“Good Lord no!” Swithin hastened to assure him. “I’m only an old-fashioned soldier but I should like to see the Acropolis and all the rest of it just the same.”
“Would you.” Lord Malvern pulled nervously at his little fair moustache. “I’m afraid I don’t care much for ruins and I loathe the hordes of tourists who’re always swarming over them so I shall probably give it a miss.”
There was another brief, rather awkward, silence then they both turned simultaneously away from Swithin and the young man asked the girl “Have you had any news of Jeremy lately? The last I heard was that he had tucked up with Georgina Doublethwait and they had gone to earth in a Paris studio. Isn’t it queer how some people still have that ostrich complex?”
Then they entered into a long and involved discussion about Jeremy and Georgina while both ignored Swithin as though he were no longer there. Having listened to them with rising irritation for some moments he swallowed the rest of his Gin Fizz and, seeing that all others were equally engrossed in their respective conversations, left the sun-parlour bar as unostentatiously as he could.
That first encounter with his fellow guests was a foretaste of their attitude towards him throughout the voyage. Their rudeness to him was in no way deliberate, in fact they would certainly have thought that anyone who critisized their manners was only joking. It was simply that they had not time for anybody who was not a member of their set. Their sole topic of conversation consisted of the doings of their intimates. A faintly malicious and never ceasing commentary upon Benjy, Poodle, The Hetman, Wimple, Diddles, The Thug, Letchie and twenty others so that, if, like Swithin, one did not know these minor members of the aristocracy by their curious nicknames one could not contribute to the idle chatter and had, perforce, to stand there dumb.
During the first day out while they cruised quietly past the islands of Hyeres towards Cannes, Swithin hovered on the edge of the party hoping to get Diana to himself if only for a few minutes; but he was unsuccessful, and equally so the second day when the yacht swung lazily at anchor off Nice. He simply could not draw her from the company of those destested friends whose atmosphere she seemed to have assimilated like a protective wall and, if she was not with the crowd the immaculate Cæsar Penton was always at her side or else she was playing chess with Waldo Nauenheimer.
By the third day, when they had turned south towards Corsica, he was in such a state of irritation with his fellow guests that he was itching to insult the men and spank the women, if only to observe their reactions to assault, and in the days that followed he would certainly have done something desperate if he had not constantly reminded himself that he was a guest himself and also Sir George’s paid employee.
In the banker’s society he found some consolation, for Sir George allotted an hour or two each evening to giving him extremely informative talks on Turkey, its people, their outlook, religion, trades, and the policy of the present Government. For the rest of the day however the banker was rarely visible. He even had his meals served in the private dining cabin of his suite and, shutting himself up in his own quarters, spent hours on end discussing the sheaves of radio messages, which came in constantly, with the secretary or dictating seemingly endless documents to his stenographer.
The afternoons Swithin spent with the Turkish steward, who had been relieved of certain duties in order to coach him in the new pronunciation of the Turkish language, and the rest of the time he either tried to read or spent in listening to the vapid conversation of the others if Diana were among them, yet he was miserable in her company in such circumstances but equally unhappy out of it.
Sir George was apparently in no hurry to arrive at his destination, for the yacht lingered three days at Ajaccio while the younger people made an excursion up through the wild grandeur of Corsica’s rugged mountains and beautiful chestnut forests to Corté, in the interior.
Swithin did not accompany them although Diana threw him a casual invitation to do so at dinner the night before they started. Since she had changed so utterly, from the delightful girl he had met at Maidenhead to a hardboiled young woman who snubbed his every approach with some caustic witticism, he was not altogether sorry that his talks with Sir George and the necessity of practising his Turkish while he could, detained him on the yacht. He did not care a fig about the rest of the fools who made up the party but her treatment of him rankled badly. It seemed so mean spirited of her, he thought, to take it out of him like this just because he had gone against her wishes in the matter of the job.
