Black Amber

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  “Would you like me to stop now?” she asked.

  “That’s not necessary if you want to work a while longer.” He drew a key from his pocket and laid it on the table beside her. “I’ve found an extra key for this room. You can keep it, if you like. Bolt the balcony doors when you leave, and lock the study door after you. Then there’ll be no more interference with your work.”

  She looked at him, puzzled over his changed attitude, feeling increasingly guilty. “What did you mean about a poltergeist? Who do you think did this?”

  “Poltergeist is as good a word as any for a mischief-maker. Perhaps it will stop now. I see no reason why anyone should try to frighten you into leaving. Let’s forget about it unless something else happens. There seems to be no real harm behind it.”

  Tracy wondered, remembering that both Miles and Nursel had spoken of Anabel being frightened into desperation. Besides, there was a reason why someone might want to drive her away. A reason Miles knew nothing about—the fact that she was Anabel’s sister.

  He left her to her work, and the sense of his unexpected kindness stayed with her. He had, after all, considered her future at Views and was trying to safeguard it for her—while she was tricking and deceiving him in a way that could only bring his anger and contempt upon her when he discovered the truth. Nursel’s hinting had been ridiculous, but nevertheless Tracy found that while she might not mind Miles Radburn’s anger—that was something she had already dealt with—his contempt would be something else. She turned from the thought of it with a distaste that surprised her.

  After he had gone she had bolted the veranda doors. Now and then as she typed, she glanced uneasily at the open door to the study. Once when the clatter of typewriter keys was still, she thought she heard footsteps in the salon. But, though she went to the door and looked out, no one was there.

  At length she finished her copy work and returned to her room. She was glad to have Yasemin slip in with her for company. The fact that everyone in this household except Miles knew she was Anabel’s sister made her seem far more alone than before, and doubly vulnerable. What else could anyone think except that she was here because Anabel had told her something, because she was following some definite lead? They could not know how very little had been given to guide her. Only that mention of black amber, of some secret and Anabel’s desperate cry. “I don’t want to die!” she had wailed—and gone out on the Bosporus in a boat she could not handle.

  By now Yasemin had accepted Tracy. She permitted herself to be stroked and petted and finally settled down to dreaming in Tracy’s lap, offering an illusion of companionship. The two of them stayed quietly where they were until Halide brought a tray to the room, with a note from Nursel.

  Murat was working late in the laboratory tonight, Nursel had written, and would eat over there. So perhaps Tracy would prefer to have this early tray in her room. The servants would be very busy later with Sylvana’s nine o’clock dinner party. Nursel had talked to her brother and he would see Tracy at eight-thirty. She was to go to the living quarters Nursel shared with her brother. He would await her there.

  Tracy was grateful for this smoothing of her way and glad that she need not face Dr. Erim at dinner. For the moment she must put aside her fearfulness about the encounter and find a way to pass the time.

  Again she and Yasemin shared a meal, and afterward Tracy picked up one of the Turkish books Miles had loaned her and began to read of Ottoman times, of the legends and scandals that clung to those days. She found a rather gruesome elaboration of the story Nursel had told her on her first trip across the Bosporus in the car ferry—about the harem ladies who were dropped into the shallows off Seraglio Point when they displeased or bored a reigning sultan. There had been one such sultan who had made a thoroughly fresh start by ordering a hundred concubines tied up in sacks that were well weighted with stones at the feet, and gathered and tied tightly below the chin so that no struggling would be possible when they were dropped into the Bosporus. Sometime later a diver had gone down into these waters and found the hundred ladies all standing up on the bottom, their long hair streaming in the current, swaying as if they performed some macabre dance.

  The story was too vividly told for comfort and it added much to Tracy’s uneasiness in a room that overlooked the Bosporus. When it grew dark, she went out upon the balcony and stood watching the night scene once more, reminding herself that the Ottoman Empire was long gone and Istanbul today was probably no more wicked than any other modern city.

