Justice Hall Read Online Free PDF Page B

in front of the fire. Once there, I rather wished I’d kept my coat; warming one’s self before a head-high fireplace in a large room involves one roasted side and one chilled, and the impulse to revolve slowly in compensation.
    “Mrs Algernon,” Alistair called. “Our guests might like a drink to keep out the cold.”
    Mrs Algernon, having deposited our outer garments out of sight, had come back into the hall with her attention fixed on the bandage around her charge’s head. His request was intended, I thought, to deflect her interest more than to provide us refreshment; if so, it had the desired effect. After a brief hesitation, she turned and left the room again. Alistair—I could almost think of him by that name, given the setting—closed his eyes for a moment, then removed his feet from the settee.
    “Mrs Algernon will give us dinner shortly. Not as artful a meal as you would have got at Justice Hall, I grant you, but then again, the company won’t sour your digestion.”
    Holmes sat down on one end of the sofa and took out his tobacco pouch. “You do not wish to encounter Lady Phillida?”
    “Marsh’s sister is not the problem, or not entirely. It’s Phillida’s husband, Sidney—known as ‘Spinach’ and just as likely to set your teeth on edge. They’ve been in Berlin, and weren’t due to return until the end of the week. Having them back… makes matters more difficult. No matter,” he added, and gave a dismissive wave of the hand.
    With that small gesture, Ali and Alistair came together before me for the first time. Had he been speaking Arabic, that final phrase would have been
ma’alesh,
the all-purpose verbal shrug that acknowledges how little control any of us have over our fates.
Ma’alesh;
no matter; never mind; what can one do but accept things as they are?
Ma’alesh,
your pot overturned in the fire;
ma’alesh,
your prize mare died;
ma’alesh,
you lost all your possessions and half your family. The word was the everyday essence of Islam—which itself, after all, means “submission.”
    Clean-shaven and bare-headed, his former long, bead-flecked plaits with
khufiyyah
and
agahl
transformed into a head of cropped and thinning English hair, Ali’s ornate embroidered robes and high, crimson boots replaced by Holmes’ old suit and well-worn brogues, the ivory-handled knife and mother-of-pearl-handled Colt revolver he had invariably worn now seeming as unlikely as a feather boa on a rhinoceros, and carrying with him an odour not of cheap scent but of mothballs and damp wool—nonetheless, that powerful and exotic figure was still there, a ghostly presence beneath the ordinary English skin.
Ma’alesh.
    Mrs Algernon broke my reverie, bustling in with a tray laden with her idea of warming drinks. The fumes of the hot whisky reached us before she did, and although the tray also held the makings for tea, there were three full mugs of her steaming mixture. She set one mug down within arm’s reach of each of us; as soon as she had left the hall, Alistair put his back on the tray and poured himself a cup of tea. One thing that had not changed: Although the Bedu were not the most outwardly observant of Moslems, they did generally demur at pork and alcohol, and although I had once seen Ali eat bacon, I’d never seen either Ali or Mahmoud take strong drink. Alistair’s diet, it seemed, remained as it had been.
    The hot whisky did the trick for two of us (although I couldn’t have sworn that the fumes did not affect the abstainer). Mrs Algernon came in before the cups were empty to say that dinner was ready when we wished, and although Holmes and I were impatient to hear more of the teeth-on-edge Sidney, Alistair obediently put down his teacup and forced himself to his feet, raising his weight more by will-power than by the strength of his muscles. His first steps were supported by the chair back, and Holmes and I exchanged a glance. The man was in no shape to be questioned.
    The dining room,