Chapter 28
M elody walked out of the consul’s house so quickly that Captain Somerset had to hurry to catch up with her. When they got to the carriage, she turned to him and said in a low voice, “William, I want you to tell your driver to take us just out of sight of the consul’s house and then pull over.”
Evidently burning to ask her what was going on, William nevertheless did as she commanded. By the time he returned from giving his driver the instructions, Melody had climbed into the carriage. He followed and sat opposite her with an inquiring look on his handsome face.
Taking the ring out of her jacket pocket, Melody showed it to him and explained, “I know, no, I am sure, that my brother was wearing this back at the riad after the party.”
“So, what are you suggesting?”
“I am not suggesting anything. I am saying with absolute certainty that my brother was in that room yesterday and dropped his ring.” She chose her words carefully. “I think it is possible that he didn’t drop it by accident but instead left it as evidence that he had been there. If he was taken by force, he might have thought it the only way to indicate to someone who came looking for him that he had been there.”
“And what if it hadn’t been you who came? Or you hadn’t noticed it?” William asked. Melody acknowledged that all those must have been possibilities, but perhaps Rat felt he had no choice but to try. “So, you think the manservant, Kacem, is lying?”
As the carriage started to move further up the street, Melody considered William’s question. What did she think? “What do you know of Alister Blackadder?” she asked.
“Seems like a good chap, if a little young and green. He’s quite new to the role. It seems he has quite an aptitude for foreign languages. Speaks fluent Arabic and some Berber. From what I understand, Consul MacLeod’s previous secretary was recalled to London, and young Blackadder was sent in his stead. Actually, I believe that my brother recommended him.”
“Your brother? Which one?” Melody asked, only vaguely interested.
“Adam. Seems Blackadder is the younger brother of one of Adam’s close friends from Oxford.” Melody was barely listening by this point. She knew that this kind of nepotism was the way that the upper classes ensured that key roles were manned by the “right kind of chap.”
The carriage came to a standstill, and William asked, “Now what?”
It was an excellent question. Someone in the consul’s house knew where her brother was, and if she was right about him dropping his ring on purpose, they had taken her brother prisoner. What had he found out that had caused him to be seen as such a threat? Of course, she had been concerned for a while that with Brett Rothnie and then Alessandro taken out of commission, her brother was the obvious next person to come for. It was doubtful that someone knew about Brett and Alessandro’s work for the Secret Service Bureau but not about Rat. Perhaps his appearance at the consul’s house merely provided the perfect opportunity to deal with the next person on the list.
As she thought this through, Melody realised that there was a good chance that whoever had taken her brother was now on high alert that Rat’s disappearance was being investigated. Thinking through the events of the past hour, Melody said, “I am sure that Kacem is lying. After all, if my brother was in that house yesterday, then some servant let him in. Also, he hadn’t sent a note ahead, so there was no reason for someone to be lying in wait, and it must have been a crime of opportunity.”
She waited to see if William would ask why anyone would lie in wait for Rat, but he said nothing and so Melody continued. “If the basic facts of the domestic situation are as they were laid out, then the servant who opened the door for us today was not there, and Kacem took his place. There was something in how that man spoke to us that made me suspicious that he was telling the truth. And that was before I found the ring.”
The captain nodded in agreement. “Yes, there was something a little off about him.” He paused, “Do you imagine that he is the instigator behind taking your brother prisoner?”
“Not in the slightest. I do not doubt that whatever he did, it was at the behest of someone else. The question then becomes, is that someone in that house? Either way, I think that Kacem is going to leave the house soon to go and check on his prisoner. Isn’t that human nature, after all?” In truth, Melody wasn’t sure that she’d had enough life experience to declaim on human nature. Nevertheless, she could think of nothing more productive to do than to watch the consul’s house and see if Kacem, or anyone else, left anytime soon.
Was there any merit in this plan? Melody wondered. She took some comfort from the fact that her brother had dropped his ring. Whatever else had happened, they hadn’t killed him then and there. Or so she assumed.
Just as she was about to descend from the carriage, William said, “We might watch this house for a long time, and to what end? Just because someone leaves, it doesn’t mean that they are guilty of anything. We could be following a totally innocent person through the streets of Fes. And how exactly do we do that without being observed? Neither one of us is inconspicuous.”
Melody knew he was right, but inaction felt wrong. “What do you suggest instead?” she asked.
“Send the boy, Mustafa. One more child playing in the street won’t attract anyone’s attention. He strikes me as a smart, wily sort. Let him follow anyone who looks like they’re acting suspiciously. We’ll tell him to do no more than track them. If he believes he has discovered something, he can return, and we will take it from there.”
