Mystery in Tangier

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22465, 28 July 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

Mystery in Tangier

; CHAPTER 11 ‘ The Beginning of the Terror Midnight in Tangier! The lull moon sailed high above the sleeping city, disguising ' its tawdriness, throwing into bold relief its taller buildings and giving them a false mystery and beauty. The native quarter, with its grime and squalor, honeycombed by .innumerable blind lanes and alleys lay hidden in dense black shadow, A hundred silver shafts —minarets 1 of various , mosques—rose like spears out of the darkness; in their midst, dominating the whole town, the great dome of the Sok gleamed like a moon. The shimmering sea lapped the beach and added its • music to the romance and mystery of the night. Tangier seemed like one of the fabled cities of the "Arabian Nights.” To Constable Hafiz, a native policeman treading his lonely beat, it felt as though he were walking in a dead city in a dead world. The night was so empty—not a sound broke the intense silence, not a. rustle of wind stirred the air. High above him was that brilliant moon, but he was walking in shadow along a narrow little road. and the tiny shops and bazaars and tumbledown hovels on either side Were mere guessed at shapes. Slind alleys, black holes in the blackness, with an iron post in the middle of each invisible entrance, led off this little street. Down below was the sea, but even its low murmuring was cut off by the intervening buildings. Two hundred yards further on, the road ended by running into a fair sized thoroughfare, was the spot where, at this time of the night, he was used to meeting a sergeant of police to whom he made his report. Constable Hafiz trudged along steadily, meeting no one, observing nothing untoward, and came to the meeting place. “All is well,” he said in Arabic id the sergeant. “Nothing stirs.” .The sergeant grunted and then looked down the moonlit road that ran back towards the European quarter of Tangier. "Mahmoud—where is he?” he said irritably in the same language. “He is late.” Constable Mahmoud walked a heat adjoining that of Constable Hafiz, and he. as a rule, made his report to the sergeant at the same time, and at the same spot. “He is detained, perhaps,” ventured Hafiz. '“Detained. yes. by what?” grumbled the sergeant. “A cigarette? Or a drink of brandy? We shall see.” . “It is as Allah wills,” murmured : Hafiz, with the fatalism of his race, even in .trivial things, and set out ea his beat once more while the Sergeant went to look for Mahmoud. ’ t'Tive minutes later, when he was •ijAthe other end of his narrow, yfcit little street. Hafiz heard the urgent shrilling of a policeman's JUistle. He stopped in his stride «d cocked his head to get the onecticn from which the sound A second later it shrilled wt again, and yet once more, and HSHz turned in his tracks and comnwiced to run. iThe sound had come from the ®f*Ctlpn of the spot whe*e he had sergeant but farther down *h*t broad road, the way the ser®C*nt had gone in search of ConMahmoul. Hafiz had his ®*ctric torch in his hand by this r® e and was using it. He nicked zSLthe entrance to one of those Pitch- black alleys that he know

(By Norman BerrowJ

was a short cut to the man blowing the whistle, and darted down it. As he slid.round the inevitable iron post in the middle he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a shape huddled against the wall. That was the last thing he ever noticed in this life, for before he could turn or bring his flashlight to bear fully on the huddled shape the shape had moved. Incredibly quickly it moved and sprang on Constable Hafiz, and struck once and twice at him with a broadbladed dagger.' The torch dropped from the constable’s hand and went out. Hafiz staggered and fell, and lay very still. Something that had been standing over the fallen man moved away on noiseless feet, and in a moment there was nothing but the silence and the darkness—and a dead policeman. CHAPTER II The Reign of the Terror

Early the next morning Inspector Mantan, the head of ‘the native

police force of Tangier, sat in his office and listened to the report of Sergeant Abdul Zuraik. “Two of them, inspector,” the sergeant was saying; “two of our best men. Mahmoud and Hafiz, killed within 100 yards of each other.” “But it’s not a straight 100 yards, is it, sergeant?” said the inspector. “I know that, district; it is a maze of narrow streets and blind alleys and holes that lead nowhere.” “That is so, inspector. I mention the short distance, though it cannot be covered in a direct straight line, because it seems to me to indicate that they were both killed, by the same hand.” The inspector stirred unhappily in his chair. “Yes. I think that’s obvious. I have the doctor’s report here. The men died of wounds inflicted by a knife or dagger with a broad blade—they died instantly, they didn’t suffer, thank Heaven; that is merely the medical way of putting things. And they died within a few minutes of each other. It seems to me to point to a fact that some man was fleeing from some crime or another tna 4 he had committed and that he killed our men to make good his escape. But you

tell me there is no such fact—there has been no crime committed.” “No, inspector,” said the sergeant, twisting his khaki helmet between his' brown hands, “only iwo dead policemen, and no reason for their death ... I had made contact with Hafiz at the .usual spot, the corner of the Street of the Trinket-Makers and the Rue Cornelle—” Streets in Tangier are named in various languages, English, French, Spanish, and Berber, which is the Moorish form of Arabic. The Street of the Trinket-Makers is a free translation of the Arabic phrase; it is the street where hawkers, who are nothing more than beggars in thin disguise, buy the cheap, flimsy metal objects and articles of imitation jewellery that they display on trays and endeavour to sell to unsuspecting visitors at huge profits. “It was the custom also of Mahmoud to report to me there,” went on Sergeant Zuraik, “but that time he was not there. So Hafiz returned to his* beat, and I went to look for Mahmoud. I found him in a nameless lane not 100 yards away from the Rue Cornelle, lying dead. I immediately blew my whistle, expecting Hafiz to appear

