by Eric Ambler
The villas of the Bosphorus vary from small waterfront holiday places, with window boxes and little boathouses, to things like palaces. Quite of lot of them were palaces once; and before the capital was moved from Istanbul to Ankara the diplomatic corps used to have summer embassy buildings out along the Bosphorus, where there are cool Black Sea breezes even when the city is sweltering. The Kosk Sardunya looked as if it had started out in some such way.
The entrance to the drive was flanked by huge stone pillars with wrought-iron gates. The drive itself was several hundred yards long and wound up the hillside through an avenue of big trees which also served to screen the place from the road below. Finally, it left the trees and swept into the gravel courtyard in front of the villa.
It was one of those white stucco wedding-cake buildings of the kind you see in the older parts of Nice and Monte Carlo. Some French or Italian architect must have been imported around the turn of the century to do the job. It had everything-a terrace with pillars and balustrades, balconies, marble steps up to the front portico, a fountain in the courtyard, statuary, a wonderful view out over the Bosphorus-and it was huge. It was also run down. The stucco was peeling in places and some of the cornice moldings had crumbled or broken away. The fountain basin had no water in it. The courtyard was fringed with weeds.
As I drove in, I saw Fischer get up from a chair on the terrace and go through a french window into the house. So I just pulled up at the foot of the marble steps and waited. After a moment or two, Harper appeared under the portico and I got out of the car. He came down the steps.
“What took you so long?”
“They had to make out a bill at the garage, and then there was the evening traffic.”
“Well…” He broke off as he noticed me looking past him and over his shoulder.
A woman was coming down the steps.
He smiled slightly. “Ah yes. I was forgetting. You haven’t met your employer. Honey, this is Arthur Simpson. Arthur, this is Miss Lipp.”
5
Some men can make a good guess at a woman’s age just by looking at her face and figure. I never can. I think that this may be because, in spite of Mum, I fundamentally respect women. Yes, it must be that. If she is very attractive, but obviously not a young girl, I always think of twenty-eight. If she has let herself go a bit, but is obviously not elderly, I think of forty-five. For some reason I never think of any ages in between those-or outside them, for that matter-except my own, that is.
Miss Lipp made me think of twenty-eight. In fact she was thirty-six; but I only found that out later. She looked twenty-eight to me. She was tall with short brownish-blond hair, and the kind of figure that you have to notice, no matter what dress covers it. She also had the sort of eyes, insolent, sleepy, and amused, and the full good-humored mouth which tell you that she knows you can’t help watching the way her body moves, and that she doesn’t give a damn whether you do so or not; watching is not going to get you anywhere anyway. She wasn’t wearing a dress that first time; just white slacks and sandals, and a loose white shirt. Her complexion was golden brown and the only make-up she was wearing was lipstick. Obviously, she had just bathed and changed.
She nodded to me. “Hullo. No trouble with the car?” She had the same combination of accents as Harper.
“No, madam.”
“That’s good.” She did not seem surprised.
Fischer was coming down the steps behind her. Harper glanced at him.
“Okay, Hans, you’d better run Arthur into Sariyer.” To me he said: “You can take the ferryboat back to town. Are the carnet and Green Card in the glove compartment?”
“Of course not. They are in the hotel safe.”
“I told you to put them in the glove compartment,” said Fischer angrily.
I kept my eyes on Harper. “ You didn’t tell me,” I said; “and you didn’t tell me to take orders from your servant.”
Fischer swore angrily in German, and Miss Lipp burst out laughing.
“But isn’t he a servant?” I asked blandly; “he behaved like one, though not a very good one, perhaps.”
Harper raised a repressive hand. “Okay, Arthur, you can cut that out. Mr. Fischer is a guest here and he only meant to be helpful. I’ll arrange to have the documents picked up from you tomorrow before you leave. You’ll get paid off when you hand them over.”
My stomach heaved. “But I understood, sir, that I was to act as Miss Lipp’s driver while she is in Turkey.”
