by Eric Ambler
My bed consisted of a mattress on the floor and the blankets from my old room. I rolled off the mattress and got to my feet unsteadily. Fischer gave me a disagreeable look.
“You snore like a pig,” he said.
He had a shirt and slacks on, I was glad to see; Harper or Miller must have helped him. Undressing him, the night before, had been an unpleasant task. It had meant touching him, and I hate touching anyone I dislike-another man especially.
“What’s the time?” I asked.
They had taken everything from me after they had made me swallow the sleeping pills, even my watch. All I had been allowed had been my pajama coat.
“About eleven,” he answered. “Your clothes have been put in there.” He indicated a door.
I went through and found myself in one of the partly furnished rooms I had seen the day before. My things were piled on a brown cut-velvet chaise longue. I disposed of a minor anxiety first. The cigarette packet with the message inside it was still in my hip pocket and apparently undetected. I left it where it was. With any luck, I thought, I might be able to add to it. My papers were there. The radio was in its case.
From the bedroom Fischer said: “I have finished with this bathroom. You may use it.”
“I think I will go and get some coffee first.”
“Then bring all your papers and money in here.”
There was no point in arguing. I did as he said, put some trousers on, and found my way downstairs to the kitchen.
Mrs. Hamul was there. The sight of the hired driver unshaven and wearing a pajama jacket at eleven in the morning must have seemed odd to her. She looked at me as if I were raving mad. I asked her for coffee. She gave me tea, and some of the previous day’s bread toasted. The tea wasn’t bad. My head began to clear. As I ate the toast, I wondered if I could muster enough Turkish to persuade her or her husband to take a message to the surveillance people on the road. Then Miss Lipp came in, well groomed and very chic in white and yellow stripes.
“Good morning, Arthur. How do you feel?”
“Good morning, Miss Lipp. I feel terrible, thank you.”
“Yes, you look it, but I expect you’ll feel better when you’ve cleaned up a bit. What’s the Turkish for ‘eggs’?”
“Yumurta, I think.”
Mrs. Hamul heard the word and they began a sign-language conversation about eggs. I went back upstairs.
Miller was helping Fischer to pack. I slipped the empty cigarette packet and a pencil into my shaving kit and went into the bathroom. There was a lock on the door. While my bath was running, I added to the message I had written the previous night. Am forced replace injured Fischer and closely watched. Event planned for tonight. Details unknown. Miller may be key person.
The bedroom was empty when I returned to it. I dressed, packed my bag, and went back down to the kitchen.
Miss Lipp was supervising the Hamuls’ preparations for lunch. She looked up as I came in.
“The others are out on the terrace, Arthur,” she said. “Why don’t you go out there and get yourself a drink?”
“Very well.”
I went through the dining room into the main hall. There, I hesitated. I was still trying to think of a way of getting down to the road and back without their knowing. As they were on the terrace, it was, of course, hopeless to attempt to cross the courtyard. I would have to find some way round the back and down through the trees. But that might take twenty minutes or more. And supposing Miss Lipp came out to the terrace and asked where I was? I gave up, and decided to rely upon dropping the cigarette packet.
The first thing I saw on the terrace was the cardboard box which Harper had brought back with him from Pendik. It was open and discarded on a chair. Harper, Fischer, and Miller were contemplating something laid out across two tables.
It was a block and tackle, but of a kind I had not seen before. The blocks were triple-sheaved and made of some light metal alloy. They were so small that you could hold both of them in one hand. The “rope” was a white cord about a quarter of an inch in diameter and there was a lot of it. On another table there was a thing that looked like a broad belt with hooks at each end, like those you see on dog leashes.
Fischer looked up and stared at me haughtily.
“Miss Lipp told me to come here and have a drink,” I said.
Harper waved to a table with bottles and glasses on it. “Help yourself. Then you’d better have a look at this.”
I gave myself some raki and looked at the cord of the tackle. It was like silk.