at any moment, but he did not come. Two other men, on nearby beats, however, came presently, and I took them away from their beats while we made investigations. And soon we found Hafiz, also in another nameless lane—” “Yes,” muttered the inspector. “One of those rat holes with which Tangier is riddled.” “And we found him just as we had found Mahmoud. We searched, inspector. We combed the district. We roused the inhabitants and searched their homes. But we found nothing. No shop or house had been entered, no one had been robbed, no crime had been committed. We were still investigating when we were relieved at dawn. And still there is nothing to tell us why Hafiz and Mahmoud were killed.” There was a, short silence which was broken presently by the Inspector sighing. “Isn’t there a Cafe Britannia in that district, sergeant?” “Yes, ' inspector, there is such a cafe. That also we searched. It has a bad name, yet we found nothing suspicious there. It was all in darkness and the proprietor Snd one dr two- others were asleep. ’ “Britannia!” • mused Inspector

.v-antan. "What a name to give a sink like that . . . The one or two others—what were they, sergeant?’* "Waiters, and girls of the cafe, inspector. , No suspicion there.” “Hum!” said the inspector. "Murder like this without any rhyme or reason, senseless killing—and of policemen at that—is new to me. there must be some reason for it, sergeant.” “All secrets are with Allah,” murmured the sergeant. “A very bad motto for a policeman, sergeant,” said the Inspector, dryly. "The English have a saying: ‘Allah helps those who help themselves.’ It doesn't do to leave everything to Allah. • You had better remember that. All right, you had better go and get some sleep now; I’ll see you before you go out again to-night.” So Sergeant Abdul Zuraik went away to a sleep that he had earned, and Inspector Mantan, taking a man with him, went to the scene of the murders. Policemen are servants of the law. They are impersonal; they do-not take sides; they investigate a crime without fear or favour, and are not to be swayed either one way or the other by sentiment or argument. But when it comes to the murder of a policeman, one of themselves, the personal element, is apt to creep in, and they carry out their investigations with rather more than undue relentlessness, and with a trace of a* feeling of revenge. So the inspector set out with rather bitter thoughts; Hafiz and Mahmoud had been his men, he had sent them out and assigned them their beats. They had done his bidding: he would see to it that their deaths did not go unavenged. He spent a very busy morning going over the same ground that Sergeant Zuraik had covered during the night. He searched and. asked questions until his head buzzed, but not a soul could tell him anything that would throvb any light on the crime. In the afternoon' he instituted inquiries into the lives of the two dead men to see if. perhaps. the reason for their murder lay there. The sun sank into the sea behind the mountains in a blaze of glory, and the moon rose up out of the desert. Soon, it would be time for the men on night duty to go out to their beats. Inspector Mantan sank with a sigh into his office chair and sent for Sergeant Zuraik. “Sergeant,” he said, “the men on beat in the district about the Rue Cornelle and the Street of the Trinket-Makers had better go in pairs to-night—” Sergeant Zuraik opened his eyes wide at this. “But, inspector,” he began, “do you think—?” “Do I think what?” interrupted his superior.' “That there will be more killings? Oh, no; nothing so melodramatic, sergeant. It’s for the men’s own sakes—they seem_ to be a little apprehensive.” Which was the inspector's way of saying that he knew the Moorish mind. “There must be an extra man on Hafiz and Mahmoud’s beats, and also 'on the beats of the two next men, one either way. That will mean ■ six extra men, two to take the place of Hafiz and Mahmoud, and four others to make up the pairs, I have arranged that for you. It meant taking four men away from quiet and,well-lit beats, but that is a risk- that must be taken for to-night. See that the men keep together and that their torches are in good working order.” He leant one elbow on his desk and stroked his chin with his hand. , . . “No. I’m not really expecting anything, but last night there were two utterly senseless killings. We’ll

fitid the reason yet, but it s queer . . , And here is another night . . • All right, sergeant, that's all- » anything does happen get in touch with me at my house immediately. Sergeant Zuraik and his uk® went out on their long, lonely Time passed- The moon swam higher and higher in the sky, the noises of the city died away. m® last cafe and drinking den cioseo. the last light was put put. ana Tangier was bathed in silence ano the moonlight. Midnight! Sergeant Zuraik, with two men from the adjoining beat, stood JW the corner of the Rue Cornelle antt t the Street of the Trinket-Makers* and waited for the appearance « _ Constables Ramayan and Mane*, who had taken the places of the two murdered men. But they not appear. The minutes went ny. but still there was no sign of therm Not a sound came from the depins of that dark little street. The sergeant looked gravely at his companions and sooared his Bhouiaen* ‘'By Allah!” he said. Ido no* like this. Something must nave hapnened! Come with me, you and keep your eyes open and your torches shining.” _ ___ Tliey found Constable Ramayan about three-quarters of the W down that lost and deserted htw street. He scrawled on his face the middle of the roadway, and®; his back was a tearing wound which, the blood was still oozing. He was quite dead. brea thThe sergeant caught his orea , hTmunered. -B*( M They were rather longer hiding Manek. At length *hey disc.cn® him. lying partly sideways, parW on his face, and he ?Iso *vas He had been filled in exactb -v* same wav and m exactly th been spot as Constable Hafiz had found the previous night The three men stared other fearful and wondering ey “Allah. the Compassionate. ■ as or trace? ’ , him* There was none to answer

(To be continued.)