Black Amber

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  He swore then. Quite loudly and firmly. Good British oaths that had the sound of a seafaring nation behind them. Tracy fled with the cat in her arms and heard the loud slamming of the door behind her.

  She carried Yasemin back to her room and sat down with the small warm thing in her arms. She was in real trouble now. If ever Miles Radburn guessed who she was, he would send her straight home. She was sure of it.

  “If only you could tell me about Anabel,” she murmured to the cat. “Yasemin, what am I to do?”

  Yasemin, however, had received enough of cuddling and human emotions. She scratched Tracy on the wrist, squirmed out of her arms, and leaped to the middle of the bed. There she washed herself neatly, sponging away the human touch with rasping tongue and firm pink paws.

  Tracy stared at the scratch absently. What had happened might have been funny, she supposed—his getting furious and swearing at her over a cat. But it was not funny because of Anabel. Not only because of the phone call, but because of the letter she had received from Anabel more than six months ago.

  Her sister had written that she and Miles had returned to Istanbul at the invitation of a good friend who had entertained them in her home during their honeymoon in Turkey. Miles was not painting just now, but he had developed an interest in Turkish mosaics. Mrs. Erim had offered him a base from which to operate in his research, and certain living arrangements had been made with her. All this by way of explanation. What Anabel wanted was to have Tracy drop everything and come out to Istanbul at once for a visit.

  “If you’ll come, I’ll own up to having a sister,” she had written. “I need you, darling. Things are going terribly wrong and I know it would help to talk to you.”

  It was not the first time Tracy had received such a summons. A few years after her marriage, Anabel had paid Tracy’s expenses to New York one summer and Tracy had gone for a few weeks’ visit against her parents’ wishes. The way her sister looked had alarmed her. She had been thin and highly nervous. Flashes of the old gay Anabel had alternated infrequently with an Anabel who had only complaints about the dull life she led and resentment of what she regarded as her husband’s neglect. Miles was away in England at the time. Had he been in New York, Tracy would have tried to see him, in spite of Anabel’s wishes. As it was, she had discounted her sister’s lamentations to some degree and tried to calm her and talk a little sense into her. For the most part the visit had been ineffectual.

  Yet, strangely enough, Tracy had never lost her belief in some deep-rooted worth in Anabel. The good qualities were there, if only one could get at them. She was talented in so many ways. She could sing and dance, and if she had possessed a drive toward achievement she might have succeeded in the theater. Perhaps her most remarkable gift was the one of making life seem gay and carefree to those around her. She possessed a talent for laughter and for the generating of laughter. Even Nursel had felt this and had spoken of their running off to be free of sober faces and a restriction upon laughter. Yet the Anabel who had this gift for life was being destroyed by another Anabel. For some of the world’s gifted there seemed to be this strange pull toward self-destruction that those who loved them could only watch in bewilderment and try, however hopelessly, to oppose.

  Tracy knew only that she must hold to that slender tie by which Anabel allowed herself to be bound. After the visit to New York, she had continued to write the letters her sister seemed to want. It was all she could do.

  Eventually she had been old enough to escape the impossible atmosphere that had been built up around her at home. By the time she moved to New York, however, Anabel and Miles were living out of the country and there were no meetings with them in the two years she had been in the east.

  When Anabel’s letter of summons had come six months ago, Tracy had felt both sympathetic and annoyed. She knew very well that Anabel loved to exaggerate and dramatize, and she suspected that nothing practical could be accomplished by flying to Istanbul with such dispatch as Anabel requested. Tracy might hold her hand and listen to her grievances and perhaps help her temporarily to a better balance. She wrote firmly to Anabel and she did not go to Turkey. She would come later, she promised. If she left now, while she was still a trainee in a new department, the company might not want her back. Anabel must understand how important this job was to her.

