O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [122]
“Close your eyes,” he ordered. I turned away, and my lids were briefly lit by a flash of light, instantly extinguished. When he joined me at the door, he found my arm and then I felt something being pressed into my hand: a little book, heavy for its size. I smiled, for I knew that on the red spine I should see the name Baedeker.
“Won’t he miss it?”
“He has dozens. He hands them out to visitors, probably doesn’t even know how many there are. Let us go.”
I thrust the guide-book inside my robe and we went out into the garden, ghostly in the light of the waning moon. I waited while Holmes locked the door, and we slipped out of the garden gate as silently as we had come. It was now about half past two, and my skin crawled with tiredness. I had forgotten to ask where we were going, but on the street he turned to the right, back in the direction of the inn, and I allowed myself a faint hope that the night might be over. I was not to know what Holmes had intended, however, because a few paces down the street a dark figure moved out from the edge of a building, and an instant later my ears registered a footfall behind us. I whirled, and saw another shape that nonetheless seemed familiar.
“You were surely not thinking of any interesting outings without us,” said Ali. The threat in his voice did nothing towards making me relax from the stance I had taken. Holmes, however, stood briskly upright and continued on his way, brushing past Ali, who stood belligerently in the centre of the alley. Mahmoud moved up from behind us.
“Of course not.” Holmes’ voice trailed down the narrow way.
We had no option but to follow him.
* * *
TWENTY-FOUR
م
Most Orientals regard the European traveller as a Croesus, and sometimes a madman.
The traveller should be on his guard against the thievish propensities of beggars.
—BAEDEKER’S Palestine and Syria,
1912 EDITION
« ^ »
We were let in by the owner of the inn himself, and went to Ali and Mahmoud’s room, where we lit lamps, drank the coffee the innkeeper brought up scarcely two minutes after we had come in, and settled to business. Ali was simmering with suspicion and aggression, Mahmoud was so stony I felt I could strike a spark from him, and Holmes gave the impression that he saw nothing out of the ordinary. In the face of all this masculine antagonism, I sat back against the wall with my new Baedeker’s and opened it to the index.
Holmes tossed down three tiny cups of coffee in quick succession, reached into his robe, and brought out pipe, tobacco pouch, and map. He filled his pipe and put a match to it, allowing the other two to eye the worn, folded square, and when he had his pipe going and his audience seething, he thrust the stem between his teeth and leant forward to unfold the map onto the boards. When they had looked for a minute or two at his modifications to the printed sheet, he took the pipe stem from his teeth and tapped the paper with it.
“The good Father, all unknowing, has contributed to our knowledge of the city beneath our feet. Russell, would you be so good… ?”
I closed my little book and scooted forward, and explained the various lines, squiggles, and marks. Ali grew increasingly bewildered, Mahmoud increasingly interested. I then told them what I had learnt while working in the Souk el-Qattanin. I was amused at their expressions when I described my job. When I had finished, Ali protested.
“There are no roads beneath the city. This is not London,”
“Roads, no, but caves and tunnels, tombs and cisterns that may be connected up to form a virtual road.”
“These aqueducts,” Mahmoud spoke up. “Are they not tunnels?”
“For a man the size of a cat, perhaps. But they can be enlarged, particularly in the sections north of the Dome where the pools they once filled are obsolete.”
“And this?” Ali asked,