Part 12

"But Cæsar--how come Sicily lets you return to a place like that?"

Mr. Clump laughed loudly. "Shuh! Eddie, she don't know nothin' 'bout it. She thinks I an' Florian is gwine be gallivantin' aroun' the water front lookin' fo' lit'ry material."

"No!"

"Yeh. Golla! she woul'n't dream of leavin' me go to see no Algiers dancin' girls a secon' time. Once was bad enough. So I an' Florian framed this story an' right away she says all right we can go. Now we was thinkin' that you would have the time of yo' life.... Boy! until you has visited that place, you ain't been nowhere an' you ain't seen nothin'. How 'bout it?"

Eddie shook his head. "Nothin' stirrin', Cæsar. Glorious woul'n't never say yes."

"You ain't got to 'splain ev'ything to yo' wife, has you?"

"Uh-huh. Us promised each other that."

Florian grimaced. "What good is a wife if you cain't break promises to her? C'mon, Eddie--be a good sport."

"Cain't make it, boys." He stared at Cæsar thoughtfully. "Anybody but me know where you-all is goin'?"

"I don't reckon so."

"Well, don't tell nobody then."

Cæsar smiled affectionately. "Ol' Sad Face! Why not?"

"'Cause ev'body in this comp'ny ain't yo' friend, Cæsar. An' was Sicily to find out where you was at----"

Both men whistled expressively. Eddie wished them luck and went his way. Once out of the room Florian and Cæsar looked apprehensively at each other.

"What you reckon he meant, Florian?"

"Talkin' 'bout Opus Randall, mos' prob'ly. He's hatin' you plenty in the las' few days."

"He don't know nothin' 'bout this trip tonight, does he?"

"Showly not." There was the faintest quiver of doubt in Florian's voice. "Co'se I guess there's some in the comp'ny suspecks where we is gwine. We done a heap of talkin' this mawnin' an' Opus might of heard."

Mr. Clump's eyes narrowed hostilely. "If that fat slab of side-meat ever tol' my wife on me.... But shuh! we ain't doin' nothin' but borryin' trouble. Sicily don't suspeck nothin' an' us is gwine have the time of our lives."

Mr. Slappey grinned hugely. "Chief, when you said that you show spoke a parabola!"

At three o'clock that afternoon a party of three, consisting of Director Clump, Cameraman Exotic Hines and Author Forcep Swain, left the hotel on a tour of inspection. They were seeking locations for certain important comedy shots and were intent on business.

Mrs. Sicily Clump stood at her window and watched them go. They moved off down the Rue Michelet and passed from sight. Immediately Sicily swung into action.

She descended to the hotel gardens and quested for the company's official Algiers guide. She found him chatting amiably with two taxi drivers.

M. Fernand Boutierre was a decidedly estimable gentleman. His credentials were unimpeachable, as President Orifice R. Latimer had taken very good care to see after a certain thoroughly disastrous experience in Biskra.

Fernand was of medium height and modest structure. In complexion he was of that doubtful mahogany tinge which marks the native Algerian. Born and reared within the corporate limits of the sprawling, hilly city on the north African coast, Fernand had learned to speak French fluently. Later he had picked up bits of English from tourists and then had seriously studied the language until now it was his proud boast that he spoke it as good as a native.

A large tourist bureau had recommended Fernand without qualification. He was licensed by the police and they asserted that he was familiar with everything in Algiers from palace to pest-hole. He spoke on terms of respectful intimacy with officials and wharf-rats. Proprietors of two large halls where boule and baccarat flourished knew him well, and there was no iniquitous establishment in the city which was not eager to welcome him and his clients.

His chief recommendation was that wherever he chose to guide a person--there that person was safe. Being a native Algerian, he held high social rank among his kind. French shopkeepers and entertainment purveyors catered to the man.

Sicily Clump knew Fernand well, and liked him. She opened the interview by pressing in his hand a crisp, new hundred-franc note, realizing that this made of Fernand her stanch ally--unless somebody happened to come along with more than a hundred francs.