  Anabel had not answered her letter, though Tracy had written again, promising to manage a trip during the summer. There had been a silence of months—which was not unusual. Tracy, absorbed and happy, free for the first time in her life, had put worry about her sister aside. Anabel would forgive her eventually, and Tracy had let the thread between them slacken.

  Then, only three months ago, had come that wild and confused telephone call. Tracy had hardly recognized her voice, so upset had Anabel sounded.

  “I never knew it would come to this!” she wailed over the wire. “I never knew Miles could be so wickedly cruel!”

  This sounded like more of the usual thing and Tracy broke in, trying to quiet her, to make sense of what she was saying, but the girl at the other end of the wire ran on incoherently, and there had been a true note of terror in her voice.

  “I need you desperately, Bunny. I shouldn’t ask you to come—perhaps it would be dangerous for you to come. But there’s no one else I can turn to. I must talk to someone. Someone who can get me away from here!”

  Tracy spoke to her sternly then. “Anabel, listen to me! Get hold of yourself and tell me quietly what’s the matter.”

  Anabel took a breath of air in a big gulp and went right on. “It’s the black amber again! It turned up yesterday and I know it’s the end of everything. The secret is hidden with the Sultan Valide—remember that, if you come. And don’t let anyone know you’re my sister. If they don’t know, they won’t touch you. Bunny, I’m afraid—I don’t want to die! Bunny—”

  She broke off and there was a moment’s silence in which Tracy pleaded with her to speak quietly, to explain. Then Anabel said in a whisper, “Someone’s coming up the stairs.” There was a long silence. Tracy held her breath, trying desperately to hear what was happening all those thousands of miles away in Istanbul. Then had come the most terrifying thing of all. Anabel had not spoken again, but she had whistled softly, incongruously into the telephone—the mere snatch of an old nursery rhyme: London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down … She whistled that much of it before the phone went dead.

  The snatch of tune had taken Tracy back to her childhood in an agonizing wave of memory. When she and Anabel had lived at home, there had been many a secret signal between them in the form of nursery tunes they both knew well. Here we go round the mulberry bush … meant, “All’s well. The storm is over.” But London Bridge was the panic call. It meant, “Here comes ultimate disaster. Get ready for the roof to fall in.” And it was never used except for desperate emergency.

  That day, over the wire from Istanbul, Anabel had given her the disaster signal, their own secret “Mayday” call—and hung up the receiver.

  Tracy tried at once to call Istanbul back. It had taken forever, and when someone speaking English had come on at last it was to say that Anabel was unable to come to the phone. Tracy asked for Miles, only to be told that he was out of town. In the end she had given up without identifying herself. She had tried to stem her own terror by telling herself that this was just the sort of wildly dramatic trick Anabel loved to play. But the conviction had persisted that this time the game was real.

  The next day the news of Anabel’s death had been in the papers, of front-page importance because of Miles’s name.

  Tracy had broken a long-silence and telephoned her father in Iowa, only to be told that this was exactly what he had expected. This was the road down which Anabel herself had chosen to travel. It was the end she had deserved.

  She cabled anonymous flowers for Anabel’s grave and she began planning at once to get to Istanbul. She could not let her sister’s sudden death, on the heels of that confused phone
call, go unchallenged, unquestioned. Yet for once Anabel’s words had bred a certain caution in her. She knew instinctively that if she went out at once, announcing herself as Anabel’s sister, the questions would go unanswered. And she had a responsibility now. She had not gone to Anabel’s help. She had regarded the earlier letter as the usual cry of “wolf!” But this time something had been dreadfully wrong and she could not rest until she knew what it was. She had never accepted whole-cloth the things Anabel had said about Miles. But now she must get to Istanbul and learn about him for herself.

  She had lacked money for an immediate trip, or even credit to borrow for so wild a venture when she could not admit to being Anabel’s sister. Then Mr. Hornwright had opened a door and she had dashed through without looking back.

