The sky over Tangier, at half-past ten that night, was a soft arch of bluish-black with small stars so brilliant that they seemed pierced through it.

Here, many miles away and below the House of the Wild Olives, and near the meeting of the Mediterranean with the long landlocked bay, the gentle waters of the Mediterranean whispered and slapped against the base of a tower built of ancient stones. It was a large square tower, appearing very high only by reason of its position. Then, too, it stood on the quietest edge of the Kasbah, beside its orange garden below,

If you looked over the parapet straight ahead, with the Mediterranean on your left, you could see the harbour of Tangier with its great concrete mole. One medium-sized cargo and passenger ship displayed a few yellow-shining portholes or deck lights, with broken reflections trembling in the water. Other and lesser craft showed riding lights. If you looked ahead and somewhat to the left, on a clear day of glassy space you could just discern the grey peak of Gibraltar, troubled by white cloud. But tonight sky and stars seemed a hollow of darkness, whispering, empty, except for a breeze from the Straits.

From this parapet, in a jewelled dead age, arrows had whistled from the short Moorish bows. Now the top of the tower was scattered round with a dozen or more tables, with chairs and benches, and they brought you glasses of hot mint tea, heavily sweetened.

The only light came from a lantern of Moorish work hung under the stairs some distance away. Beside it, on a bench, drowsed an elderly Arab in a white jalebah with apeaked hood. And, on either side of a round table at the front, Paula Bentley and Bill Bentley sat and looked at each other over forgotten glasses.

"Bill," Paula began tentatively.

"Yes, my baggage?"

Paula wore a white pullover and blue slacks. Her elbows were on the table, her arms up and hands buried under each side of the heavy silken hair. The dark-blue eyes, wide open now, searched his face with that strength of intensity and love which only Bill knew.

"Darling," she said, "you're worried about something. What is it?"

She studied him, as he sat across from her in his open-necked shirt and his old grey flannels. Bill's brown hair was cut short in military fashion. His eyes were brown. Though he was not particularly good looking, which for some reason delighted Paula, he had a humourous mouth and cleft chin. Unlike Alvarez, say, he had broad shoulders and a tapering waist; but he was probably not much taller or heavier than the Commandant.

Paula reflected that not once had he criticized her for anything since their marriage five years ago. (But, seeing the matter through Bill's eyes, it was simple: he worshipped her and could see nothing to criticize.) Bill never complained of or even noticed what he ate. He never even inquired what she spent, though she was not extravagant; they had a joint banking account, and she did as she liked.

An outsider would have thought him the average sort of fellow with good background, good public school, good university: dependable, but not very ambitious. And this, in a sense, was true. What Paula knew, together with only old J. and a few members of the British Consulate, was the lightning-swift quality of his brain. He could arrange facts as a conjuror handles cards; he could draw the gist from a report with one glance down each page; he could supply, out of a remarkable memory, any fact required on any subject.

One hidden wish of his, which he knew to be hopeless, was to read every book ever written on the subjects which interested him. Again unlike Alvarez, he did not much enjoy knockabout farce. Like Colonel Duroc, his secret relish was for satirical wit: the poison stings of Swift or Wilkes or Whistler. These barbed darts he could fire himself, But, since they were always directed at himself or at things (never persons; he was too good-natured) which everybody disliked, people considered him merely a young man of good common sense. Which he wasn't.

But now, Paula said, "You're worried about something. What is it?"

At the end of such a noble evening, Bill considered such a question unfair. Borrowing a car from Mark Hammond, he and Paula had dined at the Ali Baba. Then they had driven over twisted roads and ways, down to the stretch of a deserted beach. The long flat water ran and foamed swiftly up a flat sand beach, all black and white. They swam far out into the warm sea. They made love on the beach until both were tired, relaxed, and a little drowsy. Then, determining to return home to the Minzeh Hotel, they had fallen into a romantic mood and decided to drink mint tea on top of the old tower.

"Look here, baggage," said Bill, "why should you think I'm worried about anything?"

"Because I know," Paula answered simply. "I can always tell, can't I?"

"H'm," said Bill. She nearly always could, at that.

