On the rare occasions-when matters concerned with insurance policies had been under consideration-on which Graham had thought about his own death, it had been to reaffirm the conviction that he would die of natural causes and in bed. Accidents did happen, of course; but he was a careful driver, an imaginative pedestrian and a strong swimmer; he neither rode horses nor climbed mountains; he was not subject to attacks of dizziness; he did not hunt big game and he had never had even the smallest desire to jump in front of an approaching train. He had felt, on the whole, that the conviction was not unreasonable. The idea that anyone else in the world might so much as hope for his death had never occurred to him. If it had done so he would probably have hastened to consult a nerve specialist. Confronted by the proposition that someone was, in fact, not merely hoping for his death but deliberately trying to murder him, he was as profoundly shocked as if he had been presented with incontrovertible proofs that a 2 no longer equalled b 2 + c 2 or that his wife had a lover.
He was a man who had always been inclined to think well of his fellow creatures; and the first involuntary thought that came into his head was that he must have done something particularly reprehensible for anyone to want to murder him. The mere fact that he was doing his job could not be sufficient reason. He was not dangerous. Besides, he had a wife dependent on him. It was impossible that anyone should wish to kill him. There must be some horrible mistake.
He heard himself saying: “Yes. I understand.”
He didn’t understand, of course. It was absurd. He saw Colonel Haki looking at him with a frosty little smile on his small mouth.
“A shock, Mr. Graham? You do not like it, eh? It is not pleasant. War is war. But it is one thing to be a soldier in the trenches: the enemy is not trying to kill you in particular because you are Mr. Graham: the man next to you will do as well: it is all impersonal. When you are a marked man it is not so easy to keep your courage. I understand, believe me. But you have advantages over the soldier. You have only to defend yourself. You do not have to go into the open and attack. And you have no trench or fort to hold. You may run away without being a coward. You must reach London safely. But it is a long way from Istanbul to London. You must, like the soldier, take precautions against surprise. You must know your enemy. You follow me?”
“Yes. I follow you.”
His brain was icily calm now, but it seemed to have lost control of his body. He knew that he must try to look as if he were taking it all very philosophically, but his mouth kept filling with saliva, so that he was swallowing repeatedly, and his hands and legs were trembling. He told himself that he was behaving like a schoolboy. A man had fired three shots at him. What difference did it make whether the man had been a thief or an intending murderer? He had fired three shots, and that was that. But all the same, it did somehow make a difference …
“Then,” Colonel Haki was saying, “let us begin with what has just happened.” He was obviously enjoying himself. “According to Mr. Kopeikin, you did not see the man who shot at you.”
“No, I didn’t. The room was in darkness.”
Kopeikin chipped in. “He left cartridge cases behind him. Nine millimetre calibre ejected from a self-loading pistol.”
“That does not help a great deal. You noticed nothing about him, Mr. Graham?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid. It was all over so quickly. He had gone before I realised it.”
“But he had probably been in the room for some time waiting for you. You didn’t notice any perfume in the room?”
“All I could smell was cordite.”
“What time did you arrive in Istanbul?”
“At about six p.m.”
“And you did not return to your hotel until three o’clock this morning. Please tell me where you were during that time.”
“Certainly. I spent the time with Kopeikin. He met me at the station, and we drove in a taxi to the Adler-Palace, where I left my suitcase and had a wash. We then had some drinks and dined. Where did we have the drinks, Kopeikin?”
“At the Rumca Bar.”
“Yes, that was it. We went on to the Pera Palace to dine. Just before eleven we left there, and went on to Le Jockey Cabaret.”
“Le Jockey Cabaret! You surprise me! What did you do there?”
“We danced with an Arab girl named Maria, and saw the cabaret.”
“We? Was there, then, only one girl between you?”
“I was rather tired, and did not want to dance much. Later we had a drink with one of the cabaret dancers, Josette, in her dressing-room.” To Graham it all sounded rather like the evidence of detectives in a divorce case.