  Out on the dark waters she saw fishing boats moving, and the lights Nursel had described that would attract fish. Voices came clearly across the water, and now and then the whistling of a passing steamer added utterance to other night sounds. On the far side Rumeli Hisar stood dark and lonely, its towers black against the sky.

  The thought of Anabel was strong and constant. It would not let her be.

  She was glad when it was time to face Dr. Erim. Any sort of action was welcome by now. She brushed her hair until it shone and renewed her lipstick. As a last touch she clipped on the blue earrings that had been Nursel’s gift. To charm Murat? she wondered wryly. Or merely to keep away the evil eye?

  Nursel’s brother waited for her in their sitting room. When he opened the door at her knock, she saw that he had spread a number of objects from his collection over the surface of a carved ebony table. He held a small satsuma bowl, turning it in his fingers, playing with it as he had with his tespih. She sensed in him something of an Oriental love for objects that could be savored by touch as well as by eye.

  As he invited her into the room, she saw that he was no longer the angry man she had seen today at breakfast. There was a gentle, almost poetic sadness about his dark features. She noted again how arrestingly handsome he was, how naturally graceful in his movements—and how aware of feminine company.

  “First—I must apologize,” he said. “This morning I was extremely disturbed. I fear I was rude to a guest.”

  “You had every right to be annoyed,” Tracy said frankly. “I suppose I’ve done a very foolish thing.”

  He drew her to a chair and piled cushions behind her when she sat down. “It is your right to do as you wish. I was disturbed because I thought at first that Radburn had brought you here, knowing very well that you were Anabel’s sister, and that he was keeping this fact from us.”

  “Oh, no,” Tracy said quickly. “Mr. Radburn doesn’t know. That’s why I’ve come to talk to you—to ask you not to tell him.”

  He stared intently at the small bowl in his hands, then set it on the table next to a small brass Buddha. “This we must discuss a little,” he said. “There are certain aspects of this affair I would like to understand.”

  “I’m not sure I can explain,” Tracy admitted. “I’ve acted mainly on impulse, I’m afraid. When this opportunity to come to Turkey arose so suddenly, I was afraid to tell Mr. Hornwright that I was the sister of Miles Radburn’s wife. He might have thought I’d be an unsettling influence and no help in moving this book ahead.”

  Murat nodded gravely, watching her with an uncomfortable intentness. Suddenly he moved to bring a standing lamp closer so that its light would fall upon her, reveal her every expression. The inquisitor testing a prisoner? she thought wryly. His words surprised her.

  “No—I can see nothing of Anabel in your face. Not the slightest look of her. Your expression is different, your way of speaking. There is no resemblance that I can find.”

  “That’s true,” she agreed. “People have always pointed it out. And I’ve always wished I were more like her. I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as Anabel.”

  He did not disagree, or deny, but his sudden smile was for her and not for Anabel. “I can see that it would be difficult for any girl to have a sister, even a half sister, like Anabel. But I think you can make yourself very interesting and pretty. I am glad to see you wearing such feminine earrings this evening.”

  “Nursel gave them to me,” she said shortly.


  “They become you. It is possible that in your growing-up years you have tried not to be prettily feminine because you believed you could not compete with Anabel. Is this not so?”

  The conversation was taking so unexpected a turn that Tracy could only stare at him in astonishment.

  Again his smile lifted for a moment the sadness that seemed to touch him tonight. “You are surprised that I compliment you? But why? You are a most feminine person. But you must be a little more frivolous, a little more fashionable, perhaps, in your dress.”

  “I can’t ever be like Anabel,” she said.

  “No, you cannot be like Anabel. Your long hair, with the coil at the back becomes you, and such touches as the earrings you are wearing. Perhaps a dress less severe? You will forgive me for speaking frankly? Nursel can teach you much.”