From the floor between them Paula picked up a bag which contained her bathing cap and two towels, and deposited it on the other side of her.

"Darling, pull your chair round beside mine. There; that's it. Kiss me."

This was a long process, confusing both minds and emotions. A cooler breeze surged at them from the great hollow of darkness and water. Far away in the Kasbah dim and angry voices were raised. A dog barked. But they did not hear it.

"Oh, Bill, we've been so lucky!"

"You mean I've been lucky."

"No! I was running wild in London — "

"S-sh! And I wasn't doing much in G.S.I.* Sitting in an army lorry while we moved up through Italy. Look here — er—let's go back to the hotel, shall we?"

* General Staff Intelligence

But Paula, even at her most emotional, was always practical. She pressed her cheek against his, and whispered.

"Darling. What's really worrying you? It's something about money, isn't it?"

Bill gave a start, and almost drew back his arm from her shoulders. He did not want to tell her the truth as yet, though there was no reason why he should not have done so. Pay in the Consular (which, like the Diplomatic, is controlled by the Foreign Office) is seldom large, but Bill had a few hundred a year of his own. He searched his mind to find some excuse which, while convincing, must also sound true. And he found it.

"Didn't you notice, Paula, that I had to borrow a car from Mark Hammond?"

"I didn't notice anything," murmured Paula. "I hardly know what we had to eat at the restaurant."

"Then I regret to tell you that Lothario went to his well-earned rest this afternoon. He conked out and expired just at the entrance to Colonel Duroc's garage."

"Bill!"

Lothario was their car. A louder, noisier, more sputtering little four-seater than Lothario would have been difficult to find. He had been ready for the scrap heap years before Bill bought him.

"I didn't want to tell you about this," continued Bill, who was genuinely sorry for the old junk pile, "and spoil the most noble of evenings."

"Mm," agreed Paula, pressing closer to him. Then her eyes opened wide. "But when were you at Colonel Duroc's house?"

"They told me," said Bill, "that I got there about' twenty minutes after you'd left in Duroc's Packard. We must have passed each other on the road."

"But why on earth did you go up there?"

"You phoned me from the airport, remember? About the stupendous welcome of Sir Henry Merrivale?" Bill smiled. "Also, that you thought they were luring him to Colonel Duroc's house, and inveigling him into helping with the Iron Chest case?"

Paula nodded. Excitement had come into Bill's voice.

"Aside from wanting to carry you away like young Lochinvar," he said, "I was a bit curious to meet the Old Maestro himself. He was there on the terrace, right enough. And Colonel Duroc. And a Miss Holmes, who's rather attractive."

"She's nice," said Paula. "I mean, she really is nice." (Here Bill felt her body grow tense in his arms.) "But if you go and fall for . .."

"S-ss-t! My pet! She's attractive, but not the sort for me. I prefer a buxom wench like you."

"I am not buxom!" exclaimed Paula, with such intensity that she did not see her husband's grin. "How I loathe the word! It means buxom all over, and I'm not. You know I'm not."

"Sorry, Paula. But seriously, now. You're not jealous of every woman I meet, are you?"

"Of course I am," said Paula, raising her head and looking at him with astonishment. "Some of them, when I've seen them with you . . ." She paused, remembering the horrible surgical tortures which (or so she believed) she would like to have performed. Scratching out the eyes was a mere preliminary. But she asked quickly: "Aren't you jealous of other men?"

"Well . . ."

"Aren't you?"

"Yes, damn it," snapped Bill, and felt every muscle in his arms and shoulders grow tense. In his way, he was worse than she was. "I don't trust anybody in this town. It's in the air, all this what-does-it-matter? I don't mean Juan Alvarez; he's the best friend I've got. But Hammond—!"

"No, Bill, please!"

He had erred in asking the original question; it brought on a nerve storm which he had to soothe.

"Paula, wait," Bill said, with her hair against his cheek while she held him more tightly. "We've gone over this a hundred times before. Let's go back to my visit to the Colonel, shall we?"

"I'm sorry," said Paula in a muffled voice. "Go on."

