They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [16]
He turned up a narrow dark turning, again to the right, then to the left. Here among the small booths, he came to the opening of a khan, he stepped through the doorway into the court. Various shops were all round it. Carmichael went to one where ferwahs were hanging – the sheepskin coats of the north. He stood there handling them tentatively. The owner of the store was offering coffee to a customer, a tall bearded man of fine presence who wore green round his tar-bush showing him to be a Hajji who had been to Mecca.
Carmichael stood there fingering the ferwah.
‘Besh hadha?’ he asked.
‘Seven dinars.’
‘Too much.’
The Hajji said, ‘You will deliver the carpets at my khan?’
‘Without fail,’ said the merchant. ‘You start tomorrow?’
‘At dawn for Kerbela.’
‘It is my city, Kerbela,’ said Carmichael. ‘It is fifteen years now since I have seen the Tomb of the Hussein.’
‘It is a holy city,’ said the Hajji.
The shopkeeper said over his shoulder to Carmichael:
‘There are cheaper ferwahs in the inner room.’
‘A white ferwah from the north is what I need.’
‘I have such a one in the farther room.’
The merchant indicated the door set back in the inner wall.
The ritual had gone according to pattern – a conversation such as might be heard any day in any souk – but the sequence was exact – the keywords all there – Kerbela – white ferwah.
Only, as Carmichael passed to cross the room and enter the inner enclosure, he raised his eyes to the merchant’s face – and knew instantly that the face was not the one he expected to see. Though he had seen this particular man only once before, his keen memory was not at fault. There was a resemblance, a very close resemblance, but it was not the same man.
He stopped. He said, his tone one of mild surprise, ‘Where, then, is Salah Hassan?’
‘He was my brother. He died three days ago. His affairs are in my hands.’
Yes, this was probably a brother. The resemblance was very close. And it was possible that the brother was also employed by the department. Certainly the responses had been correct. Yet it was with an increased awareness that Carmichael passed through into the dim inner chamber. Here again was merchandise piled on shelves, coffee pots and sugar hammers of brass and copper, old Persian silver, heaps of embroideries, folded abas, enamelled Damascus trays and coffee sets.
A white ferwah lay carefully folded by itself on a small coffee table. Carmichael went to it and picked it up. Underneath it was a set of European clothes, a worn, slightly flashy business suit. The pocket-book with money and credentials was already in the breast pocket. An unknown Arab had entered the store, Mr Walter Williams of Messrs Cross and Co., Importers and Shipping Agents would emerge and would keep certain appointments made for him in advance. There was, of course, a real Mr Walter Williams – it was as careful as that – a man with a respectable open business past. All according to plan. With a sigh of relief Carmichael started to unbutton his ragged army jacket. All was well.
If a revolver had been chosen as the weapon, Carmichael’s mission would have failed then and there. But there are advantages in a knife – noticeably noiselessness.
On the shelf in front of Carmichael was a big copper coffee pot and that coffee pot had been recently polished to the order of an American tourist who was coming in to collect it. The gleam of the knife was reflected in that shining rounded surface – a whole picture, distorted but apparent was reflected there. The man slipping through the hangings behind Carmichael, the long curved knife he had just pulled from beneath his garments. In another moment that knife would have been buried in Carmichael’s back.
Like a flash Carmichael wheeled round. With a low flying tackle he brought the other to the ground. The knife flew across the room. Carmichael disentangled himself quickly, leaped over the other’s body, rushed through the outer room where he