Verily I have seene divers become mad and senseless for feare: yea and in him, who is most settled and best resolved, it is certaine that whilest his fit continueth, it begetteth many strange dazelings, and terrible amazements in him. MONTAIGNE

CHAPTER ONE

The steamer, Sestri Levante, stood high above the dock side, and the watery sleet, carried on the wind blustering down from the Black Sea, had drenched even the small shelter deck. In the after well the Turkish stevedores, with sacking tied round their shoulders, were still loading cargo.

Graham saw the steward carry his suit-case through a door marked PASSEGGIERI, and turned aside to see if the two men who had shaken hands with him at the foot of the gangway were still there. They had not come aboard lest the uniform of one of them should draw attention to him. Now they were walking away across the crane lines towards the warehouses and the dock gates beyond. As they reached the shelter of the first shed they looked back. He raised his left arm and saw an answering wave. They walked on out of sight.

For a moment he stood there shivering and staring out of the mist that shrouded the domes and spires of Stambul. Behind the rumble and clatter of the winches, the Turkish foreman was shouting plaintively in bad Italian to one of the ship’s officers. Graham remembered that he had been told to go to his cabin and stay there until the ship sailed. He followed the steward through the door.

The man was waiting for him at the head of a short flight of stairs. There was no sign of any of the nine other passengers.

“Cinque, signore?”

“Yes.”

“Da queste parte.”

Graham followed him below.

Number five was a small cabin with a single bunk, a combined wardrobe and washing cabinet, and only just enough floor space left over to take him and his suit-case. The port-hole fittings were caked with verdigris, and there was a strong smell of paint. The steward manhandled the suit-case under the bunk, and squeezed out into the alley-way.

“Favorisca di darmi il suo biglietto ed il suo passaporto, signore. Li portero al Commissario.”

Graham gave him the ticket and passport, and, pointing to the port-hole, made the motions of unscrewing and opening it.

The steward said, “Subito, signore,” and went away.

Graham sat down wearily on the bunk. It was the first time for nearly twenty-four hours that he had been left alone to think. He took his right hand carefully out of his overcoat pocket, and looked at the bandages swathed round it. It throbbed and ached abominably. If that was what a bullet graze felt like, he thanked his stars that the bullet had not really hit him.

He looked round the cabin, accepting his presence in it as he had accepted so many other absurdities since he had returned to his hotel in Pera the night before. The acceptance was unquestioning. He felt only as if he had lost something valuable. In fact, he had lost nothing of any value but a sliver of skin and cartilage from the back of his right hand. All that had happened to him was that he had discovered the fear of death.

By the husbands of his wife’s friends, Graham was considered lucky. He had a highly paid job with a big armaments manufacturing concern, a pleasant house in the country an hour’s drive from his office, and a wife whom everyone liked. Not that he didn’t deserve it all. He was, though you would never think it to look at him, a brilliant engineer; quite an important one if some of the things you heard were true; something to do with guns. He went abroad a good deal on business. He was a quiet, likeable sort of chap, and generous with his whisky. You couldn’t, of course, imagine yourself getting to know him very well (it was hard to say which was worse-his golf or his bridge), but he was always friendly. Nothing effusive; just friendly; a bit like an expensive dentist trying to take your mind off things. He looked rather like an expensive dentist, too, when you came to think of it: thin and slightly stooping, with well-cut clothes, a good smile, and hair going a bit grey. But if it was difficult to imagine a woman like Stephanie marrying him for anything except his salary, you had to admit that they got on extraordinarily well together. It only went to show …

Graham himself also thought that he was lucky. From his father, a diabetic school-master, he had inherited, at the age of seventeen, an easy-going disposition, five hundred pounds in cash from a life insurance policy, and a good mathematical brain. The first legacy had enabled him to endure without resentment the ministrations of a reluctant and cantankerous guardian; the second had made it possible for him to use the scholarship he had won to a university; the third resulted in his securing in his middle twenties a science doctorate. The subject of his thesis had been a problem in ballistics, and an abridged version of it had appeared in a technical journal. By the time he was thirty he was in charge of one of his employers’ experimental departments, and a little surprised that he should be paid so much money for doing something that he liked doing. That same year he had married Stephanie.

It never occurred to him to doubt that his attitude towards his wife was that of any other man towards a wife to whom he has been married for ten years. He had married her because he had been tired of living in furnished rooms, and had assumed (correctly) that she had married him to get away from her father-a disagreeable and impecunious doctor. He was pleased by her good looks, her good humour, and her capacity for keeping servants and making friends, and if he sometimes found the friends tiresome, was inclined to blame himself rather than them. She, on her part, accepted the fact that he was more interested in his work than in anyone or anything else as a matter of course and without resentment. She liked her life exactly as it was. They lived in an atmosphere of good-natured affection and mutual tolerance, and thought their marriage as successful as one could reasonably expect a marriage to be.

The outbreak of war in September nineteen thirty-nine had little effect on the Graham household. Having spent the previous two years with the certain knowledge that such an outbreak was as inevitable as the going down of the sun, Graham was neither astonished nor dismayed when it occurred. He had calculated to a nicety its probable effects on his private life, and by October he was able to conclude that his calculations had been correct. For him, the war meant more work; but that was all. It touched neither his economic nor his personal security. He could not, under any circumstances, become liable for combatant military service. The chances of a German bomber unloading its cargo anywhere near either his house or his office were remote enough to be disregarded. When he learned, just three weeks after the signing of the Anglo-Turkish treaty of alliance, that he was to go to Turkey on company business, he was troubled only by the dismal prospect of spending Christmas away from home.

He had been thirty-two when he had made his first business trip abroad. It had been a success. His employers had discovered that, in addition to his technical ability, he had the faculty, unusual in a man with his particular qualifications, of making himself amiable to-and liked by-foreign government officials. In the years that followed, occasional trips abroad had become part of his working life. He enjoyed them. He liked the actual business of getting to a strange city almost as much as he liked discovering its strangeness. He liked meeting men of other nationalities, learning smatterings of their languages, and being appalled at his lack of understanding of both. He had acquired a wholesome dislike of the word “typical.”

Towards the middle of November, he reached Istanbul, by train from Paris, and left it almost immediately for Izmir and, later, Gallipoli. By the end of December he had finished his work in those two places, and on the first of January took a train back to Istanbul, the starting point of his journey home.

He had had a trying six weeks. His job had been a difficult one made more difficult by his having to discuss highly technical subjects through interpreters. The horror of the Anatolian earthquake disaster had upset him nearly as much as it had upset his hosts. Finally, the train service from Gallipoli to Istanbul had been disorganized by floods. By the time he arrived back in Istanbul he was feeling tired and depressed.

He was met at the station by Kopeikin, the company’s representative in Turkey.