“That’s okay, Arthur. I’ll hire someone locally.”
“I can drive the car,” said Fischer impatiently.
Harper and Miss Lipp both turned on him. Harper said something sharply in German and she added in English: “Besides, you don’t know the roads.”
“And I do know the roads, madam.” I was trying hard to make my inner panic come out sounding like respectful indignation. “Only today I went to the trouble and expense of obtaining an official guide’s license so that I could do the job without inconvenience to you. I was a guide in Istanbul before.” I turned to Harper and thrust the license under his nose. “Look, sir!”
He frowned at it and me incredulously. “You mean you really want the job?” he demanded. “I thought all you wanted was this.” He took my letter out of his pocket.
“Certainly, I want that, sir.” It was all I could do to stop myself from reaching out for it. “But you are also paying me a hundred dollars for three or four days’ work.” I did my best to produce a grin. “As I told you in Athens, sir, for that money I do not have to be persuaded to work.”
He glanced at her and she answered, with a shrug, in German. I understood the last three words: “… man English speaks.”
His eyes came to me again. “You know, Arthur,” he said thoughtfully, “you’ve changed. You could be off the hook if you wanted, but now you don’t want to be off. Why?”
This was just answerable. I looked at the letter in his hand. “You didn’t send that. I was afraid all the time that you’d sent it anyway, out of spite.”
“Even though it would have cost me three hundred dollars?”
“It wouldn’t have cost you anything. The checks would have been returned to you eventually.”
“That’s true.” He nodded. “Not bad, Arthur. Now tell me what you meant when you told Mr. Fischer that he’d been careless. What did you think he’d been careless about?”
They were all three waiting for my answer to that. The men’s suspicion of me was in the air and Miss Lipp had smelled it as well. What was more, she didn’t look in the least puzzled by what Harper was saying. Whatever the game was, they were all in it.
I did the best I could. “Why? Because of the way he’d behaved, of course. Because he had been careless. Oh, he knew your name all right and he knew enough to get in touch with me, but I knew he couldn’t be acting on your orders.”
“How did you know?”
I pointed to the letter. “Because of that. You’d told me it was your insurance. You’d know I wouldn’t turn the car over to a complete stranger without getting my letter back. He didn’t even mention it.”
Harper looked at Fischer. “You see?”
“I was only trying to save time,” said Fischer angrily. “I have said so. This does not explain why he used that word.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said. The only way was to bull it through. “But this does. When he started threatening me I offered to go with him to the police and settle the matter. I’ve never seen anyone back down so fast in my life.”
“That is a lie!” Fischer shouted; but he wasn’t so sure of himself now.
I looked at Harper. “Anyone who pulls that sort of bluff without knowing what to do when it’s called, is careless to my way of thinking. If Mr. Fischer had been a dishonest servant instead of your helpful guest, you’d have said I’d been pretty careless to let him get away with a fourteen-thousand-dollar car. I’d be lucky if that was all you said.”
There was a brief silence, then Ha
rper nodded. “Well, Arthur, I guess Mr. Fischer won’t mind accepting your apology. Let’s say it was a misunderstanding.”
Fischer shrugged.
Just what Harper thought I was making of the situation I cannot imagine. Even if I hadn’t known what was hidden in the car, I would have realized by now that there was something really fishy going on. Miss Lipp, in Turkey for a little ten-day tourist trip with a Lincoln and a villa the size of the Taj Mahal, was sufficiently improbable. The shenanigans over the delivery of the car had been positively grotesque.
However, it was soon apparent that nothing I might think or suspect was going to give Harper any sleepless nights.
“All right, Arthur,” he said, “you’ve gotten yourself a deal. A hundred a week. You still have that fifty dollars I gave you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will that take care of the bill at the Park?”
“I think so.”
