A small gap had opened in the traffic and her taxi moved forward a few yards. She diverted her gaze to the boots in the shop opposite which now more clearly came into view—and when she looked round again, one of the magnificent cars had crept up beside them, between herself and the new building: the curlicues seemed to be Arab writing after all. And Sheik Horror-horror was on a level with her, lying back in a corner of the Rolls, his hands folded in the lap of his flowing white gown. His eyes were closed but he opened them for a moment, gave her a baleful glare, and closed them again. But what was really most peculiar, thought Mrs. Jones, was that he now had with him in the car the most extraordinary companion. The Rolls was on the V.I.P. pattern, with glass cutting off the driver’s seat from the driven; and behind the glass two little tip-up, forward-facing seats, such as young princes are wont to perch upon, on Royal occasions. And on one of the seats, staring straight ahead of him was a rough looking man—not an Arab, a white man, a good old Cockney type he looked, middle-aged, with a sharp profile, untidy dark hair and, from what she could glimpse of it, a cheap, rather shabby old jacket. A bodyguard? But what a strange sort of bodyguard to be chosen!—and anyway, Sheik Horror-horror was known to disdain any sort of protective entourage—a man so universally detested (he might well consider) would be unable to rely upon anyone at all and might as well just trust to himself. There were other reasons also, she was to learn, for his preferring to travel unattended. Not pretty reasons at all—if ever there was a born murderee, Sheik Horror-horror was it.
And so indeed it was to prove. That very evening, there was headline news—the chauffeur had driven up to the palatial mansion somewhere outside Ascot, and the welcome-home party, scurrying out to open the door and usher His Excellency forth, had discovered him slumped all anyhow in his corner, with a dagger plunged into his back.
The chauffeur’s name was Smith, an Englishman; and by the following morning, Smith found himself in the situation known as ‘helping the police with their enquiries.’ The Sheik had been seen off from the restaurant alive and well, the way home passed through some quiet countryside and Smith had confessedly been alone in the car with him all that time. The weapon proved to have been a knife of Arabic design, used universally both as weapon and decoration. It bore no finger-prints.
Mrs. Dorinda Jones lapped up every word of it. But… ‘Alone in the car with him…’ ‘How very odd!’ said Mrs. Jones to herself and she rang up a very grand person at Scotland Yard—Mrs. Jones knows simply everyone—and said: ‘But what about the rough looking man?’
The chauffeur, Smith, received the information about the rough looking man with passionate gratitude. His own position was dicey in the extreme. Blood had been found on his hands and uniform—he had of course helped to get the body out of the car—and he’d never made a secret and therefore could make none now, of his fear and loathing of his employer. Certainly he had admitted to having seen no intruder, rough looking or otherwise; but the car had been crawling through the traffic, frequently at a standstill—and the glass partition was sound-proof and opaque; perfectly possible for someone to have entered and left the car, without his being aware of it. ‘He did a lot of talking business in the back of that car, sir,’ said Smith, earnestly explaining to the police. ‘And—other things.’
He had been with the Sheik for several years, living in a lodge in the grounds of the mansion and driving the Rolls whenever His Excellency was in England. A cushy job—yes, indeed—except when His Excellency was in England. Not a considerate employer, the suspect quite frankly confided: ill-tempered, intemperate and bullying and downright diabolical to those poor bastards he’d bring with him when he came over from Where-ever-it-was—it had made Smith’s blood boil to see it. And one habit he’d had…‘He’d pick up these poor girls, sir, in some night club or other and drive them home—even through the soundproof glass, I’ve heard the screams. And then I’d be got up at any hour of the night to drive them back where they belonged. More dead than alive some of them, poor little creatures; I swear it used to make me sick.’
‘Not so sick that you thought of telling the police?’
But Smith had seen what happened to those few wretches who had ever dared to rebel against Sheik Horror-horror; and you could get away and hide at the ends of the earth, his thugs would still find you out. Besides….‘Poor kids, they’d hired theirselves out, sir, hadn’t they? And been paid. Paid fortunes, sir. And taken the money. Gone wrong in life, poor little devils,’ said Smith, ‘and lost their way and come to this.’