Amazing Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

  Mrs. Pollifax said tartly, “I think someone in your family read far too much Halliburton in their youth. But if they’re active and extroverted and like heights, that’s their prerogative. What do you like best?”

  He looked thoughtful. “It’s hard to say, you know. I’m an absolute physical coward. I daresay that’s something most people don’t have to learn about themselves by the age of eight, but living with my family I learned it early. Alpine climbing absolutely terrifies me, boxing appalls me and fencing scares the hell out of me. The Army didn’t turn out to be my cup of tea and I flunked out of Oxford.” He brightened. “Frankly I like it here. It’s a joy having nobody care that I’m a Ramsey, and Uncle Hu doesn’t care tuppence about climbing mountains, he’s too busy running this rum outfit. But damn it I’m desperately afraid that just when I’ve found the right nook I shall blow it. Failure can get to be a habit, you know.”

  “Nonsense,” put in Mrs. Pollifax flatly.

  “But just see what’s happened. Uncle Hu goes off to Erzurum with his projection man for a week, and after showing me the work for four months he leaves me with just ten minutes of filming, the first assignment he’s given me, and I’m already blowing the whole thing. He runs a shoestring operation; I ask you, how long can he afford me?”

  Mrs. Pollifax glanced curiously around the barren room. “You mean this address is all there is to Ramsey Enterprises Ltd.?”

  Colin nodded. “Mostly it’s a matter of traveling around the country—he comes back here to splice and develop film and pick up his mail. He has a tie-in with the British Council. Winters he puts chains and a snowplow on the van and goes on tour, as he calls it. Shows Turkish films in the hata series—the council houses in the villages—and occasionally shows films from England. There are thousands of little villages in Turkey and for some of them it’s the only contact they have with the outside world except for the traveling schoolteacher. But his real passion is making documentaries about Turkey—he really loves the place. In the summer he drops everything for this, he’ll take on any assignment he can get—travelogs, industrial films, commercials, short subjects, that sort of thing.”

  “And works all alone!” exclaimed Mrs. Pollifax.

  Colin smiled wryly. “There’s scarcely enough money in it for a crowd, but he does all right. As you can see, he picks up people like me when it pleases him, and then there are students in the summer, and in the winter there are mechanics and out-of-work seasonal people. It’s all very casual but it functions.”

  “And your family like him?”

  Colin wrinkled his nose. “Everything’s relative, isn’t it? He used to be Sir Hubert, with all the usual Ramsey accomplishments. Medals. Honors. Came out of World War Two loaded with that sort of thing, was knighted by the King and then one day took all the medals, flushed ’em down the toilet, packed a duffel bag and left England. A woman, my mother said. No, they don’t like him but they leave him alone.” He sighed. “It’s hard to explain my family, they’re not monsters, you know, they’re marvelous really. Colorful, competitive, uninhibited, uncomplicated. I’d have absolutely no problems at all if—well, if—”

  “If you were also colorful, competitive, uninhibited and uncomplicated,” said Mrs. Pollifax, nodding.

  “Yes.” He grinned at her appreciatively. “But what brings you to Turkey?” he asked.

  Mrs. Pollifax suddenly remembered why she was in Turkey and a sense of dismay chilled her. “The time!” she gasped, and looked at her watch only to discover that it had stopped. “Have you the correct time? I’m to meet a woman at eight o’clock in the lobby of my hotel.”

  Colin at once came to life. “I say—I’ll take you back in the jeep! It’s the least I can do after your bringing Mia’s message, and it’ll take my mind off my disasters.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s not quite seven—three minutes lacking. I wish there were more time, I could show you St. Sophia’s on the way. Are you meeting your friend for dinner?”

  “Friend?” Mrs. Pollifax was caught off guard. “Oh no—that is, I would like to take her to dinner but I don’t know her. I mean, I don’t know that she’ll have the time for it. I’m only delivering—” She stopped, utterly appalled at the words she was letting slip. Really she must be more tired than she’d realized.