“A nice girl, this Josette?”
“Very attractive.”
The Colonel laughed: the doctor keeping the patient’s spirits up. “Blonde or brunette?”
“Blonde.”
“Ah! I must visit Le Jockey. I have missed something. And what happened then?”
“Kopeikin and I left the place. We walked back to the Adler-Palace together where Kopeikin left me to go on to his apartment.”
The Colonel looked humorously astonished. “You left this dancing blonde?”-he snapped his fingers-“just like that? There were no-little games?”
“No. No little games.”
“Ah, but you have told me that you were tired.” He swung round suddenly in his chair to face Kopeikin. “These women-this Arab and this Josette-what do you know of them?”
Kopeikin stroked his chin. “I know Serge, the proprietor of Le Jockey Cabaret. He introduced me to Josette some time ago. She is a Hungarian, I believe. I know nothing against her. The Arab girl is from a house in Alexandria.”
“Very well. We will see about them later.” He turned again to Graham. “Now, Mr. Graham, we shall see what we can find out from you about the enemy. You were tired, you say?”
“Yes.”
“But you kept your eyes open, eh?”
“I suppose so.”
“Let us hope so. You realise that you must have been followed from the moment you left Gallipoli?”
“I hadn’t realised that.”
“It must be so. They knew your hotel and your room in it. They were waiting for you to return. They must have known of every movement you made since you arrived.”
He got up suddenly and, going to a filing cabinet in the corner, extracted from it a yellow manillla folder. He brought it back and dropped it on the desk in front of Graham. “Inside that folder, Mr. Graham, you will find photographs of fifteen men. Some of the photographs are clear; most are very blurred and indistinct. You will have to do the best you can. I want you to cast your mind back to the time you boarded the train at Gallipoli yesterday, and remember every face you saw, even casually, between that time and three o’clock this morning. Then I want you to look at those photographs and see if you recognise any of the faces there. Afterwards Mr. Kopeikin can look at them, but I wish you to see them first.”
Graham opened the folder. There was a series of thin white cards in it. Each was about the size of the folder, and had a photograph gummed to the top half of it. The prints were all the same size, but they had obviously been copied from original photographs of varying sizes. One was an enlargement of part of a photograph of a group of men standing in front of some trees. Underneath each print was a paragraph or two of typewritten matter in Turkish: presumably the description of the man in question.
Most of the photographs were, as the Colonel had said, blurred. One or two of the faces were, indeed, no more than blobs of grey with dark patches marking the eyes and mouths. Those that were clear looked like prison photographs. The men in them stared sullenly at their tormentors. There was one of a negro wearing a tar-boosh with his mouth wide open as if he were shouting at someone to the right of the camera. Graham turned the cards over, slowly and hopelessly. If he had ever seen any of these men in his life, he could not recognise them now.
The next moment his heart jolted violently. He was looking at a photograph taken in very strong sunshine of a man in a hard straw hat standing in front of what might have been a shop, and looking over his shoulder at the camera. His right arm and his body below the waist were out of the picture, and what was in was rather out of focus; in addition the photograph looked as if it had been taken at least ten years previously; but there was no mistaking the doughy, characterless features, the long-suffering mouth, the small deep-set eyes. It was the man in the crumpled suit.
“Well, Mr. Graham!”
“This man. He was at Le Jockey Cabaret. It was the Arab girl who drew my attention to him while we were dancing. She said that he came in just after Kopeikin and me, and that he kept looking at me. She warned me against him. She seemed to think that he might stick a knife in my back and take my wallet.”
“Did she know him?”
“No. She said that she recognised the type.”
Colonel Haki took the card and leaned back. “That was very intelligent of her. Did you see this man, Mr. Kopeikin?”
Kopeikin looked, and then shook his head.
“Very well.” Colonel Haki dropped the card on the desk in front of him. “You need not trouble to look at any more of the photographs, gentlemen. I know now what I wanted to know. This is the only one of the fifteen that interests us. The rest I put with it merely to make sure that you identified this one of your own accord.”
