O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [119]
He did listen to my words, and the temperature in the car gradually rose a few degrees. “Very well,” he said, “I see your point. Next time, I shall choose the frock with greater care; I should hate to be responsible for your having to spend another evening parading yourself in front of young men in that manner. I admit I had failed to visualise quite what the frock would look like with you inside it.”
I looked at him sharply, but there was not enough light to see his expression. His voice had said that as a flat statement, with neither innuendo nor even humour. Had another man said those words, I might at least have considered the possibility that he had noticed what I looked like, that he had appreciated— I sat up briskly. Enough of that. Too much flirtation, in fact, for one night. It was a good thing I was not staying here long, definitely not as Miss Russell: being the object of adoring gazes of young men in uniform was clearly a heady thing. Time to crawl back into my robe, turban, and abayya.
I must have sighed or made some noise.
“Cinderella home from the ball, eh, Russell?” He was, however, smiling when he said it.
It was after eleven o’clock, and the inn was again shut tight. A yawning boy answered our summons, handed us a small lamp, and stumbled away. At my door I wished Holmes a good night, and he peered at me in the meagre light as if I were mad.
“We have work to do, Russell.”
“God, Holmes. You told me that same thing at some unearthly hour this morning, and I’ve been slogging hard ever since. My skull aches, my shoulders ache, my hands are raw; don’t you ever sleep?”
“You’re young, Russell,” he said brutally. “You can sleep tomorrow.”
“Do you intend—? You do. We’re going back out.”
“Just let me get out of this absurd outfit. I should do the same, if I were you.” He ducked into his room, and I closed my own door and wedged it shut while I was changing back into the Arab boy. I fixed my turban, took the wedge from the door, and took a quick step back as it flew open to admit the Bedouin Holmes. He shut it quietly and we squatted together on the floor with the oil lamp between us. Amazing, how comfortable that position had become.
“Tell me what your archaeological friend said,” he demanded.
“There are caves under the north end of the city, near the Damascus Gate. They’re called Solomon’s Quarries by the guidebooks, but their other name, the one they’re known by to the locals, is the Cotton Grotto.”
His eyes glittered. “Suggestive.”
“I thought it was. There’s an iron gate that may be buried in rubble—he thought the cave hadn’t been used since before the war. It’s a big cave, extending about two hundred yards underneath the city.”
“That still leaves quite a way to go to the Cotton Bazaar. Four, five hundred yards I believe.”
“Funny, the coincidence in names, though,” I said provocatively. Holmes does not believe in coincidence. He did not respond, just sat. After a minute he pulled out his pipe, which always made the thinking process go more quickly.
“We need to see some maps,” he said. I waited. “Father Demetrius is certain to have among his maps one that shows everything underground in the city.”
“Is it too late to go and knock him up?”
He scowled. “Demetrius is a fine old man, but he had some questionable dealings with the Turks.”
“Oh, surely not.”
“The welfare of his people is the only thing that matters to him. Even his passion for old stones takes second place to the Armenian community. Twice for certain, possibly several times, he gave the Turks… someone they wanted, in exchange for which they freed Armenian prisoners. One can understand it, I suppose. After all, the Turks were aiming at genocide, and when a million of one’s people are killed, it is apt to make one view outsiders with a different eye. What, after all, is an Englishman or two compared to a trainload of your countrymen?”
“He’s not to be trusted, then?” I asked bluntly.
“He’s not to be tested. He might have the ear of the wrong man for our purposes, and we’ve shown ourselves quite enough