She spoke earnestly and lengthily with M. Boutierre. At first he raised his hands in horror and shook his head violently. Once he offered to return her hundred francs. But Mrs. Clump was insistent. He spoke of risks and she volunteered to assume them. He told her he dared not jeopardize his very excellent position with Midnight, and she promised protection: she gave her word that he was to be merely an innocent bystander. And at the crucial instant of his indecision, she produced a second hundred-franc note.

Fernand was converted. Much against his better judgment he consented to put himself at her disposal. She then proceeded to speak more specifically and a half hour later the somewhat doubtful M. Boutierre boarded a tram for down-town, there to seek the native clothing shop of a very good friend. Frankly, Fernand regarded it as a very silly proceeding--entirely too much ado about nothing at all. What if this woman's husband cared to visit--for the second time in two nights--an irreproachable dancing establishment? Fernand shrugged. The mental ways of these American women were quite beyond him. Why, the place was so respectable that he frequently took tourist ladies to watch the dancing ... invariably to their disappointment. Native Algerian dances lack considerable of the paprika which seasons the famous French can-can.

Shortly before the dinner hour Fernand returned from the native quarter with a large bundle and a suggestion. He had surveyed the situation from every angle and finally made it quite clear to Sicily that he would take her to the dancing place only on condition that some colored gentleman in the company should accompany them. This, Fernand felt, would leave him in the clear should things go wrong.

Much to his amazement, Sicily did not protest. In fact, she instantly and heartily endorsed the idea and immediately went in search of Opus, whom she found staring down miserably upon the Mediterranean Sea.

Opus demurred. It was one thing to start the ball rolling, and quite another to trot along with it. Sicily used powerful argument, and eventually Opus consented to accompany them to the dance palace.

"But," said he, in qualification of his agreement, "I ain't gwine in. I goes downtown in the taxi with you-all, but when we gits to that place, I waits outside."

"Why?"

"You is gwine be disguised. I ain't. Minute I go in, Cæsar an' Florian reckernizes me ... then the whole scheme goes blooie. Ain't that the truth?"

"Yeh ... seems so."

"'Tis so. You don't wan yo' husban' to know you is there. An' with me waitin' outside, he won't know nothin'."

"Good enough. Now, you keep yo' eyes open this evenin', Brother Randall, an' as soon as Cæsar an' Florian starts downtown you hunt me up."

Dinner that evening was a gala affair. There was unusual jocularity and good nature, most of the laughter emanating from J. Cæsar Clump, Florian Slappey, Sicily Clump, and Opus Randall. The first two stood upon the threshold of a glorious evening, Sicily was determined that any lurking suspicion on the part of her husband should be allayed and Opus was chuckling inwardly at the thought of the revenge he was about to take.

Mr. Randall was, as a matter of fact, in fine fettle. His deep voice boomed across the room. He fairly oozed high spirits. Personally unpopular as he was, the others were laughing with him--all save Director Edwin Boscoe Fizz, whose mild little eyes turned inquiringly upon the fat comedian. Mr. Fizz felt that there must be something sinister behind Opus's abrupt climb from the nadir of unhappiness to the zenith of jocularity.

By the time dinner ended, night had settled over Algiers in a rich, purple mantle. The sky was cloudless and spangled with stars. From the hotel veranda one could look down upon the sprawling city; the wide, tree-sentineled streets of the French quarter, the white houses and mosques in the native section. The panorama was weirdly beautiful in the moonlight.... Cæsar and Florian took their leave and, as long as they remained within earshot, discussed loudly the sort of pictorial material they hoped to discover on the proposed tour of the congested and malodorous water front.

Less than fifteen minutes after their departure, Sicily Clump answered a tap on her door. She took from M. Boutierre a sizable bundle, and talked with him briefly in subdued tones. She closed the door and started to dress.

Less than twenty minutes after that, Mrs. Sicily Clump, feminine star of Midnight productions, surveyed herself in the mirror. The reflection showed an Arab lady of unusual shapeliness, encased in a long, flowing robe of white. The head was completely covered and the lower half of her face was concealed by a white veil. Only the eyes shone forth ... and they were twinkling with a mixture of excitement and anger.

Sicily was well content. "Cæsar woul'n't never know me," she observed to her reflection. "In fack, I ain't so sure I'd reckernize myself."

She tapped on the door as a signal to Fernand, who was waiting in the hall. He entered and exclaimed rapturously, declaring that even an Algerian would mistake her for a native. He then bade her wait, while he inspected the narrow hall leading to the side door.

