The antiquity man smiled a little.
“But not this coffee,” he said. “I think you will find that it does not keep you awake.”
It began to come over Michael that there was more than the coffee which he didn’t like. Was it the air in that stuffy dark little stone room? Was it the way in which the three men looked at him? Was it that basket of broken tiles?
“No thanks,” he said. And he added: “Let’s go out where we can see. It’s too hot in here, too.”
He looked around for the door. He couldn’t see it from where he stood. The antiquity man said something, and the porter stood aside. Michael stepped past him, around some big boxes. The door was there. Michael suddenly heard it click; but in front of it a fourth man stood in the shadow. He did not move when Michael stepped forward. He stood there in front of the door, with his hands in his coat pockets. Michael was quite sure he didn’t like that.
“Pardon,” he said, “I want to go out.”
The man shook his head. At a word from the antiquity man, however, he moved aside, keeping his hands in his pockets. Michael reached out for the door. It was locked.
He liked that least of all. He had a sudden impulse to pound the door, the man beside him. Yet the next moment he was ashamed of it. He turned around. The others had come forward, around the boxes—the antiquity man, the big porter with the tray, the old man carrying the candle. In the light of it Michael looked at the other one, the one who had shut the door. He was young and very dark, with a scar across his chin. Michael looked at them all. What in the world had come over them? Could it be that they took that basket of tiles too seriously? Could it be that they, too, were not what they seemed, that under their first friendliness were black and uncanny things? All the old wives’ tales that Westerners hear of the East came vaguely, yet disquietingly, back to him. It was with an effort that he folded his arms and turned to the antiquity man.
“Your methods of doing business,” he remarked, “strike me as being rather peculiar.”
“It is a peculiar business,” said the antiquity man.