David Herlihy
Page 26
By all accounts, he was the best man for an impossible job. A contemporary review described him as "about fifty, modest and plain in his appearance," adding that "one could hardly realize that this man had been one of the great captains of the Turkish army." During the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–78, in fact, he "had taken part in all the great battles, inflicting terrible losses upon the Russian troops." Ironically, after the conflict, he was sent to St. Petersburg to serve as the Turkish ambassador. Far from being an unpopular figure there, he became, according to the review, "a great favorite at court and in society" thanks to his "urbanity, amiability, imperturbable humor, and ready wit."
Before leaving Constantinople, Shakir had informed Terrell that, as part of his tour, he would be willing to escort Sachtleben to the suspected site of Lenz's grave and provide him with all the protection and authority he required. Sachtleben was elated to learn that his prospective escort was a man of such power and influence, affirming: "To arrest a few Kurds whom every one knew to be criminals or to discharge a kaimacam or two was not more to him than snapping his fingers."
True, the wheelman did not fully trust the Turk, despite his disarming charm. "I did not relish the idea of his accompanying me," the investigator would later reveal, "because I knew if he were inclined to shield the culprits he could most effectively do so if he were on the spot himself. I thought if I were allowed to go to Chilkani alone with a guard, I should be able to fasten Lenz's murder on the true culprits."
Still, Sachtleben had little choice but to accept Shakir's proposition, in the hope that the Turk would see a resolution of the Lenz case as a timely means to improve relations with the United States. The American was tired of playing the waiting game, and he knew well that this was probably his best—perhaps only—opportunity to arrest the suspects and search their homes—even if his chances of finding anything incriminating at this point were slim. Indeed, Khazar had heard rumors that Turkish officials had already visited the region to tip off the suspects and intimidate potential Armenian witnesses.
On September 9, Sachtleben called on Shakir, who had taken over a room in the vali's residence. He was a big, bearded man who could not mount his horse without the help of three assistants. The numerous medals pinned on his chest added to his aura of importance. "He rose from his chair, shook hands, and saluted me in French," Sachtleben recorded. "He opened his cigarette case saying 'je vous donne un cigarette d'abord' ('First I give you a cigarette.')" He then inquired in a most pleasant manner whether Sachtleben had ever been to these parts before. The investigator briefly described his round-the-world bicycle tour. "Indeed," gasped Shakir, glancing at his assistant. "Now there's a journey for you!"
The investigator, however, was anxious to get down to business. He asked Shakir if the vali had briefed him about the Lenz case. The diplomat shook his head and then listened intently as Khadouri launched into a long description of the Lenz affair in Turkish. Afterward, Sachtleben handed the diplomat a photo of Lenz. He studied it for a few seconds, before bursting into tears. He said that he wished he had never seen that picture. "The idea that this young man had journeyed through nearly all the uncivilized countries in the world only to meet his death on Turkish soil," Shakir lamented, "is a thought too terrible to bear."
Sachtleben, however, was unmoved by what he dismissed as crocodile tears. He would later affirm: "I was not deceived; I knew Shakir did not care a rap about Lenz." Still, Sachtleben reasoned, he did not need Shakir's compassion, just his cooperation. Promising to contact Sachtleben in the next few days, the cordial diplomat escorted his guest to the door.
Three more days went by with no word from Shakir. Sachtleben was beginning to fear that this proposition was just another ruse. He sent Khadouri to the governor's palace to inquire about developments. The dragoman came back with an answer that "fell like a knell on my ear. It was the same old story. Shakir said that he had telegraphed the minister of foreign affairs and would let me know the answer as soon as it came."
On the evening of September 15, Shakir was still lingering in Erzurum, attending a dinner in his honor at the Russian consulate. Graves took the opportunity to corner the Turkish diplomat and impress upon him the urgency of Sachtleben's mission. Graves mentioned that he would be heading to Constantinople in a fortnight and that "it would be a good thing if I can report to the American minister that this case is at last being settled."
Graves's plea was apparently heard. "At last, it seems as if something will be done," Sachtleben wrote home a week later.