After leaving Corsica they proceeded to Palermo and a further four days elapsed during which he saw little of the others since they spent most of their time bathing or dancing in the hotels on shore. Then the yacht weighed anchor again and passing the Straits of Messina entered on the dead run across the Ionian Sea.
By that time Swithin wished that he had been sent to Turkey overland or that the others had remained idling the days away in Palermo. The luxury yacht, the sparkling sea and sun-scorched decks by day, the myriad stars and soft, dark velvet warmness of the nights were all just as he had imagined them in London. The food was excellent, the drinks abundant, the attendance perfect, his cabin all that any lover of comfort could desire, but the constant proximity of these inane loungers who did not even display any interest in hunting or fishing, let alone the wide world and all the multitudinous activities in it, proved a source of continual irritation.
Above all Diana showed no sign of relenting. She and Cæsar Penton had become as thick as thieves by this time. They did not get up till nearly midday, dozed side by side in deck chairs most of the afternoon and apparently spent the best part of each night on deck together. Sir George, immersed in his business, seemed neither to notice nor care how his daughter amused herself and Mrs. Claydonffinch did not even pretend to play the part of chaperone. She had started an affair with Waldo Nauenheimer while her husband, who reminded Swithin of a large sleek ginger cat, had apparently been told off to keep the hawk-nosed Harriet from making trouble.
Swithin thought the young Jew by far the most human member of the party. He was the only one who ever troubled to go out of his way to draw him into a conversation and, although they had little in common, on the few occasions when they chanced to be alone together they found plenty to talk about.
Diana appeared to like Waldo too, since she continued to play chess with him and selected him by preference as her companion on the rare occasions when Cæsar was absent from her side, but between dinner and bedtime she devoted herself entirely to the author.
Night after night she sat with him on a pile of rugs in a secluded corner of the vessel’s stern while Swithin, after ten o’clock each evening, tossed restlessly in his cabin tortured by jealous imaginings to such an extent that he could neither read, study his Turkish, nor get to sleep until the small hours of the morning.
They came to Piræus late in the evening after they had already dined. Swithin was leaning on the rail smoking a cigar and watching the lights of Athens, which twinkled half a dozen miles away above the Port, when Sir George sent for him. They held a final conference which lasted well over an hour and at its conclusion the banker said:
“Call on McAndrew as soon as you arrive. Having lived there as a trader for so many years he is certain to be able to give you some useful tips, and send your reports to my brother, Allen Duncannon’s house at Bebek, by private messenger. They will be forwarded on to me at once. Remember too that you are not to use Tyndall-Williams at the Embassy as a post office except in a case of great emergency.”
“I understand sir,” Swithin smiled quickly, “I’ve got it all docketed in my head.”
The banker nodded and held out his hand. “That’s right my boy. I’ve told the Captain you will want the launch first thing in the morning so I expect you will be off before the rest of us are about. Take your time over your inquiries because if you are once suspected you would immediately be in grave danger and I don’t want you to take any risk that you can possib
ly avoid—Good luck to you.”
“Thanks sir, I promise you I’ll be careful.” Swithin gripped the banker’s hand, smiled again, and left the cabin.
As he packed his gear, all except his night things, he hummed cheerfully to himself, a new mood now upon him. All the bothersome preparations for his mission were over and he would not have to suffer any longer the maddening frustration of having Diana always within hail yet hopelessly inaccessible. To-morrow he would be on the train as it wound its way in and out of the desolate sun-baked gorges up through the mountains into Macedonia. Two days more and he would have begun his task of unravelling the jealously guarded secrets of those strange half Eastern and half Western people—the Turks. If he succeeded he would have opened a new career for himself; Sir George had virtually implied as much on the voyage out, and Swithin had made up his mind that, even if he had to run very serious risks indeed, he would not leave Turkey without the information that the banker wanted.
Now that the yacht was at anchor it was stifling in his cabin, despite the circulators so, before turning in, he went on deck for a last breath of air. The sound of dance music over the wireless came from the after part of the ship and, thinking that he had better make his formal adieus to his fellow guests, he turned in that direction. As he did so two figures emerged from a nearby hatchway and he found himself confronting Diana and Cæsar Penton.
