“Good for him. Wouldn’t it be as well if we had a look at this Kaka thing though—just to see that it is—what we want?”
“Yes—here it is.” Tyndall-Williams drew the small packet from his pocket, tore off the paper, and displayed a gold rimmed locket. Under the glass lay a pentagonal wafer.
Swithin gave it one glance and nodded. “That’s it all right. With that inscription in the middle—Kemal will have enough proof to hang the people who signed it—in the five corners—a dozen times over.”
“It is a pity it is too late to send it to-night but he or Ismet will have it by breakfast time to-morrow. I’ve made all the necessary arrangements.” As Tyndall-Williams thrust the locket back in his pocket he added: “Feeling fit enough to walk upstairs now?”
“Yes—I’ll manage.” Swithin took a firm grip of the banisters.
“Good! Then I’ll attend to this at once. You know where my room is. Lie down there for a bit. H.E. dines at half-past eight. He told me that if you turned up I was to give you his compliments and express the hope that you would join him.”
Swithin grinned. “Really! That was nice of him, but it sounds terribly like getting out the village band—to welcome home the conquering hero. Fortunately I have an easy let out—no evening clothes.”
“I think I can manage to fix you up.”
“Thanks awfully—but I’ve ruined one suit of yours already. Look—it’s in a filthy state.”
“Nonsense,” smiled the diplomat. “It only needs cleaning and pressing.”
“But honestly,” Swithin hesitated. “I’d rather not dine with His Excellency. Would you mind very much making my excuses and saying that I’m all in.”
“Oh, if you wish. I shall be very happy to take Diana in to dinner myself.”
“Eh!” Swithin exclaimed. “That’s another matter. Where is she? I’d like to see her now for a moment—before I go up.”
“Well, you can’t unless you are prepared to appear in Lady Cavendish’s drawing-room in your present state. She has some friends here this afternoon between six and eight for a little music, and naturally Diana is with her. Far better save your thunder until after you’ve had a bath and change.”
“In that case you’re dead right. You might let Diana know that I’m here though.”
“I will. Now be a good chap and go and get some of that muck off yourself. You’ve got an hour before you need think of changing. Take it easy while I deal with this Kaka thing, and I’ll come up to you later.”
“Thanks—thanks awfully,” Swithin muttered and turning away he slowly climbed the stairs.
For a long time he lay easing the strain of his aching limbs in the comfort of a hot bath and deriving infinite pleasure in the knowledge that he had succeeded in his mission. Succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, for he had actually secured incontestable evidence of treason against the five leaders of the Kaka.
It now remained to be seen what use Kemal would make of it—and if he would be able to act in time to prevent the Revolution. Swithin doubted if he would. The arms were to be distributed that night, so even if the Kaka leaders were arrested some time next day, final orders for the rising would probably have gone out by then and it would take place as planned at midnight.
It looked as if they were in for exciting times during the next few days, but Swithin knew that he had played his part and Diana, bless her, was safe in the Embassy. They could only be onlookers now, while the fate of Turkey hung in the balance.
Tyndall-Williams arrived with the Naval Attaché, a man whose shorter stature more closely resembled Swithin’s, and between them they fitted him out with evening clothes. Though still a little bruised when he went down the broad heavily carpeted staircase at twenty past eight he was feeling absolutely on the top of the world.
At that moment precisely Tania Vorontzoff was descending the steep wooden boxlike stairs of her back street apartment. A bell pealed when she was half-way down and, opening the door at the bottom, she found her visitor to be the Eunuch.
“I wish to speak with you—go up,” he said curtly.
She turned and reascended the stairs, with him labouring up behind her. In the small sitting-room the old Baroness rose stiffly to her feet at the sight of Kazdim.
“Greetings, Effendi,” she smirked. “We are honoured by your visit.”
“Would you leave us Mother,” Tania said quickly. “We wish to talk business and I am already late for my appointment.”