“Who is he?”
“He is a Roumanian by birth. His name is supposed to be Petre Banat; but as Banat is the name of a Roumanian province, I think it very probable that he never had a family name. We know, indeed, very little about him. But what we do know is enough. He is a professional gunman. Ten years ago he was convicted, in Jassy, of helping to kick a man to death, and was sent to prison for two years. Soon after he came out of prison he joined Codreanu’s Iron Guard. In nineteen thirty-three he was charged with the assassination of a police official at Bucova. It appears that he walked into the official’s house one Sunday afternoon, shot the man dead, wounded his wife, and then calmly walked out again. He is a careful man, but he knew that he was safe. The trial was a farce. The court-room was filled with Iron Guards with pistols, who threatened to shoot the judge and everyone connected with the trial if Banat were convicted. He was acquitted. There were many such trials in Roumania at that time. Banat was afterwards responsible for at least four other murders in Roumania. When the Iron Guard was proscribed, however, he escaped from the country, and has not returned there. He spent some time in France until the French police deported him. Then he went to Belgrade. But he got into trouble there, too, and has since moved about Eastern Europe.
“There are men who are natural killers. Banat is one of them. He is very fond of gambling, and is always short of money. At one time it was said that his price for killing a man was as little as five thousand French francs and expenses.
“But all that is of no interest to you, Mr. Graham. The point is that Banat is here in Istanbul. I may tell you that we receive regular reports on the activities of this man Moeller in Sofia. About a week ago it was reported that he had been in touch with Banat, and that Banat had afterwards left Sofia. I will admit to you, Mr. Graham, that I did not attach any importance to the fact. To be frank, it was another aspect of this agent’s activities which was interesting me at the time. It was not until Mr. Kopeikin telephoned me that I remembered Banat and wondered if, by any chance, he had come to Istanbul. We know now that he is here. We know also that Moeller saw him just after those other arrangements for killing you had been upset. There can be no doubt, I think, that it was Banat who was waiting for you in your room at the Adler-Palace.”
Graham strove to seem unimpressed. “He looked harmless enough.”
“That,” said Colonel Haki, sagely, “is because you are not experienced, Mr. Graham. The real killer is not a mere brute. He may be quite sensitive. Have you studied abnormal psychology?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“It is very interesting. Apart from detective stories, Krafft-Ebing and Stekel are my favourite reading. I have my own theory about men such as Banat. I believe that they are perverts with an idée fixe about the father whom they identify not with a virile god”-he held up a cautionary finger-“but with their own impotence. When they kill, they are thus killing their own weakness. There is no doubt of it, I think.”
“Very interesting, I feel sure. But can’t you arrest this man?”
Colonel Haki cocked one gleaming boot over the arm of his chair, and pursed his lips. “That raises an awkward problem, Mr. Graham. In the first place, we have to find him. He will certainly be travelling with a false passport and under a false name. I can and, of course, will circulate his description to the frontier posts so that we shall know if he leaves the country, but as for arresting him … You see, Mr. Graham, the so-called democratic forms of government have serious drawbacks for a man in my position. It is impossible to arrest and detain people without absurd legal formalities.” He threw up his hands-a patriot bemoaning his country’s decadence. “On what charge can we arrest him? We have no evidence against him. We could, no doubt, invent a charge and then apologise, but what good will it do? No! I regret it, but we can do nothing about Banat. I do not think it matters a great deal. What we must think of now is the future. We must consider how to get you home safely.”
“I have, as I have already told you, a sleeping berth on the eleven o’clock train. I fail to see why I shouldn’t use it. It seems to me that the sooner I leave here the better.”