"All I did was phone for a taxi. Then I had to keep it waiting for nearly two hours; the driver just went to sleep. They insisted on my staying."

"Who insisted?" Paula asked rather quickly.

"Old H.M. himself. Nobody else." Bill's brown eyes became ironic. "I have a funny reputation in Tangier. They think I've got common sense, which isn't true; and they think I can keep my mouth shut, which is true. The Colonel wanted suggestions." Now Bill spoke very slowly. "I didn't say much, but I think I have them."

"Bill, your heart's beating like a fire engine! What is it?"

"You'll see. When I first go: to the house-they heard Lothario chugging up the tunnel-the Colonel was telling them the stories of Iron Chest. Paula, how well do you know the history of Iron Chest?"

"Well - what's been in the press here. A little of what I heard today."

Bill's eyes were shining, though they seemed to see nothing; Paula felt faint disquiet.

"As it happens," he went on, "I know it inside-out. First, somebody here keeps a complete scrapbook from press-cutting agencies everywhere. You know her: Countess Scherbatsky,"

" 'Countess,' " repeated Paula in a certain tone, but did not comment further.

"Well," he reminded her tolerantly, "everybody in Tangier has a title. Some of them are quite genuine. Anyway, you're not jealous of Ilone Scherbatsky; you know her too well."

“Ilone's all right," giggled Paula. "Usually she's too funny to take seriously. Also she . . ."

"Never mind that! The point is, second, that her latest boy friend is in the detective bureau. Inspector Mendoza, to be exact. He tells Ilone everything they know here, straight from the stable; and Ilone tells me."

"Tells you what?"

"Let's take a look at Iron Chest. His last coup was in . . ."

"Lisbon!" said Paula, fascinated and sitting up a little.

"Got it, my pet. Whang in the gold. In Lisbon, ten days ago: March 23. His previous one had been in Paris, a fortnight before that. Of course, the Lisbon police had been put on the alert. But Lisbon is an air centre, to say nothing of railways. Dozens of planes go in and out all the time. Ever since that coup in Paris, the Lisbon police had to keep an eye on the customhouse.

"Their trouble was that nobody had the remotest idea what Iron Chest looked like. Their one high card was that he had to get his burglar's kit, including that electric drill, through the customs inspection. As for the actual iron chest, that was still worse.

"Remember, the Lisbon police had no particular reason to expect him, by air or train, except for that direct air route between Lisbon and Paris. He might be anywhere. Furthermore, how many people —including customs inspectors — could recognize a burglar's kit if they saw one? Could you?"

Paula shook her head.

"I'm afraid not," she confessed.

"Well, neither could I. In stories they always use something called a jimmy, but if you showed me one I couldn't tell it from a crowbar or a spanner. In any case, everything seems to have been quiet, until the night of March 23. Then Iron Chest burgled a small private bank in the Avenida de Libertad. Same drill, same kind of haul in dollars—and pesetas. Lisbon exploded.

"Now they were in their worst difficulty. Iron Chest couldn't hole up in Lisbon for long; he never does. And customs authorities can't search the luggage of outgoing passengers, unless they have reason to suspect a particular person or persons, which they hadn't.

"The police brought in all the customs inspectors, and hammered them with questions about arrivals in the past two or three days. But you can't expect much of men who see so many suitcases and trunks that they dream about 'em. Meantime, all the various airlines had been co-operating by checking the list of arrivals who hadn't yet left.

"And this morning, my pet, it all happened at once."

Bill paused. He reached out for the glass of mint tea, which was very cold. He drank some of it, and set down the glass. Paula, clinging to him, wondered what he really meant behind this talk. She felt a little more apprehension in case he would get into some kind of danger.

"Yes, darling?" she prompted him.

"In Lisbon, at half-past nine, an off-duty customs inspector rushed into the police. He said he'd cudgelled his wits and thought he remembered something about the evening plane from Paris on March 21, two days before the burglary. The customs inspector seemed to remember a man —couldn't remember face or any detail, of course— who carried a kit of tools, mostly smallish. The man explained this by saying he was a locksmith; a very convincing explanation, too. The customs inspector had a notion, unsure, that the luggage tags had a name beginning, 'C-o-1' something. There was another suggestion, but I won't bother you with it.

