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

donkeys made their way along, their drivers calling out raucously. Balek—balek …Children quarrelled and squealed and ran after Europeans calling hopefully, Baksheesh, madame, Baksheesh. Meskin-meskin. …
    Here the produce of the West and the East were equally for sale side by side. Aluminium saucepans, cups and saucers and teapots, hammered copperware, silverwork from Amara, cheap watches, enamel mugs, embroideries and gay patterned rugs from Persia. Brassbound chests from Kuwait, secondhand coats and trousers and children’s woolly cardigans. Local quilted bedcovers, painted glass lamps, stacks of clay water jars and pots. All the cheap merchandise of civilization together with the native products.
    All as normal and as usual. After his long sojourn in the wilder spaces, the bustle and confusion seemed strange to Carmichael, but it was all as it should be, he could detect no jarring note, no sign of interest in his presence. And yet, with the instinct of one who has for some years known what it is to be a hunted man, he felt a growing uneasiness—a vague sense of menace. He could detect nothing amiss. No one had looked at him. No one, he was almost sure, was following him or keeping him under observation. Yet he had that indefinable certainty of danger.
    He turned up a narrow dark turning, again to the right, thento the left. Here among the small booths, he came to the opening of a khan, he stepped through the doorway into the court. Various shops were all round it. Carmichael went to one where ferwahs were hanging—the sheepskin coats of the north. He stood there handling them tentatively. The owner of the store was offering coffee to a customer, a tall bearded man of fine presence who wore green round his tarbush showing him to be a Hajji who had been to Mecca.
    Carmichael stood there fingering the ferwah.
    â€œ Besh hadha? ” he asked.
    â€œSeven dinars.”
    â€œToo much.”
    The Hajji said, “You will deliver the carpets at my khan?”
    â€œWithout fail,” said the merchant. “You start tomorrow?”
    â€œAt dawn for Kerbela.”
    â€œIt is my city, Kerbela,” said Carmichael. “It is fifteen years now since I have seen the Tomb of the Hussein.”
    â€œIt is a holy city,” said the Hajji.
    The shopkeeper said over his shoulder to Carmichael:
    â€œThere are cheaper ferwahs in the inner room.”
    â€œA white ferwah from the north is what I need.”
    â€œI have such a one in the farther room.”
    The merchant indicated the door set back in the inner wall.
    The ritual had gone according to pattern—a conversation such as might be heard any day in any souk—but the sequence was exact—the keywords all there—Kerbela—white ferwah.
    Only, as Carmichael passed to cross the room and enter the inner enclosure, he raised his eyes to the merchant’s face—and knew instantly that the face was not the one he expected to see.Though he had seen this particular man only once before, his keen memory was not at fault. There was a resemblance, a very close resemblance, but it was not the same man.
    He stopped. He said, his tone one of mild surprise, “Where, then, is Salah Hassan?”
    â€œHe was my brother. He died three days ago. His affairs are in my hands.”
    Yes, this was probably a brother. The resemblance was very close. And it was possible that the brother was also employed by the department. Certainly the responses had been correct. Yet it was with an increased awareness that Carmichael passed through into the dim inner chamber. Here again was merchandise piled on shelves, coffeepots and sugar hammers of brass and copper, old Persian silver, heaps of embroideries, folded abas, enamelled Damascus trays and coffee sets.
    A white ferwah lay carefully folded by itself on a small coffee table. Carmichael went to it and picked it up. Underneath it was a set of European clothes, a worn, slightly flashy