“But what have these Englishmen got to do with it?”
“They run the damned ship. A wretched little Greek schooner they picked up here, interned during the Balkan war, and sold for a song. They profess to be making money out of the fruit trade, which of course is rot.”
I was aware only of the effort to keep any revealing emotion from my face. Suddenly and quite clearly I had seen who were the two “renegade Englishmen.” I had only one idea—that they were in danger of betrayal by Jakoub. How he had managed to deceive them, or how far they might be compromised, I did not try to guess. My only thought was that Brogden was now an enemy, a skilful, questing enemy on the track of a frightful misapprehension. I felt my skin grow cold as I thought what a mere chance it was that I had not told him my story, enough of it anyhow to lead him straight to Jakoub—and Edmund’s disgrace. People would never understand that Edmund was innocent. Suddenly the question occurred to me—“Would they understand that I was?”
Brogden was talking all the time, and now I listened again.
“I was making things so hot for them that they left the Mediterranean in the beginning of this year. They’re experts at dodging signal stations, and I lost track of them till they got to London. Ship’s papers, manifest, cargo and everything all right, but the police got warrants out for the Arab in the name of Osman Hamouda. Then they disappeared again. We hoped to pick them up at Jersey, where we found they had relations with some very shady customers. I don’t know what their game was, but there’s sporadic smuggling going on there still in the old commodities whenever a chance offers. However, we missed them again. They got warned somehow and disappeared. I shouldn’t be surprised if they’re back in the Mediterranean. We’ll find them with a perfectly innocent cargo of bananas or something!”
Brogden laughed, and then I heard him exclaim, “Hallo! What’s the matter? You’re ill!”
A great darkness had come on me through which I seemed to hear his voice as a teasing sound at a distance.
I saw it all now. Edmund had known all along!
“No. I’m all right now; a bit fagged, and the heat.”
“Let me help you to your room.”