“No—it is not necessary.” The Eunuch looked old, tired and evil tempered as he sank heavily into the only armchair. “It is as well on this occasion that your mother should hear my words. I thought that you always spent the evening with her. Why to-night, are you going out so early?”
“It is an exception.” She faltered, already apprehensive at this unexpected visit. “This is my last opportunity to see Mr. Carew. He leaves to-morrow afternoon for England, and we had arranged to meet at the usual time, but he came into the Pera just before I left and said that he had received fresh instructions. First he will make the trip to Angora and back by aeroplane—departing from Istanbul at five o’clock in the morning. He must have a few hours’ sleep before he sets out so he begged me to meet him at half-past eight instead of half-past eleven.”
“And so I am to be left alone,” muttered the Baroness peevishly.
“Oh, mother—just for once …” Tania began, but the Eunuch cut her short:
“Silence! Quibbling women are as the grating of a pencil on a slate. Tell me now, you have a fondness for this young man—have you not?”
Tania turned her glance from the little black eyes in his great puffy face. “Why should you think that?” she answered guardedly, filled with instinctive dread now that he displayed this interest in her relations with Peter.
“Have you or have you not?” he piped. “I am in no mood this evening for jesting or delays. Speak, and speak quickly.”
“I prefer his company to that of most men whom you order me to keep in touch with.”
Kazdim nodded his bald head and his many chins rippled down towards his chest. “I thought as much. This man Carew has now been four days in Istanbul. You supped with him on Tuesday and on Wednesday night, and in neither case were you home before three in the morning. Yesterday, Thursday, was your half-day off. You left your stall just after midday and spent seventeen hours alone in his company—returning here only with the dawn. You could not have acted so from professional interest alone.”
He paused, puffed at his cigarette for a moment, and continued slowly, “It matters to me not at all if it amuses you to sleep with him or another.…”
“We drove out to the forest of Belgrade,” she interrupted quickly, “dined there, walked in the woods for hours afterwards, and returned to watch the sun rise over the Bosphorus.”
“That you are a prude and he is a fool who chooses to miss his opportunities interests me even less.” Kazdim shrugged. “My point is that should you allow sentiment to interfere with the execution of the orders I am about to give—you will have cause to regret it all the days of your life.”
“What are your orders?” Tania asked nervously.
“Listen.” He hunched his great bulk and sat forward. “The man Destime, may Eblis gnaw out his bowels, has been the cause of far greater trouble than I anticipated. With the aid of one whom you do not know he has stolen a golden locket from a very high personage. That locket contains a paper of extreme importance. Destime succeeded in delivering it to the British Embassy less than two hours ago. They intend to transmit it to Angora at the earliest possible moment but any ‘plane that set out so late this evening would have been overtaken by darkness in the mountains so—by the mercy of Allah—it is not to be sent off till dawn to-morrow.”
He paused again, crushed out his cigarette and lit another, then went on with cold deliberation: “This packet is only a small thing but, should it reach Angora, incalculable harm will follow. It must be got back therefore and restored
to its owner—the high personage of whom I speak. I have sworn by the blood of the Prophet that this shall be done. The young man Carew is to take it. I care not if you love him or no. You will get it from him for me to-night.”
The blood drained from Tania’s face. This was infinitely worse than anything she had imagined. “But—but perhaps he will not have it on him,” she stammered.
“He will,” the Eunuch snapped. “My people are everywhere—even among the servants in the Embassy. If he were sleeping there it would not have been given to him before morning, or at least until his return to-night, but he sleeps at the Pera and will have to be up by four o’clock so the first secretary—whose wits Allah must have been graciously pleased to fuddle—handed it to him in a sealed envelope within half an hour of Destime’s arrival with it.”
“Suppose—I am unable to get hold of it,” Tania faltered.
“It is for that reason I wished your mother to be present at our conversation. If you fail she will know who is to blame when I refuse to renew your permit to remain in Turkey, and you are both sent back to Russia as renegade aristocrats for the Bolsheviks to deal with.”