  Tracy thought of Miles snatching off the earrings because they did not suit her, and the memory made her laugh. She was no longer angry because of what he had done. It seemed amusing that in this one day two men had reacted in so opposite a fashion to a pair of dangling blue earrings.

  Her sudden smile must have touched a near-the-surface sensitivity in the man, for he winced. But at almost the same instant a much louder burst of laughter came from beyond the glass doors that bordered the veranda on the uphill side. Tracy glanced toward them and saw that lights glowed brightly all through the second floor of the kiosk and the chatter of voices and laughter was reaching them with the arrival of each new guest.

  Murat frowned and went at once to close the draperies, jerking them in annoyance across the glass.

  “She is forever entertaining,” he said. “She knows everyone in Istanbul. The French ambassador is here tonight, and several government officials. Tonight she will be showing them the samovar, boasting of her find, proving once more how clever she is. When it should not belong to her at all.”

  Tracy pondered that. “You mean because it should be returned to the museum?”

  “That, of course. Though, since she has considerable influence in high places, she will be permitted to keep it for a time. No, there is another reason.”

  He hesitated as though he could not decide whether to continue. Then he fixed Tracy once more with his keen, dark gaze that was so different from Miles Radburn’s. Miles’s cold look seemed to glance off without penetration. It was as though he seldom saw the one he looked at. This man’s eyes hunted for the meaning that was essentially a part of the person who held his attention. Tracy felt uncomfortably that it would be difficult to keep a secret from him.

  He pulled a carved chair away from the table and turned it so that he could sit astride it, facing her, his arms folded upon its back.

  “I will tell you,” he said. “I will tell you why that woman has no right to the samovar. She stole it from Anabel Radburn.”

  Tracy waited, suddenly alert and wary.

  Murat studied her reaction as intently as though, without speaking, she might tell him something. “Perhaps I have said this too strongly. It was your sister who first found the samovar, dusty and unnoticed in a shop in the bazaar. From the first it seemed to speak to her. There were times when one suspected that she had some sixth sense few others possess. She managed to unearth the samovar’s story and it enchanted her. At once she wanted Miles to buy it for her. The shopkeeper recognized tardily that he had a treasure in his hands and asked a fantastic price. Radburn did not care for the thing or its history, and he would not pay the price or bargain with the man. He did not want to encourage such whimsies in his wife. He said she could not have it—though she nearly broke her heart over the denial. Some months later it disappeared from view in the shop, and Anabel was forced to stop going to Istanbul to visit it. She had made a habit of this. We knew of it, though she did not tell her husband.”

  Murat’s hands sought for a cigarette and lighted it. “You do not smoke? Good. Turkish women, like Turkish men, smoke too much today. Nursel—and Sylvana as well. I prefer a woman who does not smoke. But to return to the samovar. Anabel stopped begging for it, and there was peace again during the few days before her death. Only recently I learned that Sylvana had gone to Istanbul and made a payment on the samovar, knowing well that Anabel had set her heart upon it. She left it hidden at the back of the shop until she could bring it home without offending Mrs. Radburn.

  “After your sister’s death, she hesitated to produce it immediately and remind Miles of the unhappy quarreling over it. But now she has come into the open and has it for herself. Not that she truly appreciates it as a work of art. She is simply one to covet what others value.”

  So Nursel had not understood her brother’s attitude about the samovar, Tracy thought. She had believed he would envy Sylvana for possessing it.

  “I do not like to see that evil object come to my father’s house,” Murat went on darkly. “Though perhaps it was ordained from the first to be brought here.”

  “Do you believe that?” Tracy asked.

  He smiled a little tightly. “I am a Turk as well as a scientist. We are an emotional people, Miss Hubbard. Outwardly we may at times seem stolid and reserved. We are not explosive and given to expressing our slightest feelings without inhibition, as are the Greeks who live among us. But we have existed with the idea of Kismet too long not to have a certain fatalistic cast to our thinking. It is perhaps a thing that holds some of our people back from making faster progress. Though I believe we learn to do for ourselves today and do not always wait for God to act. Perhaps there is something I can do about this samovar.”

