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Abandoning the mental exercise that was already giving him a slight headache, Sebastian stood up from the bed and, with the skirt of his nightshirt flapping around his calves, began his third minute search of the hotel room.
Although the purse had been under his mattress when he went to sleep the preceding evening, this time Sebastian emptied the water jug and peered into it hopefully. He unpacked his valise and shook out each shirt. He crawled under the bed, lifted the coconut matting and probed every hole in the rotten flooring before giving way to despair.
Shaved, the bed-bug bites on his person anointed with saliva, and dressed in the grey three-piece suit which was showing signs of travel fatigue, he brushed his derby hat and placed it carefully over his curls, picked up his cane in one hand, and lugging his valise in the other, he went down the stairs into the hot noisy lobby of the Hotel Royal.
"I say," he greeted the little Arab at the desk with the most cheerful smile he could muster. (I say, I seem to have lost my money."
A silence fell upon the room. The waiters carrying trays out to the hotel veranda slowed and stopped, heads turned towards Sebastian with the same hostile curiosity as if he had a
"Stolen, I should imagine," Sebastian went on, gri
"Nasty bit of luck, really."
The silence exploded as the bead curtains from the office were thrown open and the Hindu proprietor erupted into the room with a loud cry of, "Mr. Oldsmith, what about your bill?"
"Oh, the bill. Yes, well, let's not get excited. I mean, it won't help, now, will it?"
And the proprietor proceeded to become very excited indeed. His cries of anguish and indignation carried to the veranda where a dozen persons were already begi
Ten days you owe. Nearly one hundred rupees."
"Yes, it's jolly unfortunate, I know." Sebastian was gri
"Now just hold on a shake." Together Sebastian and the Hindu turned to the big red-faced, middle-aged man with the pleasantly mixed American and Irish accent. "Did I hear you called Mr. Oldsmith?"
"That is correct, sir. Sebastian knew instinctively that here was an ally.
"An unusual name. You wouldn't be related to Mister Francis Oldsmith, wool merchant of Liverpool, England?"
Fly
"Good Lord!" Sebastian cried with joy. "Do you know my Pater?"
"Do I know Francis Oldsmith?" Fly
Used to be in the wool business myself once. "Fly
"That's the sum, Mr. O'Fly
"Mr. Oldsmith and I will be having a drink on the veranda. You can bring the receipt to us there." Fly
With his boots propped on the low veranda wall, Sebastian regarded the harbour over the rim of his glass. Sebastian was not a drinking man but in view of Fly
The number of craft in the bay suddenly multiplied miraculously before his eyes. Where a moment before one stubby little dhow had been tacking in through the entrance, there were now three identical boats sailing in formation. Sebastian closed one eye and by focusing determinedly, he reduced the three back to one. Mildly elated with his success, he turned his attention to his new friend and business partner who had pressed such large quantities of gin upon him.
"Mr. O'Fly
"Forget that mister, Bassie, call me Fly
"Fly
"How do you mean fu
"I mean" and Sebastian blushed slightly. "There isn't anything illegal, is there?"
"Bassie." Fly
oh, no, of course not, Fly
"Bassie, I want to show you something." Fly
The address at the head of the sheet of cheap notepaper was "The Kaiserh of Berlin. Dated June 10, 191"-, and the body of the letter read:
Dear Mr. Fly