What I required was a very small and unobtrusive source of illumination, to light my way without drawing attention to myself.
I tugged my hood well up on my head, hoping it was enough to obscure any flash from my spectacles, and approached the next open storefront. It was, unusually for Fez, a shop of mixed goods, displaying a few sprouting onions and wilted greens, a teetering pyramid of mismatched tins with many dents but few labels, a bowl of straw-speckled eggs, rounds of bread that looked a day or three old, some copper bowls, a row of dusty glasses, and a few twists of paper spilling the deep orange of dried chilli peppers. The sort of place a desperate cook might turn for last-minute supplies—probably why it was still open.
I lowered the timbre of my voice to greet the shopkeeper, then pushed a 25 centime piece across the counter and asked for bread, haggling until I had twice the amount he had originally offered. I pushed the rolls into the depths of my djellaba, and only then asked if he knew the English nurse, Miss Taylor. He shook his head, but I continued as if he had not replied.
“The wife of my cousin took their son to her for an infection of the eye, and Miss Taylor gave her an ointment that cured it, and now my brother’s first son has the same infection, and my brother is worried that the boy will go blind and be unable to read, and he is such a bright boy, I said I would find her and ask her for the ointment.”
“You want ointment? I have ointment,” the fellow said, reaching under the counter to pull out a tea-chest so ancient, it retained the faint arms of the East India Company on its side. He began to rummage through its contents, drawing out a series of bottles, tubes, tins, and packets, all of which were half-used, several of which, like the food tins, lacked identifying labels.
“I told my brother that I would bring that of Miss Taylor. He loves his son. I would pay, if (insh’Allah) I could find a man who could guide me to her door.”
The shopkeeper ceased his archaeological burrowing to raise an eyebrow at the one-franc coin on the counter. When there were three of them, his head shifted minutely; at five, I paused, and made to draw them away.
He dropped his handful of pastille tins back into the wooden chest, swept aside the mound of dodgy medicaments, and locked up his shop for the night.
Perhaps if someone offered me enough francs, my own memory would improve?
My sense of direction is generally adequate, but in Fez, I seemed perpetually to have a magnet being waved past my internal needle. Maybe it was just the bang on the head. In any event, in a city without street-lamps, whose lanes are covered with woven ceilings that obscure the sky, and where even the thoroughfares are straight for no more than a few yards at a time, I was instantly lost. Mute as Idir, I followed my guide, who acknowledged half the men we passed with a word, a quick handclasp, or a raucous joke—confirming my suspicions that the citizens of the medina were a tightly woven lot. Even when we came to one of the internal gates between the neighbourhoods, which was closed for the night, its attendants let us slip though with only a small coin by way of acknowledgment.
Twenty minutes of twists and turns, during most of which I had a firm grasp on the knife on my forearm, finally brought us to a tiny lane with a blind kink in it. As I had a score of times already, I held back lest a gang of thieves wait around the corner; this time, I saw a brief stretch of alley with a door on either side and a third where the passageway came to an end. A small light shone down at the steps, and I saw at once that it was the very same patch of architecture that had so puzzled me when I woke, three and a half days earlier. Beside the Moroccan door, looking remarkably out of place, was an English bell-pull. My guide gave it a yank and stood to the side, giving me an expectant look. I moved forward into the light. In a moment, the door came open, and a round Moroccan gentleman looked out.
I told him in French, “I am looking for Mademoiselle Peg Taylor.”
“Is it an emergency?”
“No. Yes. Well, it’s hard to say.”
At my response, the shopkeeper looked less eager to depart, but I stood to the side and made the sort of gesture that in any language is a clear invitation to leave. Reluctantly, he exchanged a hand-clasp with me, then retreated down the stone passageway.
I turned to the other man. “It is not a medical emergency, but it is urgent that I speak with her. Is she here?”
“Mademoiselle Taylor was called out to a sick bed. She will not be long. Will you come in?”
I stepped inside, finding myself in a dimly lit entranceway. He shut the door and led me through a brief version of the twisting lanes outside, including a second doorway, and finally into a much smaller and less decorative version of Dar Mnehbi: a small tiled courtyard with rooms opening off all four sides, part of its roof open to the stars. I pushed back my djellaba’s hood, and the man’s eyebrows went up, a variety of emotions playing over his face: surprise, relief, a touch of amusement, and something curiously like embarrassment. “Ah—it is you! She will be glad to see you return.”
I knew him then—he was the man who had come onto the roof, looking for me. Which indicated that the woman would be, as Holmes had suggested, Miss Taylor.
He settled me in one of the salons that opened off the tiled courtyard, this one an odd mixture of Moroccan architecture overlaid with English sensibilities: The banquettes were higher than those I had seen elsewhere, almost like sofas, with upholstered cushions of bright local fabric scattered with needlepoint throw-pillows of English roses; the table before the banquettes was a gigantic brass tray, but half the knick-knacks on its surface came from British seaside resorts; the paintings on one wall were imitation Constables mounted in ornate Moroccan frames. The one distinctly non-Moroccan feature it exhibited was an actual stone fireplace built into one corner, cold at the moment but with wood arranged and ready.
