With the first thin effervescence of autumn rain Mount-olive found himself back for the winter spell in Cairo with nothing of capital importance as yet decided in the field of policy; London was silent on the revelations contained in Pursewarden’s farewell letter and apparently disposed rather to condole with a Chief of Mission whose subordinates proved of doubtful worth than to criticize him or subject the whole matter to any deep scrutiny. Perhaps the feeling was best expressed in the long and pompous letter in which Kenilworth felt disposed to discuss the tragedy, offering assurances that everyone ‘at the Office’ was sad though not surprised. Pursewarden had always been considered rather outré, had he not? Apparently some such outcome had long been suspected. ‘His charm’ wrote Kenilworth in the august prose style reserved for what was known as ‘a balanced appraisal’, ‘could not disguise his aberrations. I do not need to dilate on the personal file which I showed you. In Pace Requiescat. But you have our sympathy for the loyal way in which you brushed aside these considerations to give him another chance with a Mission which had already found his manners insupportable, his views unsound.’ Mountolive squirmed as he read; yet his repugnance was irrationally mixed with a phantom relief for he saw, cowering behind these deliberations as it were, the shadows of Nessim and Justine, the outlaws. If he had been reluctant to leave Alexandria, it was only because the unresolved problem of Leila nagged him still. He was afraid of the new thoughts he was forced to consider concerning her and her possible share in the conspiracy — if such it was — he felt like a criminal harbouring the guilt for some as yet undiscovered deed. Would it not be better to force his way in upon her — to arrive unannounced at Karm Abu Girg one day and coax the truth out of her? He could not do it. His nerve failed him at this point. He averted his mind from the ominous future and packed with many a sigh for his journey, planning to plunge once more into the tepid stream of his social activities in order to divert his mind. For the first time now the aridities of his official duty seemed almost delightful, almost enticing. Time-killers and pain-killers at once, he followed out the prescribed round of entertainments with a concentration and attention that made them seem almost a narcotic. Never had he radiated such calculated charm, such attentiveness to considered trifles which turned them into social endearments. A whole colony of bores began to seek him out. It was a little time before people began to notice how much and in how short a time he had been aged, and to attribute the change to the unceasing round of pleasure into which he cast himself with such ravenous enthusiasm. What irony! His popularity expanded around him in waves. But now it began to seem to him that there was little enough behind the handsome indolent mask which he exposed to the world save a terror and uncertainty which were entirely new. Cut off in this way from Leila, he felt dispossessed, orphaned. All that remained was the bitter drug of duties to which he held desperately. Waking in the morning to the sound of his curtains being drawn by the butler — slowly and reverently as one might slide back the curtains of Juliet’s tomb — he would call for the papers and read them eagerly as he tackled a breakfast-tray loaded with the prescribed delicacies to which his life had made him accustomed. But already he was impatient for the tapping on the door which would herald the appearance of his young bearded third secretary, bringing him his appointments book and other impedimenta of his work. He would hope frantically that the day would be a full one, and felt almost anguish on those rare occasions when there were few engagements to be met. As he lay back on his pillows with controlled impatience Donkin would read the day’s agenda in the manner of someone embarking on a formal recitation of the Creed. Dull as they always sounded, these official engagements, they rang in Mountolive’s ear with a note of promise, a prescription for boredom and unease. He listened like an anxious voluptuary to the voice reciting: ‘There is a call on Rahad Pasha at eleven to deliver an aide-mémoire on investment by British subjects. Chancery have the data. Then Sir John and Lady Gilliatt are coming to lunch. Errol met the plane. Yes, we sent the flowers to the hotel for her. They will sign the book at eleven today. Their daughter is indisposed which rather mucked up the lunch-seating, but as you already had Haida Pasha and the American Minister, I took the liberty of popping in Errol and wife; the placement works out like this. I didn’t need to consult protocol because Sir John is here on a private visit — this has been publicly announced in the Press.’ Laying down all the beautifully-typed memoranda on its stiff crested paper, Mountolive sighed and said ‘Is the new chef any good? You might send him to me later in my office. I know a favourite dish of the Gilliatts’.’ Donkin nodded and scribbled a note before continuing in his toneless voice: ‘At six there is a cocktail party for Sir John at Haida’s. You have accepted to dine at the Italian Embassy — a dinner in honour of Signor Maribor. It will be a tight fit.’ ‘I shall change before’ said Mountolive thoughtfully. ‘There are also one or two notes here in your hand which I couldn’t quite decipher, sir. One mentions the Scent Bazaar, Persian Lilac’ ‘Good, yes. I promised to take Lady Gilliatt. Arrange transport for the visit please, and let them know I am coming. After lunch — say, three-thirty.’ ‘Then there is a note saying “Luncheon gifts”.’ ‘Aha, yes’ said Mountolive, ‘I am becoming quite an oriental. You see, Sir John may be most useful to us in London, at the Office, so I thought I would make his visit as memorable as possible, knowing his interests. Will you be good enough to go down to Karda in Suleiman Pasha and shop me a couple of those little copies of the Tel Al Aktar figurines, the coloured ones? I’d be most grateful. They are pretty toys. And see that they are wrapped with a card to put beside their plates? Thank you very much.’ Once more alone he sipped his tea and committed himself mentally to the crowded day which he saw stretching before him, rich in the promise of distractions which would leave no room for the more troubling self-questionings. He bathed and dressed slowly, deliberately, concentrating his mind on a choice of clothes suitable for his mid-morning official call, tying his tie carefully in the mirror. ‘I shall soon have to change my life radically’ he thought ‘or it will become completely empty. How best should that be done?’ Somewhere in the link of cause and effect he detected a hollow space which crystallized in his mind about the word ‘companionship’. He repeated it aloud to himself in the mirror. Yes, there was where a lack lay. ‘I shall have to get myself a dog’ he thought, somewhat pathetically ‘to keep me company. It will be something to look after. I can take it for walks by the Nile.’ Then a sense of absurdity beset him and he smiled. Nevertheless, in the course of his customary tour of the Embassy offices that morning, he stuck his head into the Chancery and asked Errol very seriously what sort of dog would make a good house pet. They had a long and pleasurable discussion of the various breeds and decided that some sort of fox-terrier might be the most suitable pet for a bachelor. A fox-terrier! He repeated the words as he crossed the landing to visit the Service attachés, smiling at his own asininity. ‘What next!’ His secretary had neatly stacked his papers in their trays and placed the red despatch cases against the wall; the single bar of the electric fire kept the office at a tepid norm suitable for the routine work of the day. He settled to his telegrams with an exaggerated attention, and to the draft replies which had already been dictated by his team of juniors. He found himself chopping and changing phrases, inverting sentences here and there, adding marginalia; this was something new, for he had never had excessive zeal in the matter of official English and indeed dreaded the portentous circumlocutions which his own drafts had been forced to harbour when he himself had been a junior, under a Minister who fancied himself as a stylist — are there any exceptions in the Foreign Service? No. He had always been undemanding in this way, but now the forcible concentration with which he lived and worked had begun to bear fruit in a series of meddlesome pedantries which had begun mildly to irritate the diligent Errol and his staff. Though he knew this, nevertheless Mountolive persisted unshrinkingly; he criticized, quizzed and amended work which he knew to be well enough done already, working with the aid of the Unabridged Oxford Dictionary and a Skeat — for all the world like some medieval scholar splitting theological hairs. He would light a cheroot and smoke thoughtfully as he jotted and scored on the marbled minute-paper. Today at ten there came the customary welcome clinking of cups and saucers and Bohn, the Chancery Guard, presented himself somewhat precariously with the cup of Bovril and a plate of rusks to announce a welcome interval for refreshment. Mount-olive relaxed in an armchair for a quarter of an hour as he sipped, staring heavily at the white wall with its group of neutral Japanese prints — the standard decoration chosen by the Ministry of Works for the offices of Ambassadors. In a little while it would be time to deal with the Palestine bag; already it was being sorted in the Archives Department — the heavy canvas ditty-bags lying about the floor with their mouths agape, the clerks sorting swiftly upon trestle tables, covered with green baize, the secretaries of the various departments waiting patiently outside the wooden pen each for her share of the spoils…. He felt a small premonitory unease this morning as he waited, for Maskelyne had not as yet shown any sign of life. He had not even acknowledged, let alone commented upon, Pursewarden’s last letter. He wondered why. There was a tap at the door, and Errol entered with his diffident ungainly walk, holding a bulky envelope impressively sealed and superscribed. ‘From Maskelyne, sir’ he said, and Mountolive rose and stretched with an elaborate show of nonchalance. ‘Good Lord!’ he said, weighing the parcel in his hand before handing it back to Errol. ‘So this came by pigeon-post, eh? Wonder what it can be? It looks like a novel, eh?