He returned in a few moments. Sicily took his arm, gathered her Arabian robe about her, and they slipped down the stairway, along the dark hall and thence into a taxi which was waiting outside. Opus was already there. He was enthusiastic. "Golla! Sicily--how moslemmed up you is!"

She smiled. "You is sure that they ain't nobody saw'n us?"

"Positively not. I been standin' heah waitin' an' nobody but the taxi driver ain't been near heah."

Mrs. Clump was satisfied. But neither she nor Opus knew of the loyalty which had aroused the suspicions of Eddie Fizz, nor of the determination with which he had shadowed Opus Randall since dinner.

Eddie had missed no move of Opus since the conclusion of that meal. He felt that something was brewing--and when Mr. Randall posted himself by the side door of the hotel, Mr. Fizz scrooched himself in the shadow of a nearby palm tree--and watched.

What he had just seen appeared to more than justify such pains as he had taken. First there had been Opus standing alone--expectantly. Then the figure of Fernand Boutierre appearing briefly, speaking a few words with the large actor; then beckoning with his right hand. At once, as though it had been waiting for this particular signal, a taxicab rolled out of line, and came to a halt near where Mr. Randall was standing. Opus immediately entered.

Fernand reëntered the hotel. He appeared again a few seconds later accompanied by a modestly veiled Arab woman. This couple joined Opus in the taxi and the vehicle rolled down the driveway toward the gate of the hotel grounds.

Eddie Fizz stepped out of the shadow of the palm tree. The Arab woman puzzled him. Then his mind flashed back over the episodes and apprehensions of the afternoon, and a great light broke upon him. He clapped his hands together and his eyes blazed.

"Ow!" he murmured, "what a dirty trick!"

His legs twinkled upstairs to his room, where he found his wife, Glorious. He spoke jerkily.

"Don' ast me no questions, honey; an' don't say nothin' to nobody no time. But Cæsar Clump is in trouble, an' I has got to git him out."

Mrs. Fizz patted his hand. "Go ahead, Eddie. I ain't gwine to say nothin', an' I won't repeat myse'f."

He was gone as abruptly as he entered. He shot out of the front door like a slender, black arrow and pitched himself into a taxi. He motioned the driver into the Rue Michelet and gestured toward the town below. Wild contortions indicated to his driver that he desired speed and plenty of it.

They started toward the lower town at a breakneck rate, twisting this way and that, coming now within sight of the harbor, and again being hemmed in by high walls surrounding handsome homes. Eventually there appeared far ahead of them another car in the rear of which Eddie could discern the veiled and hooded figure of the woman he believed was Sicily Clump. In his very worst and most painstaking French he explained to the driver that he wished the other taxi trailed--but not too closely.

Their way led through the French quarter; a section of wide streets and imposing shops--very much like any city of France. Then they turned to the left and progress was slower. The streets narrowed, seeming to close in upon them. They rose sharply, buildings lost individuality ... they found themselves in a twisting, tortuous maze of narrow cobblestoned alleys. The native quarter was picturesque, but not prepossessing. Lights glowed palely--intensifying the outer darkness; the streets were crowded with burnoosed Algerians moving with slow indifference, or merely squatting against the stucco walls and gazing with some hostility and considerable distaste toward the taxi. It was a silent section of the city; sinisterly quiet; narrow; treacherous....

Meanwhile in the leading taxi, Sicily Clump was wondering whether she had allowed wifely indignation to vanquish common sense. In broad daylight the native quarter had attracted her. Now, she felt herself oppressed by vague fears. She fancied that she detected criticism in certain native eyes--as though they were asking what a veiled Algerian lady was doing in a taxi-cab with an American negro and a native guide.

Even the bazaars, so intriguing in the daytime, were pale and uninteresting tonight. The ineffective lights glowed weirdly on the white walls ... and there were blocks where there was no light at all; merely scores of ghostlike figures moving soundlessly in the night.

Sicily regretted the trip, but now that she had come this far she had no intention of turning back. Her resentment against her husband was flaming. It was all his fault! What right had he to force her to trail him down here!

"Is we near the place, Fernand?"

