Again they could hear only the low, heavy tiger hum of the car. Maureen, who had been staring straight ahead with the determination to show no sign of anything unusual even if they crashed into one of the low walls built of loose stones, felt all her forebodings congeal again.

She stole a quick look sideways at Alvarez, whose teeth were set and his hands locked on the wheel, as though he hated what he had said. The old road dipped and swung amid higher, darker trees; the speedometer needle flickered round ninety.

Then H.M. spoke drowsily, always a bad sign.

"1 say, my dolly." He touched Paula on the arm. "Would you mind changing places with me?"

"Lord, no. But why?"

A low-flying bee whacked against the windscreen with an audible report. Paula Bentley maneuvered her knees over H.M. as the latter slid across the cushion to the left-hand side behind the driver. The speedometer needle flickered over ninety.

"I dunno whether you've heard of the trick, son," H.M. remarked drowsily, "but from this position I can break your neck quicker'n a hangman."

"Perhaps, though, you might find it difficult." Alvarez still spoke in a steady, formal tone. "And yet, sir, if you attack the driver this car will run wild. Miss . . . that is, all of us would be injured and possibly killed. Because of this, and this alone, I yield."

The speedometer needle dropped steadily back to seventy, then sixty and fifty to forty. In the windscreen Paula could see by the reflection that Maureen's face was very white. Although Paula was far more emotional than Maureen, she was less sensible of physical danger. She had seen too much of it in a London girlhood. Paula smoothed her yellow hair; her pink lips parted in an expression between amusement and annoyance.

"Juan!" she said quietly.

"Yes?" said Alvarez.

"You are silly," Paula told him in her soft voice. "Is this bit of nonsense what I think it is?"

Alvarez may, or may not, have shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, I shall tell them what I think it is, if you won't. You're 'under orders,' I suppose. Oh, Juan! Sir Henry and Maureen have done everything you asked." Colour flamed through the fair complexion of Paula's face. "Can't you at least tell them? Wouldn't that be the decent thing? The sporting thing?"

For some reason only that word "sporting" made Alvarez wince. He looked at Maureen, who stared steadily ahead. Slowing down the car to a stop, Alvarez yanked on the hand brake. He turned to the back, the nostrils of his thin nose dilated.

"Sir Henry, I assure you —and Miss Holmes —that you are not being kidnapped. You will not be harmed or molested in any way. If you and Miss Holmes wish to walk the six or seven miles to the Hotel Minzeh in the rue du Statut, you are at liberty to leave this car. Or you could ride in the station wagon with the luggage."

All dangerous signs had faded in H.M.

"Oh, son! I'd rather be kidnapped than walk one mile. And bouncin' in that luggage van wouldn't be good for my behind. To tell you the truth, I don't particularly care where we go, as long as I can rest. What d'ye think, my wench?"

"I don't mind either," Maureen answered instantly and cheerfully.

"Wait a minute!" said H.M., with sudden alarm. "This hokey-pokey isn't goin' to snare me into police work, is it?" Alvarez cleared his throat.

"Sir, aside from petty larcenies and minor assaults, there has been no crime here within the past two months."

"Haah!" said H.M, letting out vast relief. "That's all I wanted to know,"

"We have come some distance," Alvarez told him instantly. "We are now on the Old Mountain. A little distance ahead, and at my first turn, we shall be on the Old Mountain Road. Up here live many of the retired, the affluent, the gentry." His voice grew intense. "I ask only to drive you to one of these, which I can do in three minutes. There you will have perhaps ten, perhaps twenty minutes' talk with a certain gentleman. Afterwards you may, of course, do as you like."

"I still don't understand the reason for all this mysterious hocus-pocus . . ."

"There are reasons, sir! Believe me!"

"Oh, son, it's all right!" said H.M. "I enjoy a little causerie with anybody. Maybe it's that ruddy Dutchman with his bottle of schnapps. Drive on."