  As Anabel’s half sister, she had been able to come here under her own name and identity, since even Anabel’s maiden name was different from her own. As long as this incognito held, she would be safe from whatever threat Anabel had hinted at. The leads she had to follow were few: Anabel’s outburst against Miles, which though not especially new, was more extreme. A reference to “black amber” and to someone referred to as a Sultan Valide who was in possession of a “secret.” On the surface all wildly improbable. Yet Anabel had been frightened. Anabel had died. Driven to suicide by what degree of desperation? And by whom?

  From what she had seen of Miles Radburn, he seemed the most likely instrument. She could imagine him driving a woman almost crazy. Particularly if she were so foolish as to love him. Yet there was the paradox of Anabel’s picture on his wall. And there was Tracy’s own voice of reason which told her that not everything Anabel said and did could be taken at face value.

  If only there was someone to whom she could turn with trust and confidence. Now, sitting in the room that had been Anabel’s she thought again of Nursel. The girl had seemingly been Anabel’s friend and she was certainly no friend of Miles Radburn. But to what extent she might be trusted Tracy did not know. It was possible that Nursel might become an ally in her search for the truth. She needed an ally badly in this maze of hidden motives and secretive behavior, yet she did not dare to trust anyone yet.

  There were as many undercurrents in the murk of these problems as there were out there in the stream of the Bosporus, where Anabel had ended her life. Tension and dislike were evident between Dr. Erim and Miles Radburn. There was tension as well between Murat Erim and his sister-in-law, Sylvana, who held more power in this household than the brother and sister felt she should.

  As Tracy sat there, turning futilely within the perimeter of her own thoughts, Halide tapped at her door. The maid carried a small pile of books in her hands and, when Tracy called to her to enter, she trotted into the room and deposited them on the table with a smile. Yasemin seized the opportunity and moved like lightning, flying through the open door as though she had waited here a prisoner.

  When Halide had gone, Tracy looked wonderingly at the four titles. The books were all about Turkey. One was a modern guidebook which she had hurried through at home. Another was an account of Atatürk’s campaign and reforms, and there was a book about the ancient peoples of Turkey. The fourth volume was an account of Ottoman Empire days, detailing the stories of fantastic wealth and power, with its deterioration into corruption and greed and shocking cruelty.

  Mrs. Erim might have sent her the first two, and possibly the fourth, but surely only Miles Radburn would have in his possession the third volume. She opened to a flyleaf and saw that his name was written there and in the others as well.

  Was this an apology for his loss of temper? she wondered. For the space of a moment she softened toward him and then smiled wryly at herself. She must never forget how attractive this man had seemed to Anabel in the beginning, and how wrong Anabel had, admittedly, been about him. It would be safer to dislike him intensely, to remember him as coldly frightening, as a man who could strike out violently at a cat. Somehow, she must dig in her toes and stay, but she must not be drawn into friendliness toward Miles Radburn.

  Thus bolstered in her own determination, she sat down and opened a volume at random. She forced herself to read and tried to think about what she was reading. This was an account of Turkey’s earliest inhabitants, the Hittites—a people of some consequence in the ancient world. They had been mentioned in the Bible. The lady named Bathsheba, who had led David astray, was a Hittite. Indeed, the Hittites had in their day rivaled the Egyptians and the Babylonians in importance. Behind them in Turkey they had left friezes and statues of remarkable beauty. After the Hittites had come the Semitic invaders and the conquerors from the West—from Greece and Rome. There had been a great intermingling of races so that Turks were Indo-European, with a dash of Mongolian thrown in.

  All of which was undoubtedly fascinating to know. But the persistent echo of a nursery rhyme kept time with the words as she read, and Tracy could not care less about Turkish history at the moment. Indeed, she could not sit still in this room for a moment longer. She flung down the book and jumped up to get her coat. The afternoon was growing late and she must get outdoors and release this restless anxiety that would not let her be still. Only physical effort would serve. She’d had enough of the four walls of Anabel’s room.

