He must focus his attention on Mortimer and Nur-el-Din. If Mortimer and Strangwise were both staying at the Dyke Inn, then they were probably acquainted. Strangwise knew Nur-el-Din, too, knew her well; for Desmond remembered how familiarly they had conversed together that night in the dancer’s dressing-room at the Palaceum. Strangwise knew Barbara Mackwayte also. Nur-el-Din had introduced them, Desmond remembered, on that fateful night when he had accompanied Strangwise to the Palaceum. Strange, how he was beginning to encounter the man Strangwise at every turn in this sinister affair.
And then, with a shock that struck him like a blow in the face, Desmond recalled Barbara’s parting words to him in the taxi. He remembered how she had told him of seeing Nur-el-Din’s face in the mirror as the dancer was talking to Strangwise that night at the Palaceum, and of the look of terror in the girl’s eyes. Nur-el-Din was terrified of Mortimer; for so much she had admitted to Desmond that very afternoon; she was terrified of Strangwise, too, it seemed, of this Strangwise who, like Mortimer, kept appearing at every stage of this bewildering affair. What confession had been on Nur-el-Din’s lips when she had broken off that afternoon with the cry:
“Already I have said too much!”
Thereafter Desmond’s eyes were never long absent from Mortimer’s face, scrutinizing each feature in turn, the eyes, set rather close together, grotesquely shielded by the thick spectacles, the narrow cheeks, the rather cynical mouth half hidden by the heavy, drooping moustache, the broad forehead broken by a long lock of dark hair brushed out flat in a downward direction from an untidy, unkempt crop.
They talked no more of Strangwise or of Nur-el-Din. The rest of dinner was passed in conversation of a general order in which Mr. Mortimer showed himself to great advantage. He appeared to be a widely traveled, well-read man, with a fund of dry, often rather grim humor. And all the time Desmond watched, watched, unobtrusively but unceasingly, looking out for something he was confident of detecting through the suave, immobile mask of this brilliant conversationalist.
Skillfully, almost imperceptibly, Desmond edged the talk on to the war. In this domain, too, Mortimer showed himself a man of broad views, of big, comprehensive ideas. Towards the strategy and tactics of the two sides, he adopted the attitude of an impartial onlooker, but in his comments he proved himself to have a thorough grasp of the military situation. He talked freely and ably of such things as tanks, the limited objective in the attack and the decentralization of responsibility in the field.
Encouraged by his volubility, for he was a man who delighted in conversation, Desmond gradually gave the talk a personal turn. But willing as Mortimer showed himself to discuss the war generally, about his personal share he was as mute as a fish. Try as he would Desmond could get nothing out of him. Again and again, he brought the conversation round to personal topics; but every time his companion contrived to switch it back to general lines.
At last Desmond risked a direct question. By this time a pint of Pommery and Gréno was tingling in his veins and he felt he didn’t care if the roof fell in.
“Ever since Nur-el-Din told me you were of the Crown Prince’s personal service,” he said, “I have been devoured with curiosity to know what you were doing before you came to England. Were you at Metz with his Imperial Highness? Did you see the assault at Verdun? Were you present at the capture of the Fort of Douaumont?”
Mortimer shook his head, laughing, and held up a deprecating hand.