"Follow that man, but don't let him know he's followed. He'll show you where Noureddin Ali is. Get him this time!"
"Dead or alive, sahib?"
"Either."
Chapter Twenty
"All men are equal in the dark."
The first thing Goodenough did after Grim had sent Narayan Singh off on his deadly mission was to summon the sheikh of the Dome of the Rock. He himself went to fetch him rather than risk having the sheikh bring a crowd of witnesses, who would be sure to talk afterwards. The all-important thing was to conceal the fact that sacrilege had been committed. But it was also necessary to establish the fact that Zionists had had no hand in it.
"You see," Grim explained, sitting on the edge of the stone coffin, "we could hold Jerusalem. But if word of this business were to spread far and wide, you couldn't hold two or three hundred million fanatics; and believe me, they'd cut loose!"
"The sheikh must realize that," said I. "What do you bet me he won't try to black-mail the Administration on the strength of it?"
"I'll bet you my job! Watch the old bird. Listen in. He's downy. He knows a chance when he sees it, and he might try to cheat you at dominoes. But in a big crisis he's a number one man."
While we waited we tried to get an opinion out of Scharnhoff about the coffin and the skeleton inside it. But the old fellow was heart-broken. I think he told the truth when he said he couldn't explain it.