by Graham Marks
As out of control as the city appeared to be, the Hotel Pera Palas was the total opposite, an atmosphere of dignified calm descending on them as they made their way through its glass-canopied double doors and up the marble staircase to the lobby, followed by their luggage. The aura of tranquillity lasted as long as it took for Trey’s father to discover that they should have taken the hotel’s gratis limousine service from the station, and steered well clear of the cab rank the porter had been well tipped for taking them to.
Once in their suite, with staff bustling round unpacking, delivering messages, mail and refreshments and generally bringing a sense of order back into his life, T. Drummond II finally allowed himself to relax. Sitting, his legs stretched out, in a large armchair, with a fresh whisky and soda in one hand and a cork-tipped Craven A cigarette in the other, he suddenly sat upright, as if pulled by a string.
“Did I tell you, Trey?”
Trey, a pistachio-and-honey concoction in his mouth and something similar in his hand waiting to join it, shrugged in an “About what?” kind of way; his mind was completely elsewhere as he had never tasted anything like these pastries before and they knocked doughnuts and Danishes into a cocked hat, in his opinion.
“It’s all organized!”
Trey swallowed. “What is, Pop?”
“Remember I mentioned it, in London? About the Stanhope-Leighs?”
The second pastry stopped halfway to Trey’s open mouth. “The Stanhope-Leighs?”
“The Trade Secretary at the British embassy here in Constantinople? That cousin of my friend Templeton...you, my boy, have a head like a sieve,” he said, shaking his own. “He has children about your age, Stanhope-Leigh, that is, and, while I am otherwise engaged, as I will have to be for more than a few hours most days, I asked him if you could spend some time with them. There was a message waiting for me here to say that it’s all been organized...”
7 EVERY CLOUD...
Trey was lost for words as everything about the Stanhope-Leighs came back to him in all its dreadful detail...there was a boy, Arthur, and – worse – a girl called Christina, and they had a tutor or a nanny or somesuch, and they would, according to his father, all be the best of friends!
As if.
Back in London Trey had not really paid too much attention to what his father had told him; Constantinople had seemed so very exotic and far away that in his mind it had not even ranked as a faint possibility that he might eventually meet – and have to spend time with! – these kids. And now the chickens were coming home to roost, or whatever the saying was his gramps liked to use, and it was about to happen.
“But...”
“No ‘buts’, Trey, we have already discussed this, I explained it all to you and you agreed that it would be fine.” A hotel flunkey knocked and came into the room carrying a small silver tray with an envelope on it which he presented to Trey’s father, who fished a tip out of his waistcoat pocket, swapping it for the letter. “And like I said, once I finish all the business I have to do here,” he waved the envelope as if to underline quite how busy he was, “it’ll be just you and me, I promise.”
Knowing there was absolutely no point in him arguing, Trey left his father slitting open the envelope with a letter opener, went to his room and unpacked his stash of magazines. At least when he was between the covers of an issue of Black Ace or Dime Detective he could pretend none of this was happening – that he would never even so much as have to bump into this kid called Arthur, or his sister.
Picking up an issue he let himself imagine what it would be like to be a real-life gumshoe with a baffling case to solve...like what exactly did his father do all day? He had to admit that he didn’t have much of a clue what his father’s business actually involved, mainly because he wasn’t there to watch and his father didn’t really talk about it much. But then again, was it really a subject worth investigating? Somehow, he doubted it.
That night they had dinner at the hotel; it was very grand, in a stuffed shirt kind of way: all balustrades, polished marble, gleaming brass, wood and silver. There were, it seemed, pieces of cutlery for every dish that arrived (of which there were many). It took Trey a few minutes to realize that his father was in a mood and that it wasn’t, as far as he could tell, anything to do with him. From experience he knew that there were two courses of action he could take: act as if there was nothing wrong, which would mean a meal spent mostly in silence, or ask what the matter was and see what would happen. At home this might mean being frowned at for being nosey, but here in public, in the middle of a smart restaurant, Trey was willing to bet that he had a chance of getting away with it.
“You okay, Pops?”
T. Drummond II glanced up from discreetly spooning soup (he was never one to slurp, even in private) and raised his eyebrows quizzically. “I think so, why?”
“I don’t know...you seem concerned.” Trey had heard his mother say this under similar circumstances to some effect, and figured it could work for him.
“No...no, I’m fine.”
“Oh, good...” Trey stared at the swirling patterns his spoon was making in the soup; this was not working quite the way he’d hoped and he didn’t have a Plan B.
“Although there is one thing I’ve been meaning to tell you...”
Trey looked up suddenly, his spoon hand jerking and sending a small, mainly green wave onto the pristine white of the starched cotton tablecloth.
“Trey!”
“Sorry, Pops...” Trey surreptitiously moved his side plate to cover as much of the spill as he could. “What were you going to tell me?”
“I was going to say that the plan has had to be changed slightly...just for tomorrow.”
“Oh?” Trey sat up even straighter than he had been.
“That letter, the one which was delivered soon after we arrived?”
“Yes?”
