The lighthearted quest, p.30
The Lighthearted Quest, page 30
part #1 of Julia Probyn Series
Lady Tracy’s small sherry-party had developed, by the time it took place, into a rather large cocktail-party, as these affairs have a way of doing—if the household is going to be disturbed in any case why not work off as many social debts as possible?—and one can’t really leave out the poor So-and-Sos, they would be hurt. So most of Tangier’s small Corps Diplomatique had been invited, including the young vice-consul who had been nice to Julia; the Bunch, who were residents of long standing, and the English head of the Sûreté branch of the Zone Police, a tall dour Highlander called MacNeill; Mme La Besse and the Professor, the Duke and all the Frivolity party, and many more. Arrival by car or taxi was a little complicated, since only one machine at a time could perform the difficult manoeuvre of reversing and turning at the edge of the cliff; but it was a fine night, and most people elected to get out some distance down the street on the landward side and walk the rest of the way—Moors in wild dress stood holding lanterns at intervals down the steep cement path to light the feet of the guests. This rather unusual approach to a social function delighted Edina. “How Old Testament!” she said, pausing.
“Why?”
“Oh, ‘Be Thou a lamp unto my feet and light unto my path’—that really means something here. And besides, look at their clothes!”
“Yes, but come on—I think we’re late,” said Julia.
They were rather late. When ‘Abdeslem ushered them into the big hall it was quite full of people, though the noise was less deafening than at most cocktail-parties because the voices rose up and lost themselves in the vaulted ceiling, above the high Moorish arches. Julia led Edina through the crowds across to where, as she expected, her hostess sat enthroned in her usual chair, under Jane Digby’s picture of the Wilder Shores of Love; she introduced her—“This is my cousin Edina Monro, Lady Tracy.”
The old woman gave the two young ones her usual gracious greeting—“But now you must meet Hugh. Hugh!”—she waved a copy of Ebb and Flow. “That is my signal. Ah, here he is. Hugh, I want you to meet my dear young friend Miss Probyn.” Julia turned and found herself face to face with the red-haired man.
Major Torrens’ expression at that moment was not lost on Edina Monro.
“How do you do?” Julia said in her slowest tones, holding out a languid hand. “I am delighted to meet you at last—I have been wanting to for quite a long time.”
“Er—the pleasure is mutual,” he replied rather stiffly—his well-drilled politeness, as Edina said afterwards, recalled the barrack square.
“Really? Do you know, that surprises me,” said Julia coolly. “The last time we saw one another you seemed, I heard, to be in rather a hurry to get away.”
He flushed up to the roots of his hair—Lady Tracy looked from one to the other, with raised eye-brows.
“But have you met already?” she was beginning, when another guest claimed her attention.
“Good evening, Lady Tracy. A splendid party! And how are you?”
“Oh, Captain MacNeill, how nice to see you! Now—Hugh I think you know, but not Miss Probyn”—she indicated Julia—“and her cousin, Miss Monro. Dear Julia, this is Captain MacNeill, of the Sûreté.”
This time it was Julia who observed a certain stiffening in the police officer’s expression at the name Monro. Edina’s likeness to Colin was very marked—the height, the dead-white skin, the black hair and the surprising grey eyes. He shook hands, however, politely enough, and was saying something suitable about hoping they liked Tangier when Edina gave a sudden cry.
“Colin!” She darted into the throng and grasped her brother by the arm. “Oh goodness, Colin, you at last! What a place to find you! Come—“ she tugged at him—“here’s Julia, poor love—all plaster!”
Heads turned at this little scene; the wretched Colin thought it simplest to follow his sister where she led—which was up to the space near Lady Tracy’s chair already occupied by Julia, Major Torrens, and the Head of the Sûreté. “Julia, here’s Colin!” Edina said triumphantly.
“I’ve seen Julia,” said Colin, shaking off his sister’s hand from his arm, and glowering at MacNeill.
“But do you know one another already, too?” Lady Tracy said, beaming at the three beautiful young creatures, who indeed made a group of astonishing splendour as they stood together. “This is Hugh’s assistant, dear Julia, whom I wanted you to meet.”