Kopeikin had arrived in Istanbul with sixty-five thousand other Russian refugees in nineteen twenty-four, and had been, by turns, card-sharper, part owner of a brothel, and army clothing contractor before he had secured-the Managing Director alone knew how-the lucrative agency he now held. Graham liked him. He was a plump, exuberant man with large projecting ears, irrepressible high spirits, and a vast fund of low cunning.

He wrung Graham’s hand enthusiastically. “Have you had a bad trip? I am so sorry. It is good to see you back again. How did you get on with Fethi?”

“Very well, I think. I imagined something much worse from your description of him.”

“My dear fellow, you underrate your charm of manner. He is known to be difficult. But he is important. Now everything will go smoothly. But we will talk business over a drink. I have engaged a room for you-a room with a bath, at the Adler-Palace, as before. For to-night I have arranged a farewell dinner. The expense is mine.”

“It’s very good of you.”

“A great pleasure, my dear fellow. Afterwards we will amuse ourselves a little. There is a box that is very popular at the moment-Le Jockey Cabaret. You will like it, I think. It is very nicely arranged, and the people who go there are quite nice. No riff-raff. Is this your luggage?”

Graham’s heart sank. He had expected to have dinner with Kopeikin, but he had been promising himself that about ten o’clock he would have a hot bath and go to bed with a Tauchnitz detective story. The last thing he wanted to do was to “amuse” himself at Le Jockey Cabaret, or any other night place. He said, as they followed the porter out to Kopeikin’s car: “I think that perhaps I ought to get to bed early to-night, Kopeikin. I’ve got four nights in a train in front of me.”

“My dear fellow, it will do you good to be late. Besides, your train does not go until eleven to-morrow morning, and I have reserved a sleeper for you. You can sleep all the way to Paris if you feel tired.”

Over dinner at the Pera Palace Hotel, Kopeikin gave war news. For him, the Soviets were still “the July assassins” of Nicholas the Second, and Graham heard much of Finnish victories and Russian defeats. The Germans had sunk more British ships and lost more submarines. The Dutch, the Danes, the Swedes and the Norwegians were looking to their defences. The world awaited a bloody Spring. They went on to talk about the earthquake. It was half-past ten when Kopeikin announced that it was time for them to leave for Le Jockey Cabaret.

It was in the Beyoglu quarter; just off the Grande Rue de Pera, and in a street of buildings obviously designed by a French architect of the middle nineteen twenties. Kopeikin took his arm affectionately as they went in.

“It is a very nice place, this,” he said. “Serge, the proprietor, is a friend of mine, so they will not cheat us. I will introduce you to him.”

For the man he was, Graham’s knowledge of the night life of cities was surprisingly extensive. For some reason, the nature of which he could never discover, his foreign hosts always seemed to consider that the only form of entertainment acceptable to an English engineer was that to be found in the rather less reputable Nachtlokalen. He had been in such places in Buenos Aires and in Madrid, in Valparaiso and in Bucharest, in Rome and in Mexico; and he could not remember one that was very much different from any of the others. He could remember the business acquaintances with whom he had sat far into the early morning hours drinking outrageously expensive drinks; but the places themselves had merged in his mind’s eye into one prototypical picture of a smoke-filled basement room with a platform for the band at one end, a small space for dancing surrounded by tables, and a bar with stools, where the drinks were alleged to be cheaper, to one side.

He did not expect Le Jockey Cabaret to be any different. It was not.

The mural decorations seemed to have caught the spirit of the street outside. They consisted of a series of immense vorticisms involving sky-scrapers at camera angles, coloured saxophone players, green all-seeing eyes, telephones, Easter Island masks, and ash-blond hermaphrodites with long cigarette holders. The place was crowded and very noisy. Serge was a sharp-featured Russian with bristly grey hair and the air of one whose feelings were constantly on the point of getting the better of his judgment. To Graham, looking at his eyes, it seemed unlikely that they ever did: but he greeted them graciously enough, and showed them to a table beside the dance floor. Kopeikin ordered a bottle of brandy.

The band brought an American dance tune, which they had been playing with painful zeal, to an abrupt end and began, with more success, to play a rumba.

“It is very gay here,” said Kopeikin. “Would you like to dance? There are plenty of girls. Say which you fancy and I will speak to Serge.”

“Oh, don’t bother. I really don’t think I ought to stay long.”

“You must stop thinking about your journey. Drink some more brandy and you will feel better.” He got to his feet. “I shall dance now and find a nice girl for you.”

Graham felt guilty. He should, he knew, be displaying more enthusiasm. Kopeikin was, after all, being extraordinarily kind. It could be no pleasure for him to try to entertain a train-weary Englishman who would have preferred to be in bed. He drank some more brandy determinedly. More people were arriving. He saw Serge greet them warmly and then, when their backs were turned, issue a furtive instruction to the waiter who was to serve them: a drab little reminder that Le Jockey Cabaret was in business neither for his own pleasure nor for theirs. He turned his head to watch Kopeikin dancing.

The girl was thin and dark and had large teeth. Her red satin evening dress drooped on her as if it had been made for a bigger woman. She smiled a great deal. Kopeikin held her slightly away from him and talked all the time they were dancing. To Graham, he seemed, despite the grossness of his body, to be the only man on the floor who was completely self-possessed. He was the ex-brothel-proprietor dealing with something he understood perfectly. When the music stopped he brought the girl over to their table.

“This is Maria,” he said. “She is an Arab. You would not think it to look at her, would you?”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“She speaks a little French.”

“Enchanté, Mademoiselle.”

“Monsieur.” Her voice was unexpectedly harsh, but her smile was pleasant. She was obviously good natured.

“Poor child!” Kopeikin’s tone was that of a governess who hoped that her charge would not disgrace her before visitors. “She has only just recovered from a sore throat. But she is a very nice girl and has good manners. Assieds-toi, Maria.”

She sat down beside Graham. “Je prends du champagne,” she said.

“Oui, oui, mon enfant. Plus tard,” said Kopeikin vaguely. “She gets extra commission if we order champagne,” he remarked to Graham, and poured out some brandy for her.

She took it without comment, raised it to her lips, and said, “Skål!”

“She thinks you are a Swede,” said Kopeikin.

“Why?”

“She likes Swedes, so I said you were a Swede.” He chuckled. “You cannot say that the Turkish agent does nothing for the company.”

She had been listening to them with an uncomprehending smile. Now, the music began again and, turning to Graham, she asked him if he would like to dance.

She danced well; well enough for him to feel that he, too, was dancing well. He felt less depressed and asked her to dance again. The second time she pressed her thin body hard against him. He saw a grubby shoulder strap begin to work its way out from under the red satin and smelt the heat of her body behind the scent she used. He found that he was getting tired of her.

She began to talk. Did he know Istanbul well? Had he been there before? Did he know Paris? And London? He was lucky. She had never been to those places. She hoped to go to them. And to Stockholm, too. Had he many friends in Istanbul? She asked because there was a gentleman who had come in just after him and his friend who seemed to know him. This gentleman kept looking at him.