“It was from a Miss Jane Renyard, the tutor who looks after the Stanhope-Leigh children.” Trey’s father put his spoon down in the finished position and dabbed his mouth with the corner of his napkin. “Apparently there has been a mix-up – I won’t bore you with the details – but suffice to say that she, Miss Renyard, cannot take you tomorrow. I hope you won’t be too bored trailing around after me all day.”
“Me? No!”
“Best behaviour, Trey; at all times. I am going to have to leave you waiting in outer offices and such and I don’t want to come back and find you’ve been causing trouble.”
“Who, me?”
“Yes, you, my boy.” Trey’s father did smile at this point. “You surely haven’t forgotten Fifth Avenue, have you? I know I haven’t.”
Trey checked the soup out again as the memory of a scene he’d tried hard to forget ran through his mind...how could he have known that tipping back a chair would lead to such chaos? That when the chair fell backwards it would shoot him across the floor – in a kind of reverse somersault – and straight into a table with some fancy Chinese vase on it? There was no way! He could still see the look on the secretary’s face as she stared at him, surrounded by shards of pottery, her mouth open like a fish in a bowl.
“It won’t happen again.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die, Pop; this time I’ll take a magazine so I won’t get bored.”
For the rest of the meal Trey felt like a condemned man who had been given a reprieve, even if it was only for twenty-four hours; still and all, another day without having to deal with some snotty English boy and his Dumb Dora of a sister was something to be celebrated, which he did by having two desserts and managing to persuade his father to go for a stroll around the streets near the hotel before he went to bed.
The night was warm, and the air full of a heady perfume (gardenias, according to his father); he figured that this place was what the word “exotic” had been invented to describe...the buildings, the people, the clothes they wore, the activity (boys rushing here and there with brass coffee trays that hung down from de
corated handles, spilling nothing) and men sitting outside cafés puffing away at complicated glass contraptions, three feet tall and with thin hosepipes attached to them. His father said they were called hubble-bubbles, but to Trey they looked like science experiments.
It was as they were passing by a bustling café that he noticed something very odd. Three men, dressed in regular suits, not the flowing robes that most people seemed to wear, and all with impressive mustaches, were sitting together at an outside table, smoking cigarettes and drinking tiny cups of coffee; when one of them caught sight of Trey and his father, he did a double-take and then swiftly turned his back on them and whispered something to his neighbour.
Trey glanced up at his dad to see if he had noticed the event but saw that he was looking in the exact opposite direction; glancing back Trey saw all three men staring at them, and simultaneously try to appear as if they were doing no such thing. It should have been a comic moment, like in a Buster Keaton movie, except there was definitely a sinister feel, especially when one of the men got up and hurried inside the café. The last thing Trey saw the man do was pick up the earpiece of the telephone on the wall and jiggle the lever to get an operator.
Who, he wondered as he and his father turned a corner, was that man in such a hurry to tell about seeing them? It was like the guy had recognized them, or at least recognized his father, which he supposed was possible, if he’d been to Chicago. But why all the whispers and secrecy? What was that all about?
8 SPOTTED!
Trey had pondered long and hard about telling his father what he’d seen, but in the end thought better of it. If he did, all that would happen was that his father would probably blame “all that rubbish” he read for “disturbing his imagination”, and then proceed to confiscate his magazines; it would not be the first time.
So he kept quiet, but decided to keep his eyes peeled for any signs that they were being observed, followed, or in any other way spied upon; he would also take his notebook and pencil and record everything he saw, just in case. Even though he thought his father should be happy, as this would give him something to do with his time, he hid the notebook inside one of his magazines so the fact he was making observations would remain a secret.
It turned out his father had got the hotel to organize a car and driver for the length of their stay and they emerged from the hotel after breakfast the next morning to find a gleaming, red car (and an equally smart chauffeur, who actually spoke a bit of English and, as it turned out, didn’t spit either) waiting for them outside. This was the first non-American automobile that Trey had ever seen and when they arrived at his father’s first appointment, even though he knew he should go with his father and see if he could glean any information about what he was doing in Constantinople, he instead elected to stay outside with the car and have a good look at it.
“Any trouble at all and you are grounded, young man – back to the hotel and in your room for the rest of the day!” T. Drummond II turned to the driver. “Make sure he’s here when I get back...there’ll be no tip if he isn’t.”
“Understand, effendi.” The driver shot a glance at Trey. “He will be here.”
Trey watched his father walk away, making for the front entrance of an office building, in the large foyer of which he could just make out the nameplates of all the companies that had offices there. He frowned, wondering if he’d made the wrong decision.
“You trouble, boy?” the driver enquired, breaking into Trey’s thoughts.
“Me?”
The driver nodded.
“Not if I can help it, but sometimes it seems like no matter what I do I can’t avoid it, you know?”
The driver nodded again. “I know.” He pointed at himself and made a serious face. “Four boys,” he said, and then his face broke into a grin. “Four times trouble!”
“What kind of automobile is this, mister?”
“This,” the driver smiled proudly, patting the dashboard, “is Citroën 10 HP Type B12! Very perfect!”