Colonel Haki frowned. “Let me tell you, Mr. Graham, that if you were to take that or any other train, you would be dead before you reached Belgrade. Don’t imagine for one moment that the presence of other travellers would deter them. You must not underrate the enemy, Mr. Graham. It is a fatal mistake. In a train you would be caught like a rat in a trap. Picture it for yourself! There are innumerable stops between the Turkish and French frontiers. Your assassin might get on the train at any of them. Imagine yourself sitting there for hour after hour after hour trying to stay awake lest you should be knifed while you slept; not daring to leave the compartment for fear of being shot down in the corridor; living in terror of everyone-from the man sitting opposite to you in the restaurant car to the Customs officials. Picture it, Mr. Graham, and then reflect that a transcontinental train is the safest place in the world in which to kill a man. Consider the position! These people do not wish you to reach England. So they decide, very wisely and logically, to kill you. They have tried twice and failed. They will wait now to see what you will do. They will not try again in this country. They will know that you will now be too well protected. They will wait until you come out in the open. No! I am afraid that you cannot travel by train.”
“Then I don’t see.…”
“If,” continued the Colonel, “the air line services had not been suspended we could send you by aeroplane to Brindisi. But they are suspended-the earthquake, you understand. Everything is disorganized. The planes are being used for relief work. But we can do without them. It will be best if you go by sea.”
“But surely …”
“There is an Italian shipping line which runs a weekly service of small cargo boats between here and Genoa. Sometimes, when there is a cargo, they go up as far as Constanza, but usually they run only as far as here, calling at the Piræus on the way. They carry a few passengers, fifteen at the most, and we can make sure that every one of them is harmless before the boat is given its clearance papers. When you get to Genoa, you will have only the short train journey between Genoa and the French frontier to put you out of reach of German agents.”
“But as you yourself pointed out, time is an important factor. To-day is the second. I am due back on the eighth. If I have to wait for boats I shall be days late. Besides, the journey itself will take at least a week.”
“There will be no delay, Mr. Graham,” sighed the Colonel. “I am not stupid. I telephoned the port police before you arrived. There is a boat leaving in two days’ time for Marseilles. It would have been better if you could have travelled on that even though it does not ordinarily take passengers. But the Italian boat leaves to-day at four-thirty in the afternoon. You will be able to stretch your legs in Athens to-morrow afternoon. You will dock in Genoa early Saturday morning. You can, if you wish and if your visas are in order, be in London by Monday morning. As I have told you, a marked man has advantages over his enemies: he can run away-disappear. In the middle of the Mediterranean, you will be as safe as you are in this office.”
Graham hesitated. He glanced at Kopeikin; but the Russian was staring at his finger nails.
“Well, I don’t know, Colonel. This is all very good of you, but I can’t help thinking that, in view of the circumstances which you have explained to me, I ought to get in touch with the British Consul here, or with the British Embassy, before deciding anything.”
Colonel Haki lit a cigarette. “And what do you expect the Consul or the Ambassador to do? Send you home in a cruiser?” He laughed unpleasantly. “My dear Mr. Graham, I am not asking you to decide anything. I am telling you what you must do. You are, I must again remind you, of great value to my country in your present state of health. You must allow me to protect my country’s interests in my own way. I think that you are probably tired now and a little upset. I do not wish to harass you, but I must explain that, if you do not agree to follow my instructions, I shall have no alternative but to arrest you, have an order issued for your deportation and put you on board the Sestri Levante under guard. I hope that I make myself clear.”
Graham felt himself reddening. “Quite clear. Would you like to handcuff me now? It will save a lot of trouble. You need …”
“I think,” put in Kopeikin hastily, “that I should do as the Colonel suggests, my dear fellow. It is the best thing.”
“I prefer to be my own judge of that, Kopeikin.” He looked from one to the other of them angrily. He felt confused and wretched. Things had been moving too quickly for him. Colonel Haki he disliked intensely. Kopeikin seemed to be no longer capable of thinking for himself. He felt that they were making decisions with the glib irresponsibility of schoolboys planning a game of Red Indians. And yet the devil of it was that those conclusions were inescapably logical. His life was threatened. All they were asking him to do was to go home by another and safer route. It was a reasonable request but.… Then he shrugged his shoulders. “All right. I seem to have no choice.”