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Well, open it up, dear boy’ (he had picked up a lot of avuncular tricks of speech from Sir Louis, he noted sadly; he must make a note to reform the habit before it was too late.) Errol slit the huge envelope clumsily with the paper-knife. A fat memorandum and a bundle of photostats tumbled out on to the desk between them. Mountolive felt a small sense of shrinking as he recognized the spidery handwriting of the soldier upon the crowned notepaper of the covering letter. ‘What have we here?’ he said, settling himself at his desk. ‘My dear Ambassador’; the rest of the letter was faultlessly typed in Primer. As Errol turned over the neatly stapled photostats with a curious finger, reading a few words here and there, he whistled softly. Mountolive read: My dear Ambassador, I am sure you will be interested in the enclosed data, all of which has been recently unearthed by my department in the course of a series of widespread investigations here in Palestine. I am able to supply a very large fragment of a detailed correspondence carried on over the last few years between Hosnani, the subject of my original pended paper, and the so-called Jewish Underground Fighters in Haifa and Jerusalem. One glance at it should convince any impartial person that my original appraisal of the gentleman in question erred on the side of moderation. The quantities of arms and ammunition detailed in the attached check-list are so considerable as to cause the Mandate authorities grave alarm. Everything is being done to locate and confiscate these large dumps, so far however with little success. This of course raises once more, and far more urgently, the political question of how to deal with this gentleman. My original view, as you know, was that a timely word to the Egyptians would meet the case. I doubt if even Memlik Pasha would care to prejudice Anglo-Egyptian relations and Egypt’s new-found freedom, by refusing to act if pressure were applied. Nor need we enquire too closely into the methods he might employ. Our hands would at least be clean. But obviously Hosnani must be stopped — and soon. I am copying this paper to W.O. and F.O. The London copy leaves under flying seal with an Urgent Personal from the Commissioner to the F.S. urging action in these terms. Doubtless you will have a reaction from London before the end of the week. Comment on the letter of Mr. Pursewarden which you copied to me seems superfluous at this stage. The enclosures to this Memorandum will be sufficient explanation. It is clear that he could not look his duty in the face. I am, Sir, Your Most Obedient Servant, Oliver Maskelyne, Brigadier. The two men sighed simultaneously and looked at one another. ‘Well’ said Errol at last, thumbing over the glossy photostats with a voluptuous finger. ‘At last we have proof positive.’ He was beaming with pleasure. Mountolive shook his head weakly and lit another cheroot. Errol said: ‘I’ve only flicked over the correspondence, sir, but each letter is signed Hosnani. They are all typescripts, of course. I expect you’ll want to mull them over at leisure, so I’ll retire for an hour until you need me. Is that all?’ Mountolive fingered the great wad of paper with nausea, with a sense of surfeit, and nodded speechlessly. ‘Right’ said Errol briskly and turned. As he reached the door, Mountolive found his voice, though to his own ears it sounded both husky and feeble. ‘Errol’ he said, ‘there’s only one thing; signal London to say that we have received Maskelyne’s Memorandum and are au courant. Say we are standing by for instructions.’ Errol nodded and backed smiling into the passage. Mountolive settled to his desk and turned a vague and bilious eye upon the facsimiles. He read one or two of the letters slowly, almost uncomprehendingly, and was suddenly afflicted by a feeling of vertigo. He felt as if the walls of the room were slowly closing in upon him. He breathed deeply through his nose with his eyes fast closed. His fingers began involuntarily to drum softly upon the blotter, copying the syncopated rhythms of the Arab finger-drum, the broken-loined rhythms which one might hear any evening floating over the waters of the Nile from some distant boat. As he sat, softly tapping out this insidious dance measure of Egypt, with his eyes closed like a blind man, he asked himself over and over again: ‘Now what is to happen?’ But what could possibly happen? ‘I should expect an action telegram this afternoon’ he mumbled. This was where he found his duty so useful a prop. Despite his interior preoccupations, he allowed it to drag him along now, to drag his aberrant attention along like a dog on a lead. The morning was a relatively busy one. His lunch-party was an unqualified success, and the surprise visit to the Scent Bazaar afterwards confirmed his powers as a brilliant and thoughtful host. After it was over, he lay down for half an hour in his bedroom with the curtains drawn, sipping a cup of tea, and conducting the usual debate with himself which always began with the phrase: ‘Would I rather be a dunce than a fop — that is the question?’ The very intensity of his self-contempt kept his mind off the issue concerned with Nessim until six when the Chancery opened once more. He had a cold shower and changed before sauntering down from the Residence. When he reached his office it was to find the desk-lamp burning and Errol seated in the armchair, smiling benignly and holding the pink telegram in his fingers. ‘It has just come in, sir’ he said, passing it to his Chief as if it were a bouquet of flowers specially gathered for him. Mountolive cleared his throat loudly — attempting by the physical action to clear his mind and attention at the same time. He was afraid that his fingers might tremble as he held it, so he placed it elaborately on his blotter, thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, and leaned down to study it, registering (he hoped) little beyond polite nonchalance. ‘It is pretty clear, sir’ said Errol hopefully, as if to strike an echoing spark of enthusiasm from his Chief. But Mountolive read it slowly and thoughtfully twice before looking up. He suddenly wanted to go to the lavatory very much. ‘I must do a pee’ he said hastily, practically driving the younger man out of the door ‘and I’ll come down in a little while to discuss it. It seems clear enough, though. I shall have to act tomorrow. In a minute, eh?’ Errol disappeared with an air of disappointment. Mountolive rushed to ............