  Colin Ramsey was smiling at her. “You know, you act just the way I do sometimes, but I can’t think when or why. You stammered.”

  “I’m tired.”

  He shook his head. “No, you’re nervous.”

  “Well, I shall be very nervous indeed if I’m late,” she said, regaining control. “How long will it take us to reach the Itep?”

  “The Itep!” he said. “Not the Hilton?”

  Mrs. Pollifax suddenly and overwhelmingly realized why she was drawn to Colin, and she felt a small sense of alarm. They were alike. They had each lived quiet lives in the shadow of more dazzling personalities so that, somewhat submerged but no less intelligent, they had become observers. Acute observers. She recognized at once from Colin’s question—so very akin to what she too would have noted—that he was weighing the Oteli Itep against what he saw and guessed of her, and the Itep did not fit, it introduced an unguessed facet of character that entertained and alerted him.

  “The Itep, yes,” she said firmly.

  He looked amused. He arose and rinsed the two glasses under the faucet automatically, as if he were accustomed to looking after himself, probably over hot plates and wash basins in grubby London rooms, she guessed. “Ever ridden in a jeep before?” he asked as he led her across the courtyard.

  “Never.”

  “All you have to do is hang on tight,” he explained. “Hold your skirt down and your hat on.” He glanced at her hat and smiled faintly. “It will be an experience for you.”

  “Yes,” agreed Mrs. Pollifax, realizing that he believed he was giving her an event in an uneventful life.

  “But I still hope you’ll dine with me, which is what I was leading up to,” he confided. “Blast it, I’ve eaten alone for three days now, and if you don’t mind awfully, I’ll wait and see what plans you make with your friend.” He added wistfully, “I could show you both something of Istanbul, you know—it’s beautiful at night. The Galata Bridge, the moon over the Golden Horn, and St. Sophia’s at night is unbelievable. We could eat at Pierre Loti’s, and—”

  She felt the undercurrent of his eagerness: he was lonely. She said gently, “We’ll see, shall we?”

  “I’ll park outside the hotel and wait until quarter past the hour,” he said. “It’s no hardship, you know, the streets of Istanbul are never boring.” He shifted gears and they were off, sending up clouds of dust, and Mrs. Pollifax became too busy clinging to her hat to exchange further comments.

  CHAPTER 5

  It was 7:35 when Mrs. Pollifax entered the lobby of the Oteli Itep, leaving Colin behind to look for a parking space and wait his alloted span of moments. She went upstairs, again washed her face in cold water, removed Gone with the Wind from her suitcase and locked her door behind her. Her mind was now functioning without blurredness; she was suddenly a courier, a secret agent, and she arranged the expression on her face accordingly. She realized that she ought to have taken the time earlier to explore the hotel—it would have been the professional thing to do—and so she walked upstairs instead of down—the hotel had no elevator—and discovered that the third floor was the top one. There was an interesting metal door to the roof: she tested it, looked out upon an expanse of flat tile, nodded approvingly and chose the narrow back stairs for her descent, virtually tiptoeing lest anyone point out that they were reserved for hotel personnel. The stairs ended in a shabby first floor landing with three exits: one into the lobby, one to the street, and the last to the basement. Pleased with her tour, Mrs. Pollifax walked into the lobby and sat down, book in hand, at precisely ten minutes before the hour.

  It was a very Turkish lobby, its floor glowing with the colors and design of an unusually fine Turkish rug. The rem
ainder of it was furnished with baroque statuary and old leather couches. Mrs. Pollifax had taken the couch near the back stairs, at some distance from the front, so that she was well out of the traffic between the main entrance and the larger staircase, and prominently displayed against the only window in the lobby. In fact she judged it to be the most conspicuous place possible, and she carefully arranged her book so that it was equally as conspicuous. With considerable suspense she watched the hands of the clock move slowly toward eight. The lobby was small, and there were only a few people waiting. Henry Miles had come in and was seated in a corner looking nearly invisible again, his eyes half-closed as if he were dozing. A young couple held hands in another corner and two men smoked and gossiped along the other wall.

