The light of day

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 Harper 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.

There was a pair of heavy metal doors at the end of that corridor, and beyond it more corridors and more paintings.

“We are in what used to be the palace harem now,” the lieutenant said impressively. “The steel doors guarded it. Each woman had her own suite of rooms. Now certain important government departments have their offices here.”

I was about to say: “Ah, taken over by the eunuchs, you mean,” but thought better of it. He did not look as if he cared for jokes. Besides, I had had a long day and was feeling tired. We went on through another lot of steel doors. I was resigned to more corridors, when the janitor stopped and unlocked the door of one of the rooms. The lieutenant turned on the lights and motioned me in.

It was not much larger than my room at the Park, but probably the height of the ceiling and the heavy red-and-gold curtains over the window made it seem smaller. The walls were hung with patterned red silk and several large paintings. There was a parquet floor and a white marble fireplace. A dozen gilt armchairs stood around the walls, as if the room had just been cleared for dancing. The office desk and chairs standing in the center looked like a party of badly dressed gate crashers.

“You may sit down and you may smoke,” the lieutenant said; “but please be careful if you smoke to put out your cigarettes in the fireplace.”

The janitor left, shutting the door behind him. The lieutenant sat down at the desk and began to use the telephone.

The paintings in the room were, with one exception, of the kind I had seen in the corridors, only bigger. On one wall was a Dutch fishing boat in a storm; facing it, alongside a most un-Turkish group of nymphs bathing in a woodland stream, was a Russian cavalry charge. The painting over the fireplace, however, was undoubtedly Turkish. It showed a bearded man in a frock coat and fez facing three other bearded men who were looking at him as if he had B.O. or had said something disgusting. Two of the group wore glittering uniforms.

When the lieutenant had finished telephoning, I asked him what the painting was about.

“That is the leaders of the nation demanding the abdication of Sultan Abdul Hamid the Second.”

“Isn’t that rather a strange picture to have in a Sultan’s palace?”

“Not in this palace. A greater man than any of the Sultans died here, greater even than Suleiman.” He gave me a hard, challenging look, daring me to deny it.

I agreed hastily. He went into a long rambling account of the iniquities of the Bayar-Menderes government and of the reasons why it had been necessary for the army to clean out that rats’ nest and form the Committee of National Union. Over the need to shoot down without mercy all who were trying to wreck the Committee’s work, especially those members of the Democratic party who had escaped justice at the army’s hands, he became so vehement that he was still haranguing me when Major Tufan walked into the room.

I felt almost sorry for the lieutenant. He snapped to attention, mumbling apologies like a litany. Tufan had been impressive enough in civilian clothes; in uniform and with a pistol on his belt he looked as if he were on his way to take charge of a firing squad-and looking forward keenly to the job. He listened to the lieutenant for about five seconds, then dismissed him with a flick of a hand.

As the door closed on the lieutenant, Tufan appeared to notice me. “Do you know that President Kemal Ataturk died in this palace?” he asked.

“I gathered so from the lieutenant.”

“It was in 1938. The Director was much with him before the end and the President talked freely. One thing he said the Director has always remembered. ‘If I can live another fifteen years, I can made Turkey a democracy. If I die sooner, it will take three generations.’ That young officer probably represents the type of difficulty he had in mind.” He put his briefcase on the desk and sat down. “Now, as to your difficulties. We have both had time to think. What do you propose?”

“Until I know what it’s going to be like at the villa, I don’t see how I can propose anything.”

“As you are their chauffeur, it will obviously be necessary for you to attend to the fueling of the car. There is a garage outside Sariyer that you could go to. It has a telephone.”

“I had thought of that, but it may not be reliable. It depends on how much the car is used. For example, if I only drive into Istanbul and back, I can’t pretend to need petrol immediately. That car takes over a hundred liters. If I were always going to the garage at a fixed time to fill up no matter what mileage I had driven, they would become suspicious.”

“We can dispense with the fixed time. I have arranged for a twenty-four-hour watch. And even if you foresee future difficulties, you should be able to make one single call to report on them. After that, if necessary, we will use a different method. It will entail more risk for you, but that cannot be avoided. You will have to write your reports. Then you will put the report inside an empty cigarette packet. The person following you at the time-I have arranged to have the car changed every day-will then pick the reports up.”

“You mean you expect me to throw them out of the window and hope they won’t notice?”

“Of course not. You will drop them whenever you find a suitable moment when you have stopped and are outside the car.”