Graham had been wondering how soon he could get away. He realised suddenly that she was waiting for him to say something. His mind had caught her last remark.

“Who keeps looking at me?”

“We cannot see him now. The gentleman is sitting at the bar.”

“No doubt he’s looking at you.” There seemed nothing else to say.

But she was evidently serious. “It is in you that he is interested, Monsieur. It is the one with the handkerchief in his hand.”

They had reached a point on the floor from which he could see the bar. The man was sitting on a stool with a glass of vermouth in front of him.

He was a short, thin man with a stupid face: very bony with large nostrils, prominent cheekbones, and full lips pressed together as if he had sore gums or were trying to keep his temper. He was intensely pale and his small, deep-set eyes and thinning, curly hair seemed in consequence darker than they were. The hair was plastered in streaks across his skull. He wore a crumpled brown suit with lumpy padded shoulders, a soft shirt with an almost invisible collar, and a new grey tie. As Graham watched him he wiped his upper lip with the handkerchief as if the heat of the place were making him sweat.

“He doesn’t seem to be looking at me now,” Graham said. “Anyway, I don’t know him, I’m afraid.”

“I did not think so, Monsieur.” She pressed his arm to her side with her elbow. “But I wished to be sure. I do not know him either, but I know the type. You are a stranger here, Monsieur, and you perhaps have money in your pocket. Istanbul is not like Stockholm. When such types look at you more than once, it is advisable to be careful. You are strong, but a knife in the back is the same for a strong man as for a small one.”

Her solemnity was ludicrous. He laughed; but he looked again at the man by the bar. He was sipping at his vermouth; an inoffensive creature. The girl was probably trying, rather clumsily, to demonstrate that her own intentions were good.

He said: “I don’t think that I need worry.”

She relaxed the pressure on his arm. “Perhaps not, Monsieur.” She seemed suddenly to lose interest in the subject. The band stopped and they returned to the table.

“She dances very nicely, doesn’t she?” said Kopeikin.

“Very.”

She smiled at them, sat down and finished her drink as if she were thirsty. Then she sat back. “We are three,” she said and counted round with one finger to make sure they understood; “would you like me to bring a friend of mine to have a drink with us? She is very sympathetic. She is my greatest friend.”

“Later, perhaps,” said Kopeikin. He poured her out another drink.

At that moment, the band played a resounding “chord-on” and most of the lights went out. A spotlight quivered on the floor in front of the platform.

“The attractions,” said Maria. “It is very good.”

Serge stepped into the spotlight and pattered off a long announcement in Turkish which ended in a flourish of the hand towards a door beside the platform. Two dark young men in pale blue dinner jackets promptly dashed out on to the floor and proceeded to do an energetic tap dance. They were soon breathless and their hair became dishevelled, but the applause, when they had finished, was lukewarm. Then they put on false beards and, pretending to be old men, did some tumbling. The audience was only slightly more enthusiastic. They retired, rather angrily Graham thought, dripping with perspiration. They were followed by a handsome coloured woman with long thin legs who proved to be a contortionist. Her contortions were ingeniously obscene and evoked gusts of laughter. In response to shouts, she followed her contortions with a snake dance. This was not so successful, as the snake, produced from a gilt wicker crate as cautiously as if it had been a fully grown anaconda, proved to be a small and rather senile python with a tendency to fall asleep in its mistress’s hands. It was finally bundled back into its crate while she did some more contortions. When she had gone, the proprietor stepped once more into the spotlight and made an announcement that was greeted with clapping.

The girl put her lips to Graham’s ear. “It is Josette and her partner, José. They are dancers from Paris. This is their last night here. They have had a great success.”

The spotlight became pink and swept to the entrance door. There was a roll of drums. Then, as the band struck up the Blue Danube waltz, the dancers glided on to the floor.

For the weary Graham, their dance was as much a part of the cellar convention as the bar and the platform for the band: it was something to justify the prices of the drinks: a demonstration of the fact that, by applying the laws of classical mechanics, one small, unhealthy looking man with a broad sash round his waist could handle an eight stone woman as if she were a child. Josette and her partner were remarkable only in that, although they carried out the standard “specialty” routine rather less efficiently than usual, they managed to do so with considerably more effect.

She was a slim woman with beautiful arms and shoulders and a mass of gleaming fair hair. Her heavily lidded eyes, almost closed as she danced, and the rather full lips, fixed in a theatrical half-smile, contradicted in a curious way the swift neatness of her movements. Graham saw that she was not a dancer but a woman who had been trained to dance and who did so with a sort of indolent sensuality, conscious of her young-looking body, her long legs, and the muscles below the smooth surfaces of her thighs and stomach. If her performance did not succeed as a dance, as an attraction at Le Jockey Cabaret it succeeded perfectly and in spite of her partner.

He was a dark, preoccupied man with tight, disagreeable lips, a smooth sallow face, and an irritating way of sticking his tongue hard in his cheek as he prepared to exert himself. He moved badly and was clumsy, his fingers shifting uncertainly as he grasped her for the lifts as if he were uncertain of the point of balance. He was constantly steadying himself.

But the audience was not looking at him, and when they had finished called loudly for an encore. It was given. The band played another “chord-on.” Mademoiselle Josette took a bow and was presented with a bouquet of flowers by Serge. She returned several times and bowed and kissed her hand.

“She is quite charming, isn’t she?” Kopeikin said in English as the lights went up. “I promised you that this place was amusing.”

“She’s quite good. But it’s a pity about the moth-eaten Valentino.”

“José? He does well for himself. Would you like to have her to the table for a drink?”

“Very much. But won’t it be rather expensive?”

“Gracious no! She does not get commission.”

“Will she come?”

“Of course. The patron introduced me. I know her well. You might take to her, I think. This Arab is a little stupid. No doubt Josette is stupid, too; but she is very attractive in her way. If I had not learned too much when I was too young, I should like her myself.”

Maria stared after him as he went across the floor, and remained silent for a moment. Then she said: “He is very good, that friend of yours.”

Graham was not quite sure whether it was a statement, a question, or a feeble attempt to make conversation. He nodded. “Very good.”

She smiled. “He knows the proprietor well. If you desire it, he will ask Serge to let me go when you wish instead of when the place closes.”

He smiled as regretfully as he could. “I’m afraid, Maria, that I have to pack my luggage and catch a train in the morning.”

She smiled again. “It does not matter. But I specially like the Swedes. May I have some more brandy, Monsieur?”

“Of course.” He refilled her glass.

She drank half of it. “Do you like Mademoiselle Josette?”

“She dances very well.”

“She is very sympathetic. That is because she has a success. When people have a success they are sympathetic. José, nobody likes. He is a Spaniard from Morocco, and very jealous. They are all the same. I do not know how she stands him.”

“I thought you said they were Parisians.”

