Amazing Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

“But my passport—”

  He looked at her pityingly. “Passports can be forged.” He hesitated and then leaned forward, frankly watching her face as he said with deliberation, “The woman to whom you were speaking is a woman wanted by the Turkish police, and one whom Officer Bey almost captured this evening. Her friends are of much interest to us—they may be our enemies. You arrived in Istanbul several hours ago, flying here directly without any tourist stops in between, and you meet this woman. A coincidence? We shall see.” He touched her passport with a finger. “In the meantime—while we very thoroughly investigate your identity—we shall keep your passport.”

  She said indignantly, “I really must protest—”

  He interrupted with a shrug. “You will, of course, notify your consul—we shall do this as well—but you are not to leave Istanbul, or the Hotel Itep, until you have been cleared to the satisfaction of all concerned.” His expression lightened. “We should be able to return to you the passport by late tomorrow afternoon—if your credentials, how do you call it, check out. You may return now to your hotel, please.” He did not shake hands; the other man, Mr. Piskopos, nodded curtly, and Mrs. Pollifax left.

  In the police car, as it carried her back to her hotel, Mrs. Pollifax experienced something of the loneliness of the outcast. She had successfully met Ferenci-Sabo—this much was now obvious—only to see the woman frightened away; and now she had ignominiously lost her passport for twenty-four hours. What did she do next? What could she do? Did she go again tomorrow night to the lobby at the same hour? She could imagine Officer Bey’s face should he see her there a second time at the same hour and clutching the same copy of Gone with the Wind. She did not concede failure as yet but she did admit to a deep discouragement and a certain amount of frustration.

  She saw the hotel ahead, its exterior no longer nondescript at night under a blaze of neon color; somewhere along the pavement that other, nameless American agent had been pinned to a wall by an automobile. Mrs. Pollifax leaned forward. The taxi ahead of them slowed, turned, and pulled into the only empty space in front of the Itep to discharge Henry Miles—dear Henry, she thought fondly, and wondered what significance he had attached to her visit to police headquarters. His taxi drove away and as the police car in which she rode headed into the narrow opening another taxi suddenly cut in ahead of them, almost sideswiping them; a man leaped from it in a great hurry, pulled bills from his pockets, shoved them at the driver through the window and turned to run into the hotel. But something arrested him; he stopped, put his hands into his pockets and very casually sauntered across the pavement to the hotel. What he had seen, realized Mrs. Pollifax, was the back of Henry Miles disappearing into the lobby.

  He was following Henry! thought Mrs. Pollifax in astonishment. It was no more than an impression but it was a vivid one: the haste, the panic, the fear of having lost sight of the subject, followed by the abrupt halt and even more abrupt change to casualness.

  Only a few yards from here—somewhere beyond the front entrance, Carstairs had said—that other agent had been killed on Sunday night.

  I can’t let that happen to Henry—there must be some way to warn him, she thought in horror. Carstairs had said, There may be a leak somewhere, or with so damn many agents in Istanbul they may be keeping one another under surveillance; but what if Henry didn’t know he had acquired a shadow?

  She thanked her driver and walked into the hotel. There was no sign of Henry in the empty lobby. To the man at the desk she said, “There is an Englishman staying here, I saw him drop this earlier.” She held up her small travel guide to Turkey and smiled at the man. “If you tell me his room number I should like to return it to him.”

  The translations took a few minutes and drew in the manager’s son, who was fourteen and “took the English” in school, but had apparently not ventured beyond nouns and pronouns, and very few of those. A dictionary was produced and each word spelled out before it was understood what she wanted, and the boy offered to take the book himself to room 214.

  “No, no—thank you,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and then with another look at the dictionary added, “Tesekkur edehim, no.”

  She walked up the stairs, ignored her own door and continued down the hall. The door to room 214 stood ajar and the lights were on. She tapped lightly. When there was neither reply nor movement she tapped again and then swung the door wide and peered inside. “Henry?” she called in a low voice. She recognized his green suitcase on the bed, its contents scattered all over the coverlet as if it had been unpacked by the simple expedient of turning it upside down. Then she saw that every drawer in the tall chest along the wall had been left open, and his trenchcoat lay on the floor in shreds. She realized that while Henry had waited patiently for her outside the police station someone had been searching his room. But who? And where was Henry?