“The hour is late,” he said, “but will you have tea?”
“That would be most welcome,” I said with enthusiasm. His face creased into a smile, and he left me alone.
The wall opposite the paintings held photographs: One, very faded, showed a Victorian-era picnic on the Thames; beside it were three laughing Englishwomen on camels; a third, with more recent clothing, showed a party at—yes, that was Dar Mnehbi, with Maréchal Lyautey and several Moroccans, all of them holding glasses that did not appear to be tea. There was also an ageless picture of a man with a dog and a shotgun on a misty hillside, paired with an Arab-looking gentleman on a white horse, a falcon perched on his wrist. When the tea arrived, it was as bi-cultural as the room: A flowered pot suggested England and smelt of Lapsang, while a brass pot contributed the odour of mint. The disparate drinking vessels were included: porcelain cup and saucer alongside gilt-edged glass. A single small plate held slices of lemon, while the Moroccan bowl of sugar could perform for both countries.
But it was the platter of tit-bits that I particularly appreciated, where the delicate English tea-biscuits were overwhelmed by the considerably more substantial Moroccan delicacies. I fell on them with an urgency I had not realised, and only just managed to keep myself from licking the plates.
Miss Taylor was away longer than her … butler? assistant? had anticipated. I was dozing among the cushions with a throw-rug wrapped around my shoulders when the sound of voices startled me awake, but managed to be on my feet when she came through the doorway.
Peg Taylor was a small figure dressed in the enveloping white garments of a Moslem woman. Her face was lined, but sweet, in the way of those who have spent a life in service to those they love, the sort of face that makes an ill person’s aches diminish. It was also a face I knew: I had seen it before: Faces would appear and make noises, then blow out the lamp and leave me alone.
“I am very glad that you found your way back here,” she told me, taking my hands, looking into my face both in earnest affection, and to make an examination of my pupils, my body, and my head. “I was quite worried when you disappeared from your room.”
She was speaking English: because Holmes had told
her it was my native tongue, or because I had babbled in my delirium? If the latter, what else had I given away?
“I apologise for having left so abruptly,” I replied. “I saw the soldiers arrive, and I thought they were coming to arrest me.”
She looked surprised. “For what?”
“I didn’t know. I still don’t. I can’t remember what happened. I’ve lost all memory of the past few months, in fact, although bits of it keep coming back.”
Her hands left mine. “Amnesia?”
“Rare, I know, but it happens.”
“That must be remarkably disconcerting.”
The others had greeted my condition with emotions ranging from polite disbelief to open irritation; her sympathy took me aback. “Er, yes, it is.”
“You should have remained here, resting. I trust you have spent the intervening days in a quiet state?” She stepped back, and began to unwrap various scarves from her person.
“Not exactly. In fact, I need to ask—”
“No business until you’ve eaten. And then I’ll examine your injuries—William!” The small figure overrode my protests, ordering that a supper be brought, a hot bath readied.
Leading me across to the fireplace, she made tsking sounds as she took a box of the same matches I had carried away from here, and lit the laid fire. “This is my one true luxury. Moroccans don’t believe in heating a house, they think it unhealthy, but even though I’ve lived here more than thirty years, after a long day I still find the cold absolutely penetrating. One wouldn’t think an Englishwoman would—”
I seized her arm to interrupt her.
“This is urgent,” I said. “A man is missing.”
She sat, but she did not rescind her orders. I frowned at the growing fire, and began to explain.
“The other night, I was brought here following some kind of a fight. The man I was with—at any rate, a man who I have reason to believe was with me—is an old friend. He has not been seen since then. I need to find him.”
Her man—William—came in with a basket of wood for the fire. When he was gone, she said, “A young man whose wife I nursed back to health last year was bringing fire-wood from the family orchard, in the hills to the west of the city, when he noticed a motorcar stopped on the road ahead of him, its head-lamps pointing in the opposite direction, downhill. As he came near, there was shouting and what he thought was a gunshot, after which the motorcar raced away down the hill. He hesitated, but things seemed to have gone quiet, so he went forward, and heard noises to one side of the road. It was you. As he was trying to help you back to the road, a child came running up and started hitting him with a stick, although once he realised that you were being rescued, not assaulted, he helped the young man get you onto the cart and down to the city. The moment you came near the gate, the child turned and ran back up the hill, without a word of explanation or of thanks.
“Since you could not tell him where you belonged, the young man brought you to me.”
“Why? Why you and not a hospital?”
“You appeared to be a native, but you were muttering in a language he did not know. And he thought that if he reported a motorcar hitting you, he would have to go to the police and tell them what had happened. The people here are not fond of the police,” she explained. “Instead, he sent a message into the city, asking me to come to the nearest gate. It was locked, the hour being late, but all the guards know me well, and thought nothing of my going in and out. I’m afraid that I did have to lie to them in order to bring you in. I told them you were the mad brother of one of my families—you appeared to be a man, and you were rather babbling—who had wandered off during the day.”
“I see.”
