“It’s because Mr. Radburn said my sister loved this place that I’ve come here. It interested me the first time I saw it, and knowing she was fond of it made me want to see it again.”
“And I have disturbed your solitude,” Dr. Erim said regretfully. “But perhaps you will bear with my presence a little longer. Come—let me show you about. Having hurt yourself the other time, you had no opportunity to appreciate this place where a Sultan Valide once lived.”
He held out his hand and she felt compelled to go up the steps and into the house with him. His manner remained formal and stiffly proper, but she knew he was watching her in an oddly intent way—as if he waited for some revelation on her part.
He showed her the safest passage as though he knew the ruins well, and led her from room to room. Here, where plaster crumbled from a wall, there were exquisite mosaics to be seen. Beyond was a door that had been ornately carved, and in another room portions of the elaborate ceiling with its diamond-shaped sections could still be seen. All the while Dr. Erim spoke in his low, cultured voice, as though he were a curator of art conducting a visitor upon the rounds of a museum. Tracy went with him, trying to respond with suitable sounds, but finding little to say.
When she had seen all of the musty, crumbling first floor of the place, they returned to the main salon and stood where the floor was least damaged, watching the Bosporus flow by outside arched windows.
“They say it was in this very room that the Sultan Valide was stabbed,” Dr. Erim said gently.
There had been enough of this hinting, Tracy decided, this queer creeping about through an old ruin, as if something dramatic were about to happen at any moment. Or as if they waited for a ghost to appear. She did not like it. She’d had enough.
“I’m not a bit like Anabel,” she told him, forcing a light tone. “I’m not romantically enchanted just because this was once a palace. Nor am I frightened because a murder was committed here.”
“You do not believe that the past, when it has been bloody, may lay a hand upon the present?”
“Only so far as the present grows out of the past,” said Tracy.
“Ah—but that is the important thing, of course. There is still a present in this place, even though it belongs to the past.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Tracy said.
He discarded his gentle manner and turned so that his back was toward the light that fell through arched and empty windows. She could no longer see his dark, sensitive face, but there was something faintly menacing about the vigilance of his poised body, as though his very stillness was a threat.
“Where do you think she hid whatever it was she had to hide?” he demanded. “In this very place, perhaps? I have often thought so, but, though I have searched many times, the house does not give up its secret.”
Tracy stared at him and the skin crept a little at the back of her neck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she repeated.
“I think you know,” he said. “You know or you would not have been so interested in the black amber tespih. There is significance in your interest—of that I am sure. But the beads would do you no good—is that not so? Because they are not the same ones your sister Anabel took. A few things were recovered, but neither that nor any of the other things she stole were found among her possessions afterward. Although we searched for them carefully.”
“Anabel—stole?” The words came out in a whisper.
“I am sorry to say this is true. We would have given her what she liked—but no, she must slip about the house at night and take first this small thing, then that. Several articles from among those Sylvana was shipping abroad were taken. Nothing of great value, but important to Sylvana since she meant to sell them abroad and get money for her villagers. It was a sad thing to behold, this sickness of your sister’s—this taking of that which did not belong to her. I myself remonstrated with her, but to no effect. Indeed, she laughed at me, as she sometimes laughed at all of us.” His face darkened at the memory. Murat Erim did not care to be laughed at.
Tracy wanted to say that she did not believe a word of this. That Anabel was no thief. That she would never have been guilty of pilfering. But the truth was that she did not know her sister well enough to champion her blindly. Behind heavy white lids that green gaze had peered out at the world, never telling all, preserving Anabel’s secrets. It was even possible that Murat Erim was telling the truth.
“I don’t know anything about this,” Tracy managed. “It’s hard to believe that Anabel—”
“She was very beautiful.” Murat’s tone was sorrowing. “But she was also, I think, dedicated to evil. Perhaps without being wholly aware of the fact. Perhaps that is why she had an affinity for this place, with its tragic, evil history. It is perhaps why she wanted to possess the samovar for herself.”
This time Tracy responded with angry indignation. “I’ve never heard anything so silly in my life! I knew Anabel. She did foolish things sometimes, but she was a warm, loving, generous person. There was nothing evil about her.”
Murat moved toward the window and light touched his face, glinted in his eyes.
“You do not believe then, that just as a person may be, without knowing it, a carrier of some certain disease, another may be a carrier of evil? Not being evil in themselves, perhaps, but bringing evil to others?”
His voice, so quietly persuasive, held her arrested, frozen, as though in this place, in the crumbling ruins of this palace on the Bosporus, such things might be true and believed in. But the good sense that was so strongly a part of her nature rejected the fancy.
“I don’t believe anything of the sort,” she said with conviction. “What did Miles do about—about what you claim was stealing? I suppose he knew?”
Murat Erim made a gesture that was wholly of the East, fatalistic—a movement of his head and hands and shoulders that said many things: Who knows? What is one to believe? What can one do?
“But didn’t he do anything?” Tracy persisted. “Didn’t he try to stop her?”
“She would deny everything,” Murat said. “And Sylvana did not wish to worry him. She felt she could handle this matter herself.”