“They have danced in Paris. She is from Hungary. She speaks languages-German, Spanish, English-but not Swedish, I think. She has had many rich lovers.” She paused. “Are you a business man, Monsieur?”

“No, an engineer.” He realised, with some amusement, that Maria was less stupid than she seemed, and that she knew exactly why Kopeikin had left them. He was being warned, indirectly but unmistakably, that Mademoiselle Josette was very expensive, that communication with her would be difficult, and that he would have a jealous Spaniard to deal with.

She drained her glass again, and stared vaguely in the direction of the bar. “My friend is looking very lonely,” she said. She turned her head and looked directly at him. “Will you give me a hundred piastres, Monsieur?”

“What for?”

“A tip, Monsieur.” She smiled, but in not quite so friendly a fashion as before.

He gave her a hundred piastre note. She folded it up, put it in her bag, and stood up. “Will you excuse me, please? I wish to speak to my friend. I will come back if you wish.” She smiled.

He saw her red satin dress disappear in the crowd gathered round the bar. Kopeikin returned almost immediately.

“Where is the Arab?”

“She’s gone to speak to her best friend. I gave her a hundred piastres.”

“A hundred! Fifty would have been plenty. But perhaps it is as well. Josette asks us to have a drink with her in her dressing-room. She is leaving Istanbul to-morrow, and does not wish to come out here. She will have to speak to so many people, and she has packing to do.”

“Shan’t we be rather a nuisance?”

“My dear fellow, she is anxious to meet you. She saw you while she was dancing. When I told her that you were an Englishman, she was delighted. We can leave these drinks here.”

Mademoiselle Josette’s dressing-room was a space about eight feet square, partitioned off from the other half of what appeared to be the proprietor’s office by a brown curtain. The three solid walls were covered with faded pink wall-paper with stripes of blue: there were greasy patches here and there where people had leaned against them. The room contained two bent-wood chairs and two rickety dressing tables littered with cream jars and dirty make-up towels. There was a mixed smell of stale cigarette smoke, face powder, and damp upholstery.

As they went in in response to a grunt of “Entrez” from the partner, José, he got up from his dressing table. Still wiping the grease paint from his face, he walked out without a glance at them. For some reason, Kopeikin winked at Graham. Josette was leaning forward in her chair dabbing intently at one of her eyebrows with a swab of damp cotton-wool. She had discarded her costume, and put on a rose velvet house-coat. Her hair hung down loosely about her head as if she had shaken it out and brushed it. It was really, Graham thought, very beautiful hair. She began to speak in slow, careful English, punctuating the words with dabs.

“Please excuse me. It is this filthy paint. It … Merde!”

She threw the swab down impatiently, stood up suddenly, and turned to face them.

In the hard light of the unshaded bulb above her head she looked smaller than she had looked on the dance floor; and a trifle haggard. Graham, thinking of his Stephanie’s rather buxom good looks, reflected that the woman before him would probably be quite plain in ten years’ time. He was in the habit of comparing other women with his wife. As a method of disguising from himself the fact that other women still interested him, it was usually effective. But Josette was unusual. What she might look like in ten years’ time was altogether beside the point. At that moment she was a very attractive, self-possessed woman with a soft, smiling mouth, slightly protuberant blue eyes, and a sleepy vitality that seemed to fill the room.

“This, my dear Josette,” said Kopeikin, “is Mr. Graham.”

“I enjoyed your dancing very much, Mademoiselle,” he said.

“So Kopeikin told me.” She shrugged. “It could be better, I think, but it is very good of you to say that you like it. It is nonsense to say that Englishmen are not polite.” She flourished her hand round the room. “I do not like to ask you to sit down in this filth, but please try to make yourself comfortable. There is Jose’s chair for Kopeikin, and if you could push José’s things away, the corner of his table will be for you. It is too bad that we cannot sit together in comfort outside, but there are so many of these men who make some chichi if one does not stop and drink some of their champagne. The champagne here is filthy. I do not wish to leave Istanbul with a headache. How long do you stay here, Mr. Graham?”

“I, too, leave to-morrow.” She amused him. Her posturing was absurd. Within the space of a minute she had been a great actress receiving wealthy suitors, a friendly woman of the world, and a disillusioned genius of the dance. Every movement, every piece of affectation was calculated: it was as if she were still dancing.

Now she became a serious student of affairs. “It is terrible, this travelling. And you go back to your war. I am sorry. These filthy Nazis. It is such a pity that there must be wars. And if it is not wars, it is earthquakes. Always death. It is so bad for business. I am not interested in death. Kopeikin is, I think. Perhaps it is because he is a Russian.”

“I think nothing of death,” said Kopeikin. “I am concerned only that the waiter shall bring the drinks I ordered. Will you have a cigarette?”

“Please, yes. The waiters here are filthy. There must be much better places than this in London, Mr. Graham.”

“The waiters there are very bad, too. Waiters are, I think, mostly very bad. But I should have thought you had been to London. Your English …”

Her smile tolerated his indiscretion, the depths of which he could not know. As well to have asked the Pompadour who paid her bills. “I learned it from an American and in Italy. I have a great sympathy for Americans. They are so clever in business, and yet so generous and sincere. I think it is most important to be sincere. Was it amusing dancing with that little Maria, Mr. Graham?”

“She dances very well. She seems to admire you very much. She says that you have a great success. You do, of course.”

“A great success! Here?” The disillusioned genius raised her eyebrows. “I hope you gave her a good tip, Mr. Graham.”

“He gave her twice as much as was necessary,” said Kopeikin. “Ah, here are the drinks!”

They talked for a time about people whom Graham did not know, and about the war. He saw that behind her posturing she was quick and shrewd, and wondered if the American in Italy had ever regretted his “sincerity.” After a while Kopeikin raised his glass.

“I drink,” he said pompously, “to your two journeys.” He lowered his glass suddenly without drinking. “No, it is absurd,” he said, irritably. “My heart is not in the toast. I cannot help thinking that it is a pity that there should be two journeys. You are both going to Paris. You are both friends of mine, and so you have”-he patted his stomach-“much in common.”

Graham smiled, trying not to look startled. She was certainly very attractive, and it was pleasant to sit facing her as he was; but the idea that the acquaintance might be extended had simply not occurred to him. He was confused by it. He saw that she was watching him with amusement in her eyes, and had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew exactly what was passing through his mind.

He put the best face on the situation that he could. “I was hoping to suggest the same thing. I think you should have left me to suggest it, Kopeikin. Mademoiselle will wonder if I am as sincere as an American.” He smiled at her. “I am leaving by the eleven o’clock train.”

“And in the first class, Mr. Graham?”

“Yes.”

She put out her cigarette. “Then there are two obvious reasons why we cannot travel together. I am not leaving by that train and, in any case, I travel in the second class. It is perhaps just as well. José would wish to play cards with you all the way, and you would lose your money.”

There was no doubt that she expected them to finish their drinks and go. Graham felt oddly disappointed. He would have liked to stay. He knew, besides, that he had behaved awkwardly.

