The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [177]
this grotesque dinner. Well, as I say, here we all were when the great man was called away to the telephone.
‘He came back after a while, looking somewhat grave, and said:
“It was from the Police Station by the docks. Apparently an old man has been kicked to death by the ratings of H.M.S. Milton. I have reason to believe that it might be one of the eccentrics of Q
branch — there is an old Bimbashi employed there….” He stood irresolutely on one leg. “At any rate” he went on “I must go down and make sure. You never know. Apparently” he lowered his voice and drew me to one side in confidence “he was dressed in woman’s clothes. There may be a scandal.”
‘Poor Nimrod! I could see that while his duty pressed him hard, he was most reluctant that I should be left alone with the actor. He hovered and pondered heavily. At last, however, my finer nature came to my rescue just when I had given up hope. I too rose. Undying sportsmanship! “I had better come with you”
said I. The poor man broke into troubled smiles and thanked me warmly for the gesture. We left the young man eating fish (this time for brain fag) and hurried to the car park where Nimrod’s official car was waiting for him. It did not take us very long to race along the Corniche and turn down into the echoing darkness of the dock-area with its cobbled alleys and the flickering gas light along the wharves which makes it seem so like a corner of Marseilles circa 1850. I have always hated the place with its smells of sea-damp and urinals and sesame.
‘The police post was a red circular building like a Victorian post office consisting of a small charge-room and two dark sweating dungeons, airless and terrible in that summer night. It was packed with jabbering and sweating policemen all showing the startled whites of their eyes like horses in the gloom. Upon a stone bench in one of the cells lay the frail and ancient figure of an old woman with a skirt dragged up above the waist to reveal thin legs clad in green socks held by suspenders and black naval boots. The electric light had failed and a wavering candle on the sill above the body dripped wax on to one withered old hand, now beginning to settle with the approach of the rigor into a histrion ic gesture — as of someone warding off a stage blow. It was your friend Scobie.
‘He had been battered to death in ugly enough fashion. A lot of broken crockery inside that old skin. As I examined him a phone
started to nag somewhere. Keats had got wind of something: was trying to locate the scene of the incident. It could only be a matter of time before his battered old Citroen drew up outside. Obviously a grave scandal might well be the upshot and fear lent wings to Nimrod’s imagination. “He must be got out of these clothes” he hissed and started beating out right and left with his cane, driving the policemen out into the corridor and clearing the cell. “Right”
I said, and while Nimrod stood with sweating averted face, I got the body out of its clothes as best I could. Not pleasant, but at last the old reprobate lay there “naked as a psalm” as they say in Greek. That was stage one. We mopped our faces. The little cell was like an oven.
‘ “He must” said Nimrod hysterically “be somehow got back into uniform. Before Keats comes poking around here. I tell you what, let’s go to his digs and get it. I know where he lives.” So we locked the old man into his cell: his smashed glass eye gave him a reproachful, mournful look