“O! la! la!” I let out, marvelling that a Mrs. Maturin should hold an unorthodox literary opinion. “Why his?” There are so many other throats that need cutting first.
“Well, he is such an awful liar. I don’t know why it is that people who write books give you such false impressions. They always lead you to expect so much colour and magnificence in the East, when it is mostly dirt and fleas—or worse.”
It was curious that a lady capable of discovering Kisliavodsk, and of running away with a strange man into the jaws of the Germans, should be incapable of seeing Persia through her own eyes. I might have pointed out to her that if the readers of books have made up their minds what a country ought to be like, the most candid writers of books have small chance against them, and that a Pierre Loti will make admirable prose out of the most unpromising material. But what I wanted to point out to her was that books at least get on with their stories faster than she was doing. Instead of which I remarked:
“The Adorner of the Monarchy is quite a character, isn’t he? He must have worked the oracle very quickly, for you to have scuttled off from Tehran as soon as you did.”
She smiled.
“He didn’t work it in Tehran. He worked it in Kum. That, really, was how Peter happened to go with us. My courier refused to when he heard about that little rumpus the Turks were stirring up.”
“Kum!” I cried. “Why Kum, of all earthly places? I never heard of anybody going to Kum except on a pilgrimage to that shrine.”
“Well, that’s what we did.”
I stared at her, for that shrine is one of the most sacred spots in Persia. It is the last resting-place of Fatima the Immaculate, granddaughter I don’t remember how many times great of the Prophet, and sister of the Imam Riza—who flies over once a week from his own more famous tomb in Meshed to visit her. And few there are, of Christian birth, that is, who have seen it.
“You look as if you didn’t believe me,” said Mrs. Maturin. “But it was simple enough. Don’t you remember how the Shah tried to run away to Isfahan, and how he sent his things on ahead of him? Well, when he didn’t turn up, they put the things into the shrine at Kum for safe keeping. The Adorner of the Monarchy happened to know about it. And you were quite right about the Shah’s being willing to sell some of his jewels. That was how we happened to go to Kum. Have you been there?”