Tracy stood in stricken silence, staring out across the Bosporus, where the sun dipped toward the hills of Thrace. Along the broken floor at her feet, the arched shadows were many and long. Because she was so still, the small sound came to her clearly—a skittering in the rubble of the next room.
Murat turned at once toward the sound—so faint, so slight. Perhaps only a mouse in rotting woodwork, or a small garden snake wriggling away. Then there was a faint mew and through a shadowy doorway stepped Anabel’s white cat. Yasemin paused on the sill and regarded them without surprise, her green gaze unblinking. Murat Erim moved first. He picked up a bit of broken masonry from the floor and flung it with violence at the cat. So quickly did he move that Tracy could only watch in shocked silence. She fully expected the animal to be injured with the force of the blow, but the cat was quicker than the man. Yasemin sprang away and hid herself in a broken place in the floor, looking out at them with only her nose showing and her great green eyes, her ears laid back warily.
“Don’t hurt her!” Tracy cried. “Why did you do that?”
She ran toward the cat to lift it from the cavity in the floor and keep it safe, as she had done the time Miles had tried to cuff it. But Yasemin spat at her and leaped away, this time vanishing through the door to lose herself in the weed-grown garden.
Tracy turned indignantly, to find that the man was smiling at her in his enigmatic way.
“Often Anabel used to bring the cat with her when she visited this place,” he said. “Since she is gone, the animal has made the ruin its lair. There is good hunting here. But how strange, since you are Anabel’s sister, that the cat does not like you, does not trust you.”
“I don’t suppose she knows who I am,” said Tracy, tartly amused. “Sometimes she likes me. She’s been frightened by too many peopl
e. She doesn’t trust anyone now.”
“Perhaps she thinks you will betray her.” He spoke softly, almost as if he did not want the white cat to hear, yet as if he mocked at himself the while. “You know the legend of this cat, do you not?”
“I know Anabel made a pet of it,” Tracy said. “And I don’t understand how grown men like you and Miles can be so cruel.”
“Then you do not know. Come—we will start home, and I will tell you on the way.”
The place held nothing for her now. It would reveal nothing until she came here alone. She let him lead her from the house and out of the garden.
When they were on the road, he told her the story and she listened to him with an increasing disquiet that she could not stem.
“Anabel made much of this small cat. Again and again she told us mockingly that if anything ever happened to her she would return and inhabit that small white body. She would look at us out of those green cat’s eyes. And then we would be sorry for whatever we had done to her. We would be afraid—and with justification. She could be extremely annoying with this game of hers, this foreboding of trouble to come.”
“She didn’t want to die,” Tracy said out of the chill that held her.
“She did not need to die,” said Murat, his tone suddenly harsh. “If she had listened to reason …” He broke off and when he spoke again there was sarcasm in his words. “You do not believe in this story of the cat?”
“Of course I don’t believe it. And surely you don’t either?”
“Sometimes I do not know exactly what I believe. But I think it is not this. I dislike the animal and I would like to see it gone.”
“Why did my sister have this foreboding that something might happen to her?” Tracy asked.
The man beside her stiffened. “It is to be remembered that she died by her own will.”
“So I understand,” Tracy said. “But if that’s true, what drove her to it? You’ve just said she did not need to die.”
He walked beside her with his head averted. “Perhaps it is Mr. Radburn who can tell you why she died. Why do you not go to him with your questions?”
“I mean to,” Tracy said. “That’s why I’ve come to Istanbul—to find the truth behind my sister’s death.”
“So? It is as I thought. But let me tell you this one thing, Miss Hubbard. Whatever you find, there will be no scandal, no smirching of the good reputation of my family. If you understand this, there will be little trouble for the remainder of your stay. If you do not—” He flicked a finger in the air and left the words unspoken.
They had reached the gate and he opened it and allowed her to go through. “I will leave you now,” he said, and went off through the grounds in an opposite direction from the house.
Tracy hurried to the yali and went inside. Downstairs there seemed no one about to notice her return. When she reached the third floor she saw that Miles was at his desk. He looked up and called to her without questioning her absence.
“Will you do an errand for me?” He held out the strip of paper on which he had done the decorative calligraphy. “I’ve finished this. Will you give it to Mrs. Erim, please?”
She took the paper and stood for a moment studying it, wondering if she should tell him about her encounter with Murat in the ruined palace. But to tell him would be to betray her own special interest in the place, and this she was not willing to do.
She left him and went by means of the second-floor passage to the kiosk. On the way she stopped again to admire the handsome piece Miles had done. Though the curves and arabesques had no meaning for her, the strip fascinated her and she could imagine how well it would look framed and hung upon a wall. No wonder the Turks had used their script as a form of art, since the painting of men and animals was forbidden them.
In the other house she found the same state of lively confusion she had encountered on her first meeting with Sylvana. Villagers were here again, presenting their craftwork to Mrs. Erim’s critical eye. Apparently a different group came every week, bringing her their wares.
Once more Ahmet hovered in the background, quietly watchful and in control of the visitors. Nursel was there too, her eyes bright with interest, her hands respectful as she handled the lovely things. The great samovar had been removed from Sylvana’s elbow and stood regally in its place of honor on a carved table, reflecting the whole colorful, excited scene in its coppery tones.