“Yes, darling Lady T.—but he’s also Edina’s brother, and my cousin, and the missing man!” As she said this Julia shot a glance of delighted mischief at the Head of the Sûreté, who stood gnawing his moustache and looking sourly from Colin to Torrens and back again. “Don’t you remember, you always promised to help me to find him? Colin Monro?—and here he is!”
Lady Tracy looked a little vague. “Ah yes—I do remember now. Monro—that seems to be everybody’s name! And all so handsome!” She rounded smartly on her nephew.
“Hugh, do please bring some drinks! Here are all these beautiful young people dying of thirst, and poor Captain MacNeill too.” Her tone was one of brisk authority, and to Julia’s secret delight Major Torrens obeyed with the alacrity of a curate.
“I’ll come and help—“ Colin began, but Edina grasped his arm again.
“No you don’t—not out of my sight till we’ve talked a bit!” She turned to her hostess. “Lady Tracy, will you forgive me if I get into a huddle with my prodigal brother? It’s so exciting to find him here.”
“Oh, yes, of course—if you go through that archway you will find two or three more rooms, and fewer people. But wait till Hugh brings you something to drink. How amusing this rencontre is, isn’t it?” she said to Captain MacNeill. “This poor child has been looking for Mr. Monro for ages.”
“Er—yes—quite so,” the police officer replied rather stiffly, as another guest approached Lady Tracy.
“I’m not the only one, am I?” said Julia, a slow mirth spreading in her calm face.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Looking for Colin, I mean. It seems to be quite a local industry in Tangier.”
Captain MacNeill stared at her, incredulously—then his face became blank.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? Do you know, I really thought you did! Oh well, never mind—anyhow you know now, from Lady Tracy’s own mouth, that Colin is Major Torrens’ assistant; and he has been, for the last ten or eleven months. That’s from mine, but you can take it from me, and confirm it at your leisure.”
Captain MacNeill bent his dark Highland gaze, like a gloomy searchlight, on Julia.
“I don’t think I caught your name,” he said. “Might I know it?”
She laughed out loud.
“Oh, you’re in the very best tradition! Quite splendid. My name is—
“Darling Julia, here you are!” The Duke of Ross-shire had come up, and enfolded her in one of his usual expansive hugs. “Evening, MacNeill. How’s crime? Nothing but Spanish murders and dull smugglers? I see you are cultivating Miss Probyn as a welcome change—how wise. She is more bombed against than bombing!—I was there; I can vouch for it.”
“Angus, have you had your stitches out yet?” Julia asked, rightly considering that the Duke had amply answered Captain MacNeill’s last question.
“Yes, dear kind child; this morning. Agony!—but all over now, thank God. Ah, and here is Hugh with some drinks—thank God for that too!” He took a glass from the tray held by Major Torrens, handed it to Julia, and took another. “MacNeill, how are you? Hugh, I had an idea that I caught a glimpse of you the other day at Marrakesh, in a highly improbable moustache, just an instant before Miss Probyn and I were bombed. Or am I wrong?”
“My dear Duke, can even you be wrong sometimes?” Torrens asked—his words were adroit, but his brow was irritable. But both his adroitness and his irritability were lost on Angus Ross-shire, whose glance, straying round, lighted on the two young Monros, standing together in silent and rather angry beauty, waiting for their drinks, as bidden by their hostess.
“Good God! Isn’t that young Colin?” he exclaimed. “Torrens, what an un-gay deceiver you are, keeping him hidden all this time, and driving our lovely Julia into the jaws of death looking for him—also, I may say, making an almighty quick get-away from those same jaws yourself! I must have a word with him”—and he strode over, glass in hand.
Julia entertained herself with a glance at Captain MacNeill; she found his expression rewarding.
“I find all this rather amusing,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“It has the merit of the unexpected, if that is a merit,” he said slowly, but a little less stiffly.
Major Torrens presently came up to Julia with another drink.
