“All right, Grim; anything else?”

“First opportunity, I wish you’d come to Davey’s room upstairs.  Now—­long distance stuff again, sir—­if any Syrian asks you about me, you might say I was making sure the car would come for me at dawn.”

They exchanged salutes again as one suspicious alien to another.  Grim looked suitably surprised at sight of me, and led me and Suliman back to the hotel, where Suliman wanted him to wreak dire vengeance on the porter; he grew sulky when he discovered that his influence with Grim was not sufficient for the purpose, but forgot it, small boy fashion, ten minutes later, when he fell asleep on the floor in a corner of Davey’s room.

Davey did not look exactly pleased to see us, although he seemed to like Grim personally, and was the first that day to see through Grim’s disguise at the first glance.  Mrs. Davey, on the other hand, was radiant with smiles—­thrilled at the prospect of learning secrets.  She produced drinks and pushed the armchairs up.  When she learned who I was, her husband could hardly keep her from putting on a costume too, to make a party of it.

Davey was reserved.  He asked no questions.  A gray-headed, gray-eyed, stocky, sturdy-looking man, who had made impossibilities come true on three continents, he waited for trouble to come to him instead of seeking it.  There was silence for several minutes over the cigars and whiskey before Grim opened fire at last.  He talked straight out in front of Mrs. Davey, for she had mothered Cosmopolitan Oil men in a hundred out-of-the-way places.  She knew more sacred secrets than the Sphinx.

“Any news about your oil concessions, Davey?”

“No.  Not a word.  We’ve got every prospect in the country marked out.  Nothing to do now but wait for the mandate, while the Zionists go behind our backs to the Foreign Office and scheme for the concessions.  It’s my belief the British mean to favor the Zionists and put us in the ditch.  The fact that we were first on the ground, and lodged our applications with the Turks before the war seems to make no difference in their lives.”

“Well, old man, I’ve arranged for you to change your policy,” said Grim.

“What in thunder do you mean?”

Mrs. Davey giggled with delight, but her husband frowned ominously.

“I’m supposed to be Staff-Captain Ali Mirza of the Shereefian army.”

“I’ve heard of him.  He’s a bad one, Jim.  He is one of those Syrian Arabs who will accept any one’s money, but who never stays bought.  Why masquerade as a scoundrel?”

“I was in a place just now with a bunch of murderers, who’d have made short work of me if I couldn’t give them a sound reason for being in Jerusalem just now.”

“Why not have ’em all arrested?”

“For the same reason, Davey, that your Oil Company isn’t piping ten thousand barrels a day from Jericho.  The time is not yet.  Things haven’t reached that stage.  I told them your Oil Company gave up hope long ago of getting a concession from the British, and has decided to finance Mustapha Kemal.”