But Davey was no half-way concession maker.  Having lent himself unwillingly to the trick, he did his utmost to make it succeed, like a good sport.  He stuck his head out of a bedroom window.

“Don’t forget, now, to send me those rugs from Damascus!” he shouted.

It all went like clockwork.  Glancing back as we drove by the Jaffa Gate I saw the three spies walk away, and there is very often more information in men’s backs than in their faces.  They walked like laborers returning home with a day’s work behind them, finished; not at all like men in doubt, nor as if they suspected they were followed, although in fact they were.  Three Sikhs emerged from the corner by the Gate and strolled along behind them.  Detailed preparations for the round-up had begun.  The unostentatious mechanism of it seemed more weird and terrible than the conspiracy itself.

There was a full company of Sikhs standing to arms in a side street leading off the Jaffa Road, but they took no notice of us.  Their officer looked keenly at us once, and then very deliberately stared the other way, illustrating how some fighting men make pretty poor dissemblers; every one of his dark-skinned rank and file had observed all the details of our outfit without seeming to see us at all.

“We’re using nothing but Sikhs on this job,” said Turner.  “British troops wouldn’t appreciate the delicacy of the situation.  Moslems couldn’t be trusted not to talk.  The Sikhs enjoy the surreptitious part of it, and don’t care enough about the politics to get excited.  Wish I might be in at the finish, though!  Have you any notion what the real objective is?”

“No,” said I, and tried not to feel, or look pleased with myself.  But no mere amateur can conceal that, in the moment of discovery, he knows more about the inside of an official business than one of the Administration’s lawful agents.  That is nine-tenths of the secret of “bossed” politics—­the sheer vanity of being on the inside, “in the know.”  I suppose I smirked.  “Damn this ride to Haifa!  What the hell have you done, I wonder, that you should have a front pew?  Is the Intelligence short of officers?”

I had done nothing beyond making Grim’s acquaintance and by good luck tickling his flair for odd friendship.  I thought it better not to say that, so I went on lying.

“I don’t suppose I know any more than you do.”

“Rot!  I posted the men who watched you into Djemal’s place yesterday, and watched you out again.  You acted pretty poorly, if you ask me.  It’s a marvel we didn’t have to go in there and rescue you.  I suppose you’re another of Grim’s favorites.  He picks some funny ones.  Half the men in jail seem to be friends of his.”

I decided to change the subject.

“I was told to change clothes and walk back after a mile or so,” I said.  “Suppose we don’t make it a Marathon.  Why walk farther than we need to?”