  The curtains opening to the balcony trembled slightly, catching Mrs. Pollifax’s eye, and her glance moved from the curtains to the open window and then to the darkness beyond. She shivered suddenly. I’m not supposed to be here, she thought. I’m not even supposed to know Henry, and certainly I musn’t be found here calling out his name. His absence was alarming. Had he unlocked his door, switched on the light and retreated when he saw the state of his room? Was he even now down in the lobby complaining to the manager she had just left? Or had he stopped first in the public lavatory at the end of the hall?

  She backed out of the room, touching nothing, and walked down the hall to the bathroom, but the door stood open and the room was empty. Mrs. Pollifax unlocked the door of her own room and flicked on the lights. Everything was in order, nothing had changed here except that a slip of white paper had been inserted under her door and glimmered white on the rug. “Henry!” she whispered in relief and picked it up, went to her window to check the lock, pulled the curtains and then unfolded the slip of paper.

  But it was not from Henry, it was a message from the desk clerk on lined paper with the name of the hotel printed at the top. She read:

  “9:02 Mr. Remsee fone. You lost pkge in his ownership. He bid you stop before—” The clerk had written before tiring but she judged the word was meant to be retiring. She read it a second time, frowning. What on earth did it mean? It seemed hours since she had seen Colin Ramsey, and with her mind on Henry it was difficult to think what package she could have left behind when she visited Colin that afternoon. She tried to remember what she’d carried with her to Ramsey Studios but aside from the signet ring, which belonged to Colin, there had been only her purse. Lost package! She’d lost nothing today.

  Nothing except a defecting counteragent, she thought in horror, and forgetting Henry she snatched up her purse and fled the room, almost overturning several people on the stairs in her haste to reach the street and find a taxi.

  CHAPTER 6

  By night, Zikzak alley looked desolate and sinister, its buildings ghost-haunted. No light at all came from number twenty-three. A little worldlier now, however, Mrs. Pollifax walked down the narrow drive to the courtyard and was relieved to see thin stripes of light showing through the shutters of the kitchen window. She knocked on the door and it was opened at once by Colin. “What lost package?” demanded Mrs. Pollifax breathlessly.

  Colin held the door wide and beckoned her in. “I say—I do hope they didn’t give you a hard time!”

  “Who?” she said, blinking at him.

  “The police.”

  “You saw?” she flung at him accusingly. “You knew I was picked up by the police and you left? Just left?”

  He was bolting the door behind him. “Of course,” he said. “I was afraid you’d head for the jeep and talk to me. In that case the police would have headed for the jeep too, and would have noticed your friend—that woman who was sitting with you in the hotel window.”

  Mrs. Pollifax stared at him incredulously.

  “I had her hidden in the back seat of the jeep, covered with a sheepskin,” he explained calmly. “She was in a spot of trouble, was
n’t she? Running out like that, looking like death itself—”

  Appalled, Mrs. Pollifax stared at him. “You mean she was in your jeep when you drove away?”

  He said patiently, “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, yes. She came flying out, I leaned over and opened the door, said, ‘Hop in—I’m Mrs. Pollifax’s driver’ or some such words. She fell in, I dropped the robe over her and that was that. A few seconds later the policeman followed and asked me if I’d seen a woman run from the hotel. I pointed out that I couldn’t possibly see the entrance from where I was sitting without turning my head, but that no one had run up the street past me. Se he went the other way.”

  Mrs. Pollifax faltered, “But then—what did you do with her?”

  He looked surprised. “Nothing at all—she’s here. She’s still in the jeep.”

  “Still in the jeep!”

  “I couldn’t rouse her so I simply locked the garage and left her there, and—what’s the matter?”

  Mrs. Pollifax had sat down very suddenly in the nearest chair. “You mean she’s here? In that garage in back? In your jeep?”

