it had been a false alarm, or, since no inquiries
seemed to have been made below, that the watchers had gone and would
not come again. We planned as soon as night fell to go to our homes;
but it was not to be. And if any are to blame, it is not those who come
to take pleasures provided for them, but rather they who cheat the
coastguard of the swift-running camels, and bring what is forbidden
into Egypt."
"The blame will be rightfully apportioned," said Allen. "Meanwhile, I
am sorry to say, Hussein Effendi, that you and those in your company
are subject to the law. I must now leave you, and go farther to see
what others we have to deal with."
The four Effendis were politely left in charge of two policemen who
would have been equal to twice their number, and our one remaining man
went on with Allen and me.
"Your friends, and perhaps two or three who can afford to pay big
prices, will have had their smoke in private rooms," Allen explained.
"We can guess _who_ it was, who wanted to break out! There are probably
no more doors, only curtains, so we shall have no trouble. But don't
forget that, if anything unexpected should happen, you have a pistol.
Of course, you understand that it could be used only in an extreme
case."
A curtained doorway led out from the diwáán into a small anteroom, and
there, on the floor, sat Bedr el Gemály, the picture of dejection. Had
I raised my voice in the next room, he would perhaps have ventured in
to see what I could do to help him; for now, at sight of me, he
scrambled up in shamefaced eagerness.
"Oh, my lordship!" he began to cackle. "Praise be to Allah you are
come! I was persuaded to bring the young ladies here. They would make
me do it. Yes, sir. It is not my fault. They pay me. I have to obey.
Then we get caught, like we was some rats. No fair to punish me. The
ladies all right. No harm come, except a little sick."
"If no harm has come, that's not due to you, but to a very different
man, as you well know," I said. And as I spoke, the man I had in my
mind appeared before my eyes. "Hullo!" I exclaimed, joyously.
Anthony's eyes and Allen's met; but I could not tell if they knew each
other, nor could I ask then. It was enough for Allen in any case,
however, that this magnificent Hadji was one of the friends for whom I
searched. He turned to Bedr. "You brought two ladies here, I
understand," he said quickly and sharply. "Then you must have
acquaintance with the place. For good reasons which have nothing to do
with you, I shall not arrest you, but you will have to report at the
Governorat inside the hour, or you will regret it. Do you know the way
out at the back of the house?"
"I do, gracious one," Bedr responded with businesslike promptness.
"Then take these gentlemen, and the ladies, whom I do not need to see,
out by that door, and you will all be allowed to go, because my men who
are there have seen Lord Ernest Borrow, and they have my instructions."
We waited for no more, but followed Anthony, who made a dash through
the further room, and into another. There, on a mattress, crouched two
forlorn figures, veiled as if in haste, and muffled in black satin
_habberahs_ such as Turkish ladies wear in the street.
"Lord Ernest! Oh, how glad I am!" cried one of these creatures, while
the other, less vital or more miserable, whimpered and gurgled a little
behind her veil.
"Come along, quick!" I said; and they came. Bedr led the way, thankful
to show himself of use. Anthony followed as if to protect or screen the
girls from sight. I brought up the rear, and so, scuttling through a
rabbit warren of little unfurnished, dilapidated rooms, we found a
narrow side staircase, and tumbled down it, anyhow, in dust and
dimness. Then two more staircases, and we were in a cellar which looked
as if it might once have been used as a prison. Up again, and rattling
at a chained door. Then out, into light and air, into the midst of a
group, which for an instant, closed threateningly round us. But the
sergeant I had seen was among the alert brown men. A glance, a gesture,
and we were allowed to pass, a youth running with us, to show the
promised carriage and the Arab driver with the red camellia. So it was
over, this adventure!
Yet was it over?
That remained to be seen. And remained also, to see what it meant, if
indeed there were a meaning underneath the surface.