“Nylon,” Harper said; “breaking strain over a ton. What you have to remember about it is that it’s also slightly elastic. There’s a lot of give in this tackle. You know how these things work?”
“Yes.”
“Show me,” said Miller. He picked up the belt and hooked it around one of the terrace pillars. “Show me how you would pull this pillar down.”
I hooked one block to the belt, tied the other to the balustrade, and pulled on the tackle.
“Okay,” said Harper, “that’ll do. Leo, I think you’d better carry the tackle. Arthur’s too fat. It’ll show on him. He can take the sling and the anchor rope. I don’t think Hans should carry anything except his gun and the water flask.”
“It is only because my skin is very sensitive that I object,” said Miller.
“Well, it won’t be for long. As soon as you’re inside you can take it off.”
Miller sighed irritably but said no more.
“May I know what it is I have to do?” I asked.
“Just pull on this tackle, Arthur. Oh, you mean about taking this gear along? Well, you’ll have to carry that sling”-he indicated the belt-“and this extra rope here, wound around that beautiful body of yours under your shirt, so that nobody can see it. It’ll be a bit warm for a while, but you’ll have plenty of time to cool off. Any other questions?”
I had a dozen and he knew it, but there isn’t any sense in asking when you know you’re not going to be answered.
“Who is going to carry the bag?” asked Miller.
“You’d better take that, folded in your pocket.”
Miss Lipp came out. “Lunch in thirty minutes,” she said.
“Lunch!” Miller looked sour.
“You can eat eggs, Leo. You’ve got to eat something.” She took the drink Harper handed her. “Does Arthur know that he’s going to have to wait for his dinner tonight?”
“I don’t know anything, Miss Lipp,” I said calmly; “but I will say this. I was told that I would be given a briefing today. So far, all I have been given is a bad attack of nervous indigestion. Whether I eat dinner or not, and, for that matter, whether I eat lunch or not, are matters of complete indifference to me.”
She went quite red in the face, and I wondered for a moment if I had said anything offensive; then I realized that the damned woman was trying not to laugh. She looked at Harper.
“Okay,” he said. “Come in here.” He led the way through a french window into the drawing room. Only Miss Lipp followed with me. I heard Fischer asking Miller to pour him another drink and Miller telling him that he ought to exercise the hand, not pamper it. Then, I no longer listened. Harper had walked to the library table, opened a drawer in it, and pulled out the “map.”
“Recognize this place?” he asked.
“Yes.”
It was a plan of part of the Seraglio area and of the roads adjacent to the walls. The triangular shape I had noted was formed by the coastline.
“This is what we are going to do,” he went on. “When we leave here, we will drive to a garage in Istanbul. Our bags will be in the trunk of the Lincoln. At the garage, Mr. Miller, Mr. Fischer, you, and I will get out of the Lincoln and into a different car, which will be waiting there. I will then drive you to the Seraglio Palace. There, Mr. Miller, Mr. Fischer, and you will get out. The Palace is open to the public until five. The three of you will buy tickets and enter in the ordinary way as tourists. You will then cross the Sec
ond Courtyard to the Gate of Felicity. When you are sure that the guides have lost interest in you, you will go through into the Third Courtyard and turn left. You then have a short walk-exactly sixty paces-before you come to a big bronze gate in a courtyard to the left with a small door beside it. Both gate and door are kept locked, but Mr. Miller will have a key to the door. Beyond the door is a passage with a stairway leading up to the roof of the White Eunuchs’ apartments”-he pointed to the plan-“here. Then you lock the door behind you and wait. Clear so far?”
“Quite clear, except about why we’re doing all this.”
“Oh, I thought you’d have guessed that.” He grinned. “We’re just going to have ourselves a piece of the old Sultans’ loot. Just a little piece, that’s all-about a million dollars’ worth.”
I looked at Miss Lipp.