“Exactly, Mr. Graham.” The Colonel smoothed out his tunic with the air of one who has reasoned wisely with a child. “Now we can make our arrangements. As soon as the shipping company’s offices are open Mr. Kopeikin can arrange for your passage and obtain a refund for your railway ticket. I will see that the names and particulars of the other passengers are submitted to me for approval before the ship sails. You need have no fears, Mr. Graham, of your fellow travellers. But I am afraid that you will not find them very chic or the boat very comfortable. This line is actually the cheapest route to and from Istanbul if you live in the west. But you will not, I am sure, mind a little discomfort if you have peace of mind to compensate for it.”
“As long as I get back to England by the eighth, I don’t care how I travel.”
“That is the right spirit. And now I suggest that you remain in this building until it is time for you to leave. We will make you as comfortable as possible. Mr. Kopeikin can collect your suitcase from the hotel. I will see that a doctor looks at your hand later on to see that it is still all right.” He looked at his watch. “The concièrge can make us some coffee now. Later, he can get some food for you from the restaurant round the corner.” He stood up. “I will go and see about it now. We cannot save you from bullets to let you die of starvation, eh?”
“It’s very kind of you,” said Graham; and then, as the Colonel disappeared down the corridor: “I owe you an apolegy Kopeikin. I behaved badly.”
Kopeikin looked distressed. “My dear fellow! You cannot be blamed. I am glad everything has been settled so quickly.”
“Quickly, yes.” He hesitated. “Is this man Haki to be trusted?”
“You do not like him either, eh?” Kopeikin chuckled. “I would not trust him with a woman; but with you-yes.”
“You approve of my going on this boat?”
“I do. By the way, my dear fellow,” he went on mildly, “have you a gun in your luggage?”
“Good heavens, no!”
“Then you had better take this.” He pulled a small revolver out of his overcoat pocket. “I put it in my pocket when I came out after you telephoned. It is fully loaded.”
“But I shan’t need it.”
“No, but it will make you feel better to have it.”
“I doubt that. Still.…” He took the revolver and stared at it distastefully. “I’ve never fired one of these things, you know.”
“It is easy. You release the safety catch, point it, pull the trigger and hope for the best.”
“All the same …”
“Put it in your pocket. You can give it to the French Customs officials at Modano.”
Colonel Haki returned. “The coffee is being prepared. Now, Mr. Graham, we will decide how you are to amuse yourself until it is time for you to go.” He caught sight of the revolver in Graham’s hand. “Ah-ha! You are arming yourself!” He grinned. “A little melodrama is sometimes unavoidable, eh, Mr. Graham?”
The decks were silent now and Graham could hear the sounds within the ship: people talking, doors slamming, quick businesslike footsteps in the alleyways. There was not long to wait now. Outside it was getting dark. He looked back upon a day which had seemed interminable, surprised that he could remember so little of it.
Most of it he had spent in Colonel Haki’s office, his brain hovering uncertainly on the brink of sleep. He had smoked innumerable cigarettes and read some fortnight old French newspapers. There had been an article in one of them, he remembered, about the French mandate in the Cameroons. A doctor had been, reported favourably on the state of his wound, dressed it and gone. Kopeikin had brought him his suitcase and he had made a bloody attempt to shave with his left hand. In the absence of Colonel Haki they had shared a cool and soggy meal from the restaurant. The Colonel had returned at two to inform him that there were nine other passengers travelling on the boat, four of them women, that none of them had booked for the journey less than three days previously, and that they were all harmless.
The gangway was down now and the last of the nine, a couple who sounded middle-aged and spoke French, had come aboard and were in the cabin next to his. Their voices penetrated the thin wooden bulkhead with dismaying ease. He could hear almost every sound they made. They had argued incessantly, in whispers at first as if they had been in church; but the novelty of their surroundings soon wore off and they spoke in ordinary tones.