It really was a very sensible plan, and yet every fibre in Melody’s body rebelled against the idea of just sitting in the riad, waiting for Mustafa to discover something. She thought about what they had learned over the last twenty-four hours and decided that she had to presume that Omar was not implicated in any way. At some point, she had to take a leap of faith and trust someone.
“I think your idea is a good one, but it is more than one boy can do. Kacem aside, we have no idea who else in that house needs to be watched. Let us return to the riad and enlist the help of Omar and Lahcen. If they can send some young servants they trust with Mustafa, they can potentially follow multiple people at once.”
Having decided on a course of action, Melody was anxious to return to the riad and implement it. William surprised her by saying, " While you return, I will stay here and watch the house. Something may happen in the time it takes for the boy to get here.”
“What happened to not being able to be inconspicuous?”
“I keep a djellaba in a bag here, along with a turban. If I slip those on, I’ll be inconspicuous enough. At least enough to keep an eye on the house.”
Melody eyed him suspiciously. Why would he keep native clothes on hand? What was he expecting to happen?
Sensing her suspicions, William explained, “Much as it is often useful to make clear my status and rank as a British official, it has also proven to be helpful, on occasion, to blend into the crowd. After the first time, this necessity arose, and I was unprepared, I determined never to be caught flatfooted again.”
This explanation did make sense. It certainly seemed far more practical for one of them to remain and watch the consul’s house while the other went for reinforcement. While Melody would have loved to have made the case that she could be as effective a lookout as he could be, she knew that wasn’t the case.
She briefly exited the carriage so the captain could change his clothes. It didn’t take long, and before she knew it, a man who could have passed for Moroccan, complete with a perfectly wrapped turban, descended from the carriage. While many Moroccans were quite swarthy, there were enough with lighter complexions that, with his dark hair and eyes, Willam might have easily passed for a local.
“Do I pass muster?” he asked shyly.
“Very much so. Now that I see you in the djellaba, I realise that this is the far superior plan, William.”
The young captain blushed with pleasure at her words. Moving towards Melody, he took both of her hands in his. “I promise we will find him. I will not rest until we do.”
His words touched Melody. “I have no doubt that you will do everything you can, William.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Melody was back at the riad. She rushed into the courtyard and was relieved to see Omar and Lahcen sitting and talking.
Both men looked up as the rather breathless young woman hurried up to them. “Lalla Melody, is everything alright? Did you find Sidi Matthew with Consul Macleod?” Omar asked in a concerned voice.
“No. I didn’t. I believe my brother has been kidnapped.” The men were shocked by her words. They persuaded the clearly overwrought woman to sit and catch her breath. Melody agreed to sit and then told them everything that had happened since she and the captain had entered the consul’s home.
“Lalla Melody, I do not wish to cast aspersions on your story, but are you sure that you are drawing the right conclusion from finding your brother’s ring on the floor?”
“What else can it mean?” she asked. “Everyone was adamant that Rat hadn’t been there and yet he obviously had been, and someone in that house must have opened the door and admitted him.”
“Is there no possibility that Sidi Sandworth dropped the ring the night of the party?” Lahcen asked, unable to disguise his scepticism at her conclusions.
“I have gone over and over that evening and I am more sure than ever that he was wearing it when we arrived back after the party. And there’s something else; when we were small children, before I went to live with Lord and Lady Pembroke, my brother and I lived a very different life in a very dangerous part of London.”
She could see the men’s surprise at her words, but they let her continue. “Our parents died when I was very young, and Matthew had to look after me. Sometimes, he had to leave me alone to go and find work or food. He was always worried that someone would take me during those times. He used to tell me a story our mother had told him when he was my age about a little boy and girl who are in the woods and leave a trail of breadcrumbs to mark their way back home. He used to tell me that I should always try to leave him some kind of clue as to where I was going and that he would always find me.”
Thinking back to those days, Melody had to shake her head at the young Rat’s naivety in believing there was anything his four-year-old sister could have done to help him find her if she had been taken. Nevertheless, still a child himself, Rat had remembered his mother’s story and thought it was possible.
“I believe that ring was him leaving a breadcrumb for me to find. He had to have known that I would come looking for him.”
It wasn’t clear whether this charming childhood anecdote won over Omar and Lahcen. Nevertheless, they both asked what they could do. Melody explained that Captain Somerset was watching the consul’s home. Still, they needed more eyes watching it and, more importantly, small, nimble boys who could follow someone through the Medina without being noticed.
“I do not want any of the boys to put themselves in harm’s way. If they feel they have been spotted, they should immediately leave off following the person and return here. But it will be invaluable if they can give us any information about who might have taken my brother and where.”