“I was being cagey, Arthur,” she said. “There is some obsidian and garnet there, and green tourmaline, too. But a lot of that stuff’s the real thing. There are six pigeon’s blood rubies in that throne room that must be over twenty carats apiece. Do you know what just one ruby like that is worth, Arthur? And the emeralds on those Koran caskets! My God!”
Harper laughed. “All right, honey, I think Arthur has the picture. Now”-he turned again to the plan-“there are civilian watchmen on duty, but not very many of them, and the night shift comes on at eight. You give them an hour to settle down. At nine you move. You go up the stairs to the roof and turn left. There are three little domes-cupolas, they call them-on the roof there, and you walk along to the right of them. After that the roof is more or less flat until you get to the gate arch. You go around that over the roof of the Audience Chamber and on until you see the chimneys of the kitchens on your right. Then you turn left again, cross the roof of the place where they have the miniatures and tapestries. At the end of it there’s a three-foot drop onto the roof of the Treasury Museum. That’s where you have to be careful. The Treasury roof is thirty-five feet wide, but it’s vaulted. There is a flat area around the cupola though, so you climb down there. All quite safe. The cupola is ten feet in diameter and that’ll be your anchor for the tackle. Mr. Miller’ll tie the knots for you. When he’s got the sling hooked up, he’ll sit in it. Then all you have to do is lower him over the side until he’s level with a steel shutter eighteen feet below. He’ll do the rest.”
“Mr. Miller will?”
He looked at me with amusement. “You think he’s too old for that sort of thing? Arthur, when Mr. Miller gets busy he makes a fly look like a man in diving boots.”
“You said there was a steel shutter?”
“You could open it with a toothpick. The wall’s four feet thick and solid stone. I guess it’d stand up to a six-inch shell. But the shutters over the window apertures are just quarter-inch plate with ordinary draw bolts on them. They don’t even fit properly. And no alarm system.”
“But if this jewelry is so valuable…”
“Have you ever looked through one of those window apertures, Arthur? There’s a sheer drop of three hundred feet below. It’s quite impossible to get up or down there. That’s why we’re going in from above. The trick is getting out again. What their security setup relies on is the fact that the whole area is walled like a fortress. There are gates, of course, and the gates have troops guarding them at night; but gates can be opened if you know how. That’ll all be taken care of. You’ll walk out of there just aseasily as you walked in.” His eyes found mine and held them. “You see, Arthur, we’re professionals.”
I forced myself to look away. I looked at Miss Lipp; but her eyes had the same intent look as his. “I’m sorry,” I said; “I’m not a professional.”
“ You don’t have to be,” she said.
“I can’t do it, Mr. Harper.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d be too afraid.”
He smiled. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard you say, Arthur. You had me quite worried for a moment.”
“I mean it.”
“Sure you do. Who wouldn’t be scared? I’m scared. In a few hours’ time I’ll be even more scared. That’s good. If you aren’t a bit scared you don’t stay on your toes.”
“I’m not talking about being a bit scared, Mr. Harper. I’m talking about being too scared. I’d be no use to you.” And I meant it. I was thinking of myself on top of that roof with a three-hundred-foot drop down to the road. I can’t stand heights.
There was a silence, and then she laughed. “I don’t believe you, Arthur,” she said. “You? You with two good arms and hands to hold on with, scared of going where Hans Fischer isn’t afraid to go with only half a hand? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
There was another silence and then he glanced at her and moved his head slightly. She walked out onto the terrace.
“Let’s get a couple of things straight, Arthur,” he said. “All I’m asking you to do is take a little ride and then a little walk, and then handle a rope for twenty minutes. You’ll be in no danger. Nobody’s going to take pot shots at you. And when it’s done you get two thousand bucks. Right?”
“Yes, but…”
“Let me finish. Now, supposing you chicken out, what do we do?”
“Get someone else, I suppose.”
“Yes, but what do we do about you? ” He paused. “You see, Arthur, it’s not just a question of getting the job done. You know too much now not to be a part of it. If you’re going to be on the outside, well, we’ll have to protect ourselves another way. You follow me?”