“Perhaps,” he said, “we could meet in Paris.”

“Perhaps.” She stood up and smiled kindly at him. “I shall stay at the Hotel des Belges near Trinité, if it is still open. I shall hope to meet you again. Kopeikin tells me that as an engineer you are very well known.”

“Kopeikin exaggerates-just as he exaggerated when he said that we should not hinder you and your partner in your packing. I hope you have a pleasant journey.”

“It has been so good to meet you. It was so kind of you, Kopeikin, to bring Mr. Graham to see me.”

“It was his idea,” said Kopeikin. “Good-bye, my dear Josette, and bon voyage. We should like to stay, but it is late, and I insisted on Mr. Graham’s getting some sleep. He would stay talking until he missed the train if I permitted it.”

She laughed. “You are very nice, Kopeikin. When I come next to Istanbul, I shall tell you first. Au ’voir, Mr. Graham, and bon voyage.” She held out her hand.

“The Hotel des Belges near Trinité,” he said: “I shall remember.” He spoke very little less than the truth. During the ten minutes that his taxi would take to get from the Gare de l’Est to the Gare St. Lazare, he probably would remember.

She pressed his fingers gently. “I’m sure you will,” she said. “Au ‘voir, Kopeikin. You know the way?”

“I think,” said Kopeikin, as they waited for their bill, “I think that I am a little disappointed in you, my dear fellow. You made an excellent impression. She was yours for the asking. You had only to ask her the time of her train.”

“I am quite sure that I made no impression at all. Frankly, she embarrassed me. I don’t understand women of that sort.”

“That sort of woman, as you put it, likes a man who is embarrassed by her. Your diffidence was charming.”

“Heavens! Anyway, I said that I would see her in Paris.”

“My dear fellow, she knows perfectly well that you have not the smallest intention of seeing her in Paris. It is a pity. She is, I know, quite particular. You were lucky, and you chose to ignore the fact.”

“Good gracious, man, you seem to forget that I’m a married man!”

Kopeikin threw up his hands. “The English point of view! One cannot reason; one can only stand amazed.” He sighed profoundly. “Here comes the bill.”

On their way out they passed Maria sitting at the bar with her best friend, a mournful-looking Turkish girl. They received a smile. Graham noticed that the man in the crumpled brown suit had gone.

It was cold in the street. A wind was beginning to moan through the telephone wires bracketed on the wall. At three o’clock in the morning the city of Sulyman the Magnificent was like a railway station after the last train had gone.

“We shall be having snow,” said Kopeikin. “Your hotel is quite near. We will walk if you like. It is to be hoped,” he went on as they began to walk, “that you will miss the snow on your journey. Last year there was a Simplon Orient express delayed for three days near Salonika.”

“I shall take a bottle of brandy with me.”

Kopeikin grunted. “Still, I do not envy you the journey. I think perhaps I am getting old. Besides, travelling at this time …”

“Oh, I’m a good traveller. I don’t get bored easily.”

“I was not thinking of boredom. So many unpleasant things can happen in war time.”

“I suppose so.”

Kopeikin buttoned up his overcoat collar. “To give you only one example …

“During the last war an Austrian friend of mine was returning to Berlin from Zürich, where he had been doing some business. He sat in the train with a man who said that he was a Swiss from Lugano. They talked a lot on the journey. This Swiss told my friend about his wife and his children, his business, and his home. He seemed a very nice man. But soon after they had crossed the frontier, the train stopped at a small station and soldiers came on with police. They arrested the Swiss. My friend had also to leave the train as he was with the Swiss. He was not alarmed. His papers were in order. He was a good Austrian. But the man from Lugano was terrified. He turned very pale and cried like a child. They told my friend afterwards that the man was not a Swiss but an Italian spy and that he would be shot. My friend was upset. You see, one can always tell when a man is speaking about something he loves, and there was no doubt that all that this man had said about his wife and children was true: all except one thing-they were in Italy instead of Switzerland. War,” he added solemnly, “is unpleasant.”

“Quite so.” They had stopped outside the Adler-Palace Hotel. “Will you come in for a drink?”

Kopeikin shook his head. “It is kind of you to suggest it, but you must get some sleep. I feel guilty now at having kept you out so late, but I have enjoyed our evening together.”

“So have I. I’m very grateful to you.”

“A great pleasure. No farewells now. I shall take you to the station in the morning. Can you be ready by ten?”

“Easily.”

“Then good night, my dear fellow.”

“Good night, Kopeikin.”

Graham went inside, stopped at the hall porter’s desk for his key and to tell the night porter to call him at eight. Then, as the power for the lift was switched off at night, he climbed wearily up the stairs to his room on the second floor.

It was at the end of the corridor. He put the key in the lock, turned it, pushed the door open and, with his right hand, felt along the wall for the light switch.

The next moment there was a splinter of flame in the darkness and an ear-splitting detonation. A piece of plaster from the wall beside him stung his cheek. Before he could move or even think, the flame and the noise came again and it seemed as if a bar of white-hot metal had been suddenly pressed against the back of his hand. He cried out with pain and stumbled forward out of the light from the corridor into the darkness of the room. Another shot scattered plaster behind him.

There was silence. He was half leaning, half crouching against the wall by the bed, his ears singing from the din of the explosions. He was dimly aware that the window was open and that someone was moving by it. His hand seemed to be numb, but he could feel blood beginning to trickle between his fingers.

He remained motionless, his heart hammering at his head. The air reeked of cordite fumes. Then, as his eyes became used to the darkness, he saw that whoever had been at the window had left by it.

There would, he knew, be another light switch beside the bed. With his left hand he fumbled along the wall towards it. Then his hand touched the telephone. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he picked it up.

He heard a click as the night porter plugged in at the switchboard.

“Room thirty-six,” he said and was surprised to find that he was shouting. “Something has happened. I need help.”

He put the telephone down, blundered towards the bathroom and switched on the light there. The blood was pouring from a great gash across the back of his hand. Through the waves of nausea flowing from his stomach to his head, he could hear doors being flung open and excited voices in the corridor. Someone started hammering at the door.

CHAPTER TWO

The stevedores had finished loading and were battening down. One winch was still working but it was hoisting the steel bearers into place. The bulkhead against which Graham was leaning vibrated as they thudded into their sockets. Another passenger had come aboard and the steward had shown him to a cabin farther along the alleyway. The newcomer had a low, grumbling voice and had addressed the steward in hesitant Italian.