Alvarez, so relieved that faint sweat appeared on his swarthy forehead, whipped round to the wheel. Starting the car, he slid it into top gear and shot forward like a thunderbolt. Then he seemed to remember something, and glanced at Maureen.

"Miss Holmes," he said awkwardly, "I—that is, I have been accused of too-fast driving, which seems extraordinary. Do you think it too fast?"

Maureen turned and smiled at him. She still could not decide whether she liked or disliked him.

"Well," she answered, "If you could manage to drive a little more slowly . . . "

Almost instantly the Packard's pace dropped to that of a rather rheumatic snail. Paula Bentley, again sitting back in one corner with her knees crossed and light coat draped on her shoulders, winked at H.M. in sheer delight. But the great man did not notice.

Alvarez's tactics had been bad. The bright-painted station wagon, plunging after him, evidently did not trust its brakes to avoid a collision from behind. It shot straight out across an open field, fortunately unfenced, with a realistic imitation of a bucking bronco at a rodeo. Then, making a sweeping turn on two wheels, the station wagon bucked its way back, rejoining the road and avoiding another near collision by at least two feet.

H.M. closed his eyes. He did not say anything.

But, after a moment, he leaned forward and tapped Alvarez on the shoulder.

"Son," he suggested, "did anybody ever tell you about the stork? Or that there's a difference between a jet plane and bus goin' to Croydon? What I mean —sort of a compromise?"

"I fear I cannot do that, sir. I am sorry. I must go violently one way or the other."

"Well," observed Paula, all innocent-eyed, "your wife will always know where you stand."

"Wife?" cried Alvarez. "What wife? I have no wife!"

Yet the car moved forward at a steady thirty-five. They were now on the Old Mountain Road, with the sun at noonday warm and even hot. On their left, where the hill sloped up steeply, a house or villa was all but invisible amid thick trees. On their right, they still could not see down to Tangier in the valley because of thin but monstrously high hedges. But a tropical luxuriance seemed to have crept into the vegetation that was very sweet to Maureen.

Then, on their right, some distance ahead, appeared a smallish mosque painted pink. Nobody except Alvarez and Paula saw a broad opening in the tall thin hedge to the left, beyond which the hill sloped steeply.

Alvarez, jamming his foot on the accelerator, yanked the wheel to the left. They plunged through the opening in the hedge, then slightly to the right up a steep earthen tunnel walled on each side with dark-green moss or grey stone once whitewashed, and bunched trees overhanging. They seemed to have climbed a good distance when Alvarez, driving on more power in top gear, whirled the car to the right.

Now they raced on gravel past a high brick wall, parallel with the wall because the path was so narrow. Up ahead sprang a pair of gateposts, also parallel with them in the narrow path. The eye of Sir Henry Merrivale saw doom ahead of him.

"Looky here, son! You're not goin' to turn left through those gateposts? You can't do it! Nobody can make . . ."

But Alvarez did. Even the Packard skidded as its rear end swung round under the wrench of Alvarez's left hand. Gravel spurted wide, or clattered up under the wings. They were still ascending when they had passed through the gateposts, but on a gentler gravel drive which curved up at the side of a garden planted with great wild-olive trees. And they caught their first rational glimpse of the house.

The House of the Wild Olives, very high and very broad, was of white dressed stone as smooth as concrete; against it many lines of windows, with wooden shutters painted green, stood out vividly. The actual ground floor, you could see, was a kind of cellar: it contained only kitchens and kitchen offices. The true ground floor, with the front door, was above it. Across this had been built a broad terrace with a marble balustrade, along which stood at intervals smallish marble nymphs and vases. A stone staircase against the front wall went up to the balcony; and beneath the balcony had been built a broad garage.

Seen now, under the sunlight and amid a bickering of birds, it seemed stately yet kindly. Though the house could not have been very old, forty years perhaps, it carried well the grace and colour of its country.

