Amazing Mrs. Pollifax

by Dorothy Gilman

  The voices from the other room were audible and she tried to make sense of them but she was still too blurred. She heard “… having gone to Bulgaria to help with security arrangements for the Festival of Youth.…” and then, “You had intended from the first to go to the British Consulate in Istanbul?”

  “Not alone, no …” That was Magda’s voice, oddly toneless. “But I had not expected to be looked for so quick or so—so accurately. I could not make trouble for my gypsy friends.”

  Gypsies, thought Mrs. Pollifax, frowning. Surely Magda ought not to be speaking about gypsies to Dr. Belleaux? She wondered what time it was, and as she licked her dry lips she wondered if she might call out for water. She felt very tired and dull. She tried to focus her eyes on Sandor’s disreputable sneakers and then she tried to practice thinking very carefully. She supposed it was Thursday—no, no, it must still be Wednesday, late afternoon or early evening of their arrival day in Yozgat, and Dr. Belleaux had promised that presently they would be shot and carried off in the black car to an archaeological dig. That was not a very pleasant thought. She wondered if her body would ever be found and identified. Perhaps it was better if it wasn’t, she reflected, since it would only prove extremely embarrassing to Mr. Carstairs and then of course there were her children. They were very nice children, Roger and Jane, but they would simply not understand how their mother came to be murdered in Turkey disguised as a native peasant woman. Nor would she be there to soften the explanation that between Garden Club meetings and her hospital work she had acquired this interesting little sideline as a CIA courier. It was not the sort of thing one could explain, certainly not to Jane at least.

  But as her sluggishness diminished Mrs. Pollifax remembered that there was even more to be concerned about: there was Dr. Belleaux. The thought of Carstairs continuing to trust the man so appalled her that it jerked her to full consciousness at last, and in time to hear Dr. Belleaux say quite clearly, “You have been described as a defecting Communist agent, Madame Ferenci-Sabo. You are known to the Russians in this manner, too. But actually you have worked for the Americans all these years, is this not true?”

  Mrs. Pollifax gasped, terrifyingly alert at last. It must have been drugs they had administered to Magda to force her to speak. Words overheard earlier came back to her … we’ll have to risk its killing her, there’s no other way … Not an ordinary drug then, but one of the truth serums.

  No no no, she screamed, but no sound came from her throat and it was part of this nightmare that she could move her lips and her tongue yet make no sound. She began to struggle against the ropes that held her bound, frustrated by her helplessness to halt or delay Magda’s confession to being a double agent.

  “Yes, that is true,” Magda said in reply, still in that cold, toneless voice. “I have been—am—a counteragent.”

  As Mrs. Pollifax sagged defeatedly she caught a glimpse of Sandor now, his head turned to listen. She noted the welt across his cheekbone and the gag stuffed into his mouth—he must have gone on shouting—and she thought, Now he knows what Magda is, too.

  “I see,” Dr. Belleaux said, and his voice shook a little, betraying his excitement at discovering that his wild suspicion was a literal fact. He drew a sharp breath and when he spoke again there was barely suppressed triumph in his voice, as if he knew he stumbled upon a masquerade so outrageous and so sinister that its ramifications would be felt everywhere—and especially on his own career, thought Mrs. Pollifax bitterly.

  “Please tell me next how you notified the Americans after your extraordinary escape from my two men.”

  “I took money. Stefan had left some on the table, Turkish lira, and I took it. One of the gypsies in Istanbul sent a cable for me.”

  “And the address to which you sent it?”

  Magda recited a cover address in Baltimore.

  “Thank you!” said Dr. Belleaux cheerfully. “Thank you very much. Now I would like to discuss with you where you have hidden the missing document, the top secret paper you brought out of Russia with—”

  He stopped abruptly. Mrs. Pollifax had heard it, too, an indefinable sound of movement outside, of something brushing the front door. Now she realized it had been a knock; it was repeated.

  “What the devil!” exclaimed Dr. Belleaux. “Stefan!”

  “Evet,” said Stefan calmly. “It is only a young girl, I saw her come. She has a notebook and pencil.”

  “She will have heard voices. Answer and get rid of her. Assim, hide the hypodermic. Cover the woman so she looks ill.”