Graham stood up and with his unbandaged hand fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. He was beginning to find the cabin oppressive. He looked at his watch. The ship would not be sailing for another hour. He wished he had asked Kopeikin to come aboard with him. He tried to think of his wife in England, to picture her sitting with her friends having tea; but it was as if someone behind him were holding a stereoscope to his mind’s eyes; someone who was steadily sliding picture after picture between him and the rest of his life to cut him off from it; pictures of Kopeikin and Le Jockey Cabaret, of Maria and the man in the crumpled suit, of Josette and her partner, of stabbing flames in a sea of darkness and of pale, frightened faces in the hotel corridor. He had not known then what he knew now, what he learnt in the cold, beastly dawn that had followed. The whole thing had seemed different then: unpleasant, decidedly unpleasant, but reasonable, accountable. Now he felt as if a doctor had told him that he was suffering from some horrible and deadly disease; as if he had become part of a different world, a world of which he knew nothing but that it was detestable.

The hand holding the match to his cigarette was trembling. “What I need,” he thought, “is sleep.”

As the waves of nausea subsided and he stood there in the bathroom, shivering, sounds began once more to penetrate the blanket of cotton wool that seemed to have enveloped his brain. There was a sort of irregular thudding coming from a long distance. He realised that someone was still knocking at the bedroom door.

He wrapped a face towel round his hand, went back into the bedroom and switched on the light. As he did so, the knocking ceased and there was a clinking of metal. Someone had got a pass key. The door burst open.

It was the night porter who came in first, blinking round uncertainly. Behind him in the corridor were the people from the neighbouring rooms, drawing back now for fear of seeing what they hoped to see. A small, dark man in a red dressing gown over blue striped pyjamas pushed past the night porter. Graham recognised the man who had shown him to his room.

“There were shots,” he began in French. Then he saw Graham’s hand and went white. “I … You are wounded. You are …”

Graham sat down on the bed. “Not seriously. If you will send for a doctor to bandage my hand properly, I will tell you what has happened. But first: the man who fired the shots left through the window. You might try and catch him. What is below the window?”

“But …” began the man shrilly. He stopped, visibly pulling himself together. Then he turned to the night porter and said something in Turkish. The porter went out, shutting the door behind him. There was a burst of excited chatter from outside.

“The next thing,” said Graham, “is to send for the manager.”

“Pardon, Monsieur, he has been sent for. I am the Assistant Manager.” He wrung his hands. “What has happened? Your hand, Monsieur.… But the doctor will be here immediately.”

“Good. You’d better know what happened. I have been out this evening with a friend. I returned a few minutes ago. As I opened the door here, someone standing there just inside the window fired three shots at me. The second one hit my hand. The other two hit the wall. I heard him moving but I did not see his face. I imagine that he was a thief and that my unexpected return disturbed him.”

“It is an outrage!” said the Assistant Manager hotly. His face changed. “A thief! Has anything been stolen, Monsieur?”

“I haven’t looked. My suitcase is over there. It was locked.”

The Assistant Manager hurried across the room and went down on his knees beside the suitcase. “It is still locked,” he reported with a sigh of relief.

Graham fumbled in his pocket. “Here are the keys. You’d better open it.”

The man obeyed. Graham glanced at the contents of the case. “It has not been touched.”

“A blessing!” He hesitated. He was obviously thinking fast. “You say that your hand is not seriously hurt, Monsieur?”

“I don’t think it is.”

“It is a great relief. When the shots were heard, Monsieur, we feared an unbelievable horror. You may imagine.… But this is bad enough.” He went to the window and looked out. “The pig! He must have escaped through the gardens immediately. Useless to search for him.” He shrugged despairingly. “He is gone now, and there is nothing to be done. I need not tell you, Monsieur, how profoundly we regret that this thing should happen to you in the Adler-Palace. Never before has such a thing happened here.” He hesitated again and then went on quickly: “Naturally, Monsieur, we shall do everything in our power to alleviate the distress which has been caused to you. I have told the porter to bring some whisky for you when he has telephoned for the doctor. English whisky! We have a special supply. Happily, nothing has been stolen. We could not, of course, have foreseen that an accident of such a kind should happen; but we shall ourselves see that the best medical attention is given. And there will, of course, be no question of any charge for your stay here. But …”

“But you don’t want to call in the police and involve the hotel. Is that it?”

The Assistant Manager smiled nervously. “No good can be done, Monsieur. The police would merely ask questions and make inconveniences for all.” Inspiration came to him. “For all, Monsieur,” he repeated emphatically. “You are a business man. You wish to leave Istanbul this morning. But if the police are brought in, it might be difficult. There would be, inevitably, delays. And for what purpose?”

“They might catch the man who shot me.”

“But how, Monsieur? You did not see his face. You cannot identify him. There is nothing stolen by which he could be traced.”

Graham hesitated. “But what about this doctor you are getting? Supposing he reports to the police the fact that there is someone here with a bullet wound.”

“The doctor’s services, Monsieur, will be paid for liberally by the management.”

There was a knock at the door and the porter came in with whisky, soda-water, and glasses which he set down on the table. He said something to the Assistant Manager who nodded and then motioned him out.

“The doctor is on his way, Monsieur.”

“Very well. No, I don’t want any whisky. But drink some yourself. You look as though you need it. I should like to make a telephone call. Will you tell the porter to telephone the Crystal Apartments in the rue d’Italie? The number is forty-four, nine hundred and seven, I think. I want to speak to Monsieur Kopeikin.”

“Certainly, Monsieur. Anything you wish.” He went to the door and called after the porter. There was another incomprehensible exchange. The Assistant Manager came back and helped himself generously to the whisky.

“I think,” he said, returning to the charge, “that you are wise not to invoke the police, Monsieur. Nothing has been stolen. Your injury is not serious. There will be no trouble. It is thus and thus with the police here, you understand.”

“I haven’t yet decided what to do,” snapped Graham. His head was aching violently and his hand was beginning to throb. He was getting tired of the Assistant Manager.

The telephone bell rang. He moved along the bed and picked up the telephone.

“Is that you, Kopeikin?”

He heard a mystified grunt. “Graham? What is it? I have only just this moment come in. Where are you?”

“Sitting on my bed. Listen! Something stupid has happened. There was a burglar in my room when I got up here. He took pot shots at me with a gun before escaping via the window. One of them hit me in the hand.”

“Merciful God! Are you badly hurt?”

“No. It just took a slice of the back of my right hand. I don’t feel too good, though. It gave me a nasty shock.”

“My dear fellow! Please tell me exactly what has happened.”

Graham told him. “My suitcase was locked,” he went on, “and nothing is missing. I must have got back just a minute or so too soon. But there are complications. The noise seems to have roused half the hotel, including the Assistant Manager who is now standing about drinking whisky. They’ve sent for a doctor to bandage me up, but that’s all. They made no attempt to get out after the man. Not, I suppose, that it would have done any good if they had, but at least they might have seen him. I didn’t. They say he must have got away by the gardens. The point is that they won’t call in the police unless I turn nasty and insist. Naturally, they don’t want police tramping about the place, giving the hotel a bad name. They put it to me that the police would prevent my travelling on the eleven o’clock train if I lodged a complaint. I expect they would. But I don’t know the laws of this place; and I don’t want to put myself in a false position by failing to lodge a complaint. They propose, I gather, to square the doctor. But that’s their look-out. What do I do?”