Alvarez, moving slowly, sent the car idling into the dim garage and stopped.

"You see?" said Paula Bentley. "Since Juan insisted on being so horribly mysterious, I kept my mouth shut. But there wasn't the least danger, Maureen, or I should have stopped it. And there wasn't any danger; was there, Sir Henry?"

H.M., deeply in one corner with his hands folded over his corporation and his squashed Panama hat drawn down, opened one eye.

"No-n-o," he said, with a rumble from deep in his chest. "No danger. Absolutely. In this country all you got to worry about is the morgue. Will somebody help me out of this treacherous capsule?"

Alvarez sprang down and opened the door for him. Out poured what seemed a shapeless mass, which reassembled itself like an evil-minded goblin. H.M., reaching into his pocket, brought out a cigar case, took one of his vile black cigars, sniffed at it with ghoulish voluptuousness, bit off the end, spat it out, and lighted the cigar. As he inhaled, his face grew almost human.

"Sir, you will have the kindness to remember?" Alvarez was eager, on wires. "Your instructions?"

"Why not?" asked H.M. "I ain't dead yet. Burn me if I can tell you why I'm still alive, but I am."

"Out there," Alvarez pointed towards the mouth of the garage, "you saw the stone staircase going up to the terrace above us now. There you will find . . ."

"Sure, sure, the Dutchman gettin' whiffled on Bols gin."

"No, sir. No! This gentleman is not Dutch. He is a Belgian."

"So?" inquired H.M., and his eyes flashed open. "That's better. That's much, much better!"

"Thank you. I shall take the ladies for a short stroll, explain the situation to them, and return."

"Take your time, son. I can find my way,"

H.M. nodded, setting his hat at a more seemly angle. He lumbered out of the garage, and a good distance along the high stone wall of the staircase. Then, turning back on his tracks, he went up the stairs, soothing his lungs with poisonous smoke.

He found the floor of the balcony —and stopped short. From this high place, the view should have been seen by the romantic Maureen. But even H.M. paused.

One marble nymph on the balustrade wore a long garment of yellow flowers. A marble vase foamed thick, light-purple blossoms, which spilled over to the floor. Beyond the balustrade, Tangier fell away in ridges of dense dark green far down to the long, blue shimmering bay and the dark hills rising beyond the bay. The slope was thickened with red-roofed white houses, looking from there like toys of white or yellow-brown or pink. One sole jarring note was a water tower, seeming high only because it was on a ridge, but dwarfing the slender brick towers of mosques. Far to the left the higher battlements of the Kasbah, the ancient Arab Quarter, rose above an invisible yellow beach.

But it was not alone the view; there were as good views elsewhere. It was the air, the very feel and texture of the air, entwining the languour of the Mediterranean with the harshness of North Africa. It was a leopard's skin, all claws removed. It was bright, timeless, proud, yielding. You drank that air, and were at one with the pagan,

H.M., suddenly waking up, removed the cigar from his mouth and looked round.

"Hem!" he said.

The balcony was floored with red unglazed tiles. It extended only part way across the house, since the far side ended in the projection of the house wall with a French window, and it lay half in shadow and half in dazzling sunlight from the overhang of the floor above. On the red tiles stood a number of cushioned wicker chairs.

In the middle of the terrace stood a wicker table whose red top was loaded with bottles, glasses, an ice bucket and a soda siphon, as well as a very neat pile of reports and dossiers. Beside the table, having stood up from his chair, was a short, stoutish man, capless but otherwise in full khaki uniform including Sam Browne belt, with the red tabs of a staff officer and insignia of a Colonel in the Belgian Army.

His large head was covered with short white hair cut en brosse, showing the pink scalp underneath. His face was red and jovial; even as he stood at attention, so that the stoutness round the waist made his uniform tunic stick forward like a strut, he fired off a string of chuckles. His bushy eyebrows were black streaked with white. What you first noticed was the twinkle and intelligence in his blue eyes.

