Nursel watched her warily, not altogether certain, in spite of the weapon in her hands.
“I suppose it was Hasan who set the black amber among the other tespihler so you would know the load was expected,” Tracy went on. “And it must have been you who retrieved the box from the ruins.”
For an instant amusement flashed in Nursel’s eyes. “My foolish brother sets Hasan to guard the opium, to watch who comes to take it away. How we have laughed over that! Hasan had only to spend the hours sleeping, so that it would seem to Murat that Sylvana had taken the box while Hasan slept. When of course it was both Hasan and I who took it away when we were ready. Sylvana has made an excellent dupe for fooling Murat. It was a simple thing to make him believe that it was she who hid the heroin in the samovar.”
“You’ve used them all cleverly,” Tracy said. “But not cleverly enough, Nursel.”
The other girl took a step forward, and Tracy cried out in warning.
“Don’t come near me or it will be the worse for you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m like Anabel. You haven’t the nerve to use that thing on me. You’ve always had someone to do your work for you—someone you could hide behind. Now you have only yourself. You’re the one who must do this, Nursel. Only you. And I don’t think you can.”
As her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, Tracy could make out Nursel’s face more clearly now. She saw the wide, dilated eyes, the lips that trembled—the uncertainty.
“You’re a disgrace to all Turkish women!” Tracy taunted. “It’s a good thing others aren’t like you. Trafficking in drugs, tricking and cheating and ready to murder!”
The cat in her arms squirmed, but Tracy held the writhing body, heedless of claws.
“Anabel never meant to kill herself!” she cried. “She was foolish enough to run away from you, instead of standing to fight. Anyone who turned on you could beat you down. It’s you, Nursel, who are foolish and weak.”
Nursel screamed in a queer, hoarse way and lunged toward her. Tracy had been waiting for the moment. She flung the cat directly into Nursel’s face and dashed out of the room. Behind her she heard the frenzied squalling of cat and woman.
Miles was coming up the stairs. He rushed past her toward the outcry, and Tracy turned back in time to see him set his foot upon the syringe where it lay on the floor. The white cat sprang frantically away and fled through the salon. Nursel had gone thoroughly to pieces. She sagged against a chair, screaming imprecations that gave her away with every word.
There was a sound of running on the stairs, and Tracy whirled to see Ahmet brandishing a revolver and apparently in pursuit. She cried out a warning to Miles, but he did not move as the old man reached the doorway.
“There is the woman who has betrayed your son,” Miles told him. “She will tell you all you want to know.”
Ahmet made no gesture toward Miles. He stood in the doorway, listening, comprehending. He looked older than before, more shriveled and wrinkled in his shabby suit.
“You’d best take her to Dr. Erim,” Miles said. “He will have to face the truth now and see where the real guilt lies.”
Ahmet had pocketed the gun. He went directly to Nursel, and she did not resist as he took her arm.
When they had gone away, Miles drew Tracy out of the dark, crowded room and up the stairs to the empty third floor. She found that she was trembling as reaction set in.’
“You’re all right?” Miles said. “She didn’t touch you?”
“I’m all right,” said Tracy. “The cat—if it hadn’t been for the cat—!”
He held her tightly. “Don’t talk about it. It’s over now.”
“But Hasan had the gun. How did you get away?”
“Ahmet is no fool. Apparently he’s had some doubts about what Murat was cooking up. He knows Sylvana well, and he began to think as I did, that her collapse was due to fright, not guilt. Murat was obviously convinced of Sylvana’s guilt, and thus could not be the one himself. That left only Nursel. When Murat sent her to look for you, Ahmet took things into his own hands. He demanded the gun of Hasan, who handed it over, not knowing what his father intended, but he told me to go after Nursel. I had a tussle with Hasan, but he’ll be quiet for a while. I came over here as fast as I could.”
“I needed you and you came!” said Tracy, weeping against his shoulder, not caring how ridiculous she sounded.
Miles chuckled. “Obviously you didn’t need me at all. You had everything very well in hand, my determined young American.”