There was a short silence. Then: “I think,” said Kopeikin, slowly, “that you should do nothing at the moment. Leave the matter to me. I will speak to a friend of mine about it. He is connected with the police, and has great influence. As soon as I have spoken to him, I will come to your hotel.”

“But there’s no need for you to do that, Kopeikin. I …”

“Excuse me, my dear fellow, there is every need. Let the doctor attend to your wound and then stay in your room until I arrive.”

“I wasn’t going out,” said Graham, acidly; but Kopeikin had rung off.

As he hung up the telephone, the doctor arrived. He was thin and quiet, with a sallow face, and wore an overcoat with a black lamb’s wool collar over his pyjamas. Behind him came the Manager, a heavy, disagreeable-looking man who obviously suspected that the whole thing was a hoax concocted expressly to annoy him.

He gave Graham a hostile stare, but before he could open his mouth his assistant was pouring out an account of what had occurred. There was a lot of gesturing and rolling of eyes. The Manager exclaimed as he listened, and looked at Graham with less hostility and more apprehension. At last the assistant paused, and then broke meaningly into French.

“Monsieur leaves Istanbul by the eleven o’clock train, and so does not wish to have the trouble and inconvenience of taking this matter to the police. I think you will agree, Monsieur le Directeur, that his attitude is wise.”

“Very wise,” agreed the Manager pontifically, “and most discreet.” He squared his shoulders. “Monsieur, we infinitely regret that you should have been put to such pain, discomfort and indignity. But not even the most luxurious hotel can fortify itself against thieves who climb through windows. Nevertheless,” he went on, “the Hotel Adler-Palace recognises its responsibilities towards its guests. We shall do everything humanly possible to arrange the affair.”

“If it would be humanly possible to instruct the doctor then to attend to my hand, I should be grateful.”

“Ah yes. The doctor. A thousand pardons.”

The doctor, who had been standing gloomily in the background, now came forward and began snapping out instructions in Turkish. The windows were promptly shut, the heating turned up, and the Assistant Manager dispatched on an errand. He returned, almost immediately, with an enamel bowl which was then filled with hot water from the bathroom. The doctor removed the towel from Graham’s hand, sponged the blood away, and inspected the wound. Then he looked up and said something to the Manager.

“He says, Monsieur,” reported the Manager, complacently, “that it is not serious-no more than a little scratch.”

“I already knew that. If you wish to go back to bed, please do so. But I should like some hot coffee. I am cold.”

“Immediately, Monsieur.” He snapped his fingers to the Assistant Manager, who scuttled out. “And if there is anything else, Monsieur?”

“No, thank you. Nothing. Good night.”

“At your service, Monsieur. It is all most regrettable. Good night.”

He went. The doctor cleaned the wound carefully, and began to dress it. Graham wished that he had not telephoned Kopeikin. The fuss was over. It was now nearly four o’clock. But for the fact that Kopeikin had promised to call in to see him, he might have had a few hours’ sleep. He was yawning repeatedly. The doctor finished the dressing, patted it reassuringly, and looked up. His lips worked.

“Maintenant,” he said laboriously, “il faut dormir.”

Graham nodded. The doctor got to his feet and repacked his bag with the air of a man who has done everything possible for a difficult patient. Then he looked at his watch and sighed. “Trèstard,” he said. “Gitece g -im. Adiyo, efendi.”

Graham mustered his Turkish. “Adiyo, hekim efendi. Cok tesekkür ederim.”

“Birsey de g il. Adiyo.” He bowed and went.

A moment later, the Assistant Manager bustled in with the coffee, set it down with a businesslike flourish clearly intended to indicate that he, too, was about to return to his bed, and collected the bottle of whisky.

“You may leave that,” said Graham; “a friend is on his way to see me. You might tell the porter …”

But as he spoke, the telephone rang, and the night porter announced that Kopeikin had arrived. The Assistant Manager retired.

Kopeikin came into the room looking preternaturally grave.

“My dear fellow!” was his greeting. He looked round. “Where is the doctor?”

“He’s just left. Just a graze. Nothing serious. I feel a bit jumpy but, apart from that, I’m all right. It’s really very good of you to turn out like this. The grateful management has presented me with a bottle of whisky. Sit down and help yourself. I’m having coffee.”

Kopeikin sank into the arm-chair. “Tell me exactly how it happened.”

Graham told him. Kopeikin heaved himself out of the arm-chair and walked over to the window. Suddenly he stooped and picked something up. He held it up: a small brass cartridge case.

“A nine millimetre calibre self-loading pistol,” he remarked. “An unpleasant thing!” He dropped it on the floor again, opened the window and looked out.

Graham sighed. “I really don’t think it’s any good playing detectives, Kopeikin. The man was in the room; I disturbed him, and he shot at me. Come in, shut that window, and drink some whisky.”

“Gladly, my dear fellow, gladly. You must excuse my curiosity.”

Graham realised that he was being a little ungracious. “It’s extremely kind of you, Kopeikin, to take so much trouble. I seem to have made a lot of fuss about nothing.”

“It is good that you have.” He frowned. “Unfortunately a lot more fuss must be made.”

“You think we ought to call in the police? I don’t see that it can do any good. Besides, my train goes at eleven. I don’t want to miss it.”

Kopeikin drank some whisky and put his glass down with a bang. “I am afraid, my dear fellow, that you cannot under any circumstances leave on the eleven o’clock train.”

“What on earth do you mean? Of course I can. I’m perfectly all right.”

Kopeikin looked at him curiously. “Fortunately you are. But that does not alter facts.”

“Facts?”

“Did you notice that both your windows and the shutters outside have been forced open?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t look. But what of it?”

“If you will look out of the window you will see that there is a terrace below which gives on the garden. Above the terrace there is a steel framework which reaches almost to the second floor balconies. In the summer it is covered with straw matting so that people can eat and drink on the terrace, out of the sun. This man obviously climbed up by the framework. It would be easy. I could almost do it myself. He could reach the balconies of all the rooms on this floor of the hotel that way. But can you tell me why he chooses to break into one of the few rooms with both shutters and windows locked?”

“Of course I can’t. I’ve always heard that criminals were fools.”

“You say nothing was stolen. Your suitcase was not even opened. A coincidence that you should return just in time to prevent him.”

“A lucky coincidence. For goodness’ sake, Kopeikin, let’s talk about something else. The man’s escaped. That’s the end of it.”

Kopeikin shook his head. “I’m afraid not, my dear fellow. Does he not seem to you to have been a very curious thief? He behaves like no other hotel thief ever behaved. He breaks in, and through a locked window as well. If you had been in bed, he would certainly have awakened you. He must, therefore, have known beforehand that you were not there. He must also have discovered your room number. Have you anything so obviously valuable that a thief finds it worth his while to make such preparations? No. A curious thief! He carries, too, a pistol weighing at least a kilogramme with which he fires three shots at you.”