  There was no one in the upper salon. The door of Miles’s study remained closed. The white cat was nowhere to be seen. Tracy ran lightly downstairs to the marble corridor that bisected the ground floor and found her way to the door on the land side. Turning from the paved driveway that ran between yali and kiosk, she followed the path along the hillside above the Bosporus until it ended at a small gate set in the stone wall that surrounded the property. Beyond, the main road, having curved around Erim grounds, resumed its direction, running north, paralleling the water, though not close to it.

  She expected the gate to be locked, but it was only latched, and she opened it and went through. The sun had dipped partially behind the hills of Thrace across the water, but there was still time for a stroll before it grew completely dark. She followed the scrubby grass along the road’s edge so that she need not worry about passing traffic. The nearest village, apparently, was on the other side of the Erim property. Here were pleasant woods, still winter sere, though green shoots were beginning to push through the brown grass underfoot.

  Curving, the road dipped toward the water and brought her at length to a large and ornate wrought-iron gate hung askew on dilapidated hinges, permanently ajar. To Tracy’s mind there was always something both intriguing and touching about a ruin. She could not resist this one and stepped through the gap in the broken gate.

  What had once been a fine garden spread before her in wild disarray. Vines and creepers and weedy shrubs had made a tangle of the place. All about were great plane trees and horse chestnuts with their candled blooms ready to bud anew with the coming of spring. A monstrous rhododendron hedge that would later be bright with blossoms had grown unrestrained, forming a wall that darkened the far side of the garden on the right. Straight ahead shallow steps led down to the water, their marble shimmering rosy-white in the lengthening rays of the sun. Beyond, dark water swept softly past.

  The house rose on her left and, for all that it stood in ruin, the stamp of former wealth and eminence lay upon it. It was no ordinary house—there was too much marble showing through the curtain of shabby vines that overhung it. Once it had risen two stories above the basement floor, but she could see that toward the water the roof had fallen in upon the upper story and most of the wall on the water side had crumbled into the Bosporus. Yet a good part of the house stood intact, and she ventured toward the flight of marble steps that led to the marble framework of an empty door.

  At the foot of the steps the pattern of a great circular mosaic lay partially revealed. It would be beautiful, she thought, if it were uncovered, but now it was earth-encrusted and weed-grown with the tangle that reached to the very steps. So romantic an invitation as the doorway offered was not to be resisted.

  Tracy cl
imbed the marble steps. The wooden door had rotted upon its hinges and fallen inward. She stepped over broken timbers and found herself inside the ruin. What remained of graceful arches that had framed windows on either side of the door revealed a fretwork of fine carving. Part of the ceiling was gone and the roof above as well, so that the house stood open to the water. What had once been a palace on the Bosporus had become a haven for lizards and mice, a nesting place for birds.

  Worms and termites and general rot had broken the floor of the great central room in a number of places, and she stepped with care. One wall had bloomed with painted flowers that were now faded to a pale, dreamlike beauty. There was tarnished tilework over a doorway, and she studied it in the graying light from the water. Her sorting of Miles Radburn’s drawings had given her a new interest in such things.

  The rear of the house seemed fairly sound and further rooms stretched away in sheltered darkness. The sun had set by now and dusk was coming more quickly than she had expected. The chill in the air had intensified and a curious uneasiness possessed her in this haunted place.

  Tracy hesitated on the threshold of a farther room, seized by a desire to flee from this crumbling, eerie place. Stepping cautiously, she went through the doorway into the next shadowed room beyond.

  5

  As she moved on, filled with uneasiness, yet held by a strange desire to persist, she felt something soft beneath her foot. When she bent to pick it up, she saw that it was a silk scarf. Its colors were washed out in the dim light, but it seemed to be a woman’s scarf and she wondered at its presence here. She put it into the pocket of her coat and went on.

  Around the turn of a dim hallway where a staircase led upward, she came to a sudden halt. Had she heard something? Was there someone else wandering about this ghostly place? The woman who had dropped the scarf, perhaps?