"Sir Henry Merrivale?" he asked, in a gruff but genial voice.

"Ca va, mon gars?" returned H.M., with his deplorable taxi-driver familiarity. "Votre femme n'a pas couche sur le pin de votre chemise? C'est vrai: je suis le vieux bonhomme."

"Oh, I speak a little English," said the other, putting his head on one side with the concealed glee of one who knows he speaks it very well. "Come, let us talk in English! It will be good practice for me."

"Fine!" said H.M.'s "They tell me I got an Addisonian purity in my style. You remember what I say, and bob's-your-uncle."

The other, looking slightly puzzled, covered this with a string of chuckles.

"Then I present myself," he beamed. "I am Colonel Duroc."

Colonel Duroc shot out his hand at the same time as H.M. The handgrip was strong and sincere, because each man instinctively realized in the other a kindred spirit.

Sir Henry was not aware that Duroc's daredevil (or idiotic, if you prefer) escapades had carried him scatheless through two world wars. There was a time when no machine gun could nip him, no prison hold him. He always appeared when they didn't expect him, amid a shower of grenades, and was never there when they did. He had acquired so many decorations that he did not trouble to wear any of them. Though H.M. did not know this, he sensed it. Duroc, on the other hand, was familiar with H.M.'s more regrettable exploits, and they delighted him.

"Ah, but I mislay my hospitality!" he cried, and fussed at the table. He brought up a rich box of excellent Havanas, and offered them, "Wiil you try one of these, my friend? Ah, no! I see that already you smoke,"

H.M., inhaling a deep lungful, let the poisonous smoke drift out into his companion's face. Duroc did not shudder or wince, but merely reflected.

"Got anything like that in Tangier?" inquired H.M.

The little white-haired Colonei shook his head darkly.

"Worse!" he said.

"Honest?" demanded H.M., instantly alert.

"My friend, have you never tried the truly black cigar of Marseilles? No? I will order them for you."

Down sat the Colonel, and with meticulous handwriting in French he wrote in a notebook: "Sir H.M. Cigars of the most dreadful. Obtainable at Tangier, Attention, Sergeant Chocano." Then he bounced up with his red face shining.

"Allons prendre un verre!" he cried, with a phrase as truly Belgian as the Boulevard Gaston Max, A Frenchman would have said "quelgue chose a boire," and with far less gusto.

"That suits me, Coionel. I mean, est-ce qu'il y a du visky-soda?"

"Mais naturellement. Vous etes anglais, voyons. let vous voyez le Johnny Walker, Le John Haig, Le White Horse..."

Two minutes later they were seated opposite each other, close to the balustrade in full sun, with tall glasses and ash trays on side tables, while Colonel Duroc smoked a Havana. But for the first time Duroc's chuckles died away. Under the bushy eyebrows his blue eyes seemed disturbed.

"My friend!" he began abruptly, taking the cigar out of his mouth. "Before I say what I wish to say, I must explain to you a small deception which was played on you."

"I've been waitin' for that explanation," replied H.M. in a sinister voice. "Maybe you thought it was funny, but I didn't. Lord love a duck, I nearly got murdered!"

Colonel Duroc bounced from his chair.

"Quoi? Assassin^?"

"Well, now . . . Maybe not exactly that, But I'm telling you" —H.M.'s voice blared back —"when anybody here tries to drive a car, all of a sudden he's as scatty as a blind owl. His dearest wish is to smack into somebody else or wrap himself round a tree. I've got blood pressure, Colonel! I'm practically an invalid!"

Relieved, Duroc sank back. This time his series of chuckles made the gold buttons of his tunic behave alarmingly.

"Ah, that? That is nothing! In a day or two it will pass out."

"I'm not goin' to make the obvious answer," retorted H,M. "But I'd like to ask an obvious question. I know your name and your rank. What's your official position?"