“Right. Here’s the hundred you have coming for the trip down. Go back to town now. In the morning check out of the hotel. Then take a ferryboat back to Sariyer pier so that you get there around eleven. Someone will meet you. We’ll find a room for you here.”
“Thank you, sir, but I can find a room in a hotel.”
“There isn’t a hotel nearer than Sariyer, and that’s too far away. You’d have to use the car to get to and fro, and it’d always be there when we wanted it here. Besides, we’ve got plenty of rooms.”
“Very well, sir. May I have my letter?”
He put it back in his pocket. “Sure. When you’re paid off at the end of the job. That was the deal, remember?”
“I remember,” I said grimly.
Of course, he thought that, by still holding the letter over me, he was making sure that I toed the line, and that, if I happened to see or hear anything that I shouldn’t, I would be too scared to do anything but keep my mouth shut about it. The fact that he wasn’t being as clever as he thought was no consolation to me. I wanted to get back to Athens and Nicki, but I wanted that letter first.
“You will drive,” said Fischer.
I said “Good night, madam,” to Miss Lipp, but she didn’t seem to hear. She was already walking back up the steps with Harper.
Fischer got into the back seat. I thought at first that he merely intended, in a petty way, to show me who was boss; but, as I drove back down to the road, I saw him looking over the door panels. He was obviously still suspicious. I thanked my stars that the packing had been carefully done. It was almost comforting to see the sand-colored Peugeot in the driving mirror.
He didn’t say anything to me on the way. In Sariyer, I stopped at the pier approach and turned the car for him. Then I got out and opened the door as if he were royalty. I’d hoped it would make him feel a bit silly, but it didn’t seem to. Without a word he got in behind the wheel, gave me a black look, and tore off back along the coast road like a maniac.
The Peugeot had stopped and turned about a hundred yards back, and a man was scrambling out of its front passenger seat. He slammed the door and the Peugeot shot away after the Lincoln. There was a ferryboat already at the pier, and I did not wait to see if the man who had got out followed me. I suppose he did.
I was back at the Kabatas ferry pier soon after eight and shared a dolmus cab going up to Taxim Square. Then I walked down to the hotel and had a drink or two.
I needed them. I had managed to do what Tufan wanted, up to a point. I was in touch with Harper and would for the moment remain so. On the other hand, by agreeing to stay at the villa I had put myself virtually out of touch with Tufan; at least as far as regular contact was concerned. There was no way of knowing what life at the villa was going to be like, nor what would be expected of me there. It might be easy for me to get out to a safe telephone, or it might be quite difficult. If I were seen telephoning, Harper would immediately get suspicious. Who did I know in Istanbul? What was the number? Call it again. And so on. Yet I didn’t see how I could have refused to stay there. If I had argued the point any further, Harper might have changed his mind about keeping me on. Tufan couldn’t have it both ways; and I made up my mind to tell him so if he started moaning at me.
I had some dinner and went down to the cafe beside the hotel. A man with a porter’s harness on his back followed me this time.
Tufan did not moan at me as a matter of fact; but when I had finished my report he was silent for so long that I thought he’d hung up. I said: “Hullo.”
“I was thinking,” he said; “it will be necessary for us to meet tonight. Are you in the cafe in the street by the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“Wait five minutes, then go up to the hotel and walk along the street past it for about a hundred yards. You will see a small brown car parked there.”
“The Peugeot that’s been following me?”
“Yes. Open the door and get it beside the driver. He will know where to take you. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
I paid for the telephone call and bought a drink. When the five minutes were up I left.
As I approached the Peugeot, the driver leaned across and pushed open the door for me to get in. Then he drove off past the hotel and down the hill towards the Necati Bey Avenue.
He was a young, plump, dark man. The car smelled of cigarettes, hair oil, and stale food. In his job, I suppose, he had to eat most of his meals sitting in the car. There was a V.H.F. two-way taxi radio fitted under the dash, and every now and again Turkish voices would squawk through the loudspeaker. He appeared not to be listening to them. After a minute or so he began to talk to me in French.