“Oh, thank you. Do you think you and I could talk sometime?”
“Yes, perhaps we had better. Only this crowd—“ he looked about him.
“Is there a corner? What about the roof?”
He laughed shortly.
“You seem to know as much about this house as about everything else. Yes, the roof by all means.”
Julia led the way up. The air struck cool and sweet on her face as she came out into it; the night was full of stars, the sea was conversing gently with the rocks at the foot of the cliff. Away to one side Tangier threw up a diffused golden glow, set here and there with strings of brilliant lights; on the other, when she went and sat on the parapet, a single very small light shone up from the dark slopes below. “That must be Nilüfer’s house,” she said, gesturing at it with her cigarette.
“Yes.” There was still hostility in the man’s tone; slowly, she turned full towards him.
“Look, Major Torrens, I don’t think we shall gain anything, either of us, by quarrelling, or even by stalling. I know you are not very pleased with me—but quite frankly, I am not very pleased with you, either.”
“Oh, really? Why not?”
“Well, presumably you took the trouble to find out something of my cousin’s home background before you roped him in for a job of this sort—or not?”
“Yes, naturally I did.”
“Well, if you knew that he was the only son of his mother, and she a widow, don’t you think it was rather irresponsible of you, not to say merciless, to prevent him from answering any of the letters urging him to come home—or the advertisements?”
“Did he tell you that I prevented him?” Torrens asked.
“Of course not. But I know him, and now I’ve met you—and I am perfectly confident that he discussed it with you, in his concern, and was acting on your advice when he didn’t reply. Are you prepared to swear that I am wrong?”
“I feel a good deal like swearing, but—no, I am not prepared to swear that. I gave him the advice that in the circumstances seemed to me wisest. When I took him on to work for me he also took on certain obligations—’including a considerable obligation of secrecy.” He paused. “And I covered up a good deal of disagreeable publicity on his account.”
“Oh, I know you did. That—oh, and taking him on at all—was really a work of mercy, and I’m grateful for it. By the way, was it you who got his last letter posted at Ceuta? A cover up, was it?”
Torrens laughed—but this time the laugh sounded genuine, almost friendly.
“How detailed you are! Yes, of course.”
“Good-oh. That was one of the things I wanted to know.”
“Are there others?”
“Yes. If it’s really all right in Paris, why have you been getting out this Astridite stuff so secretly here, and running all these risks?”
“I see Colin has been indiscreet,” Torrens said.
“Not about the name—I got that elsewhere,” said Julia.
“The devil you did!”
“Yes, but never mind how. Do go on.”
He proceeded to explain. One Secret Service might have an agreement with another Secret Service, if it was to the ultimate advantage of both; the French in fact preferred these particular underground activities to be carried on by the British—“We are less subject to leaks—as a rule! This time we haven’t been quite so successful as usual.”
“Meaning me?” Julia asked.
“In fact, yes.”
“Oh, what a worry! Shall you be able to go on?”
He hesitated for a moment before replying, and walked quickly round the roof; no washing encumbered it on this occasion, and it was easy to establish that no one was lurking behind the two chimney-stacks.
“I think it will probably not be necessary,” he said when he returned to where she sat on the parapet. “What we have been sending was really for experimental purposes, and I think they have sufficient for that now.”
“What, with this last lot from Bathyadis, and the tombs?”
“Yes.” She could almost hear that he was smiling.
“So in fact Colin could come home?”
“If it was absolutely vital I suppose he could, if he wanted to. But it would be a great pity.”
“Why?”
“Because he is rather a valuable person for this sort of work. He’s clever, he’s resourceful, he’s energetic, and he has a most unusual gift for languages; he has picked up Arabic, which isn’t an easy language, in the most amazing way—he can even imitate rustic dialects.”
“He always was a good mimic,” said Julia happily. “Go on.”
“Well, I have been working with him now for nearly a year, and I think I understand his character to some extent; I believe he could make a career for himself in the service in a way he would hardly be likely to do outside it. He hates routine, being in harness—”
“That’s true,” Julia interjected.