He could see that I did. I had a choice: I could either frighten myself to death on the roof of the Seraglio or take a shorter, quicker route to the police mortuary.
“Now go get yourself another drink and stop worrying,” he said; “just think of the two thousand bucks.”
I shrugged. “All right. I’m merely telling you how I feel, that’s all.”
“You’ll be okay, Arthur.” He led the way back onto the terrace.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him how okay Mr. Miller would be if the height got me down and I passed out while I was handling the tackle; but I thought better of it. If he realized that I really wasn’t just being timid, that I really couldn’t stand heights, he might decide that I was too dangerous a liability in every way. Besides, I was coming to my senses again now. Tufan’s “politicals” had turned out to be big-time crooks after all. I had been right all along, and he had been hopelessly wrong; but he was still a powerful ally, and I still had a good chance of being able to stop the whole thing. All I had to do was add just three words- raiding Seraglio treasury- to the note in the cigarette packet and drop it for the surveillance people. After that, my worries would be over, and Harper’s would begin. I had a pleasing vision of the lot of them, rounded up and in handcuffs, watching Tufan hand me a brand-new British passport.
“What are you grinning at, Arthur?” Harper asked.
I was pouring myself the second drink he had prescribed. “You told me to think of the two thousand dollars, Mr. Harper,” I answered. “I was just carrying out orders.”
“You’re a screwball, Arthur,” he said amiably; but I saw a reflective look in his eyes and decided that I had better watch myself. All the same, I couldn’t help wondering what he would have said and done if he had been warned, at that moment, that the customs people in Edirne had looked inside the doors of the car, and that every move he had made since had been made with the knowledge and by permission of the security police-if, in other words, he had been told how vulnerable he was. Not that I had the slightest desire to warn him; I hadn’t forgotten the caning he had given me in Athens; but if it had been safe to do so, I would have liked to tell him that it was my lousy out-of-date Egyptian passport that had done the job. I would have liked to have seen the bastard’s face.
Hamul shuffled out and made signs to Miss Lipp that lunch was served. She glanced at me. “Bring your drink in with you, Arthur.”
Presumably
I was being promoted to eating with the gentry so that they could keep an eye on me.
Miller was a gloomy feeder, and made the omelet less appetizing than it could have been by talking about infectious diseases all the time. How did they grow virus cultures in laboratories? Why, in eggs, of course! He discussed the possible consequences at length. The others took no notice; evidently they were used to him; but it got me down. I hadn’t felt much like eating anyway.
When the fruit came Harper looked across at me. “As soon as the Hamuls have cleared away,” he said, “you had better start getting the bags down. They think we’re going to Ankara for a couple of days, so it doesn’t matter if they see us. The important thing is that we leave ourselves time to clean up the rooms.”
“Clean them up?”
“For fingerprints. With any luck we’ll never be connected with this place. The rent was paid in advance and the owner couldn’t care less if we don’t show up again. The Hamuls will dust off most of it automatically. They’re great polishers, I’ve noticed. But things they could miss, like window handles and closet mirrors, we should take care of ourselves-just in case.”
By two o’clock I had all the bags down and asked Harper if I could go to my old room to clean up there. He nodded. “Okay, Arthur, but don’t be long. I want you to give Mr. Fischer a hand.”
I hurried upstairs. In the bathroom, I completed the cigarette-packet message. Then I went through the motions of “cleaning up”-Tufan already had my fingerprints-and returned to Fischer’s room.
At a quarter to three Harper drove the car from the garage to the courtyard and I loaded the bags. There wasn’t room for all of them in the luggage compartment, so some had to go on the floor by the back seat.
At three, Harper, Miller, and I went up to Miller’s room. There, Miller and I took our shirts off and swathed ourselves in the tackle, Harper assisting and rearranging things until he was satisfied that nothing would show. I had the spring hooks of the sling hanging down inside my trouser legs. It was dreadfully uncomfortable. Harper made me walk up and down so that he could see that all was in order.