"Ver' near quite, madame. Almost are there."

She sighed. "Remember, Fernand--if I should be reckernized we is just gwine say that I was studyin' for a part I'se gwine play in a Arab pitcher, an' that I made you bring me heah."

"Madame is correct. For Arab part she desire to see Arab dance so Fernand is delight' to escort, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"_Oui--oui!_" broke in Opus, "we gotcha, Fernand."

Their taxi moved with difficulty along the Rue Babel Oued, a populous street urgent with color, odor and life. In the center, and flanking both sides, were tiny shops displaying odds and ends: nondescript garments, bits of glassware, pieces of filmy silk, ragged and worthless rugs, squares of gaudy, imitation tapestry. Halfway along this narrow, pulsing thoroughfare they came to the corner of the Rue de la Kasba, where the Eglise Notre Dame des Victoires gleamed whitely in the moonlight. An ancient mosque of impressive dimensions and architecture, it affected Sicily Clump with a bad case of creeps.

But even more impressive was the narrow street they swung into after proceeding a few squares upgrade along the Rue de la Kasba. This was indeed the narrowest street they had yet traversed, and just as Sicily was on the point of reconsidering, the taxi stopped and Fernand announced that they had arrived.

The house before which they stood was more impressive than its somewhat squalid neighbors. It was of strictly Moorish design with an ornate entrance. Fernand instructed the taxi driver to keep his headlights burning until after he and Sicily had entered the house. Opus settled himself comfortably in the rear of the car and wished the others much luck.

Obviously Mr. Fernand Boutierre was well known in this particular establishment. The girl at the door smiled a greeting and gazed with casual curiosity at the figure of the veiled woman. Fernand walked ahead and Sicily followed, her heart thumping.

They came into a large room, perhaps twenty feet wide by forty in depth, across the width of which benches had been placed. But the second floor of the building did not form a ceiling to the room. Instead, a balcony circled the hall about sixteen feet above the first story, and leading off from this balcony were several ornately carved doorways.

At the lower end of the hall was the stage: a simple platform raised perhaps two feet from the floor. On this stage were dancers and orchestra. As Sicily and Fernand seated themselves in a dark, obscure corner where they could not be recognized the orchestra sounded off. It performed this feat without undue formality. One portly Algerian lady played deftly on an instrument resembling a flageolet, another scraped earnestly at a sort of fiddle. And the drummer drummed.

The drummer fascinated Mrs. Clump. For one thing, he seemed to be the only man connected with the enterprise; for another, he was a man of striking proportions. Probably six feet in height and correspondingly broad; with a vast chest and huge, muscular arms, he sat cross-legged in the middle of the stage and thumped with the fingers of both hands on the end of a huge kettle covered with tightly-stretched hide. The effect was inspiring: thumpy-thump-thump-thump! Thumpy - thump - thump - thump! Thumpy-thump ... over and over again, marking time for the flageolet and fiddle.

The drummer seemed disinterested. His black eyes were unseeing, his dark-complexioned face inscrutable. He did not even look around when a young Arab lady, introduced in French as an Ouled Nail dancer from Biskra, arose and commenced to strut her stuff.

The dance, as such, was vastly disappointing, even to Sicily. This particular young woman was as fully dressed as her dozen sister performers who sat stolidly on the floor of the stage awaiting their turn. She wore an ornate blouse, baggy trousers, a few beads and a sort of veil. As she moved, the others clapped languidly, keeping time to the thumping of the gargantuan drummer.

The dancer moved slowly and indifferently. If there was any intricacy in the steps, Sicily could not detect it. To her untutored eyes the lady seemed to be performing about one-quarter of a desultory daily dozen. She walked up and down the stage a few times, smiled, bowed--and seated herself. At which signal another lady--equally bored and languid--arose.

But now Sicily turned her gaze from the stage, and her eyes came to rest on the figures of her truant husband and his friend.

It was obvious that J. Cæsar Clump and Florian Slappey were enjoying themselves hugely. They were sitting straight up in their chairs paying rapt attention to the modest undulations of the dancer then holding the boards. Once or twice they broke into spontaneous applause ... and it was then that Mrs. Sicily Clump commenced to become angry in earnest.