  Puzzled, Colin said, “Yes, of course. She is your friend, isn’t she? I saw you together in the lobby and—”

  Mrs. Pollifax began to laugh, she couldn’t help herself. The laugh was a mixture of relief and hysteria but if it had a disquieting effect on Colin it was extremely therapeutic for her. As she wiped her eyes and blew her nose she said, “I simply can’t thank you enough, Colin.”

  “Yes you can—you can tell me what the hell this is all about,” he said, sitting down and looking at her sternly.

  “About?” she echoed.

  “That woman is no tourist. She needs blood transfusions at a hospital, not shish kabob at Pierre Loti’s. What did the police want of you?”

  “My passport,” said Mrs. Pollifax sadly.

  “Passport! You mean they took it away from you?”

  “Yes, but only until they’ve investigated me.”

  He looked appalled. “But good heavens, you can’t do anything without a passport—this isn’t America, you know. You can’t even change hotels without your passport!” He stared at her incredulously. “Doesn’t the seriousness of this seep through to you at all? What on earth do the police think you’ve done? What reason did they give for taking your passport?”

  Mrs. Pollifax sighed—she was beginning to feel very tired. “They seem to feel that I might have come to Istanbul to meet a notorious Communist agent.”

  His jaw dropped. “They what? You?”

  “Yes,” she said, and stood up. “Now I really must speak to my friend—speak to her at once—and then I’ll remove her as soon as possible. I don’t want to involve you—”

  “Involve me?” he said angrily. “I’m already involved. What I’m trying to discover is what I’m involved in. You do know you’re being followed, don’t you?”

  “You keep noticing things,” she said with a sigh.

  “Of course. I saw that chap walking up and down the alley when you were here this afternoon, but when I left you at the door of your hotel damned if he didn’t follow you directly inside, and for all I know he’s followed you here again, and is outside right now.”

  Mrs. Pollifax brightened. “Oh I do hope so,” she said eagerly. “I tried to find him only half an hour ago at the hotel but I couldn’t. That’s Henry.”

  Colin looked taken aback. “Henry,” he repeated blankly. “You know him then. Look here, who the devil are you? Or to put it more succinctly, what are you?”

  She said sympathetically, “I’m Emily Pollifax, truly I am. I live in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and I’m an American citizen and I have two grown children and three grandchildren, and that’s more than the Turkish police believe at this moment but it’s absolutely true.”

  He put his hand to his head. “All right. Oddly enough I believe you, although I can’t think of any logical reason why I do. But why did you come to Istanbul then?”

  “To meet a notorious Communist agent,” she told him cheerfully. “Now do please show me where the jeep is.”

  “You insist on being facetious,” he told her bitterly. He removed a key from the shelf over the sink, opened the door for her and closed it behind them both. “This way,” he said, and they walked in silence across the courtyard. A bright moon had turned the whitewashed buildings into ghost-silver and the bougainvillea threw jagged shadows over the cobbles. The sounds of the city were muted in this enclosure. Colin unlocked the door to the office and beckoned her inside. “She’s in here,” he said, and opened still another door and turned on the lights with a flick of his hand.

  Mrs. Pollifax entered a double garage, at the moment containing only the jeep, a pile of abandoned tires and an orange crate. A shapeless bundle in the rear of the jeep stirred and lifted a head, shedding a sheepskin rug, and Magda Ferenci-Sabo blinked at the sudden light.

  “Good evening,” said Mrs. Pollifax amiably. “It seems that Mr. Ramsey has reunited us!”

  Magda’s glance moved from Mrs. Pollifax to Colin. “He is also—?”

  Mrs. Pollifax sighed. “No, he is not,” and for a moment both of them looked dubiously at Colin, who gazed stolidly back at them. “Colin,” she said, “I wonder if you would mind—”

  “No,” he said crossly.

  Mrs. Pollifax regarded him with interest. “You won’t allow us a few minutes—?”

  “No.”

  “What a difficult young man,” said Magda.