Nursel dangled a pair of silver filigree bracelets at Tracy. “Are they not lovely? This is some of the best work I have seen. Sylvana has done well to encourage these people, scold them a little, and insist upon the best. She will not allow them to fold their hands and wait for Kismet.”
Mrs. Erim paid no attention to Nursel’s words as she discussed business matters in Turkish with a headman from the village. When Tracy gave her the strip of calligraphy, she broke off to study it.
“Ah, but this is excellent! The finest work Mr. Radburn has done.” She held it up for the men to see, and they exclaimed in admiration of an ancient art, though undoubtedly few could read the script.
She set it beside her on the divan and spoke to Tracy. “Perhaps tomorrow Mr. Radburn will lend you to us. We will need every hand possible to assist us in the packing and wrapping of these articles. Now I have enough for shipment to America. Everything will be carried over to the second-floor salon in the yali and if the day is not too cold we will work there. I do not like clutter about me here.”
“I’ll be glad to help, if it’s all right with Mr. Radburn,” Tracy promised.
She stayed long enough to look at a few of the articles and listened to the arguing and declaiming. All Turks loved to talk, it appeared, and part of their pleasure in this event lay in the discussions that went on between the men and Sylvana.
When Tracy left she returned to her room. The door stood ajar and when she went in she found Yasemin asleep on the bed. Lying beside the cat was one of the Turkish books Tracy had been reading.
The circumstance was mildly puzzling. She always closed her door when she went out, though she did not lock it. And she was sure she had left the book on the table with a marker in it. Since Yasemin, for all the whimsical faculties Murat Erim might attribute to her, could not open doors or read books, it was clear that someone had been in the room. Perhaps only Halide.
As she reached for the book, she saw that something bulky lay between the pages. When she flipped it open she found that a black amber tespih marked the place. The sight was utterly chilling, bringing with it the memory of Anabel’s words on the telephone: “It’s the black amber again! It turned up yesterday.”
Tracy stared at the place the beads had marked and saw that someone had underlined a passage in ink. Since it was a passage she had read before, the marking was new. Meaning sprang out at her from the page and she began to read the flowery paragraph again, word by word.
The Bosporus has always been a receptacle for ugly secrets. A head floating downstream in a basket, or bodies of those whom a sultan might fear rumbling in its waters. Perhaps a harem beauty neatly tied in her sack and flung into the shallows off Seraglio Point, to stare with sightless eyes at the wickedness men have for so long hidden beneath the innocent blue surface. Beautiful and treacherous, this is a watercourse to give one pause. Is it to be trusted today any more than it was in the past? To which of us does it still promise an evil retribution?
That was all. The single gruesome paragraph had been marked and left for her to read. Marked by the string of black amber beads. She examined the strand briefly, but it told her no more than the black tespih in Murat’s collection had done. She did not expect it to. An inkling of the use made of the beads with Anabel was dawning in her mind. This was the “poltergeist” again, intending to tease and torment and frighten. Black amber, it appeared, was being used as a warning.
She took the cat into her lap and sat in a chair. Yasemin yawned with wide pink mouth, rubbed her head against Tracy’s arm, and went to sleep again, purring softly.<
br />
Who in this household would do such a thing as this? Was Anabel’s sister indeed too close to the brink of discovery for comfort? Perhaps Tracy Hubbard was more feared than she had suspected.
She whispered into one white ear of the cat, “I won’t go home!” If she was as close as this, she would stay and find out what it was that someone wanted so terribly to conceal.
But though her words sounded brave enough, the sense of an evil that was all too imminent had settled upon the room. This was more than mischief. She found herself recalling Murat Erim’s words. Was it possible, as he claimed, that the past could lay a continuing hand upon one’s physical surroundings? That past tragedy could mark the present with an extra dimension, sensed if not seen? There must have been times when. Anabel sat in this very room, frightened and tormented by such tricks. So tormented, perhaps, that she was driven at last to her death in Bosporus waters.
“They won’t do that to me!” Tracy whispered fiercely to Yasemin. She would stand up to them. She would beat them at their own game! Whatever had been done to Anabel would not succeed with Anabel’s sister.
13
That night Nursel and Tracy dined alone in the yali. Dr. Erim had received a sudden call from Istanbul and had gone there to spend the night. Miles was dining in the kiosk at Sylvana’s invitation.
Tracy considered bringing the Turkish book to the table to show the underlined passage to Nursel, but it was better to trust no one, to be suspicious of everyone. The trickster might be more concerned if she carried this off by saying nothing. She would not even tell Miles Radburn what had happened.
She did, however, tell Nursel about having tea with Miles across the Bosporus—something Nursel already knew from the well-informed Sylvana. And about what Miles had said concerning Anabel and the ruins of the old palace.
“Did she really like to go there?” Tracy asked.
“This is true,” Nursel agreed. “It is of course a conveniently lonely place. Always Anabel loved to be alone, except for the white cat which was often in her company. In the last months she did not enjoy being with her husband. This I understood later when we learned the terrible thing he was doing to her.”
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