She eyed them balefully through her veil. Once Cæsar looked straight at her. For an instant she feared detection, but he turned away disinterestedly. What mattered it to him that an Arab woman desired to see the dancers?

Two or three more numbers were performed, the giant thumper thumping steadily. Then Sicily saw her husband and Florian rise. They beckoned to the overlarge and overdark woman who seemed to be the proprietress and there ensued a difficult but evidently satisfactory conversation in French. Florian and Cæsar started for the door.

Sicily half rose from her seat, intending to confront her husband. But just as she would have started forward, Cæsar turned back toward the stage. The smile which he flung at the girls seemed to include them all, and he waved a cheery hand toward the fat duenna.

"So long, girls," called Cæsar gaily. "See you-all a li'l later!"

Sicily sank back in fury. So he was coming back later, was he? She was quivering with righteous wrath as she watched them disappear through the front door. Once they had gone she swung violently on her guide.

"Fernand," she hissed, "you heard my husban' say just now he was comin' back, didn't you?"

"_Oui_, madame."

"Well, I crave to have you take me up yonder on the balcony. Then when him an' that wuthless Florian Slappey return back heah, I can watch what they does, an' they won't see me."

Fernand shrugged. He was under orders and receiving excellent pay. If a wife chose to act this way... He escorted Sicily up the twisting stairway leading to the balcony. Once there, Mrs. Clump took matters in her own hands.

She arranged two chairs where she and the guide might sit and gaze down onto the first floor without themselves being observed. To make assurance doubly sure, she borrowed an ornate Moorish screen from an adjoining room and placed this in front of the chairs. Then, firm-lipped and bright-eyed, she settled herself to wait until such time as Julius Cæsar Clump paid his return visit.

Meanwhile, another chapter in the drama was being enacted in the terrifyingly dark side street on which the dance house was located.

Mr. Edwin Boscoe Fizz was loyally on the job.

The task of trailing Sicily's taxi had not been simple, but eventually Eddie's chauffeur parked a block away from the spot where the other taxi was standing. Eddie commanded the man to extinguish his lights. Then the little director stepped to the ground and pussyfooted up the alley toward the waiting car.

He was unobserved. The Stygian gloom of the alley afforded excellent protection and he came quite close to Sicily's car. There, in the glow of a light over the doorway, he saw the figure of the large and smug Opus Randall perched comfortably in a corner, a large cigar in his teeth.

Eddie stood motionless, observing Opus--and thinking. Sicily and Fernand were inside, he knew. If Cæsar was already there, then the rescue was too late. If not ... Eddie took up his place in the shadows of a building and waited, prepared to intercept Cæsar in case he had not already arrived.

The door of the big Moorish house opened and in the pale yellow light of the entry, two masculine figures stood revealed. At the same instant a bit of melancholy music spurted into the street: the thump of drum and wail of _derbuka_. Eddie frowned in puzzlement. Sicily was inside, and Cæsar was leaving. Obviously he had not been confronted by the irate wife.

Cæsar and Florian started down the street. Opus Randall made himself as inconspicuous as possible. And Eddie Fizz--hestitating to accost his friends in full view of Opus--slunk along in the shadows until they turned a corner. He accelerated his pace and whistled softly. They turned in surprise.

"Well, if it ain't ol' Eddie Fizz! Coul'n't stan' the gaff! Dawg-gone yo' ol' hide----"

"Cease!" commanded the mild little man. "Cæsar--you is up to yo' neck in trouble."

Mr. Clump chuckled. "Boy! you says words but they don't convey no inflammation. I asks you, How come?"

Eddie stepped close. "Was there a Arab lady sittin' in the dance place back yonder?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well," snapped Eddie, "there wasn't!"

"Huh? Be yo' age, boy. I seen the Arab lady----"

"You didn't do no such of a thing. The lady you seen which you thought was Arab, was Sicily Clump!"

There was an instant of hushed and bleak terror. Then doubt gripped the husbandly heart of Mr. Clump and questions cascaded from his lips. Briefly and graphically Eddie explained the situation and the sinister role in which Opus had cast himself. The eyes of Mr. Clump blazed with homicidal fury and he suggested that they immediately repair to the alley and start the evening right by completely exterminating Mr. Randall--a suggestion which Florian enthusiastically seconded.