"By the time this customs inspector had finished, the police were so excited that they fired a phone call to the airport. They got quite a reply. It had just been discovered that a G. W. Collier had arrived in the Paris plane on the twenty-first. G. W. Collier, making a hasty last-minute booking because the plane wasn't full, had just done a bunk in the nine-thirty plane for Tangier, which left ten-fifteen minutes before.

That's about all. But the Portuguese police, sighing with relief, phoned Colonel Duroc and were glad to hand somebody else the baby. Duroc had been waiting, ever since that burglary in Lisbon. Tangier was the possible, even the probable, next jump. Iron Chest arrived on the very same plane this morning with H.M. and Miss Holmes."

"But the Colonel didn't say anything about that when I was there"

"He said a good deal about it when I was there," retorted Bill, making a grimace by wriggling his short-cut hair back and forth on his scalp. "And more. Baggage, I wonder if you've ever realized what a canny old bird the Colonel really is?"

"Nonsensel" protested Paula, who remembered only gallantry and chuckles. "That's silly!"

"Is it? Think about old H.M.'s stupendous reception at the airport, which you thought was funny."

"But it was!" gurgled Paula, relaxed now, "You'd have thought so too, if you'd been there. Not only that, but those poor gibbering passengers held up in a line against the plane, not even allowed to move until long after , . ."

Abruptly Paula sat up with a look of wonder and half-enlightenment in her face. Her pink lips opened, but closed without a sound. She glanced inquiringly at Bill.

"Got it again, my pet," he smiled. "They stayed there while all their luggage was instantly whisked into the airport station, and the French customs had a real beano. Furthermore, they were kept in a queue for a passport examination which lasted over an hour.

"Meanwhile, the customs inspectors were doing a royal job. They didn't concentrate on G. W. Collier's luggage alone. Luggage tags can be transferred; suitcases interchanged. So they pitched into everybody. They measured for false bottoms and compartments; they flung out everything; they followed a dozen measures Duroc had written down for them. Ilone's boy friend, Inspector Mendoza, who was in charge for the police, says the whole shed looked as though a hurricane had struck the clothes departments of Selfridge's."

Paula tugged at the collar of his shirt.

"Bill, wait!" she urged. "What about this G. W. Collier himself?"

"Well, what could Inspector Mendoza do?" asked Bill. "He could look at the passport, ask where Collier was staying —at the Riff Hotel, down near the bay—and search Collier himself. The man had nothing on him except a lot of money in many currencies. But nearly everybody has that, because the city's a changing centre and any currency is good. Were you at the house there when Colonel Duroc said he was expecting an important phone call from the airport or from the 7th Arrondissement Station?"

"Yes, I do remember that!"

"It was to learn the result of the search at the airport. The call got through when I was there." Bill drew a deep breath. "Paula, in all that luggage there was no kit of burglar's tools and no iron chest. Nothing that could be disguised as them; nothing remotely resembling them. Absolutely nothing!"

There was a long silence.

"But, Bill! If Collier is Iron Chest, hasn't he given himself away horribly? They know what he looks like." "Oh, no, they don't!" "Why not?"

"Old H.M. and Colonel Duroc think, and I agree, that Collier isn't Iron Chest. Otherwise, would he have been fool enough to do what you just said? Or enter and leave Lisbon under the name? No, my pet. Iron Chest must have only one accomplice: his diamond-cutter and polisher, who travels with him. And that's the 'Collier,' "

"Yes. I can see . . ."

"But the real Iron Chest, who planned and managed everything," Bill told her, "was tucked safely away in that same plane. Nobody saw him, in the sense of observing. They let 'Collier' go, of course; if he weren't the man they wanted, he would be bait for the man they wanted. But Iron Chest slipped invisibly through the barrier and into Tangier."

Paula shivered. Turning her head to the right, she looked past the silhouette of a leaning palm tree to the long light-spangied ridges piling up from the bay against a sky of lighter blue.