Shakir Pasha is a very high official and a special favorite of the Sultan. I called on him in great style, with my own interpreter and interpreter of the English Consul. Twice I've seen him now. He is extremely polite, affable, and all that. The Turks know so well how to put on when they wish to do so. For some time it looked as if he would put me off also, but today I have just received the joyful news that he is going in person to Alashgerd, and will take me with him.
Sachtleben hastily assembled a team to accompany him, consisting of Chambers, who had volunteered his services as an Armenian interpreter; Khadouri; an Armenian driver named Misag; and Aram, a young Armenian who was tapped to perform "any and all kinds of spywork." The American braced himself for an adventure. "Being a high Turkish pasha," Sachtleben explained to friends back home, "he will travel very slowly, in the finest style, with a small army of soldiers and servants. I expect to have an interesting journey out there now, but whether he will investigate this case in earnest the event alone will prove."
Finally, on the morning of September 24, Sachtleben and Chambers left the mission house to embark on their climactic journey. The pleasant Indian summer had come to an abrupt end the night before as the temperature plummeted. As the pair made their way down the snow-covered path toward an awaiting carriage, Sachtleben suddenly felt the thumping of snowballs on his back. He wheeled around and identified the mischievous hurler: Chambers's precocious daughter Kate.
Sachtleben's small group soon merged with Shakir's immense entourage, led by eight soldiers on horseback and followed by a like number. Another eighteen officers rode on horseback, while Shakir and his secretary, Danish Bey, traveled in their private carriages. At the gate to the city, the procession stopped to receive the parting salaams extended by the local officials. In unison, they held their right hands low to the ground. Then they slowly lifted them to their stomachs, their hearts, and finally their heads to invoke "a healthy stomach, a good heart, and a clear mind."
Once the small army struck the caravan road, it covered only about twenty miles a day, even on the perfectly flat plain. On the third day out, the procession approached the entrance to the infamous Deli Baba Pass, guarded by rocky walls abruptly rising 1,500 feet. The road soon led to a narrow valley, through which a stream of clear water flowed. Along the way, the pilgrims passed through a number of Kurdish villages filled with mud huts and dugouts. From time to time, villagers joined the procession on foot, only to drop out after a short distance. That night the group camped in Dahar.
The next day, September 27, Sachtleben and company reached Zedikan and the Alashgerd Plain. They stopped a short while later at Hoshian, a village just west of Chilkani with both Armenian and Kurdish residents. Failing to find an Armenian host, Sachtleben and Chambers stayed with a Kurdish sheik named Abdul Kerim Bey, whose name meant "the mighty servant of God." "If the last word were changed to devil," Sachtleben mused, "the appellation would be strictly true. He was sweet as sugar to our faces, but a sly knave when out of sight."
Sachtleben and Chambers learned that a number of Armenians had tried to call on them that evening at the Kurd's residence but were turned back by the zaptieh posted at the door. The furious foreigners, determined to hear what the Armenians had to say, sent out Misag to interview them. But the driver returned empty-handed, having been thwarted by swarms of Turkish soldiers who impeded any contact with the villagers. The investigator was thus deprived of the Armenians' testimony, save for a few sm
uggled notes.
Sachtleben and Chambers called on Shakir in his tent to protest the injustice. The affable diplomat promised to review the matter with the local kaimacan. He then cheerfully proclaimed: "Demain est votre affaire" (Tomorrow it's your business). He explained that he had formed a commission, consisting of themselves, three Turks, a Kurd, and an Armenian. One of the Turks, Tewfik Bey, the procureur-general of Erzurum, was to preside over the proceedings.
Although the commission's findings would be reviewed during a trial in Erzurum, it had the authority to gather evidence and recommend arrests, subject to Shakir's approval. The pasha added that he would stay in the area a few days to give the commission time to conduct its business. Should it require more time, he would arrange to stop by this place again on his return from Bayazid in about a fortnight, at which point the commission could reconvene.
Arising early the next morning, Sachtleben gazed out his bedroom window and took in an expansive view of the fertile plain where Lenz had lost his life. "The day was perfect," he would recall. "A deluge of sunshine filled the half garnered plain with a flood of gold. The gloomy distant mountains and Ararat's silver tip stood silent witness over it all." Suddenly his five fellow commissioners appeared at the door. The men marched in and sat down on two parallel carpets, directly across from one another, to begin deliberations.
