The Sultan's seal

51

Bernie pulls on the reins.

“Why are you slowing down?”

“I thought I heard something.”

The night is alive with animal sounds, sudden trills, fish falling into the water just beyond the road. An owl hoots from the forest.

“There it is again,” Bernie whispers. An odd cry, faint as if muffled.

“It must be coming from Asma Sultan’s villa,” cries Kamil. “There’s no other house near here.”

Bernie swings the phaeton around, whips the horses, and thundering back down the road, they halt at the gate and jump out.

“Let’s get the lamps lit so we can see better.”

“The gate is locked.” Kamil clambers up the ilex that covers the wall like a green mantle. He reappears on the other side of the wrought-iron gate and unlatches it.

The iron creaks as they push the heavy doors open.

They move quickly down the carriageway toward the house. Kamil pushes open the unlocked front door. Washes of light dart across the walls as they move through the entry hall and down a corridor. They emerge in a room so vast that their lamps pick out only patches of parquet floor and the bases of man-width marble pillars.

“This must be the reception room,” Kamil notes.

Bernie’s lamp moves off and is soon lost in the gloom. Kamil hears a crash of crockery. Suddenly the air jumps with shadows as Bernie lights a gas lamp on the wall.

“Holy Mother of Jesus!” Bernie stares at the shattered object on the floor.

“What is it?”

“A Ming vase. I’ve never seen one that big before. It’s priceless.”

They look around. The room is hung with enormous gilded mirrors that multiply the illumination. Swags of colored glass chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

They pause, listening carefully.

“Nothing,” Bernie says finally.

“She must be in this house somewhere. We should be quiet, in case the others are still here. We’ll have the advantage of surprise.”

“The hell with that,” Bernie says, and shouts, “Sybil.”