“—And in this job, though there is discipline, there’s very little routine. I should have liked to see him find himself in work for which he is quite peculiarly adapted, where he could make a reasonable living, and be of real use to his country. He’s young still, of course, and uncertain of himself—and sometimes unwise—” this time the smile was quite audible—“not unnaturally, perhaps, in the circumstances.”
“How well you know him,” said Julia; there was warmth in her voice.
“I’ve got fond of the boy. But you think it’s his duty to go back to his place and his people?”
“It certainly was at one point—when everyone wrote. But it’s just possible that there might be another solution to that problem, now.”
“Oh, really? It would be quite excellent if that could be arranged. Are you going to organise it? That would relieve me of all anxiety—if I may say so, you seem to have rather unusual gifts too.”
Julia turned from the parapet and swept him a curtsey; the distant glow of Tangier’s lights on her black-and-gold frock illuminated the graceful movement.
“Merci!” she said.
“Well, Miss Probyn, I have to hand it to you,” Torrens said. “Reluctantly, I admit! But though I have been on this job for a longish time, and often up against quite powerful organisations, I’ve never before been brought to a full stop by a single young woman.”
‘Oh, splendid!” said Julia, laughing. “You wouldn’t have a job for me too, as a sort of Mata Hari, or something?”
“Not till I have young Colin properly run in and thoroughly stabilised—not on your life!” said the Major. “Apply again three years hence. But will you try to get him released to carry on with me?”
“It doesn’t really depend on me—but I’ll try to foster it. If Colin stays with you, where will it be?”
“God knows! Wherever we’re wanted next.”
Chapter 17
Julia and Major Torrens descended from the roof in high good humour, exchanging laughing remarks; at the foot of the stairs they encountered a new arrival coming in from the front door, a very diminutive figure indeed—it was Mr. St John. Hugh greeted him warmly—“Oh, splendid, Sir. I’m so glad you made it; my aunt will be delighted. I believe you know Miss Probyn, don’t you?” he added blandly.
“Er—yes, we have met,” said Mr. St John stiffly; but he made no movement to shake hands—he stood looking from one to the other with the aspect of an incredulous, resentful, and completely bewildered tortoise. Julia’s ready pity awoke.
“Major Torrens and I have made it up,” she said gently. “And I have seen Colin at last—in fact he’s here tonight! So perhaps you will let me say how sorry I am to have caused you so much anxiety in Fez, when you had been so good to me.”
Mr. St John opened his mouth and shut it again two or three times, soundlessly, like a lizard catching flies; then he turned his small reptilian eyes enquiringly to Torrens.
“She’s perfectly right, Sir. I’m so glad you’re down—we must have a word later on. But I have practically retained Miss Probyn’s services as an assistant! I think she may be able to help me very much.”
“Miss Probyn’s ability was never in doubt,” the old gentleman enunciated dryly. “Therefore it is almost certainly better to have her as an assistant than as an opponent; and though I confess to surprise at this development, for your sake, Torrens, I welcome it.” He turned to Julia, and glanced at the long strip of plaster on her forehead.
“I was sorry to hear of your accident,” he said, in his precise tones; “but you may remember that I warned you that your intervention might be dangerous. I hope you are recovered, and that there will be no permanent disfigurement?”
“Oh, I don’t expect so, thank you so much. But am I forgiven?”
“If Major Torrens has forgiven you, clearly I may also,” the old man said, a little smile at last appearing on his withered lips.
A Moorish servant came up with a tray of drinks—several of these creatures, hardly less wild in appearance than the lantern-bearers outside, constantly moved through the rooms; Julia guessed that they were some of the hangers-on who took their toll of Lady Tracy’s peas and eggs. Mr. St John took a glass of sherry; Julia and Major Torrens went on with cocktails.
“Look, Sir,” Torrens said, after politely raising his glass to the old man—“Before you come and talk to my aunt, have you any news? You can say anything in front of Miss Probyn,” he added rather hastily—“she is practically on the strength!” Julia grinned at this statement.