I thought it over; that part of it might not be so bad. I would just have to make sure that I had plenty of cigarette packets. What I did not like was having to write out the reports. I said so.

“There is a slight risk, I agree,” he said; “but you will have to take it. Remember, they will only search you if you have given them reason to suspect you. You must be careful not to.”

“I still have to write the reports.”

“You can do that in the toilet. I do not imagine you will be observed there. Now, as to our communicating information and orders to you.” He opened his briefcase and took out a small portable transistor radio of the type I had seen German tourists carrying. “You will carry this in your bag. If it should be seen, or you should be heard using it, you will say that it was given to you by a German client. Normally it receives only standard broadcast frequencies, but this one has been modified. I will show you.” He slipped it out of the carrying case, took the back off, and pointed to a small switch just by the battery compartment. “If you operate that switch it will receive V.H.F. transmissions on a fixed frequency from up to half a mile away. The transmissions will be made to you from a surveillance car. It is a system we have tried out, and, providing there are no large obstacles such as buildings between the two points, it works. Your listening times will be seven in the morning and eleven at night. Is that clear? For security it will be better if you use the earphone attachment.”

“I see. You say it has been modified. Does that mean that it won’t receive ordinary broadcasts? Because if so I couldn’t explain it…”

“It will work normally unless you move this switch.” He replaced the back. “Now then, I have some information for you. Both Harper and Miss Lipp are traveling on Swiss passports. We had no time at the airport to discover, without arousing suspicion, if the passports were genuine or not. The relevant particulars are as follows: Walter Karl Harper, aged thirty-eight, described as an engineer, place of birth Berne, and Elizabeth Maria Lipp, aged thirty-six, described as a student, place of birth Schaffhausen.”

“A student?”

“Anyone can be described as a student. It is meaningless. Now, as to the Kosk Sardunya.” He referred to a paper in the briefcase. “It is the property of the widow of a former minister in the government of President Inonu. She is nearly eighty now and has for some years lived quietly with her daughter in Izmir. She has from time to time tried to sell Sardunya, but nobody had wished to buy at the price she asks. For the past two years, she has leased it furnished to a NATO naval mission which had business in the zone. The mission’s work ended at the beginning of the year. Her agent here in Istanbul was unable to find another tenant until three months ago. Then he received an inquiry from an Austrian named Fischer-yes, exactly-who was staying at the Hilton Hotel. Fischer’s other names are Hans Andreas, and he gave an address in Vienna. He wanted a furnished villa for two months, not a particular villa, but one in that neighborhood and near to the shore. He was willing to pay well for a short lease, and gave a deposit in Swiss francs. On the lease, which is in his name, his occupation is given as manufacturer. He arrived three weeks ago, when the lease began, and has not registered with the police. We have not yet traced the record of his entry, so we do not have all passport particulars about him.”

“What is he a manufacturer of?”

“We do not know. We have sent an inquiry to Interpol, but I expect a negative reply. We received negative replies on both Harper and Lipp. That increases the probability that they are politicals.”

“Or that they are using aliases.”

“Perhaps. Now, the other personnel at the villa. There are a husband and wife who live over what was the stabling. Their name is Hamul and they are old servants who have been there for some years as caretakers and who do cleaning work. Then there is the cook. Through the owner’s agent, Fischer requested a cook with experience of Italian cooking. The agent found a Turkish Cypriot named Geven who had worked in Italy. The police here have had trouble with him. He is a good cook, but he gets drunk and attacks people. He served a short prison sentence for wounding a waiter. It is believed that the agent did not know this when he recommended the man to Fischer.”

“Is there anything against the couple?”

“No. They are honest enough.” He put his papers away. “That is all we know so far, but, as you see, the shape of a conspiracy begins to unfold. One person goes ahead to establish a base of operations, a second person arranges for the purchase of weapons, a third arrives with the means of transporting them and a prepared cover story. Probably, the real leaders have not yet arrived. When they do, it will be your duty to report the fact. Meanwhile, your orders are, specifically, first to ascertain whether the weapons have been removed from the car or not, and secondly, if they have been removed, where they are cached. The first will be easy, the second may be difficult.”

“If not impossible.”

He shrugged. “Well, you must run no risks at this stage. Thirdly, you will continue to listen for any mention of names-names of persons or places-and report movements. Finally, you will listen particularly for any political content in their conversation. The smallest hint may be of importance in that connection. That is all, I think. Have you any questions?”

“Dozens,” I said; “only I don’t know what they are at the moment.”

I could see he hadn’t liked that at once. It was a bit cheeky, I suppose; but I was really tired of him.