“I was just coming to say good-bye,” he announced.
“Why? Where on earth are you off to at this hour of night?” the author asked.
“I’m going ashore first thing in the morning,” Swithin told him, “and as I have business in Athens which may take me several weeks I don’t suppose we shall see each other again.”
“Run along Cæsar,” Diana said abruptly, “I want to talk to Captain Destime. Order me another Grenadine and I’ll join you again in a few minutes.”
“Oh! all right!—So long Destime—good hunting to you.” Penton turned and strolled away.
“Thanks,” Swithin murmured. Then he stood waiting for Diana to speak, his eyes searching her face in the semi-darkness.
“So you mean to go through with this?” she shot at him suddenly.
“Certainly—why not?”
“Despite the fact that I begged you not to and that you do not even need the money?”
“As it happens I do,” he confessed. “That rich Uncle I told you of is a complete myth and I’ve hardly a bob that I can call my own—so I need it very badly. I’m sorry to have deceived you about that, but it should not be difficult for you to guess why I wanted you to think that I was amply provided for.”
“I see,” she said softly. “You did hint as much but if you had only said so at the time I could easily have persuaded father to find you another job, and I had the strongest reasons for not wishing you to take this one.”
His eyes hardened as he replied swiftly, “Thanks, I prefer to earn my pay, and I’ve had ample evidence on the voyage out regarding your ‘reasons’. Perhaps it will give you a laugh to know that when I first learnt this business might prove dangerous I was fool enough to believe that you wanted me to cut it out because you were concerned for my safety.”
“Well, that was my reason—what other could there be?”
“You’ve made it pretty obvious in the last ten days.”
She shrugged and answered coldly. “I suppose you are annoyed because I have not been able to devote any of my time to you, but I warned you that would be the case before we started. If you have been miserable on the voyage out it is entirely your own fault. You behaved like a bear from the beginning, following me about and staring me out of countenance twenty times a day until I’m tired of the sight of you. Anyhow that does not affect the fact that I tried to stop you going into this business solely because I knew the risks you would have to run.”
“I’m sorry, but I find it difficult to believe that—now.”
“What other motive could I have had?” she demanded angrily.
“No woman likes being told the truth,” he said calmly and Diana could cheerfully have smacked him for the even tone and supercilious smile on his face.
“I do,” she flashed, “if you can tell it!”
He did not appear to hear the taunt; “Very well,” he agreed. “This is the situation as I see it—Every girl likes two strings to her bow but she can only use one at a time—If you had persuaded me not to take this job you could have had your fun with Penton on the trip and kept me dangling on a string in London—I feel I ought to apologise for upsetting your schemes but I assure you …”
“Oh you are intolerable!” she flared.
He laughed a little bitterly. “Well anyway I’ve got the job.”
“Yes you’ve got it, you fool!” she flung at him. “But don’t you realise that you know nothing of this part of the world. You have only visited Constantinople as a tourist. The counter-espionage people will spot you the moment you begin your investigations and knife you—as they did poor Brendon—or else you’ll sit there doing nothing for a couple of months and then come crawling back to father with your tail between your legs to confess your failure. That’s the most likely thing and it may serve to reduce your incredible conceit.”
She turned angrily away and that was the last Swithin saw of her before he left the yacht.
CHAPTER VII
THE CITY OF THE SULTANS
Two days later, in the broiling sunshine of the mid-afternoon, the Orient Express covered the last stage of its journey to Constantinople.
Swithin had joined it that morning at Kuleli Burgas, the junction just south of Adrianople and, as he sat coatless in the corner of his carriage, even the discomfort caused by the heat and dust was not sufficient to prevent him admiring the magnificent approach to the city of the Sultans.
