They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page B

needed. Buying a man was easier than one might think – one could buy with other things than money.
    Well, no matter how it had come about, there it was. He was on the run – back on his own resources. Without money, without the help of a new personality, and his appearance known. Perhaps at this very moment he was being quietly followed.
    He did not turn his head. Of what use would that be? Those who followed were not novices at the game.
    Quietly, aimlessly, he continued to stroll. Behind his listless manner he was reviewing various possibilities. He came out of the souk at last and crossed the little bridge over the canal. He walked on until he saw the big painted hatchment over the doorway and the legend: British Consulate.
    He looked up the street and down. No one seemed to be paying the least attention to him. Nothing, it appeared, was easier than just to step into the British Consulate. He thought for a moment, of a moustrap, an open mousetrap with its enticing piece of cheese. That, too, was easy and simple for the mouse…
    Well, the risk had to be taken. He didn’t see what else he could do.
    He went through the doorway.?

They Came to Baghdad

Chapter 6
    Richard Baker sat in the outer office of the British Consulate waiting until the Consul was disengaged.
    He had come ashore from the Indian Queen that morning and seen his baggage through the Customs. It consisted almost entirely of books. Pyjamas and shirts were strewed amongst them rather as an afterthought.
    The Indian Queen had arrived on time and Richard, who had allowed a margin of two days since small cargo boats such as the Indian Queen were frequently delayed, had now two days in hand before he need proceed, via Baghdad, to his ultimate destination, Tell Aswad, the site of the ancient city of Murik.
    His plans were already made as to what to do with these two days. A mound reputed to contain ancient remains at a spot near the seashore in Kuwait had long excited his curiosity. This was a heaven-sent opportunity to investigate it.
    He drove to the Airport Hotel and inquired as to the methods of getting to Kuwait. A plane left at ten o’clock the following morning, he was told, and he could return the following day. Everything therefore was plain sailing. There were, of course, the inevitable formalities, exit visa and entry visa for Kuwait. For these he would have to repair to the British Consulate. The Consul-General at Basrah, Mr Clayton, Richard had met some years previously in Persia. It would be pleasant, Richard thought, to meet him again.
    The Consulate had several entrances. A main gate for cars. Another small gate leading out from the garden to the road that lay alongside the Shatt el Arab. The business entrance to the Consulate was in the main street. Richard went in, gave his card to the man on duty, was told the Consul-General was engaged at the moment but would soon be free, and was shown into a small waiting-room to the left of the passage which ran straight through from the entrance to the garden beyond.
    There were several people already in the waiting-room. Richard hardly glanced at them. He was, in any case, seldom interested by members of the human race. A fragment of antique pottery was always more exciting to him than a mere human being born somewhere in the twentieth century AD.
    He allowed his thoughts to dwell pleasantly on some aspects of the Mari letters and the movements of the Benjaminite tribes in 1750 BC.
    It would be hard to say exactly what awoke him to a vivid sense of the present and of his fellow human beings. It was, first, an uneasiness, a sense of tension. It came to him, he thought, though he could not be sure, through his nose. Nothing he could diagnose in concrete terms – but it was there, unmistakable, taking him back to days in the late war. One occasion in particular when he, and two others, had been parachuted from a plane, and had waited in the small cold hours of dawn for the moment to do their stuff. A