“Oh, Effendi—Effendi, you would not do that,” the Baroness quavered.
“Peace, woman,” he squeaked angrily. “I will do that and more. You shall go to Russia alone so your daughter’s fine eyes will not be there to make a special pleading for you with the Kommisars, and I will send her to Bitlis as a plaything for a Kurdish chieftain of my acquaintance. A man whose only pleasure is to inflict pain upon soft bodies. She will have aged thirty years by the time she has been his mistress for six months.”
Madam Vorontzoff began to wring her hands together and the easy tears trickled down her reddish face. “Tania!” she moaned. “Oh, Tania!”
“That is one side to this question,” the Eunuch went on more calmly. “The other is that if you succeed Allah will prompt me to be generous. Your permit shall be made permanent. I will require no further services from you, and even allow you a small pension in lieu of the money which you would have earned. Now choose—for the sands of time run low.”
Tania stood there white to the lips, appalled at the horrible choice which was being thrust upon her. “But if you are mistaken,” she pleaded, fighting off the issue.
“I am not mistaken,” he answered testily. “The man Carew has this small packet on him now, and he would never allow such a thing to go out of his possession. If you fail—you know the penalty, and by so doing you will not protect him, for I shall take other measures.”
“What—what do you mean by that?” she whispered.
“I will have him killed if necessary. But that packet must be in my possession before the morning.”
“Oh, Tania!” wailed the Baroness, “how can you be so heartless as even to hesitate.”
Tania felt as if she were choking, but that threat to kill Peter put an end to her resistance. “All right,” she stammered dully, “I will do my best.”
“That is well,” Kazdim nodded. “And you must return here with it by eleven o’clock.”
“But that is not possible—it is our last night together. Even though he has to leave at five o’clock he will not wish to part from me before midnight at the earliest.”
The Eunuch heaved himself to his feet. “You must make some excuse to get away from him. I can allow you no longer. If you do not return it by eleven other arrangements will have to be made.”
“I can’t,” cried Tania desperately. “He trusts me and—Oh, I love him—I can’t—I can’t.”
The Baroness beat her hands feebly on her knees. “You must Tania—you must. Think what this means to us. I implore you to do as the Effendi bids you.”
“Effendi!” he echoed in his thin falsetto, then he smiled. “I have told you not to address me thus, but there is a rumour that titles are to be revived in Turkey soon. In a few days it may be again permissible for you to call me Effendi or perhaps—even Pasha.”
“Please—I beg you to give me any other work—anything—anything,” pleaded Tania.
Kazdim shook his great head. “No. The stage is set for you alone. I leave you now to the persuasion of your mother. If you succeed—a permit to remain for good, no more such work will be required of you, and a pension; but if you fail me—your mother sets out in a cattle boat alone for Russia to-morrow morning. You shall be sent to the Kurd, and I will kill your lover.” Once more, with that air of terrible finality that Tania knew so well, he slowly crushed out the butt of his cigarette—and left them.
CHAPTER XXIV
WHEN THE HEART IS YOUNG
Peter carew waited impatiently for Tania in the lounge of the Pera. He was utterly miserable at the thought that he must leave Constantinople to return to England next day and furious that, at the last moment, the Embassy should have foisted on him the job of doing a five hundred mile ‘plane journey to Angora and back, before he collected his bags and caught the express for home.
The aerodrome at San Stefano was on the far side of Stamboul, a good twelve miles away, and he had been told that the pilot who was to take him to Angora had orders to start at the crack of dawn. That meant he would have to leave the Pera by four o’clock at the latest, and so had put paid to his plan of making a last night of it with Tania.
If there had been some prospect of sleeping in the ‘plane he would have cut out any idea of going to bed at all, but he knew that sleep would be impossible while flying over the mountainous country in Asia Minor which is full of air pockets; and as he had made do with less than half his usual allowance of sleep ever since he arrived in Constantinople he felt that he definitely must get a few hours before he started out on his journey.