“Well?”

Kopeikin bounced angrily out of his chair. “My dear fellow, does it not occur to you that this man was shooting to kill you, and that he came here for no other purpose?”

Graham laughed. “Then all I can say is that he was a pretty bad shot. Now you listen to me carefully, Kopeikin. Have you ever heard the legend about Americans and Englishmen? It persists in every country in the world where English isn’t spoken. The story is that all Americans and Englishmen are millionaires, and that they always leave vast amounts of loose cash about the place. And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to try to snatch a few hours’ sleep. It was very good of you to come round, Kopeikin, and I’m very grateful, but now …”

“Have you ever,” demanded Kopeikin, “tried firing a heavy pistol in a dark room at a man who’s just come through the door? There’s no direct light from the corridor outside. Merely a glow of light. Have you ever tried? No. You might be able to see the man, but it’s quite another thing to hit him. Under these circumstances even a good shot might miss first time as this man missed. That miss would unnerve him. He does not perhaps know that Englishmen do not usually carry firearms. You may fire back. He fires again, quickly, and clips your hand. You probably cry out with the pain. He probably thinks that he has wounded you seriously. He fires another shot for luck, and goes.”

“Nonsense, Kopeikin! You must be out of your senses. What conceivable reason could anyone have for wanting to kill me? I’m the most harmless man alive.”

Kopeikin glared at him stonily. “Are you?”

“Now what does that mean?”

But Kopeikin ignored the question. He finished his whisky. “I told you that I was going to telephone a friend of mine. I did so.” He buttoned up his coat deliberately. “I am sorry to tell you, my dear fellow, that you must come with me to see him immediately. I have been trying to break the news to you gently, but now I must be frank. A man tried to murder you to-night. Something must be done about it at once.”

Graham got to his feet. “Are you mad?”

“No, my dear fellow, I am not. You ask me why anyone should want to murder you. There is an excellent reason. Unfortunately, I cannot be more explicit. I have my official instructions.”

Graham sat down. “Kopeikin, I shall go crazy in a minute. Will you kindly tell me what you are babbling about? Friend? Murder? Official instructions? What is all this nonsense?”

Kopeikin was looking acutely embarrassed. “I am sorry, my dear fellow. I can understand your feelings. Let me tell you this much. This friend of mine is not, strictly speaking, a friend at all. In fact, I dislike him. But his name is Colonel Haki, and he is the head of the Turkish secret police. His office is in Galata, and he is expecting us to meet him there now to discuss this affair. I may also tell you that I anticipated that you might not wish to go, and told him so. He said, forgive me, that if you did not go you would be fetched. My dear fellow, it is no use your being angry. The circumstances are exceptional. If I had not known that it was necessary both in your interests and in mine to telephone him, I would not have done so. Now then, my dear fellow, I have a taxi outside. We ought to be going.”

Graham got slowly to his feet again. “Very well. I must say, Kopeikin, that you have surprised me. Friendly concern, I could understand and appreciate. But this … Hysteria is the last thing I should have expected from you. To get the head of the secret police out of bed at this hour seems to me a fantastic thing to do. I can only hope that he doesn’t object to being made a fool of.”

Kopeikin flushed. “I am neither hysterical nor fantastic, my friend. I have something unpleasant to do, and I am doing it. If you will forgive my saying so, I think …”

“I can forgive almost anything except stupidity,” snapped Graham. “However, this is your affair. Do you mind helping me on with my overcoat?”

They drove to Galata in grim silence. Kopeikin was sulking. Graham sat hunched up in his corner staring out miserably at the cold, dark streets, and wishing that he had not telephoned Kopeikin. It was, he kept telling himself, absurd enough to be shot at by a hotel sneak thief: to be bundled out in the early hours of the morning to tell the head of the secret police about it was worse than absurd; it was ludicrous. He felt, too, concerned on Kopeikin’s account. The man might be behaving like an idiot; but it was not very pleasant to think of him making an ass of himself before a man who might well be able to do him harm in his business. Besides, he, Graham, had been rude.

He turned his head. “What’s this Colonel Haki like?”

Kopeikin grunted. “Very chic and polished-a ladies’ man. There is also a legend that he can drink two bottles of whisky without getting drunk. It may be true. He was one of Ataturk’s men, a deputy in the provisional government of nineteen-nineteen. There is also another legend-that he killed prisoners by tying them together in pairs and throwing them into the river to save both food and ammunition. I do not believe everything I hear, nor am I a prig, but, as I told you, I do not like him. He is, however, very clever. But you will be able to judge for yourself. You can speak French to him.”

“I still don’t see …”

“You will.”

They pulled up soon afterwards behind a big American car which almost blocked the narrow street into which they had turned. They got out. Graham found himself standing in front of a pair of double doors which might have been the entrance to a cheap hotel. Kopeikin pressed a bell push.

One of the doors was opened almost immediately by a sleepy-looking caretaker who had obviously only just been roused from his bed.

“Haki efendi evde midir,” said Kopeikin.

“Efendi var-dir. Yokari.” The man pointed to the stairs.

They went up.

Colonel Haki’s office was a large room at the end of a corridor on the top floor of the building. The Colonel himself walked down the corridor to meet them.

He was a tall man with lean, muscular cheeks, a small mouth and grey hair cropped Prussian fashion. A narrow frontal bone, a long beak of a nose and a slight stoop gave him a somewhat vultural air. He wore a very well-cut officer’s tunic with full riding breeches and very tight, shiny cavalry boots; he walked with the slight swagger of a man who is used to riding. But for the intense pallor of his face and the fact that it was unshaven, there was nothing about him to show that he had recently been asleep. His eyes were grey and very wide-awake. They surveyed Graham with interest.

“Ah! Nasil-siniz. Fransizca konus-abilir misin. Yes? Delighted, Mr. Graham. Your wound, of course.” Graham found his unbandaged hand being gripped with considerable force by long rubbery fingers. “I hope that it is not too painful. Something must be done about this rascal who tries to kill you.”

“I’m afraid,” said Graham, “that we have disturbed your rest unnecessarily, Colonel. The man stole nothing.”

Colonel Haki looked quickly at Kopeikin.

“I have told him nothing,” said Kopeikin placidly. “At your suggestion, Colonel, you may remember. I regret to say that he thinks that I am either mad or hysterical.”

Colonel Haki chuckled. “It is the lot of you Russians to be misunderstood. Let us go into my office where we can talk.”

They followed him: Graham with the growing conviction that he was involved in a nightmare and that he would presently wake up to find himself at his dentist’s. The corridor was, indeed, as bare and featureless as the corridors of a dream. It smelt strongly, however, of stale cigarette smoke.

The Colonel’s office was large and chilly. They sat down facing him across his desk. He pushed a box of cigarettes towards them, lounged back in his chair and crossed his legs.