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ones he had left, although it was actually the police who stole them. Of
course, they were Turks, he added pensively.
And my mother s father s second wife, called one of the women&
The topic of archaeological discoveries was thrashed over until our sergeant
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reappeared and ordered us back to work, but I was well satisfied with the
results of my own labours: someone, at night, was depositing quantities of
soil from deep underground onto the surface to be hauled away. Someone,
perhaps, who had borrowed two baskets from the wall of a tomb/house in Silwan
that he had happened to pass. Who before that had borrowed two habits, a rope,
and a handful of candles, because he thought he might need them, and he was
passing. Someone who The consideration of the someone distracted my mind
satisfactorily for quite some time. I queued up with the others to have my
baskets filled, and followed them to dump the rubble, but was quite unaware of
any of it until I felt a hand on my sleeve.
I looked down into the face of the young cook s helper from the inn, for whom
I was beginning to feel a deep affection.
You are required back at the inn, the boy said.
Who requires me?
Your friend.
I have a number of friends.
Your long friend in the blue kuffiyah, he said, and then for some reason he
covered his mouth with his hand and let out a giggle.
I will come. I laid down my basket and went down the narrow street on his
heels, picking my way over the rough surface and avoiding the holes (one of
the privates had graduated to a pickaxe). On the Street of the Cotton
Merchants the sergeant stopped me.
Oi, where do you think you re going?
Effendi, my presence is required elsewhere, I said smoothly in English.
You don t say.
I fear that I do say.
There s no pay for half days. All or nothing, that s His Majesty s way. I
doubted it very much, but was not inclined to argue over a pittance. I began
to say something to that effect when my youthful companion nudged me to one
side and began sweetly to cajole the dour sergeant. I left him to it, and
threaded my way briskly through the bazaar towards the Jaffa Gate. I thought I
heard the sergeant s voice raised in shouts, but then I turned a corner and
left them behind.
Only as I was passing through the vegetable market on David Street, restoring
my spectacles to my nose, did it occur to me that a British soldier might find
it suspicious that a native worker would leave without the better part of a
day s pay. I hesitated, and nearly turned back, but Holmes was waiting, and
the cook s boy had seemed to me quite resourceful enough to get himself out of
that sticky situation. I trotted on up the steps of David Street to the inn.
twenty-two
ß
With the decrease of civilisation, the land s riches fade. In countries where
springs existed in the days of civilisation, when the countries fell into
ruin, the water of the springs disappeared into the ground as if they had
never existed.
the Muqaddimah of ibn khaldûn
« ^ »
An army staff car sat in the street outside the inn s gates. This sounds like
a simple matter, but when the street in question is less than eight feet wide
and the car more than five, it means that a laden donkey must be unloaded and
all but the narrowest carts turned and taken another way. The driver,
magnificently deaf to the shouts and curses of would-be passers-by and the
pleas of beggars alike, held a cigarette in one hand and a yellow-back novel
in the other. I sidled past and went through the heavy wooden gates into the
inn s yard, wondering mildly whom an army officer might be visiting in this
quarter.
I did not wonder for long. My soft boots made chuffing sounds on the worn
steps all the way to the top floor. I rapped on Holmes door, stepped
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inside and immediately bowed and scraped my panic-stricken way backwards into
the hallway.
Effendi, ten thousand apologies, I fear I have the wrong room, I did not
intend I closed the door, stood and stared at it for a long, puzzled moment,
before realising that even if the sergeant had his suspicions about a hastily
departing labourer, he could not have arranged for this both immediate and
high-ranking a response. Besides which I reached again for the worn iron door
handle and put my head back inside. Holmes?
The sleek figure shiny high boots, immaculate khaki uniform, polished belt,
starched hat, perfect hair, trimmed moustache, and the swagger stick he had
been slapping against his elegant leg turned with a diabolical grin on his
face.
Good Lord, Holmes, what on earth are you doing in that get-up? You ll be
arrested! I had seen the man in any number of disguises, from paternal gipsy
to ageing roué to buxom flower-seller, but none more outlandish, given his
personality, than this one.
He just stood there and laughed at me. By God, Russell, he finally choked
out, it was worth the untold bother of this fancy dress uniform and ten
thousand accursed salutes to see you cringe like that. I didn t know you were
capable of it. You were slinking, Russell. Positively slinking.
I didn t think it at all amusing, and told him so. You nearly gave me heart
failure, Holmes. I thought you were here to arrest me for stealing
antiquities. I ought to turn you in for impersonating an officer.
He wiped his eyes and blew his nose, and began to divest himself of hat,
stick, and military belt. I wear this uniform with the approval of the
highest authorities although it is a decidedly temporary commission, he
added. What antiquities have you stolen?
I took out the tiny handkerchief-wrapped object, dropped into a squat on the
floor, and opened the cloth parcel out on the floorboards. I picked up the
little glass vase to examine it, rubbing the encrustations cautiously away,
but the neck had a crack in it, and part of it came away in my fingers. A
pity.
Still, it had spoken its message to me, even in pieces.
This is a Roman phial, Holmes. Probably third or fourth century.
Yes?
So what was it doing among the rubbish being cleared from a Mediaeval
bazaar?
He sat down on his low pallet, a difficult manoeuvre while wearing rigid
knee-high boots. You are the historian here, Russell. What would you suggest
it was doing there?
I set the two pieces on the scrap of dirty linen and made myself comfortable
on the floor. This poor little thing was jerked forwards in time sixteen
hundred years or so, and I should say it happened no earlier than the last
couple of nights. Someone is clearing out an underground chamber.
Good. Oh, very good, Russell.
I opened my mouth to begin the analysis of the someone s character that I had
constructed while I was working, but before I could say anything he stood up
and pulled on his hat and belt.
I shall have a car call for you at seven o clock. It is now he patted his
various pockets until he found the one he wanted, dipped in with his fingers,
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