The Girl in the Nile Read Online Free PDF Page A

were all there with him?”
    “Except Latfi, who is having a baby.”
    “Three, then. There were three in the harem quarters?”
    “You spoke of wives only.”
    “There were others, then? How many?”
    “Seven.”
    “Can you give me their names?” said Mahmoud, taking out a pencil and notebook.
    “I am afraid not.”
    “Are you sure? You knew Latfi’s name.”
    “I know all their names. But it would not be proper for me to tell you the names of His Highness’s wives and concubines.”
    “But I need to know! I am conducting an investigation!”
    “That’s as may be, but a man’s harem is his own affair.”
    “Not when part of it disappears overboard.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know very well what I mean,” said Mahmoud, exasperated. “I told you! His Highness has reported that a passenger on the dahabeeyah with him—”
    “But she wasn’t in the harem.”
    “She wasn’t?”
    “No!”
    “What was she doing on board, then?”
    “Well…” The eunuch hesitated.
    “You may speak,” said Owen encouragingly. “Mr. el Zaki puts these questions with the knowledge and agreement of His Highness,” possibly stretching the truth a little.
    “She was helping to entertain the princes.”
    “Helping?”
    “There were two others. They came on board at Beni Suef.”
    “On the way up to Luxor or on the way back?”
    “On the way up.”
    “Have you any objection to telling me
their
names?”
    “I don’t know their names,” said the eunuch.
    The incident had happened on the return journey. The dahabeeyah had moored for the night and the three girls had been up on the top deck enjoying the evening breeze. They had stayed up there with the princes until it had become dark, early, of course, in Egypt.
    Prince Narouz, bored, had descended first. About half an hour later, according to the eunuch, Prince Fahid had followed him, accompanied, possibly reluctantly, by two of the girls. The third had remained on the top deck.
    And it was from the top deck, apparently, that she had disappeared. Late, quite late, someone had called up to her, asking when she was going to come down. Sometime after, not having received a reply, they had sent the eunuch to fetch her. He had found the top deck empty.
    At first he had assumed that she had climbed down to the lower deck and gone forward. Some members of the crew had been sitting in the bows and it was only when they denied having seen her that he began to search seriously.
    “The steersman?” said Mahmoud. “Surely the steersman must have seen?”
    On a dahabeeyah the steersman was placed aft, immediately behind the cabin. He usually stood on a little platform raised high enough to enable him to see over and past the cabins when the boat was moving.
    After the boat had stopped for the night there was always some work still to be done on the platform. The rudder bar had to be lashed and the ropes stowed. The eunuch said, however, that the steersman had finished his work and gone forward before all this happened.
    The eunuch had made a cursory search and then had reported the matter to Prince Narouz. Narouz had been angry, first with the girl for playing the fool and then with the eunuch for not finding her.
    He had searched the boat himself. Gradually he came to realize that something was seriously amiss.
    By now, of course, it was dark and hard to see anything on the water. The Prince had had all the men up on deck scanning the river with the aid of oil lamps. Meanwhile the eunuch had been concluding a search below.
    When he had gone up on deck again he found that the Prince had lowered two small rowing boats and was systematically scouring the river. This had continued all night. As soon as it was light the dahabeeyah had sailed downriver with everyone on deck keeping an eye out. They had seen nothing.
    In the end they had abandoned the search, set the Prince down so that he could report the incident at once, and sailed on to Bulak.
    “I shall need to speak to