Thomas Rice

In the novel They Came to Baghdad, Thomas Rice is the Oriental Counsellor at the British Embassy in Baghdad. During the events in the story, he is hospitalised with suspected gastric flu and a dangerously high temperature.

Rice is apparently acquainted with Sir Rupert Crofton Lee and he might well have been the one to go to the airport to receive him instead of the junior official Lionel Shrivenham. Considering that Rice can recognise Sir Rupert, his illness could well have been the result of action by "The New Order" secret organisation to keep him out of the way, since they had inserted one of their operatives to imprsonate Sir Rupert and arrive in his place. But if this is the case, why did the fake Sir Rupert remark to Shrivenham that Rice might be suffering from a case of "Scheele's Green" (a pigment which is a compound of arsenic, used for poisoning people).