For the last twenty miles the train ran along the shore of Lake Khalkali and then followed the coast line of the Marmara Sea until the great wall, built by the early Byzantine Emperors, appeared in the distance. Its ancient brick, mellowed for centuries by the sun, had faded to a delicate brownish cream and, stretching from the sea upon the right to the far distance on the landward side with great square towers rising from it at every few hundred yards, it stood out clear cut and beautiful against a brassy sky of brilliant blue.
Having passed through the wall, the vista on either hand was suddenly shut out by masses of irregular wooden buildings crowded against each other and so ramshackle in appearance that they looked as if it only needed half a gale of wind to bring the whole lot tumbling to the ground. Men, women and children swarmed among them, wrangling in the narrow courts, stumbling up rickety outside stairways and leaning indolently from countless balconies or the flat roof tops to watch the passing train. Swithin remembered this human rabbit warren from his earlier visits a number of years before; the scene remained much as it had been for centuries, yet somehow it was changed, and in a manner for which he could not, at first, account. Then the explanation flashed upon him. Many of the jalousies behind which the women used to sit had disappeared and given place to open windows, evidently in deference to Mustapha Kemal’s ordinance, and the women themselves were no longer wearing veils.
At the Sirkedji Station the manner of receiving trains remained unaltered. Tall Kavasses, from the hotels, big business houses, and Embassies, dressed in smart uniforms, stood alert but dignified along the platform keeping a look out for the passengers they had been sent to meet while a horde of tattered hamals flung themselves upon the baggage, fighting furiously for every piece as it was handed out from the windows of the train.
Swithin found the Kavass from the Pera Palace and pointed out his pieces. The man escorted him to a waiting car and dealt swiftly with the ruffianly porters who piled his gear on board.
The station being in the old city, Stamboul itself, the street which led from it was of that strange characterless variety only to be found in the East. It was neither a residential, shopping or business thoroughfare, but a mixture of all t
hree. Gaunt, old-fashioned warehouses stood cheek by jowl with modern office blocks, and dilapidated mansions between isolated retailers, where oil or brass or sweetmeats had been dispensed for generations from little dark cavernous shops.
Swithin was struck by the smart new taxis which were speeding through the streets, until he remembered Sir George having told him that at one period Kemal had transported every available cab, however derelict, from Constantinople to his new capital, Angora. Evidently the old metropolis had benefited by the order, some big motor manufacturer having taken advantage of it to equip the city with a brand new fleet.
The sun was sparkling on the waters of the Golden Horn as he crossed it by the Galata Bridge, and that centre of the city’s life was thronged as usual; but it presented a very different aspect to when Swithin had last seen it. Then, every true believer, police, dark-coated business men, and even the ragamuffins of the gutter had worn that emblem of his religion, the fez. Now, they looked queerly unattractive in bowlers or cloth caps. Previously peaked headgear had been the certain sign of the infidel—Jew, Christian, or Greek; the sacred word of the Koran laid it down most clearly as an abomination, yet despite that dread injunction Kemal had ordered and Turkey had obeyed. Many of the women too had abandoned either their brightly coloured ferjis, or dark flowing robes, for western tailor-mades and hats of felt or straw, while all were now unveiled.
Reaching the Pera side of the Bridge the car swiftly mounted the hill, leaving the Street of Steps leading up to the White Tower which dominates the city on the right, and entered the modern European quarter. A few minutes later it drew up outside the Pera Palace Hotel.
To his satisfaction Swithin managed to secure a room on the fourth floor at the back, away from the din of clanging tram bells and motor horns in the busy street, giving him a splendid view over the intervening roof tops which sloped down the hill to the edge of the Golden Horn. That splendid waterway, which has played a part in the history of Constantinople equal to that of the Grand Canal in Venice, showed a wonderful variety of colourful traffic and beyond, above the mass of buildings on the Stamboul shore, rose the domes and minarets of the ancient mosques, like a scene from the Arabian Nights, against the evening sky where the sun was now sinking rapidly to rest.
The Eunuch of Stamboul Page 6