There was a slight pause before Duroc replied.

"I am what you would call in London the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police."

"Yes. I sort of guessed that, when I heard the Belgians controlled the police and you were a Belgian. Well, you've got the floor. Go on."

Old Duroc's red face brightened.

"Observe," he cried, "this fine house. It is not mine, though I too live on the Old Mountain. My house is in repairs; my wife has departed for a holiday in Belgium. I lease this house from a good friend of mine, also English, who is also absent from Tangier. Is it not large, full of valuable things, with all the comfort modern? Hein?"

"Sure. It's first-rate. What about it?"

Colonel Duroc, with deep solemnity, pressed his glass of visky-soda against his heart.

"When I hear you are coming to Tangier, and to a hotel at that, I say no. No, no, no! Hotels!" added Duroc, holding his nose in disgust. "While you are in Tangier, my friend, you must be my guest here."

H.M. grunted and looked at the floor. The old sinner was rather touched.

"I have here," Duroc pursued, "a large staff of Arab servants, with a Fatima, he pronounced the word fat'ma, as did everyone else—"who speaks French and English. If you wish to rest, is not this terrace much suitable? Snap your fingers (so!) and there will be a swing or a deck chair."

"Y'know, Colonel, that's very decent of you. I appreciate it."

"Only half an hour ago do I learn, when Alvarez has telephoned from the airport, that you had brought with you your—ah—secretary. Yes. 'Well, well, well?' said I 'the lady must by my guest too. We will put them,' said I, 'in adjoining rooms upstairs, purely,' " Duroc added in haste, with a delicacy which could give no offence, "as a matter of convenience, should he wish to dictate letters.' Yes. Voila! You see?"

"I bet that pleased Alvarez no end, didn't it?" "Pardon?"

"Never mind." H.M. threw the end of his cigar over the balustrade. "I can't speak for the gal, Colonel, but I'd be howlingly pleased to accept your invitation."

"Ah! Now I am delight!"

"But who is this bloke Alvarez, anyway?"

The bushy eyebrows went up in surprise.

"But he is the Commandant of Police! In criminal matters, my right hand." Colonel Duroc frowned. "And yet often I do not understand htm. It seems to me he is a rowboat."

"A . . . what d'ye mean, a rowboat?"

"Ah, bah! A man of machinery. You press a button; he walks. You press another button — "

"Oh, son! You mean a robot."

"But that is what I say: a rowboat." Duroc spoke somewhat irritably, and his short white hair bristled up. "I sounded the ot, yes? I too am well spikking the English et Robert est votre oncle. However," he brooded, "Alvarez is very, very intelligent. Like that." Duroc snapped his fingers three times. "Also all dubious characters are terrified of him. He is a famous boxer and swordsman; worst of all, he is bad in a street fight with a truncheon, because he has no mercy. Yes. This is puzzling. In my younger days, alas, I have often run mad with a bayonet and think nothing. Yet to punish with the blood cool . . . Yes, this is puzzling.

H.M, made fussed gestures.

"But stop a bit, son! Alvarez is a Spaniard, ain't he? Then, with the rest of you Belgians — "

Chuckling again, the Commissioner of Police took a deep pull at his visky-soda and set it down.

"Listen, mon fils," he said. "I tell you what all know. The commanding executive officers are Belgians, yes. Unfortunately, there are too few of us. All my detective officers are Spaniards: all intelligent and well trained. My policemen— les agents, vou comprenez are Spanish and even with some Arabs. They are trained and drilled like an army. Yes, by God! And as good as an army!" Despite the chuckles, pride rang in Duroc's voice. "Each man must fluently speak French, Spanish, and Arabic. Should he commit any discourtesy, let him beware!"

"But wait a minute, son! What I wanted to know . .’

Sitting upright, chest puffed out, Colonel Duroc ignored this.