  Mrs. Pollifax had been holding her breath. Now she expelled it and cleared her throat, testing it to see if her voice worked yet. If she could only scream—Practicing, she said in a small, hoarse voice, “Someone—is—at—the—door.”

  She at least captured Sandor’s attention; he made a frustrated rumbling noise in his throat and she saw him strain at his ropes. Stefan was unbolting and opening the front door. Mrs. Pollifax heard a clear young voice speak with a rush of enthusiasm and charm. But the words were Turkish—she had forgotten they would be. Mrs. Pollifax formed a scream in her throat. “Help!” she called out raspily. “Help! Help!”

  Dr. Belleaux murmured something in Turkish in an amused voice, gave a little laugh and crossed the floor to close the door between the two rooms. With this act he blotted them out with finality.

  Tears came to Mrs. Pollifax’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Sandor,” she said. “I would have liked to really scream but it’s my voice. I can’t.”

  Sandor rumbled again in reply. “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt and tied up and gagged,” she told him, because it was important to practice speaking in case a second opportunity arose. “I’m sure you must be extremely sorry you ever joined us, but you must have overheard enough to realize this is something more important than any of us individually. It’s the only attitude I can suggest,” she added primly. The tears had run down her face to mingle with the dried blood on her cheeks. “I can only tell you—oh that rat in the wall is annoying,” she cried furiously. “It’s not enough that we’re surrounded by human rats, there has to be—” She turned her head toward the outside wall.

  Her gasp was almost as audible as her attempt to scream, for the wall was literally disappearing before her eyes. Sunshine was entering the dark room, inch by inch, as brick after brick was tidily, efficiently and very hastily removed by a pair of large brown human hands. Mrs. Pollifax could not believe it: either her vision or her mind had been seriously affected and she was hallucinating. Within seconds a space appeared large enough for a pair of shoulders, and at once a pair of shoulders blocked off the light that had bruised and stabbed her swollen eyes. The words that slipped from Mrs. Pollifax’s lips were entirely unpremeditated; she said incredulously, “Wotthehell!”

  It had the effect of turning Sandor’s head immediately, and as he saw the light, the opening, and the man’s head his eyes widened in shock. Clearly he saw it too, and she was not hallucinating at all. The man’s shoulders cleared the opening and he lifted his head. Mrs. Pollifax had never seen him before; his face was dark, tough, crafty. He lifted a finger to his lips, and after pulling his legs through the hole he tiptoed across the room. He was followed by a second man, and he too was a stranger to Mrs. Pollifax, so that she became certain that she must have lost consciousness again and was dreaming some happy, wishful fantasy of rescue.

  The second man was tall, lanky and dusty. As if by prearrangement he went to Sandor. Neither man expected them to be capable of walking. Ropes were quickly slashed. Smoothly Mrs. Pollifax was picked up, carried to the opening in the wall and tilted forward on her knees. Hands reached in from outside and gently grasped Mrs. Pollifax’s bleeding fingers. She was half-pushed and half-pulled through the aperture into the blinding brilliant sun of a late afternoon that contained—of all things—a smiling Colin Ramsey.

  “Colin!” she gasped.

  “Yes,” he said, grinning. “Isn’t it wonderful?” As Sandor was pushed out into the
sunshine Colin raised both arms and waved at someone she could not see. The tall, sandy-haired man followed Sandor out of the hole and the dark, fierce-looking one began swiftly replacing the bricks.

  “You’ll have to walk several yards before you can rest,” Colin said firmly. “We have to get you to the front corner of the house, and we have only three minutes to do it.”

  She understood nothing of this except that it was obviously not a dream, and that it was being managed with infinite precision so that she need to do nothing at all. Nothing except walk, which was nearly impossible, but if Colin said it had to be done she would do it. Her feet felt like stumps, bloodless and lifeless, and her knees kept betraying her. Colin supported her, and the sandy-haired man supported Sandor, and slowly they reached the cover of a bedraggled grape vine at the corner of the house. Here the third man caught up with them and crouched down behind them as they waited.