He glanced at the clock. It was a quarter to nine already and, when Tania had left her bookstall at eight, she had promised to go straight home, arrange things with her mother and return by half-past. He wondered angrily what could have kept her. Every moment of this last night was precious, it was appalling to see it ticking away, slowly but inexorably, like this.
She had been sweet about it when he told her of his ill luck, and agreed to desert her invalid mother for the evening in order to meet him there hours earlier—and thus enable him to get to bed by one—although he doubted whether, when it came to the pinch, he would not keep her with him until the very last moment before leaving for the airport, however ghastly he might feel next day.
How he hated the thought of leaving Constantinople. This fairy city of golden sunsets, blue waters, white mosques, great curving arches, and dark mysterious alleyways. When, if ever, would he return to these scented gardens lined with their tall cypresses, see again the caïques on the sparkling waters of the Golden Horn, or smell the strong spicy Eastern perfume that emanated from the narrow, old fashioned shops.
The thought that he had only been living there for four days seemed fantastic, utterly absurd. He felt that he had known it all his days, or lived before in some somnolent chrysalis state, waiting to burst his cocoon and wake to glorious life in this city of romance.
‘Tania—Tania—Tania,’ he murmured the name over and over again to himself. ‘God, how sweet she was. How utterly desirable. The embodied essence of this place of dreams.’ And now he had to say good-bye to her.
After their first evening together, at the Grandpère, he had met her for lunch the next day, and had it out with her, demanding to know the limit of her duties in that questionable resort. It was an impertinence upon so short an acquaintance, as he realised afterwards, but he was determined to know the truth or see no more of her and he was so earnest when he spoke of it that she did not resent his questioning. She could not tell him that owing to her Secret Service work the Eunuch’s protection enabled her to cold shoulder patrons of the place, without offending the management, when they became too pressing, but satisfied him by pointing out that if she were prepared to be any man’s mistress there were plenty of people in Istanbul who would be only too pleased to give her a comfortable flat, excell
ent clothes, and a reasonable income upon which to support her mother; in which case it would be quite unnecessary for her to continue her long hours at the bookstall or nightly excursions to the Grandpère.
The statement was so logical that it immediately convinced him, and after that he had given a free rein to his first impulse, thinking of her more than ever as some fairy Princess who had been enchained to servitude by some wicked witch’s spell.
Except for the very few hours which he had spent in sleep Tania had never been out of his thoughts, and actually in his company every free moment of her time, since the first day of his arrival. They had supped together again on his second night, at the Tokatlian, danced, laughed, swopped reminiscences, and grown far more intimate. Then his third day had been Tania’s half holiday.
He had hired a car and they had driven out to Floria, the lovely little plage on the Marmara coast below Stamboul. Lunched there in the broiling heat of midday on a shady vine-covered terrace that overlooked the azure sea. Bathed from a secluded beach a mile farther down the coast in the afternoon. Lazed in the sunshine on a deserted silver strand cupped in a little cove, through the hours that followed. Dressed again, driven back through the city and out of it once more to a wayside inn on a cross roads in the Forest of Belgrade. Dined off red caviare from Odessa, salty-sweet fresh caught Marmara lobsters, and luscious Anatolian pears. Then hand in hand they had strolled through the moonlit woods behind the inn, found a mossy bank and lain down upon it; kissed and fallen silent, then kissed and kissed and kissed again, while the short warm summer night folded them in its scented cloak and the hours crept slowly by. Until the coming of the faint grey light they had lain embraced, the world forgotten and only glorying in their nearness to each other, so that it seemed a sacrilege ever to leave that place of joy, yet abandoning it at last to return to Pera in time to see the gorgeous colouring gild the sky as a new day came up over sleeping Istanbul out of the far hills of Asia.
The Eunuch of Stamboul Page 29