He pursed his lips at me. “The Director is very pleased with you so far, Simpson,” he said. “He even spoke of the possibility of helping you in some way beyond the withdrawal of the charges against you, perhaps in connection with your papers, if your co-operation brought about a successful disposal of this matter. It is your chance. Why don’t you take it?”

This boy could do better. He should be encouraged to adopt a more positive attitude towards his schoolwork. Athletics: Fair. Punctuality: Fair. Conduct: Has left much to be desired this term. Signed: G. D. Brush, M.A. (Oxon.), Headmaster.

I did my best. “What do you mean by ‘political context’?” I asked. “Do you mean, are they in favor of democratic ideals? Or against a military dictatorship?-that’s what some people call your government, isn’t it? Do they talk about capitalist oppression or Soviet domination or the welfare of mankind? Things like that? Because, if so, I can tell you now that the only section of mankind that Harper is interested in is the bit represented by himself.”

“That could be said of a great many political conspirators. Obviously, what we are concerned with is their attitudes to the political situation here, where the army acts at present as a trustee for the Republic.” He said that stiffly; he hadn’t liked the bit about military dictatorship either. “As I have said, Harper may be merely a hired operative, but we cannot say yet. Remember, there are six pistols and ammunition for six.”

“That’s another thing I don’t understand, sir. I know that there are all those grenades, too-but pistols? Is that enough for a coup d’etat. If they were machine guns now…”

“My dear Simpson, the head of a secret political organization in Belgrade once handed out four pistols to four rather stupid students. In the event, only one was used, but it was used to assassinate the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and it started a European war. Pistols can be carried in the pocket. Machine guns cannot.”

“You think these people are out to assassinate somebody?”

“That is for you to help us discover. Have you any more questions?”

“Is there any information yet about this business-machine company, Tekelek? Harper seemed to be using it as a cover.”

“We are still awaiting word from Switzerland. If it is of interest I will let you know.”

He handed me the portable radio; then, as I got up to go, he went to the door and gave an order to the lieutenant waiting outside about taking me back to the gate. I had started to move when he had an afterthought and stopped me.

“One more thing,” he said, “I do not wish you to take foolish risks, but I do wish you to feel confidence in yourself if you are obliged to take necessary ones. Some men have more confidence in themselves if they are armed.”

I couldn’t help glancing at the polished pistol holster on his belt. He smiled thinly. “This pistol is part of an officer’s uniform. You may borrow it if you wish. You could put it in your bag with the radio.”

I shook my head. “No, thank you. It wouldn’t make me feel better. Worse, more likely. I’d be wondering how to explain it away if anyone happened to see it.”

“You are probably wise. Very well, that is all.”

Of course, I hadn’t the slightest intention of taking any sort of risk if I could help it. All I intended to do was to go through the motions of co-operating so as to keep Tufan happy, and somehow get my letter back from Harper before Tufan’s people pulled him in. Of course, I was quite certain that he was going to be pulled in. He had to be!

Tufan stayed behind telephoning. As I went back along the corridors with the lieutenant, I saw him glancing at me, wondering if it were better to make polite conversation with someone who seemed on such good terms with the powerful Major Tufan, or to say nothing and keep his nose clean. In the end, all he said was a courteous good night.

The Peugeot was still outside. The driver glanced at the radio I was carrying. I wondered if he knew about the modification, but he made no comment on it. We drove back to the hotel in silence. I thanked him and he nodded amiably, patting the wheel of his car. “Better on the narrow roads,” he said.

The terrace was closed. I went to the bar for a drink. I had to get the taste of the Dolmabahce out of my mouth.

“Conspiracy,” Tufan had said. Well, that much I was prepared to concede. The whole Harper-Lipp-Fischer setup was obviously a cover for something; but all this cloak-and-dagger stuff about coups d’etat and assassination plots I really couldn’t swallow. Even sitting in the palace with a painting about a Sultan being deposed staring down from the wall, it had bothered me. Sitting in a hotel bar with a glass of brandy-well, frankly I didn’t believe a bloody word of it. The point was that I knew the people concerned-or, anyway, I had met them-and Tufan didn’t know and hadn’t met any of them. “Political context,” for heaven’s sake! Suddenly Major Tufan appeared in my mind’s eye not as a man in charge of a firing squad, but as a military old maid always looking for secret agents and assassins under her bed-a typical counter-espionage man in fact.

For a moment or two I almost enjoyed myself. Then I remembered the doors of the car and the arms and the respirators and the grenades, and went back to zero.