Tewfik Bey pulled out a large packet of papers and began to read them in silence. After a long lull, he suddenly asked Sachtleben: "The man's name was Lenz, Frank Lenz?" The Turk repeated the name multiple times until at last he got the pronunciation right. He then asked a myriad of questions about Lenz's background: How old was he? How old was his mother? Did he have children? Then the questioning turned to the trip itself: When did Lenz leave the United States? Through what cities did he pass? Sachtleben tried to truncate the meandering interrogation, skipping over entire segments of the trip. Tewfik persisted, asking about remote cities in China. Finally, Sachtleben began to answer every question with a terse "I don't know."
Only when Tewfik had at last traced Lenz as far as Tabriz did Sachtleben start to give more detailed answers in order to dispel the absurd notion that Lenz had never entered Turkey. Then Tewfik pressed Sachtleben about Lenz's friends and family, before posing a host of personal questions about Sachtleben himself. The American refused to divulge the names of his Armenian informants, citing only those of the accused Kurds. He produced the bell that Khazar had purchased as evidence of the Kurds' culpability.
By the time the opening session concluded, Sachtleben could barely stand the sight of Tewfik, whom he characterized as "an insolent, lazy scoundrel who was everlastingly at prayer." Confessed the investigator: "several times I came within a breadth's of striking him." He would summarize his initial ordeal: "They spent eight hours trying to pump me dry on the plea that I should let them know all, so that they could effectively prosecute the case. Their plan was to learn all I knew, and then by secret means to destroy its value when we appeared on the spot."
After a break for lunch, the proceedings resumed. Tewfik called five villagers from Hoshian and two from Zedikan. All swore that they had not seen or heard anything about a man riding a bicycle through their villages. Sachtleben concluded that it would not be easy to induce the terrified Armenians to talk. He wanted to ask them directly if they had been warned by the police to keep their silence, but Tewfik insisted that the question could be asked later. "These men are telling what they saw," the prosecutor explained, "not what they heard."
At about four o'clock, the commission suspended its proceedings to call on Shakir, who dutifully looked over the papers. Despite the lack of testimony supporting Sachtleben's accusations, the pasha suddenly pushed the papers aside and announced: "Well, it is the proper thing to go at once and arrest these men." He then detailed a squad of ten soldiers to accompany the commissioners to nearby Chilkani. Sachtleben could hardly contain his joy: at last, he was about to come face to face with the arch-murderer himself, Moostoe.
An hour later, arriving in the village of Chilkani, the group sought out the mukhatar (village head), who pointed out Moostoe's house. "We went there at once and found him at his door," Sachtleben related, "washing his feet in preparation for evening prayers. He was a devilish looking Kurd, and his son was just as bad. Moostoe was a dark complexioned man of 38 years, with dark coarse hair and piercing, evil-looking black eyes with a decided squint. He was athletic and sinewy built. He and his imp of a son, like all Kurds, wore their daggers in their belts."
Moostoe did not appear entirely surprised by the invasion; indeed, Sachtleben was certain that the Kurd had been expecting them. The two men exchanged cold glares. Sachtleben wished he could throttle the murderer on the spot. The Kurd began to mutter a few menacing words to his pals at his side. "Do you know what he is saying?" an anxious Khadouri whispered to Sachtleben, knowing full well that he did not. "He says he would like to run his sharp knife across your throat. And if it wasn't for the big Shakir Pasha that's exactly what he would do."
Undaunted, Sachtleben led the house search while the soldiers stood guard.
We all entered the house and searched every nook and cranny for an hour or more. Moostoe, meanwhile, pretended to be sick, though he was not too sick to express his anger at my man Khadouri, who turned up everything. Moostoe groaned as we turned his saddle bags inside out, looking for the smallest trace of Lenz's baggage. We saw the saddle, of course, but as I suspected the rubber tires had been taken off.