“Did you like driving the Lincoln?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s a good car.”
“But too big and long. I saw the trouble you had in the narrow streets this afternoon.”
“It’s very fast though. Were you able to keep up with him when he drove back to the villa?”
“Oh, he stopped about a kilometer up the road and began looking at the doors. Did they rattle?”
“Not that I noticed. Did he stop long?”
“A minute or two. After that he did not go so fast. But this little…”
He broke off and picked up a microphone as a fresh lot of squawks came over the radio.
“ Evet, effendi, evet,” he answered, then put the microphone back. “But this little machine can show those big ones a thing or two. On a narrow hill with corners I can leave them standing.”
He had turned onto the Avenue and we were running parallel to the shore.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I am not permitted to answer questions.”
We were passing the state entrance to the Dolmabahce Palace now.
It was built in the last century when the sultans gave up wearing robes and turbans and took to black frock coats and the fez. From the sea it looks like a lakeside grand hotel imported from Switzerland; but from the road, because of the very high stone wall enclosing the grounds, it looks like a prison. There is about half a mile of this wall running along the right-hand side of the road, and just to look up at it gave me an uncomfortable feeling. It reminded me of the yard at Maidstone.
Then I saw a light high up on the wall ahead, and the driver began to slow down.
“What are we stopping here for?” I asked.
He did not answer.
The light came from a reflector flood and the beam of it shone down vertically onto an armed sentry. Behind him was a pair of huge iron-bound wooden gates. One of them was half open.
The car stopped just short of the gates and the driver opened his door.
“We get out,” he said.
I joined him on the roadway and he led the way up to the gates. He said something to the sentry, who motioned us on. We went through the gap between the gates and turned left. There was a light burning in what I assumed was the guard room. He led the way up a low flight of steps to the door. Inside was a bare room with a table and chair. A young lieutenant-I suppose he was
orderly officer of the day-sat on the table talking to the sergeant of the guard, who was standing. As we came in, the officer stood up, too, and said something to the driver.
He turned to me. “You have a guide’s license,” he said. “You are to show it to this officer.”
I did so. He handed it back to me, picked up a flashlight, and said in French: “Follow me, please.”
The driver stayed behind with the sergeant of the guard. I followed the lieutenant down the steps again and across some uneven cobblestones to a narrow roadway running along the side of a building which seemed to be a barracks. The windows showed lights and I could hear the sound of voices and a radio playing caz. There were light posts at intervals, and, although the surface of the road was broken in places, it was just possible to see where one was walking. Then we went through a high archway out of the barracks area into some sort of garden. Here it was very dark. There was some moonlight and I could see parts of the white bulk of the palace looming to the left of us, but trees shadowed the ground. The lieutenant switched on his flashlight and told me to be careful where I walked. It was necessary advice. Restoration work seemed to be in progress. There were loose flagstones and masonry rubble everywhere. Finally, however, we came to a solidly paved walk. Ahead was a doorway and, beside it, a lighted window.
The lieutenant opened the door and went in. The light came from a janitor’s room just inside, and, as the lieutenant entered, a man in a drab blue uniform came out. He had some keys in his hand. The lieutenant said something to him. The janitor answered briefly, and then, with a curious glance at me, led the way across a hall and up a staircase, switching on lights as he went. At the landing he turned off down a long corridor with a lot of closed doors along one side and grilled, uncurtained windows on the other. There was carpet on the floor with a narrow drugget along the middle to save wear.
From the proportions of the staircase and the height of the ceilings it was obvious that we were in a large building; but there was nothing noticeably palatial about that part of it. We might have been in a provincial town hall. The walls were covered with dingy oil paintings. There seemed to be hundreds of them, mostly landscapes with cattle or battle scenes, and all with the same yellowy-brown varnish color. I don’t know anything about paintings. I suppose they must have been valuable or they would not have been in a palace; but I found them depressing, like the smell of mothballs.