  “So it won’t cast its evil eye upon this house?” Tracy asked dryly.

  He shook his head. “You are making fun. It is clear that you are not at all like Anabel. She had great belief in evil as an entity in itself.”

  “I think she believed in goodness too,” Tracy said quickly. “She loved to give happiness to those around her. When she was young there was always gaiety and happiness wherever Anabel was. She believed that happiness was something she could hold in her hand, and she was always reaching for it.”

  “Yet in the end she opened her fingers and let it slip away,” Murat said.

  Tracy wanted the discussion to go no further. It was time to push her reason for this interview, to extract from him the promise she needed.

  “As I’ve said, I’m here tonight to ask you not to tell Mr. Radburn who I am. At least not right away.”

  “I have no liking for Radburn,” Murat said. “I do not care whether he knows about this or not. Except that he is still a guest in this house and that even an unwilling host has certain obligations. Perhaps you will tell me now why you have come to Istanbul under a pretense and still do not wish this man to know your identity.”

  She tried very hard to sound convincing. “It’s just that I’d rather tell him myself. But not right away. If I can get into this work a little more deeply first, then perhaps he will let me stay.”

  “Why are you so determined to stay?”

  “Because I have a job to do,” Tracy told him, aware that she had begun to sound a little dogged.

  “I see. We travel in circles and again you do not wish to tell me the truth. Perhaps it is none of my affair. No matter—I have something for you.” He went to the cabinet where the remainder of his collection was displayed and took something from it, brought it to Tracy. The object was a small, tightly corked glass vial filled with a pale liquid.

  “It is perfume,” Murat said. “You may open it if you like.”

  She twisted the cork from the neck of the bottle and sniffed the light fragrance. It had a touch of sweetness without being cloying, and there was a woodsy scent to it that reminded one of some cool, mossy place where ferns might grow, warmed indirectly by the sun.

  “This was Anabel’s formula,” Murat said. “She told me the recipe. There is oak moss in the base, a touch of ylang-ylang, and other ingredients as well. Your sister was fascinated by Sylvana’s work with perfumes, but my sister-in-law would not trouble to teach
her anything after a first attempt. Anabel’s hands moved too swiftly, with too great carelessness, so that she broke some of Sylvana’s equipment. After that, only Nursel would trouble to teach her. In a sense it was a game Anabel played, though she had some talent for it, I think. To encourage her I ordered from her an essence—for a lady whom I described to her. That small bottle of scent was the result. You may keep it, if you like. The lady was imaginary, based perhaps on Anabel herself.”

  Though Tracy had refixed the cork, a hint of delicate fragrance lingered on the air. It was as light and gay as Anabel herself had once been and she found it hard to swallow past the lump in her throat. The man was watching her with his air of gentle sadness, and she was suddenly aware of a possible significance behind everything he had said and done in this room tonight.

  “You were fond of my sister, weren’t you?” she said in wonderment.

  At once the gentleness was gone and the sadness with it. He was on guard against her, alert and ready to deny.

  She spoke again, quickly, as she stood up. “I’m glad to have this. Thank you for it. Will you at least let me tell Mr. Radburn who I am in my own way? If you will, I’ll waste no more of your time.”

  “Very well,” he agreed, still watchful. “It shall be as you wish.”

  He came with her to the door, but when they reached it, he did not open it for her, but paused with his hand on the knob.

  “Before you leave,” he said, “perhaps you will tell me why you were eager to choose the black amber tespih yesterday, and then deliberately discarded it.”

  He saw too much. He sensed too much. Now she could see what had been done to her. Murat had calmed her, appeared to sympathize, complimented and advised her—and then he had struck home to the heart of the thing he wanted to know.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she managed. “I don’t especially care for black jet—why would I choose it?”

  “Yet you wanted that tespih. I saw the wish in your eyes and it made me curious.”