“The sheets are damp.”
“No, it is simply that they are cold. In any case it does not matter.”
“You think not? You think not?” She made a noise in her throat. “You may sleep as you wish, but do not complain to me about your kidneys.”
“Cold sheets do not harm the kidneys, chérie.”
“We have paid for our tickets. We are entitled to comfort.”
“If you never sleep in a worse place you will be lucky. This is not the Normandie.”
“That is evident.” The washing cabinet clicked open. “Ah! Look at this. Look! Do you expect me to wash in it?”
“It is only necessary to run the water. A little dust.”
“Dust! It is dirty. Filthy! It is for the steward to clean it. I will not touch it. Go and fetch him while I unpack the luggage. My dresses will be crushed. Where is the W.C.?”
“At the end of the corridor.”
“Then find the steward. There is no room for two while I unpack. We should have gone by train.”
“Naturally. But it is I who must pay. It is I who must give the steward a tip.”
“It is you who make too much noise. Quickly. Do you want to disturb everyone?”
The man went out and the woman sighed loudly. Graham wondered whether they would talk all night. And one or both of them might snore. He would have to cough loudly once or twice so that they would realise how thin the partition was. But it was strangely comforting to hear people talking about damp sheets and dirty wash basins and W.C.’s as if-the phrase was in his mind before he realised it-as if they were matters of life and death.
Life and death! He got to his feet and found himself staring at the framed instructions for lifeboat drill.
“CINTURE DI SALVATAGGIO, CEINTURES DE SAUVETAGE, RETRUNGSGÜRTEL. LIFEBELTS.… In case of danger, the signal will be given by six short blasts on the whistle followed by one long blast and the ringing of alarm bells. Passengers should then put on their lifebelts and assemble at boat station number 4.”
He had seen the same sort of thing dozens of times before but now he read it carefully. The paper it was printed on was yellow with age. The lifebelt on top of the washing cabinet looked as if it had not been moved for years. It was all ludicrously reassuring. “In case of danger. …” In case! But you couldn’t get away from danger! It was all about you, all the time. You could live in ignorance of it for years: you might go to the end of your days believing that some things couldn’t possibly happen to you, that death could only come to you with the sweet reason of disease or an “act of God”: but it was there just the same, waiting to make nonsense of all your comfortable ideas about your relations with time and chance, ready to remind you-in case you had forgotten-that civilisation was a word and that you still lived in the jungle.
The ship swayed gently. There was a faint clanging from the engine room telegraph. The floor began to vibrate. Through the smeared glass of the porthole he saw a light begin to move. The vibration ceased for a moment or two; then the engines went astern and the water glass rattled in its bracket on the wall. Another pause and then the engines went ahead again, slowly and steadily. They were free of the land. With a sigh of relief he opened the cabin door and went up on deck.
It was cold but the ship had turned and was taking the wind on her port side. She seemed stationary on the oily water of the harbour but the dock lights were sliding past them and receding. He drew the cold air into his lungs. It was good to be out of the cabin. His thoughts no longer seemed to worry him. Istanbul, Le Jockey Cabaret, the man in the crumpled suit, the Adler-Palace and its manager, Colonel Haki-they were all behind him. He could forget about them.
He began to pace slowly along the deck. He would, he told himself, be able to laugh at the whole business soon. It was already half-forgotten; there was already an air of the fantastic about it. He might almost have dreamed it. He was back in the ordinary world: he was on his way home.
He passed one of his fellow passengers, the first he had seen, an elderly man leaning on the rail staring at the lights of Istanbul coming into view as they cleared the mole. Now, as he reached the end of the deck and turned about, he saw that a woman in a fur coat had just come out of the saloon door and was walking towards him.
The light on the deck was dim and she was within a few yards of him before he recognised her.
It was Josette.