"And our policy, you ask?" His blue eyes twinkled tolerantly. "Well! We regard human beings as human beings; and why not? Provided they do not make too much a public nuisance, and too much we interpret broadly, let them do as they please. But a serious crime . . . Ah, that is different! When Alvarez suggested the small deception we played—"

"So it was Alvarez, hey? That smooth-talkin' snake! Stop; I'm askin' the questions now, How'd you know I was coming to Tangier, let alone the time of the plane? The newspapers, I s'pose?"

Colonel Duroc was very tactful and did not chuckle.

"No. Your newspaper friends at New York are in truth your friends. They sent out not one word of your—I have it —sneak departure."

But all H.M.'s suspicions were again roused. Malignant as the evil one, he stuck out his horrible face.

"Then how'd you know about it?" he demanded.

Colonel Duroc, the Havana stuck at an angle of his mouth, went over to the chair by the wicker table, sat down, and riffled his thumb up neatly piled documents. He sighed.

"Wherever you go in the world, my friend, I fear a police cable will precede you by twenty-four hours." From a folder he took out a cablegram fully two pages long. "This one from New York, for example. 'Leaves La Guardia TWA . . . 9:30, 3/31/50. Arrive Lisbon about dawn. Lisbon-Tangier 9:30-11:30. Must warn you . . .' Rien du tout!"

H.M. slapped the top of the balustrade.

"If that cable was signed by a weasel named Finnegan," he roared, "then there's not a word of truth in it. It's all lies anyway!"

"I believe you," said Duroc, putting back the cablegram. "Still! Even if you were inordinately addicted to wine and women," he winked broadly, "where is the harm in that? Pah! The police could supply you with — " He stopped, coughed heavily, and went on. "However! I credit you. I think your actions have been made from pure cussedness, of which you are full. Yes?"

"Then what was the idea of that show this morning?"

"Ah!"

"I'm a modest man, Colonel," H.M. assured him earnestly. "Practically a shrinkin' violet. But, burn me, to judge by the welcome I had, you might have thought I was Bacchus and Priapus rolled into one. What was the game?"

The shrewd blue eyes regarded him sideways.

"Let us suppose," Duroc mused, "that there is to arrive here a famous detective for a purpose, and you wish to conceal that purpose."

"What purpose?" demanded H.M.

"Let us further suppose that this man is an amateur detective, more recently of fame in the press for his athletic prowess at - hem — criquet and football. We-el! Yesterday, when we have gained news from the New York Police, we speak to our own journals. Who, in our arrangements, will think anything of the detective, if we stress only criquet and football? You see?"

"Oh, I see," glowered H.M. "I've been seeing for a long time. But, just in the interest of holy lyin', is it true there's been no serious crime here for two months?"

"Quite true." The other nodded. "But that is what we must discuss now."

Bouncing up, he began to pace back and forth in a kind of nervous dignity, his hands clasped behind this back and the cigar, gripped between this teeth, sending out short furious puffs. A little wind stirred the blossoms on the marble nymph; it seemed warm, yet it had a cold centre of the wind from the Sahara. Wheeling round, Duroc strode over to H.M. and stood in front of him.

'Tonight." he said formally, "there is in Tangier perhaps the most clever criminal who ever lived. I do not speak lightly, no."

"Uh-huh?" said H.M. "When did this bloke get to Tangier?"

"This morning. On the same plane as yourself." "What's that, son?"

"If this man were an ordinary criminal, we could deal with him. But he is not. His feats, I swear it, defy belief. Veritably he is a ghost; he disappears, and makes things disappear with him! He is a grotesque, inhuman. Frankly, my friend, I ask for your help."

Flipping his cigar over the balustrade, Colonel Duroc spread out his hands.

"You are the Maestro," he said. "You are the Old Man. These magics and strange doings are for you the food and drink. If you do not help, I fear we shall have on our hands, perhaps even tonight, a situation which I can only call . . . impossible."