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leaving only the lettuce, fresh picked and still jewelled with morning dew,
like the drops that sparkled on the grass he walked on, relicts of the
mechanical sprayer which until a few minutes ago had been scattering its
priceless elixir over the sacrosanct turf . . .
What happened next was that the hazel began to twist in his hands, the
upright stem of the inverted Y trying to swing over to point downwards, so
startlingly that he involuntarily fought against it. But it was as if the wood
had become possessed of a will and a power of its own, so that with all his
strength he could not hold it, and it writhed slowly and irresistibly over in
his grasp until the stem pointed vertically down.
Simon Templar felt the sweat of his body chilled by a passage of ghostly
wings, and would never know how he succeeded in keeping his face from looking
completely fatuous.
He thought that a distant roar came to his ears from a hundred
indistinguishable throats, though it might as well have been only a subjective
amplification of the turmoil in his own brain; yet it seemed almost
breathlessly quiet in the enclosure, where except for the Emir himself only
Talib and one pair of sword-bearing guards had presumed to follow him. And in
that brimming silence, he released the forked twig and extended his forefinger
imperatively towards the spot where it fell, almost in the geometrical center
of the Sheik's most treasured enclave.
"Here," said the Saint.
"You mean close here, outside, okay?" Talib said, shaken for the first time
since Simon had known him into an almost incoherent dither.
The Saint's arm and pointing finger remained statuesquely rigid.
"I meanhere," he repeated inflexibly.
Yusuf was studying him in thunderous gloom, his head on one side like an
introspective vulture. Simon met the inquisitorial scrutiny without blinking,
letting everything ride with the bet that the Sheik's cupidity would be
stronger than his interest in horticulture or at least that he was capable of
the arithmetic to realize that a new oil well would buy a lot more lawns. And
finally Yusuf spoke.
"Sheik say," Talib transmitted it, "you deliver, you get rich, pronto. Not
deliver no goods, we cut your bloody head off. What you say, Mac?"
"You've got a deal, schlemiel," said the Saint blandly.
After that it became much less orderly in fact, it rapidly lost all semblance
of order. The Emir rattled off another cataract of injunctions, and stalked
away. Talib began to shout supplementary orders in four directions. The
privileged spectators who were inside the cordon of militia pressed forward,
gesticulating and shrieking in friendly conversation until they reached the
fence, which bulged and bent and then meekly disintegrated before the weight
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of their excitement. At a word from Talib, the two Negroes closed in on Simon
and hustled him unceremoniously through the jabbering mob. Outside the remains
of the enclosure, the two other scimitar-bearers had already sandwiched in Mr.
Usherdown, who looked limp and pallid with stupefaction. Simons's unit joined
up with them, and the four guards formed a hollow square with Simon and Mr.
Usherdown in the middle and rushed them towards the palace entrance.
Simon caught one glimpse of Violet Usherdown, off to the side, with Yusuf
making gestures towards the palace, and a few of his nobles gathering
curiously around, and Talib heading across no doubt to volunteer the
assistance of his extraordinary brand of English; and then he was pushed
through the great doorway and hurried into the labyrinthine route that led
back to what he now felt it was somewhat euphemistic to call the guest
quarters.
The massive door slammed shut and quivered with the clanking of bolts,
leaving Simon and Mr. Usherdown alone to gaze at each other.
At last Mr. Usherdown achieved a shaky voice.
"Why did you do that, Templar?"
"I guess I was born ornery," said the Saint. "It was such a priceless chance
to trespass on Joe's holy of holies, I just couldn't resist it. I was quite
tempted to take my shoes off and do it in my bare feet, but I was afraid that
might be going too far."
"But you didn't have to pretend tofind there."
"I didn't. Your hazel twig did that."
"Nonsense. You made it look terrific, but I knew you were faking."
"I wasn't," said the Saint flatly. "I admit, I'd thought of it. But I hadn't
quite made up my mind. I was still ad-libbing. And then that silly stick took
over."
The little man stared at him unbelievingly.
"It couldn't. You said you'd never done any dowsing."
"I haven't. But there has to be a first time for everything. Maybe I have
unsuspected talents."
"Did it feel as if it was sort of magnetized?"
"It was the eeriest sensation I've ever experienced in my life. I couldn't
control the damn thing. I tried. It almost tore the skin off my hands,
twisting itself over."
"There's no oil under the palace least of anywhere," Mr. Usherdown said
stubbornly, but in blanker perplexity than ever. "I've held a rod around here
myself not too seriously, but you were wrong when you said nobody had tried.
You must've been trying so hard, you got a sort of auto-suggestion. I've heard
about things like that."
Simon shrugged.
"Could be. It doesn't matter much, anyway. All I wanted to do was stall for
time, and give Joe a new place to dig. While he's busy with that, we can work
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at digging ourselves out of this Arabian Nightsmare. What will the next move
be?"
Mr. Usherdown shuffled to the nearest barred window, where the Saint joined
him. The opening did not look out on the front of the palace, where the latest
activity had been, but through it drifted echoes of clangings and hammerings
and a natter of filtered voices erupting in occasional screeches of peak
enthusiasm.
"Yusuf has a well-drilling rig of his own now," Mr. Usherdown said. "He
bought it after the big company refused to put in any more wells, and he's
only been waiting to be told where to use it. They must be setting it up
already, where you told them to."
"How long will it take 'em to find out if it's doing them any good?"
"I don't know. I never had to study that sort of engineering. It seems to me
if they were good enough they could get it working in less than a week,
because they don't have any union hours, and then of course they'd be
expecting something from the minute the drill started to go down. I don't know
how many feet a day this kit he's got could drill, but they wouldn't wonder
how deep they might have to go, either "
"All right," said the Saint impatiently. "We can figure we've got a few days,
anyhow."
"I wish I knew why they didn't bring Vi back with us," Mr. Usherdown said
worriedly.
There was no answer to that for almost an hour, when the door was flung open
again and Talib came in. He was accompanied by one of the possible eunuchs, an
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