  A van drove slowly up the empty street. Colin’s van? thought Mrs. Pollifax, bewildered, but that had been abandoned in Ankara. The van pulled up in front of the house. Half a dozen young people in western clothes leaped down from the rear and began unloading—it couldn’t be possible—trays of fruit and food, jugs of water and huge armfuls of bright flowers. A man in the robes of a priest climbed down from the driver’s seat and joined them; Mrs. Pollifax saw that they were going to walk up to the house in which she had been captive.

  “Oh, stop them!” she whispered, and then, “Magda’s in there!”

  “We know that,” Colin said calmly. “Sabahat knocked at the door a few minutes ago saying she was taking a census. She reported three men and an invalid woman in the front room.”

  “Sabahat? Census?” repeated Mrs. Pollifax dazedly.

  “Now,” Colin said to the sandy-haired man. The stranger nodded and walked down to the empty van and backed it up the cart track to Mrs. Pollifax and Sandor. “Get in quickly,” Colin told her.

  They fell clumsily into the rear, and then the van backed down into the street, this time pointing toward town, the motor kept running by the tall stranger. Colin and the dark gypsy-looking man moved toward the house, and incredulously Mrs. Pollifax leaned out to watch. The young people and the priest had absolutely vanished—into the house, realized Mrs. Pollifax disbelievingly—leaving the door wide open. Inside, it looked as if a party was in full bloom—and into this melee walked Colin and the gypsy.

  A moment later they backed out carrying an unconscious Magda between them. A girl joined them, laughing and calling over her shoulder to the young people behind her. For one incredible moment Mrs. Pollifax saw Dr. Belleaux swim to the door like a salmon fighting his way upstream. A crowd of laughing youngsters accosted him and pulled him back. Furious, he stretched out his two hands toward Magda, face livid, and then someone placed a plate of grapes in those outstretched hands, a garland of flowers was lowered over his head and slowly he was sucked back into the livingroom, overwhelmed by currents too strong for him.

  “What on earth—!” cried Mrs. Pollifax to Colin as the two men placed Magda in the rear of the van.

  Colin grinned. “It’s a love-in. Dr. Belleaux is being smothered with non-violence.” He turned and grinned at the girl. “This is Sabahat, whose idea it was—Sabahat Pasha. Sabahat, ask Sebastien to sit up front and take us to the gypsies now, will you?”

  “How do you do,” Sabahat said, smiling at Mrs. Pollifax. “I’m so glad you are safe.” She spoke to the gypsy in Turkish and then extended her hand to Colin. “I will make certain the three men do not get away for as long as is possible. I cannot promise much but it may help you a little,” she told him gravely. “Allaha ismarladik, Colin Ramsey.”

  He shook his head. “Not for long, Sabahat,” he said, firmly holding on to her hand, “You know I’ll be back. In the meantime how can I thank you?”

  She dimpled charmingly. “But my friends have always wished to meet such a scholar as Dr. Belleaux—there is no need to explain the situation to them. You are giving them a big day, and it is I who should thank you!”

  He grinned. “Fair exchange then.” He released her hand and shouted, “Okay, Uncle Hu, let’s go!”

  As the van roared into life and raced down the street Mrs. Pollifax exclaimed, “Did you call that man Uncle Hu?”

  “Quite a lot has happened,” Colin said modestly. “Yes, that’s Uncle Hu. Letting him help seemed the least I could do, he’s already spent one night in jail because of us, which places him beyond the pale. This is the van he drives—he was on his way back from Erzurum. The chap with him is a gypsy named Sebastien. I picked him up before I ran into Uncle Hu, he has a dancing bear and he stayed behind the other gypsies to wait for Magda.”

  Mrs. Pollifax looked at him in amazement. “Colin,” she said, “you’re an extraordinary young man.”

  He returned her glance, looked startled, and then a slow smile spread across his face. “Yes,” he said with an air of discovery. “I believe I am.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Their precipitous flight from Yozgat was interrupted by Sebastien, who somewhat desperately reminded them that he had a horse, a dog, a wagon and a dancing bear to be retrieved. Colin crawled up front to the window and held a three-way conversation, the translations supplied by his uncle, but he crawled back to report that Sebastien was adamant: he could not go any further without his menage. They stopped briefly beside the road at the place where the gypsy had made camp; Sebastien looked for several moments at Uncle Hu’s map, then marked a cross on the road, halfway between Yozgat and Kayseri.