“William and I settled you into my surgery, where we began to examine you. You can imagine poor William’s shock when you turned out to be a woman. Or perhaps you cannot?”
“I know Moslems, so yes, I can understand.”
“William and his wife converted to Christianity—it’s not generally talked about—but he is still a Moroccan, so I excused him and brought in Fatima. She and I cleaned you up, dressed your wounds, and stitched the cut on your scalp. I had her find another tunic for you, and we emptied your pockets—which reminds me: Did your friend—your other friend—deliver your boots and that weapon?”
“He did, thank you.”
“Considering your state of mind, I thought the gun a poor companion, and the boots wanted cleaning. Your other possessions we left on the table—except for a ring, which seemed to me too valuable to leave sitting out. I trust the people who work for me, but there is no call to tempt them. Other than the ring, you had remarkably little. Not even any money. Were you robbed?” And before I could answer, she said, “Of course, you wouldn’t remember.
“In any event, I decided that further disturbance would be dangerous in your condition, so we carried you upstairs and left you to sleep, checking on you every hour. The next day you showed signs of waking, so I sent a message to the authorities. I was—”
“You sent the message both to Dar Mnehbi and to the police, is that right?”
“Yes, and I let the police know that I had done so. Someone might have reported you missing, and since the police have been known to exhibit a heavy hand when they suspect wrongdoing to a European, I did not wish to put off notifying them that you were safe. Bad enough to steal a car, but to kidnap a woman with it—I feared they might arrest some poor fellow and beat him for information,” she said baldly. Then she added, “I did not expect them to respond with armed soldiers.”
We had got that far when William returned, asking, “Will you take supper here?”
“The dining room will be like ice, so yes,” she said. Clearly, he had anticipated her response: Before she finished the sentence, trays were coming in, to be arranged on a number of small decorative tables. Miss Taylor explained, “I hope you don’t mind this girls-school style of informality? I often take my supper in here, after a long day. It’s the only proper fireplace in the house, and we go through far too much firewood as it is.”
I assured her that warmth and informality were my own preferences, although I suspected that William did not fully approve. He settled us with tables across our laps, arranged the dishes within reach, filled our glasses, and left again.
Miss Taylor shot me an amused glance. “I sometimes think William would prefer a starched collar in a grand house, poor fellow. He has worked for me these thirty-five years, and I never fail to disappoint him.”
“You work as a nurse, here in the medina?”
“Nurse, doctor, mid-wife, dispensing chemist, occasionally dentist. I once performed surgery on a donkey. And you? What brings you to Fez?”
“I … I am told that I came to Morocco in the company of a moving picture crew.”
“Really? I didn’t know that a moving picture company was in town.”
“As far as I know, they’re still in Rabat. I seem to have come to Fez with my missing friend. And before you ask, yes, we have checked all the obvious places where a dead or injured man might be taken. Except here.”
“I’m afraid that you were our only unconscious foreigner this week. Who is ‘we’?”
“The ‘other friend’ whom you met on Saturday.”
“Oh yes, the pleasant older gentleman who spoke fluent French. You know, with all the foreign visitors I’ve met here, he is the first one who grew up in the same town as I. We couldn’t come up with any common St Albans acquaintances, though.” Holmes had not grown up in St Albans. Which told me that he had invented a persona in order to ingratiate himself into her confidences.
“What a coincidence,” I remarked.
“I thought so,” she said. I glanced sharply to the side. She appeared to be nonchalantly picking her way through her plate of chicken.
Not perhaps a mind to underestimate: Missionary is not always a synonym for naïve.
“You gave him my boots and gun,” I said, “but not the details of how I came to be h
ere. Why not?”
She frowned as she worked a piece of meat from its bone. “He seemed to know you, well enough to be trusted with a pair of very old boots and a weapon that, in any event, I preferred not to have in the house. But I have lived in Fez a long time. I was here before the French. And hard experience has taught me that things may not be as they appear. That a man who may be trusted with a person’s footwear may not, in the end, prove worthy of that person’s safety. I was glad to be told that you were well, but that did not mean I was about to give him information that could create problems for my well-meaning young friend with the cart.”
“But you will talk to me about it.”
“You have the right to know.”
“What did the man with the cart tell you about where he found me? Did he say anything about the motorcar?”
“He said little more than what I’ve told you. I was more interested in saving your life than asking who had done it to you.”
“And I am very grateful, for all you did, but I now need to locate the motorcar. My friend may have been abducted in it.”
She lowered her fork and knife. “Abducted? What nonsense is this?”
“I told you, there was a fight, and—”
“Fight as in lovers’ spat, or fight as in fisticuffs?”
“Definitely the latter. Although I suspect it was more knives than fists.”
Now she dropped her utensils entirely. “Young lady, are you suggesting that you were in an actual battle? On the road outside of Fez?”
“What did you— Oh. You thought I’d been hit by the motor.”
“Weren’t you?”
“I was attacked. By men. Not that I remember, but the child says I was, and I have no reason to disbelieve him.”
She looked at me, and her eyes wandered across my garments. “They thought you were a man,” she concluded.