The search, alas, turned up nothing. Sachtleben was keenly disappointed, but not surprised. He knew well that the "ripe time" for a house search had long passed. "Neither Mr. Chambers nor I had expected, after four months of delay, to find any better result," he admitted. The American remained determined nonetheless to have the last laugh, as he cast one last hateful glance at Moostoe. The party proceeded to the home of Mehmet, one of Moostoe's suspected accomplices. Once again, they found nothing.
The commission then broke for supper. Sachtleben and Chambers headed to the home of the priest Der Arsen, who had invited the pair to dine with him. "We were sitting on the floor talking," Sachtleben recalled, "when a local church member knocked on the door and requested to talk to Mr. Chambers. They both left and about twenty minutes later Chambers returned alone. He said to me, 'I bet you can't guess what I've got in my pocket?' I told him I couldn't and he pulled out the brass clockwork machinery from Lenz's camera by which he could take his own pictures."
The hardware, which had been hidden for months in the altar of the Armenian church, consisted of two brass screws and a six-inch rod. The Armenian had explained that a twelve-year-old shepherd boy named Bido found the articles, along with fragments of film, near the Hopuz River sometime after Lenz's disappearance. Der Arsen had saved them to present as evidence of foul play, even though the terrified villagers would initially deny that they had seen a cyclist pass through town.
Sachtleben was thrilled to have these items, which all but confirmed that Lenz had been attacked just outside Chilkani. The Armenians, however, were extremely reluctant to acknowledge possession of the articles, fearing that the Turks would immediately charge them with the murder. Sachtleben took the objects and promised to keep the matter secret for the time being. He added that when the time came for the Armenians to testify and reveal this evidence, he would see to it that they received adequate protection.
Of course, Sachtleben never seriously entertained the idea that the Armenians themselves were the murderers. As he would later explain: "While the machinery was found on the altar of the church, this did not in any way prove that the Armenian Christians had killed Lenz. On the contrary, they knew who had killed him and in their simple minds they wanted to keep this bit of evidence where it would not be lost."
As night fell, the commission continued its marathon proceedings. It examined Avak Parsegh, whom Sachtleben described as a "common peasant about thirty-five years of age." Although he was evidently confused and frightened, he ackn
owledged that he had hosted a foreigner matching Lenz's description something like a year and a half earlier. Tewfik asked the witness to describe Lenz's appearance and "the kind of man he was." Parsegh became flustered, saying that he had only met the man briefly and could not recall much about him. Under pressure, he also admitted that he did not know for certain in what direction Lenz headed the morning of his departure.
Sachtleben observed that the farmer's testimony "fell like a thunderbolt on Tewfik, who had expected him to lie as the rest had done. I felt like slapping Parsegh on the shoulder and saying 'Bravo!'" Although he had offered few details, the farmer had at least confirmed Lenz's presence, putting an end to the Turks' absurd claim that Lenz had not even entered their country.
The following morning, five more witnesses were called, all from Chilkani, including the mukhtar and Der Arsen, the priest. Lenz's visit to the town having finally been established, they all acknowledged that they had seen the stranger arrive on his bicycle. One by one, however, they insisted that they knew nothing more about him or his fate. Lamented Sachtleben: "They had not heard anything since what had become of him; they had not seen any of his things since." Nor would they implicate Moostoe in the American's disappearance, for they professed not to know if the Kurd had been in the village the day Lenz arrived. Convinced that the witnesses had been intimidated, Sachtleben refused to sign the official papers at the conclusion of the proceedings.
"I was greatly disappointed at the result of our efforts in Chilkani," Sachtleben wrote. "Every one of the witnesses had perjured themselves. The Christians [Armenians] lied for self-preservation as they feared for their property and their lives, and they had no assurance that they would be protected. The Moslems [Kurds] had perjured themselves for the sake of saving their fellow countrymen, the guilty Kurds."
The next day, Sachtleben took Der Arsen aside and expressed his keen disappointment with the priest's guarded testimony. Retorted the Armenian: "Oh, you Europeans—you don't know what fear is." The American warned Der Arsen that he would call him back as a witness upon his return to Chilkani, and he implored him to implicate Moostoe the next time, promising that he would do everything in his power to ensure the priest's safety.