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But that was after—’
    ‘Yes?’
    The water-carrier hesitated for a long time and then looked Owen straight in the eye.
    ‘After she was pushed,’ he said.

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CHAPTER 3
    « ^ »
    Hamidullah,’ said Owen, ‘this is a big thing that you have said.’
    He had taken the water-carrier over to the pavement by the arabeah stand and they were sitting down on the kerb. A yard or two away the cab-horses munched the green fodder spread for them in the gutter.
    ‘I know,’ said Hamidullah, ‘and it was not said lightly.’
    ‘Then say it again.’
    ‘She was pushed,’ said Hamidullah. ‘I saw it with my own eyes.’
    ‘Tell me what you saw.’
    ‘I saw her coming my way. And I said: “Hamidullah, that lady is not for you. She will not want your water.” For she was a splendid lady and had a mighty hat. I kept my eye on her, though, for she was coming in my direction and I did not wish to brush against her with my bags lest her fine dress be besmirched. And as she came towards me—’
    The water-carrier stopped and looked bewildered.
    ‘What as she came towards you?’
    The water-carrier hesitated.
    ‘I would not say it if I had not seen it. A hand reached out and thrust at her.’
    ‘Where did it touch her?’
    Hamidullah reached up under his urn and touched himself in the small of the back.
    ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Right here. I was amazed. I could not believe my eyes.’
    ‘It was a heavy push?’
    ‘Effendi, it must have been a heavy push to make her fall like that. One moment she was walking along mightily. Like this.’ This water-carrier stuck his nose in the air and mimicked marching. ‘The next, she had fallen like this.’ The water-carrier sprawled along the pavement.
    ‘It was not then, oh, a little push such as one gives when one is impatient and someone is in the way?’
    ‘Oh no, effendi. One should not give a push, even a little one, for that is lacking in courtesy. But this was not a little push. It was… I stood amazed!’
    ‘You see, Hamidullah, if it was not a little push, such as one might give in passing if one is lacking in courtesy, but a big push, then someone must have meant to injure the lady.’
    ‘Well, yes, effendi. That is why I stood amazed. For this was not—not discourtesy, effendi, this was—well, wrong!’ Hamidullah looked at him wide-eyed, still shocked. Over his shoulder Owen could hear the horses munching and there, its head swaying incongruously above the roofs of the arabeahs, a camel was approaching with another load of forage.
    Owen restrained an urge to pat the water-carrier.
    ‘It
was
wrong, Hamidullah,’ he said solemnly, ‘and therefore I have one more thing to ask you. You saw the hand; did you see the man?’
    ‘No, effendi.’
    ‘You saw the hand,’ said Owen. ‘Did you not see to whom it belonged?’
    ‘There were people standing. The lady stepped out to go round them. And then, as I watched, a hand reached out from among the people and gave her a push, a fierce push, as she went past. I saw only the hand.’
    ‘No face, no clothes?’
    Hamidullah shook his head.
    ‘There were people in the way. I saw only the hand.’
    ‘The hand must have been attached to an arm; tell me about the arm.’
    ‘I—I do not remember.’
    ‘How was it clothed? In a sleeve like mine or a sleeve like yours?’
    ‘Like mine, effendi.’
    ‘The colour?’
    ‘I do not remember.’
    ‘Blue? White?’
    Hamidullah hesitated.
    ‘Blue, I think, effendi.’
    ‘A fellah’s?’
    ‘I—I think so, effendi. Effendi, I am sorry. I did not see. It all happened so quickly.’
    Owen could get no more out of him. A hand in the crowd he had seen: but that had been all he had seen.
     
    ‘And that’s not enough,’ said Garvin, the Commandant of the Cairo Police.
    ‘Enough to constitute an assault, surely,’ objected McPhee, the Deputy Commandant.
    They were sitting in McPhee’s office. Owen had gone on to see him the moment he got back to the Bab-el-Khalk and McPhee,