  It was when Henry glanced up that Mrs. Pollifax also looked to the entrance and became alert. It was precisely eight o’clock and a woman had entered the hotel. She brought with her a quality that changed the lobby so forcibly that Mrs. Pollifax wondered how people continued to walk and talk without awareness of it. What she brought with her—and to Mrs. Pollifax it pervaded the lobby—was fear. No, not fear but terror, amended Mrs. Pollifax: a primitive, palpable terror so real that it could almost be smelled and touched. The woman stood at the edge of the lobby, desperately trying not to be seen as her glance searched the room. Did her eyes ever so subtly drop to the gaudy book that Mrs. Pollifax held upright in her lap?

  She cannot bear exposure, thought Mrs. Pollifax in astonishment; yet as she stood there, lacking the decisiveness to move, she was accomplishing exactly what she did not want: people were beginning to look at her. And certainly she was not a logical person to have entered a hotel lobby. Her dress was torn, old and shabby, the castoff plaid house dress of a European, and she was thin to the point of emaciation. But her face—what a beauty she must have been once, thought Mrs. Pollifax, seeing those deepset haunted dark eyes. Even her clothes, even the irresolution and exhaustion could not conceal the intelligence in those eyes. That head went up now, and the woman moved like a sleepwalker across the lobby until she came to Mrs. Pollifax. “Your book,” she said in a low voice, only lightly accented. “You are—?”

  “Sit down,” Mrs. Pollifax said quickly. “You’ll be less conspicuous and you do look exhausted.”

  The woman sank down beside her on the couch. “Who are you?”

  “Emily Pollifax. Are you being followed?” Beyond the woman, on the other side of the window, Mrs. Pollifax saw Colin Ramsey sitting in his jeep. He had found his parking space and was patiently waiting for dinner companions. She felt that she had met and talked to him in another world, a world of innocence that had abruptly vanished at sight of this poor creature.

  “I don’t know, but—it is possible,” whispered Ferenci-Sabo. “I should never have chosen this place—so far, so public, so open.” She looked utterly wrung out, drained.

  Mrs. Pollifax said crisply, “I’ve brought you money and a passport but obviously you need rest and food before you can use either. There’s a rear exit on my left, do you see it? There are also stairs going up to the second floor. My room number is—” She broke off, startled. The woman beside her on the couch was staring across the lobby in horror. At once she jumped to her feet. “Oh please,” she gasped.

  Automatically Mrs. Pollifax glanced at the entrance to see what had frightened her; when her glance returned to the couch the woman was gone. She had vanished completely.

  Two men in the uniform of the Turkish police were crossing the lobby, and one of them suddenly increased his pace, heading for the rear exit. His companion continued inexorably toward Mrs. Pollifax, and as he loomed above her—he looked surprisingly high—she doubtfully rose to meet him.

  “Pasaport, luften,” he said, holding out a hand.

  “Passport?” faltered Mrs. Pollifax. “But what has happened? Do you speak English?”

  “You are American? English?”

  “American.” She opened her purse, careful not to touch the second passport.

  He opened and scanned the passport, glancing from face to photograph and back again. “You arrived here only this afternoon, I see.” He frowned. “Your business in Istanbul?”

  “Why—tourist,” she faltered.

  “The woman to whom you spoke—the one who fled—” He broke off as his comrade entered the lobby through the side door. His friend shook his head, pointed to the ceiling and disappeared again, presumably to search the hotel. Mrs. Pollifax’s inquisitor nodded. “You will come with me please to headquarters, to Santral Odasi.” His request lacked the courtesy of an invitation; his voice was authoritative, as was the hand he placed beneath Mrs. Pollifax’s elbow. He had also retained her passport, which he placed now in his pocket. She had no recourse but to go. As they walked out, leaving by the side door, she was just in time to see Colin shift gears, maneuver out of his parking space and drive away, his profile without any expression except boredom, as if he had at last relinquished all hope of dinner companions. He did not even see her.