"Bill," she said, "I'm frightened. Oh, not physically, or for myself, but . . . according to what I've heard or read, this man simply vanished out of a narrow street in Brussels. In Paris he made a whole table-load of diamonds vanish before the eyes of the police. Now he's gone again, and made burglar's kit and iron chest vanish with him! It's creepy. It's . . . It's unnatural!"

"It's unnatural, right enough," he agreed. Then his usually low voice rang out. "But what an opportunity!"

"Opportunity?"

Bill sprang to his feet, making table and glasses on the table rattle. His wide shoulders were squared; and a colder breeze down the Straits of Gibraltar belled out the back of his shirt. His gaze was fixed without sight on rippled little reflections of light on the waters of the harbour. Paula sensed, as she always did, that his quick brain was sorting and arranging facts as swiftly as the man behind the private boxes at the British Post Office flicks each letter into its proper box,

"Iron Chest is tricky, he's spectacular; he's got a satirical sense of humour," Bill said to the harbour. "Have you seen those photographs of the iron chest? Or the chest Duroc had sent specially from Amsterdam as soon as he suspected Iron Chest would strike in Tangier?" He was not listening for a repiy. "The carving round the edges is of monkeys putting out their tongues at you. Besides, Iron Chest is matched against H.M., who's even trickier and more spectacular. All the same . . ," Suddenly his tone alters. "Paula!"

"I'm here, Bill," she answered quickly, in the same soft lone she used when sometimes he called out or mumbled, twisting, in troubled sleep.

"Paula," he went on, "can you guess the total amount of the rewards, from various cities, for the capture of Iron Chest?"

"No, dear. But . . ."

"It's well over seven thousand pounds," He spoke blankly. "Paula, suppose I caught him?"

Now Paula was really frightened. These thefts and ghost vanishings might be all very fascinating and disturbing, in their remote way. But she was interested only in him. If he became involved in such dangers, if they threatened her and Bill's happy life, then he must be rescued from them as from a horrible disease.

"Bill," she said in her most yearning voice, "sit down and put your arms round me. Don't you want to?"

"Of course."

He sat down and held her tightly. Gently he lifted her hand and kissed it. Yet she knew his mind was still far away, sorting and arranging facts. Then Paula had an inspiration, based on her knowledge of him, which she felt with a sting in her heart must be true.

"I know now!" she whispered. "Darling, I know why you're troubled about money; and it's all my fault." Paula loved to take the blame on herself. "We've been too extravagant, that's all. We've been living and having our meals at the most expensive hotel in Tangier, which you can't afford. But I remember . . . Yes! An advertisement in the Tangier Gazette today . . ."

She did not tell him fully of her inspiration, hugging the secret.

"If we could get a little flat, and 1 did the housekeeping and cooking, it would change everything. We all grouse, darling, but let's face it: living in Tangier is the cheapest in the world. As I say, if we could get a little flat . . ."

Bill, waking up from his daze, blinked at her.

"What flat?" he asked. "Who's talking about a flat?"

"Never mind, dear." Then she chided him. "Anyway, why do you want to win all that money?"

"It's not the money, so much." He shook his head and brooded. "Though that would get us free from this consular grind, and we could retire somewhere. Perhaps —England."

"Bill! Aren't you satisfied to live with me? Here?"

"You? Oh, God, yes, you know that! I couldn't be anywhere without you!"

This was all Paula wanted to know. She sighed.

"Then what's this dreadful nonsense about the money?"

"I told you; it's not so much that. It would be . . . the prestige."

"Prestige?"

"Yes, don't you see?"

They looked at each other. For an instant it became achingly clear that she did not understand his motives, and he did not understand hers. A gulf opened between them, terrifying because they had been so intimate. It might have grown worse if Bill had not kissed her for some time, so that healing warmth destroyed mere words.

"Paula, I'm a blasted fool!" he said at length. "Forget what I said, won't you? I didn't mean it!"

"If you ever want to be involved in a thing like this," whispered Paula, and almost believed she meant it, "I won't stop you. Truly I won't."

"I'm not going to get involved."

"Anyway," Paula attempted that man-to-man tone which she, of all people, could never manage, "you'll at least think it over, won't you?"

"There's nothing to think over. There it is."