Five minutes later the driver, whose name Trey had found out was Ahmet, had the hood of the car up and was showing off the engine, which looked tiny compared to the cars at home. Trey was, however, impressed by how clean and polished everything was; it looked like you could eat your dinner off the engine block.
“Three gear,” Ahmet held up three fingers, “seventy-five kilometre the hour! Very perfect!” Ahmet did a thumbs up and grinned at Trey.
Hauling out his notebook, which had a handy list of conversions on the back page (should you wish to know there were four poles to a chain, and that one kilometre was 0.62 of a mile) Trey calculated that 75 k.p.h. was actually just over 46 m.p.h. Not bad, he supposed.
He was chewing on the end of his pencil, trying to remember exactly how fast he’d been in his father’s Chrysler Imperial, when, across the street, he saw someone staring at him, a face he recognized. For a moment he thought he’d spotted Signor Giovedi, from the train, but then he recognized the mustache and realized it was the man from the café the previous night – the one who’d rushed off to make a phone call!
The moment the man realized Trey had seen him he turned away and hurriedly walked off down the street, losing himself in the crowds. Stunned by what he’d seen, Trey didn’t know what to do; if he chased after the man he would, one, probably not find him, two, probably get lost himself, three, definitely get grounded and, four, guarantee to lose Ahmet his tip. His father was nothing if not a man of his word.
The facts were plain: something was definitely up, but all he could do was stay where he was and remain on high alert; which was nothing like a real detective...nobody told Trent Gripp what to do. Then he remembered his plan and turned to the first page of his notebook, checked the time on the Ingersoll his parents had given him for his last birthday and wrote it down:
9.23 a.m.
“What’s this street called, Ahmet?”
“This?” Trey nodded. “This Tarlabasi Bulvari.”
Trey noted the name, although he spelled it Tallabassy Bullvary, and then jotted down:
Spotted man from last night (outside café, near hotel) watching the car. And me.
He wrote as neatly as he could, at the same time trying to remember what the man looked like, but had to admit to himself that he looked a lot like a lot of other people he could see walking by. In the end he noted:
Grey suit, mustache, black hair (slick, kind of like Gramps does it with Macassar oil). His eyebrows join up. Untrustworthy?
Trey closed the notebook and, as he put it and the pencil back in his jacket pocket, saw Ahmet looking at him questioningly. “I think we’re being followed,” he said, relieved to be telling someone what he thought was happening. Even if Ahmet didn’t believe any of what he said he wouldn’t tell him he’d been reading too many detective magazines.
“Now?” Ahmet slowly looked left and right.
“No, they went.”
“You sure?”
Trey nodded. “Pretty much.”
“We keep eye to the grindstone, you and me. Okeedokey?”
“Sure, that’d be nifty.”
“Lot of following in this city.” Ahmet nodded, mouth downturned and one eyebrow raised. “Lot of secrets.”
“Yeah, what kind?”
“If I knew, young mister, they wouldn’t be secrets, yes?” Ahmet grinned, showing a fine set of tobacco-stained teeth. “Very much of the spy here, and all that they do.”
“We don’t have any secrets, Ahmet...my dad’s just a businessman and all he does is a lot of deals, no secret about that.” Trey shrugged. “I don’t know what the deals are, but I’ll bet they’re nothing worth getting excited about.”
“Secret is thing someone think they don’t know.” Ahmet raised both eyebrows this time. “And think must be found out...”
9 EYES IN THE BACK OF HIS HEAD
The rest of the day, except for a break for lunch at some swanky French restaurant where Ahmet sat outside in the car waiting for them,
followed much the same pattern: his father would give Ahmet an address, he’d drive there and Trey would wait in the car while whatever business there was to do was done.
A perfect arrangement, to Trey’s way of thinking. He didn’t have to go up to some stuffy office (where he’d have to be on his very best ever behaviour, all the time), and could carry on conducting his counter-spying activities without any interference from his father – who assumed that the close interest his son and heir seemed to be taking in his environs, as they drove around the city, was in some way educational.
And in a way it was. Trey learned about religion (there were an awful lot of mosques in Constantinople), history (Ahmet was proud to have been a soldier in the Great War, prouder still to have fought, and beaten, the English at the momentous Battle of Gallipoli), and of course, cars (Ahmet was also a fount of knowledge about all things to do with automobiles).
While all this random knowledge came his way, Trey attempted to see if they were being followed, which he found was an extraordinarily tough job in a city as frantic and buzzing as Constantinople. How could you possibly tell, in the pandemonium of traffic, animals and people, who was tailing whom? It was incredibly frustrating, and the pages of his notebook became filled with crossings out, half-finished sentences and no definite sightings at all.
It was as his father strode off for what he promised was his last meeting of the day (at 4.47, as recorded in his notebook) that everything changed.
“You see it?” Ahmet asked without turning round.
“What?”
“Do not make big fuss...be gentle with your look.”
“Where, Ahmet? Where do I look gently?”
“Behind, on other side of street. Black car.”
Trey took his time, first looking completely the other way (to confuse anyone who might be watching him) and then risking a quick glance where Ahmet had said. All the cars on the other side of the street, and there weren’t that many of them, were black. He immediately looked away. “Which...”