  The officer behind the desk was in uniform; the second man, seated beyond him and introduced as Mr. Piskopos, was not. As Mrs. Pollifax seated herself she was aware that both men studied her coldly and clinically, as if to wrest from her who and what she was by psychic divination. She had the feeling that neither of them noticed her hat or her suit, or even the expression on her face, but looked beyond and inside, into motivation, into why her hands remained in her lap, why she gazed at them imperturbably and what she had to be concealing. Since at the moment she was concealing a great deal, Mrs. Pollifax practiced exorcising all memory of Carstairs and Alice Dexter White. She was an American tourist, she reminded herself, an American tourist …

  “I am an American tourist,” she said aloud in reply to the police officer.

  Her passport lay open in front of him. He said dryly, “We have suddenly this week so many visitors to Istanbul. All tourists. This woman you were speaking to in the lobby of the Hotel Itep … you were there to meet her?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Pollifax calmly. “I was sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Itep resting before dinner.”

  “But you were speaking with this woman, were you not?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “But you did not know the woman to whom you were speaking?”

  Mrs. Pollifax said truthfully, “I had never seen her before in my life.”

  “That is not the point,” said the police officer quietly. “Had you an arrangement to meet her, to speak to her?”

  “She came up to me and asked for money,” said Mrs. Pollifax firmly, “and I must say she looked as if she needed it.”

  “In what language did she accost you?”

  “English,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and suddenly realized the trap that had been set for her.

  “English,” he repeated politely. “In a Turkish hotel run by Turks, in the old section of Istanbul where few tourists lodge, a woman beggar comes up to you and speaks in English?”

  “She must have guessed I was American,” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax.

  “Still, if she was only a beggar it is unusual that she could speak your language, is it not?”

  Mrs. Pollifax sighed. “If you say so, but why is all this so important? Who is she?”

  He looked faintly amused. He removed a square of cardboard from beneath his desk blotter and handed it across the desk to her, saying smoothly, “This is the woman to whom you were speaking.” It was a question, yet stated so artfully that it was also a statement; he left it up to her to dispute or accept.

  Looking at the snapshot he gave her Mrs. Pollifax saw that Mr. Carstairs and the New York Times might lack a photograph of Ferenci-Sabo, but that a very up-to-date one had begun circulating through Istanbul. It was certainly a picture of the woman she had met at the Itep, and a very recent one of her too. The eyes were half-closed, the face haggard and thin. Then Mrs. Pollifax noticed the dress Ferenci-Sabo was wearing, the same faded plaid, and she realized with astonishment that this
snapshot had been taken of Ferenci-Sabo since she had reached Istanbul on Friday.

  Had it been taken at the consulate? she wondered. In the confusion of the woman’s arrival had someone really snapped her picture—or had it been taken of her after her abduction?

  She looked at the police officer curiously. Was it possible that the Turkish government could have arranged Magda Ferenci-Sabo’s abduction from the British consulate? For the first time she realized how important a defecting Communist agent must be to them. Russia was Turkey’s next-door neighbor, their frontiers met and their guards faced each other for several hundred miles in the east. A great deal of practical information could be extracted from a knowledgeable Communist defector, and why should they share her when it was they who lived virtually under Russia’s guns?

  “Well?” demanded the police officer. “Is that the woman?”

  “There’s a resemblance certainly but beyond that—she left so suddenly! Who is she?” Mrs. Pollifax inquired again. When he ignored this she said quietly, “I really think I must refuse to answer your questions until I am told precisely why I am here, or am allowed to telephone someone who can inform me why I am here.” She added severely, “I had understood Turkey was a country friendly to Americans—”

  “To Americans, yes,” the man said flatly.

  She was surprised. “You don’t believe that I’m American?”

  The officer turned and exchanged a swift glance with the civilian behind him. “That is a possibility,” he said.