"Bill, I'm getting terribly cold, with only a jumper and slacks on. Couldn't we ... go back to the hotel?"

"Of course, immediately. I'm sorry."

In the Flying Standard car, Bill could have driven them home by a more direct way. Instead, for reasons of his own, he took a slightly more circuitous route. Paula, glowing inwardly and hugging her inspiration from the Tangier Gazette, lounged beside him with her eyes half-closed.

Over Tangier, even in what seems the blackest night, there hangs always a faint greyness as of hidden lamps. When the car swung into the Grand Socco, it was only a quarter to midnight. Electric lights, as well as curling yellow tallow flares, faintly brushed pink or white colour on the grime of huddled houses. The odours of the Grand Socco are more mixed than savoury.

It was quiet tonight, though for blary raucousness you had only to descend a curving slope into the Little Socco, which never sleeps. In the earthen market place amid the cobblestones of the Grand Socco, few donkeys or horses or carts now remained. The crooked trees shadowed squashed fruit and dead flowers, which were to have been sold. A group of hooded Arabs crouched, their heads together, as though in sinister conspiracy, round a wise man who was telling fortunes with bones. Down the narrow hill of the rue San Francisco roared two modern cars, their horn buttons punched and screaming.

But what is noise, as such? Who shall hear it?

Certainly Paula did not notice that her husband, as he turned the car left towards the entrance to the rue du Sta-tut, was driving so slowly that the Standard's engine almost stalled.

Later, she wished she had.

Now the Rue du Statut is a very long street with intersections. Beginning in the Grand Socco, it first ascends a slight slope, with shops on either side. It grows steeper when it is bisected by the rue du Sud on the right; and, on the left, by a downward slope and a broad flight of stone stairs descending into the semi-darkness of the rue Waller. Afterwards, it continues up a steep hill and finally into the Place de France.

But we are concerned only with the lower part, just before you reach that intersection. Paula, at the left of the driver in an English car, was peering out and up through one open window on the left.

"Bill!" She was delighted. "Look here!"

"Eh?" her husband said absently. He was letting the car creep along close to the right-hand curbstone, and peering out.

"Well, you can listen," Paula pointed out.

On the roof ledge over a draper's shop, at the left-hand side of the rue du Statut and squatted cross-legged, sat a very fat Italian with a guitar. His head was flung back, so that you could see the huge cavern of this mouth and even his bald head. Thus on the rooftop, above the twang of the guitar, he poured out his longing in a frenzy of Neapolitan self-expression.

"Che be-la co-sa," warbled the rich tenor, " 'na iur-na-ta'e sooo-le?"

"Isn't it rather lovely?" asked Paula, leaning back cosily.

"His behaviour is perfectly natural to everyone; not even the police would ask what he was doing there. It isn't quiet here, but it's so peaceful. So restful. So . . ." Then it happened.

Across her words ripped the violent, continuous clatter-clang of a burglar alarm.

It drove into the ears like a drill into a safe. It even seemed to grow louder and more deafening, as though a mechanical voice cried guilt into the night. Across the street, the guitar fell and smashed unheard on the pavement. A mutter of voices swept up from the Grand Socco.

There were now only a comparatively few doors between them and the intersection of the rue du Sud. The instant that burglar alarm had clattered out, Bill Bentley jammed on the handbrake and stopped the car. Now he jerked open the handle of the right-hand door.

Paula, peering past him, could see the front of a familiar shop. It was a jeweller's. It had a broad display window on either side of the front door; but windows and door were now protected by a folding steel grille which not even a ghost would dare to touch in an open street. Over the shop, in large separated gilt letters, ran the sign, "Bernstein et Cie."

Then Paula, who had seen it so often, remembered and looked straight ahead. On the left-hand side of the building ran a narrow alley, and there was a side door to the premises of the jeweller.

Bill Bentley flung open the car door and jumped out on the pavement.

"Bill! No! Bill!"

"I knew it!" he shouted. "A stuffed dummy could have guessed it!"

And, taking only one glance at the. locked steel grille across the front, he raced down the dark alley towards the side door. The burglar alarm still clanged and clattered to the night.