  Mrs. Pollifax smiled. “Yes, but he hid you from the police, this is his jeep you’re occupying and this is his uncle’s garage. Now we must think how to get you out of here. You are the woman I was sent to meet, aren’t you?”

  The woman looked at Colin. “It’s better not to mention names, but there was a cable—”

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “Yes, it was shown to me. Can you quote it?”

  “I think so.” Magda closed her eyes. “It read: Arrived six P.M., have enjoyed eight hours Oteli Itep, wish—” She opened her eyes. “If you were shown it perhaps you would be so kind as to complete it so that I too can be sure.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “Wish you could join me why not send Red Queen or Black Jack before Friday.”

  “Look here,” said Colin, regarding them uneasily.

  “And the identity of Red Queen?” asked Mrs. Pollifax.

  “I say,” broke in Colin again, looking increasingly alarmed.

  “Red Queen was Agatha Simms. I thought at first you might be she but you’re not. For my benefit—because you know so much about it—can you identify Black Jack?” asked Magda, and Mrs. Pollifax complied by bending over her and whispering the name of Carstairs. Magda nodded. “We understand each other—good. Now you must help me get to Yozgat, please.”

  Mrs. Pollifax looked at her blankly. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Yozgat.”

  “Who on earth is Yozgat?”

  Colin said testily, “It’s a town, a Turkish town off beyond Ankara somewhere.”

  Mrs. Pollifax stared at Magda in astonishment. “But that’s out of the question. I’m carrying a passport for you, all very legal and made out in the name of Alice Dexter White, and sufficient funds for you to get to America. You’re to leave Turkey at once—and really you can, I think, in spite of all the furor because I’ve thought about it, and if I dye your hair and bring you some fashionable American clothes—”

  A strangled gasp came from Colin but they paid it no attention. Magda sat up and said flatly, “I cannot leave this country yet, not even if it costs me my life.”

  “But you must,” cried Mrs. Pollifax. “The police are looking for you—”

  “I know, I know,” admitted Magda, “and so are the Russians and the Bulgarians—”

  An outright groan issued from Colin.

  “—not to mention the people who kidnapped me from the British consulate and who are far more dangerous than any police.” She edged her feet over the seat
and dangled them. “But my life is of no significance at all if I leave without what I brought with me, and I must get to Yozgat. What is the trouble?” she asked of Colin, turning toward him. “Are you ill?”

  He was sitting on the orange crate staring at them in open-mouthed horror. “My God,” he gasped, “I’m harboring a bloody pair of spies! The two of you!”

  “You insisted on listening,” Mrs. Pollifax reminded him patiently.

  “But she’s that woman everybody’s looking for!” He looked haggard. “And she’s sitting right here in my uncle’s garage!”

  “Yes, she is,” admitted Mrs. Pollifax, “but really I’m trying very hard to think of where to take her, I don’t want to involve you in this, you’ve already been so very kind—”

  “Kind!” he said in a stricken voice. “Kind! You seemed like such a nice elderly lady!” He stopped, appalled. “I say, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” He looked even more appalled to discover himself apologizing. “Oh, hang it all,” he said fiercely, and turning to Magda, “Do you know of somewhere to go?”

  “Yes, to Yozgat,” she said firmly.

  “Magda—”

  She turned to Mrs. Pollifax impatiently. “Why do you think they not kill me?” she demanded. “They want what I brought with me; I cross the Bulgarian frontier—do not ask me how—and I know I am followed so I separate myself from what I brought with me and I go instead to Istanbul for help. Now I must get to Yozgat, to recover what I bring. Do you not understand that—” She stopped uncertainly. “I hear someone.”

  “It must be Henry,” said Mrs. Pollifax and turned toward the door expectantly.

  But it was not Henry. Two square-shouldered bulky young men in trenchcoats stood in the door regarding them and the interior of the garage with interest. Magda caught her breath sharply. Mrs. Pollifax pulled herself together and said in a steady voice, “And who are you?”

  The bulkier of the two men casually pulled a gun from his pocket.

  “Police?” said Colin hopefully.

  “I don’t think so,” Mrs. Pollifax told him regretfully.