O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [139]
I dropped my head into my hands and waited for the ringing in my ears to subside, the flash spot in my vision to fade; all I could see was Bey’s curious gesture, over and over again, that quasi-military salute with which he had gone to his death. That we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you sort of gesture.
And I could not reconcile the salute with the man’s scorn for his victims, neither the intimacy with which he had run his eyes over Mahmoud’s scar nor the surprise on his face when he recognised Holmes. And surely a slap would have been a more effective way to set off the detonator, not the smaller surface of the fist. And—
I shook my head. This was sheer phantasy, akin to augury or the reading of a crystal ball. What difference did it make if he slapped or he pounded? How could I know if the gesture meant anything to him beyond proud defiance?
But he had looked up, beyond us all. And his back had straightened. And his elbow had been raised to bring the fist straight on. Drawing himself up to meet death? Or… or a last, half-humorous salute to an unseen captain?
God, I thought, I’m losing my mind. Mahmoud is going to look down his nose at me and Ali will laugh in harsh scorn, but I have to say this.
“Holmes?”
“Yes, Russell.”
“Are we certain that Bey was the leader here?”
Ali jeered and Mahmoud looked, and Holmes leant back and closed his eyes. I persisted.
“He recognised you just now, but he did not know who you really are. And he certainly did not know me for anything other than an Arab boy. He had no clue that he was facing Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell.”
“Because his information was incomplete.” He sounded so tired.
“But why? Was it because his informant didn’t know? Or could it have been because his commander didn’t care to tell him?”
“Russell…”
“It doesn’t fit, Holmes,” I continued desperately. “Everything we know about Bey makes it unlikely that he would suddenly decide to become political. He was more than satisfied with his position in the Old Serai, torturing prisoners and… well.” I thought perhaps I ought to abandon that line of argument. “He seems to be in two places at once, killing Mikhail one night and the mullah halfway across the country the next; he is both a planner and spontaneous, cautious and heedless. You said yourself that he seems to be of two minds. I merely suggest that he is that in fact.”
“What Amir says makes a good deal of sense,” said Mahmoud. I turned and stared at him in disbelief.
“So you suggest that instead of merely cleaning up the rest of the gang,” Holmes said, “we should be looking out for the other head. Perhaps the—if I may use the word—mastermind.”
“It is a valid hypothesis, Holmes,” I said. To my relief, he smiled.
“Very well. In which case, I think we ought to move quickly. In my experience, master criminals, political or otherwise, tend not to wait about for one to catch them up.”
The one glaring unexplored strand in this tangle was the house in the Moslem Quarter that had been used by Bey and his men to bring in the larger pieces of equipment, the tools and explosives that they had not dared carry through the Souk el-Qattanin. That heavy, iron-studded door in the roof of the Cotton Grotto opened into a house, and the occupants of that house had to have some part in the plot.
Unfortunately, there was no way of matching our knowledge of the grotto with the map of the streets overhead, not with any precision. Holmes took out the thin, damp, much-abused map and spread it out delicately on the floor. With purpose, a degree of energy returned to our little band.
After some thought, we decided that the house must be on the south side of Haret es-Saadiyeh, possibly in the vicinity of a cul-de-sac alley that cut into the block of buildings. We could, of course, turn the entire search over to Allenby, leaving his soldiers and police to seal off the area and do a house-by-house search, but none of us seriously considered