Cry Wolf - Smith Wilbur (книги онлайн без регистрации полностью .TXT) 📗

The Lij was a disillusioned man when he disembarked with four of his

senior advisers and made the short journey by lighter to where two

hired open tourers awaited his arrival on the wharf. Hire of the motor

vehicles had been arranged by Major Gareth Swales and the drivers had

been given their instructions.

"Now, you leave the talking to me, old chap," Gareth advised Jake,

as they waited anxiously in the cavernous and gloomy depths of No. 4

Warehouse. "This really is my part of the show, you know. You just

look stern and do the demonstrating. That will impress the old Ethiop

no end." Gareth was resplendent in a pale blue tropical suit with a

fresh white carnation in the buttonhole, and silk shirt. He wore the

diagonally striped old school tie, his hair was brilliantined and

carefully brushed, and the sleek lines of the mustache had been trimmed

that morning. He ran a judicious eye over his partner and was mildly

satisfied. Jake's suit had not been cut in Savile Row, of course, but

it was adequate for the occasion, clean and freshly pressed. His shoes

had been newly polished and the usually unruly profusion of curls had

been wetted and slicked down neatly.

He had scrubbed all traces of grease from his large bony hands and from

under his fingernails.

"They probably don't even speak English," Gareth gave his opinion.

"Have to use the old sign language, you know.

Wish you'd let me have that dead one. We could have palmed it off on

them. They are bound to be a gullible lot, throw in a handful of beads

and a bag of salt-" He was interrupted by the sound of approaching

engines.

"This will be them, now. Don't forget what I told you." The two open

tourers pulled up in the bright sunlight beyond the doors and disgorged

their passengers. Four of them wore the long flowing white shammas,

full-length robes like Roman togas draped across the shoulder.

Under the robes they wore black gabardine riding breeches and open

sandals. They were all of them elderly men, the dense bushes of their

hair shot through with strands of grey and the dark faces wrinkled and

lined. In dignified silence they gathered about the taller, younger

figure clad in a dark western-style suit and they moved forward into

the cool gloom of the warehouse.

Lij Mikhael was well over six feet in height, with a slight scholarly

stoop to his shoulders. His skin was the colour of dark honey and his

hair and beard were a thick. curly halo about the finely boned face,

with dark thoughtful eyes and the narrow nose with its

Semitic beak. Despite the stoop, he walked with the grace of a

swordsman and his teeth when he smiled were glisteningly white against

the dark skin.

"By Jove," said the Lij, in the drawling accent that echoed

Gareth's with surprising accuracy. "It is Forty swales isn't it?"

Major Gareth Swales's composure seemed to fall away, leaving him

tottering mentally at the use of a nickname he had last heard twenty

years before. He had been so branded when his unexpected attack of

flatus had clapped and echoed from the vaulted ceiling and stone walls

of College Chapel. He had hoped never to hear it spoken again, and now

its use took him back to that moment when he had stood in the cold

stone chapel and the waves of suppressed laughter had broken over his

head like physical blows.

The Prince laughed now, and touched the knot of his necktie. For the

first time Jake realized that the diagonal stripes were identical to

those that Gareth Swales wore at his own throat.

"Eton 1915 Waynflete's. I was Captain of the House. I gave you six

for smoking in the bogs don't you remember?"

"My God," gasped

Gareth. "Toffee Sagud. My God. I just don't know what to say."

"Try him with the old sign language, then," murmured Jake helpfully.

"Shut up, damn you," hissed Gareth, and then with a conscious effort he

resurrected the smile that lit the gloomy warehouse like the rising of

the sun.

"Your Excellency Toffee my dear fellow." He hurried forward with hand

outstretched. "What a great and unexpected pleasure." They shook

hands laughing, and the solemn dark faces of the elderly advisers

lightened with sympathetic merriment.

"Let me introduce my partner, Mr. Jake Barton of Texas.

Mr. Barton is a brilliant engineer and financier Jake, this is

His Excellency Lij Mikhael Wasan Sagud, Deputy Governor of Shoo and an

old and dear friend of mine." The Prince's hand was narrow-boned, cool

and firm. His gaze was quick and penetrating before he turned back

to

Gareth.

"When were you expelled? Summer of 1915 wasn't it?

Caught boffing one of the maids, as I recall."

"Good Lord, no!"

Gareth was horrified. "Never the hired help. Actually, it was the

house master's daughter."

"That's right. I remember now. You were famous went out in a blaze of

glory. Talk about your feat lasted for months. They said you went to

France with the Duke's, and did jolly well for yourself." Gareth made

a deprecating gesture, and Lij Mikhael asked, "Since then what have you

been doing, old chap?" Which was a thoroughly embarrassing question

for Gareth. He made a few airy gestures with his cheroot.

This and that, you know. One thing and another.

Business, you understand. Importing, exporting, buying and selling."

"Which brings us to the present business, does it not?" the

Prince asked gently.

"Indeed, it does," agreed Gareth and took the Prince's arm. "Now that

I realize who is buying, it only increases my pleasure in managing to

assemble a package of such high quality." The wooden crates were

stacked neatly along one wall of the warehouse.

"A .

"Fourteen Vickers machine guns, most of them straight from the factory

hardly a shot through the barrels-" They passed slowly down the array

of merchandise to where one of the machine guns had been uncrated and

set up on its tripod.

"As YOU can see, all first-class stuff." The five Ethiopians were all

warriors, from a long warlike line, and they had the true warrior's

love of and delight in the weapons of war. They crowded eagerly around

the gun.

Gareth winked at Jake, and went on, "One hundred and forty-four

Lee-Enfield service rifles, still in the grease-" Half a dozen of the

rifles had been cleaned and laid out on display.

No. 4 Warehouse was an Aladdin's Cave for them. The elderly courtiers

forgot their dignity, and fell upon the weapons like a flock of crows,

cackling in Amharic as they fondled the cold oiled steel.

They hoisted up the skirts of their shammas to crouch behind the

demonstration machine gun and traversed it happily, making the staccato

schoolboy imitations of automatic fire as they mowed down imaginary

hordes of their enemies.

Even Lij Mikhael forsook his Etonian manners and joined in the

delighted examination of the hoard, pushing aside an old greybeard of

seventy to take his place at the Vickers gun and triggering off a noisy

squabble amongst the others in which Gareth diplomatically

intervened.

"I say, Toffee, old chap. This isn't all I have for you. Not by a

long chalk. I've kept the plums for the last." And Jake helped him to