If it hadn’t been for those things, I thought, I could have made two good guesses about the Harper setup, and one of them would certainly have been right. My first guess would have been narcotics. Turkey is an opium-producing country. If you had the necessary technical personnel-Fischer, the “manufacturer,” Lipp, the “student”-all you would need would be a quiet, secluded place like the Kosk Sardunya in which to set up a small processing plant to make heroin, and an organizer-Harper, of course-to handle distribution and sales.

My second guess would have been some de luxe variation of the old badger game. It begins in the romantic villa on the Bosphorus graced by the beautiful, blue-blooded Princess Lipp, whose family once owned vast estates in Rumania, her faithful servitor Andreas (Fischer), and a multimillionaire sucker enslaved by the lady’s beauty. Then, just as the millionaire is preparing to dip his wick, in comes the mad, bad, dangerous husband Prince (Harper) Lipp, who threatens to spread the whole story (with pictures, no doubt) over the front pages of every newspaper from Istanbul to Los Angeles, unless… The millionaire can’t wait to pay up and get out. Curtain.

On the whole, though, I would have made narcotics the first choice. Not that I didn’t see Harper as a con man, or in the role of blackmailer (I knew all too well that he could play that), but the cost and extent of the preparatory work suggested that big profits were expected. Unless the supply of gullible millionaires had suddenly increased in the Istanbul area, it seemed more likely that the expectation was based on the promise of a successful narcotics operation.

It seemed to me so obviously the right answer that I began to think again about the grenades and pistols. Supposing they did fit into the narcotics picture after all; but in a subsidiary sort of way. Supposing they had no direct relationship with Harper, but had been carried for someone outside the villa group-someone Turkish with political intentions of the kind in which Tufan was interested. The narcotics picture had to include a supplier of illicit raw opium. Almost certainly that supplier would be Turkish. Why shouldn’t the price for his illicit opium have included a small shipment of illicit arms? No reason at all. Or the delivery of the arms might merely have been one of those little gestures of goodwill with which businessmen sometimes like to sweeten their contractual relationships. “I’m bringing a car in anyway. Why not let me take care of that other little matter for you? Just give me a letter to your man in Athens.”

There was only one thing that I could see that was not quite right about it-the time factor. The villa had been taken on a short lease. The car had been imported on a tourist carnet. I didn’t know how long it took to set up a laboratory and process enough heroin to make a killing in the dope market; but, on the face of it, two months seemed a bit short. I decided in the end that, for safety, they might well want to avoid remaining for too long in any one place and intended to keep the laboratory on the move.

I think I knew, secretly, that it wasn’t a highly convincing explanation; but, at that moment, it was the best that I could think of, and until a better one occurred to me I was prepared to be uncritical. I liked my arms-for-opium theory. At least it held out a promise of release. When Tufan realized that, as far as the arms were concerned, Harper was only an intermediary, his interest must shift from the villa group to someone somewhere else. My usefulness would be at an end. Harper would accept my resignation with a shrug, return my letter, and pay me off. Tufan’s delighted Director would help me over my papers. A few hours later I would be back in Athens, safe and sound.

I remembered that I hadn’t yet written to Nicki. Before I went to bed, I bought a postcard from the concierge and wrote a few lines. Still on Lincoln job. Money good. Should last a few more days. Home mid-week latest. Be good. Love, Papa.

I didn’t put the villa address, because that would have made her curious. I didn’t want to have to answer a lot of questions when I got back. Even when I’ve had a good time, I don’t like having to talk about it. Good or bad, what’s over’s done with. Anyway, there was no point really in giving an address. I knew she wouldn’t write back to me.

The following morning I went out early, bought a dozen packets of cigarettes, and then looked for a shop which sold tools. If I were to make sure that the stuff had been removed from the car doors, I would have to look inside at least one of them. The only trouble was that the screws which fastened the leather panels had Phillips heads. If I tried to use an ordinary screwdriver on them, there would be a risk of making marks or possibly scratching the leather.

I could not find a tool shop, so, in the end, I went to the garage off Taxim Square, where they knew me, and persuaded the mechanic there to sell me a Phillips. Then I went back to the hotel, paid my bill, and took a taxi to the ferry pier. There was no sign of the Peugeot following.

A ferryboat came in almost immediately and I knew that I was going to be early at Sariyer. In fact, I was twenty minutes early, so I was all the more surprised to see the Lincoln coming along the road as the boat edged in to the pier.

Miss Lipp was driving.