  Uncle Hu said, “He tells me the gypsies will be somewhere near the cross he’s marked, and camping within sight of the road because they expect him to follow.”

  “And will he follow?”

  “He’ll hope to catch up with us by dawn.”

  They thanked Sebastien profusely for his help, Mrs. Pollifax gave him money from the wad pinned inside her baggy pants, and they resumed their breakneck trip south. Watching Mrs. Pollifax return the bills to their hiding place Sandor said with a weak grin, “The Bank of Pollifax, eh?”

  “Hold still,” Colin told him sharply, trying to wrap gauze around Sandor’s bleeding wrists. “Uncle Hu always drives like this,” he explained resignedly, “although I rather imagine he’s trying to cover as much ground as possible before dark. You’ve no idea how black it gets out here on the plateau.”

  “No street lights,” said Mrs. Pollifax brightly. “What time is it now?”

  “Nearly eight. One hour until dark. There,” he said, tying the last knot on Sandor’s bandage and turning to Mrs. Pollifax. “Hold out your wrists. I do hope you’ve had tetanus shots recently, they’re a pulpy mess.”

  “Shouldn’t you do Magda’s first?”

  He laughed shortly. “Why? She has an advantage over you, she’s unconscious. But her wrists aren’t in such bad shape, they must have been untied when they drugged her.” He looked soberly at Mrs. Pollifax and said, “By the way, I think it’s time I ask how much Dr. Belleaux found out while he held you three captive.”

  Mrs. Pollifax sighed. “Nearly everything.”

  “Good God!”

  She nodded. “This time they gave Magda a different sort of drug. They tried first to make her talk without it, but she wouldn’t.” To Sandor she said frankly, “You know who she is now, too.”

  He dropped his eyes. “Evet.”

  “But does Dr. Belleaux know about the gypsies?” Colin asked. When Mrs. Pollifax nodded he shook his head. “What a foul piece of luck! That means he knows precisely where we’re heading, or soon will. Everyone in Yozgat can tell him the gypsies have gone south.”

  Mrs. Pollifax felt it unnecessary to reply. The fresh air that had revived her was beginning to stupefy her now, and the wonder of being rescued was being replaced by fresh worries. She felt very weak, and a little nauseous—a reasonable reaction to what she had gone through but still inconvenient. If choice were given her she would without hesitation choose a hospital—even a nursing ho
me would do, she thought wistfully—where she could bleed quietly between clean sheets, rouse only to sip nourishing liquids and to observe new ice packs being placed on bruises and swellings before drifting off into an exhausted sleep. Instead she was rocketing off across the bumpy Anatolian plain again, in a rather dirty van, while she sat on an extremely dirty floor holding on for dear life and adjusting to the realization that they were still in danger, and probably greater danger now because Dr. Belleaux knew everything about them.

  Aloud she said, “Dr. Belleaux is going to be feeling very nasty, I think—he’s just lost that elegant Istanbul life of his that he planned to get back to tomorrow, after burying us in some ruins.”

  “He almost did bury us,” growled Sandor.

  Mrs. Pollifax considered this and nodded. Yes, there was a great deal to be said for such an attitude: without Colin they would be dead now, in which case there would be no choice left them at all. I’ll feel sorry for myself later, decided Mrs. Pollifax, and firmly put aside thoughts of rest to take charge again. “What weapons do we have, Colin?”

  He looked amused. “You’ve gone professional again—I’m relieved. I still have Stefan’s pistol, with three shots fired.”

  “They did not search me,” Sandor said, bringing out the gun he had periodically waved at them. “But wotthehell, it’s empty,” he added sadly.

  “Uncle Hu may have something,” Colin said. “Of course he may no longer carry a gun because he’s never been attacked on these trips by anything more than a goat. If he ever slows down I’ll ask him.”

  But his uncle Hu gave no sign of slowing down, in fact as the road grew more atrocious his speed seemed to increase, as if he regarded the stones and gullies and potholes as an affront to an unblemished record. Magda had been rolled into a rug and braced against one wall; she was almost to be envied. If this was Wednesday, thought Mrs. Pollifax nostalgically—and she thought it was—she would be wheeling the hospital’s bookcart at home, and tomorrow she would normally be having her karate lessons with Lorvale.