“What’s this drug worth? How much a pound?”
“Well, one can’t say exactly. The actual buyer would give ten pounds, perhaps, for a pound of it, if he could get it. But of course the fellows who bring it in don’t get all that. It has to go through the Lord knows how many hands. If they can dispose of it well, and in fairly big lots, they might clear a fiver on every pound of it. They wouldn’t take the risk for much less.”
Ten thousand pounds, I thought with horror, was represented by the load in my bedroom!
“But don’t let’s talk about the business,” Brogden continued, “it’s never safe. You never know. I’m going to have a cock-tail—the one exception to the rule of ‘no drinks before sun-down!’ Do you mind coming in the American bar?”
I went with him and sat on a high stool by the end of a marble counter on which were vast blocks of ice with soda-water bottles sticking out of them like spines.
Brogden went and busied himself in superintending the concoction of some mysterious drink which he averred was the only one suitable and wholesome for the time and place.
Behind the bar and opposite where I sat was a door which I knew opened into Van Ermengen’s private office. It was slightly open, and through the crack I heard Jakoub’s voice and Van Ermengen’s, speaking in Arabic.
If they had spoken in English I could not have heard all they said. As it was I could distinguish only a few isolated words of which I knew the meaning. I had no qualm of conscience in listening, and only envied Brogden’s knowledge of the language.
It sounded as though Jakoub were urging something and the other were demurring.
I heard the words “el moftah” (the key) repeated several times, and then I recognised “a part of it,” “our share,” and “to-night.”