He held her away from him so that he could look at her, held her not very gently, and shook her a little. She stopped shivering and weeping and recovered herself with a single deep, indrawn breath.
“Are you sure who you are now?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’m not Anabel. Not in any way at all. And I don’t have any more secret wishes to be like her. You’ve taught me a better way.”
“You’ve taught yourself,” he said. “And now, shall we get that book done between us?”
“Here?” she asked, astonished.
“Certainly not. You’re going to help me pack my books and manuscript and then we’re going back to New York. You’ll not be out of my sight again. I can’t get on with my painting until after we’re married.”
She gulped and did not argue. The matter was clearly settled. She didn’t quite believe it yet. She would have to get used to the idea, but she knew she would do so blissfully.
“What will you paint? Is there something you want to paint now?” she asked him.
“A leading question,” he said. “You, of course,” and he bent to kiss her. “You’ll sit for me without benefit of reflections in a samovar—I don’t want to be misled again. You’ll wear the sun in your hair, that feather pin in your lapel, and ivory earrings for your ears. You’ll put up your chin and thrust your thumbs in your belt—and I’ll paint you with love and tenderness.”
She smiled at him joyfully. Two things, she knew, would never appear in his picture. There would be no hint of Anabel, except for happy memories evoked by a pin. And there would be no tespih of black amber. The warnings were over and done with, the Bosporus ghosts were stilled forever as far as she and Miles were concerned.
She kissed him back without restraint, and with his arm about her they hurried toward his study where the last of their work in Turkey awaited them.
A Biography of Phyllis A. Whitney
Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold worldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”
Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, to American parents, Mary Lillian (Lilly) Mandeville and Charles (Charlie) Whitney. Charles worked for an American shipping line. When Whitney was a child, her family moved to Manila in the Philippines, and eventually settled in Hankow, China.
Whitney began writing stories as a teenager but focused most of her artistic attention on her other passion: dance. When her father passed away in China in 1918, Whitney and her mother took a ten-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to America, and they settled in Berkley, California. Later they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Lilly continued to be an avid supporter of Whitney’s dancing, creating beautiful costumes for her performances. While in high school, her mother passed away, and Whitney moved in with her aunt in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1924, Whitney turned her attention to writing, nabbing her first major publication in the Chicago Daily News. She made a small income from writing stories at the start of her career, and would eventually go on to publish around one hundred short stories in pulp magazines by the 1930s.
In 1925, Whitney married George A. Garn
er, and nine years later gave birth to their daughter, Georgia. During this time, she also worked in the children’s room in the Chicago Public Library (1942–1946) and at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1947–1948).
After the release of her first novel, A Place for Ann (1941), a career story for girls, Whitney turned her eye toward publishing full-time, taking a job as the children’s book editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and releasing three more novels in the next three years, including A Star for Ginny. She also began teaching juvenile fiction writing courses at Northwestern University. Whitney began her career writing young adult novels and first found success in the adult market with the 1943 publication of Red Is for Murder, also known by the alternative title The Red Carnelian.
In 1946, Whitney moved to Staten Island, New York, and taught juvenile fiction writing at New York University. She divorced in 1948 and married her second husband, Lovell F. Jahnke, in 1950. They lived on Staten Island for twenty years before relocating to Northern New Jersey. Whitney traveled around the world, visiting every single setting of her novels, with the exception of Newport, Rhode Island, due to a health emergency. She would exhaustively research the land, culture, and history, making it a custom to write from the viewpoint of an American visiting these exotic locations for the first time. She imbued the cultural, physical, and emotional facets of each country to transport her readers to places they’ve never been.
Whitney wrote one to two books a year with grand commercial success, and by the mid-1960s, she had published thirty-seven novels. She had reached international acclaim, leading Time magazine to hail her as “one of the best genre writers.” Her work was especially popular in Britain and throughout Europe.
Whitney won the Edgar Award for Mystery of the Haunted Pool (1961) and Mystery of the Hidden Hand (1964), and was shortlisted three more times for Secret of the Tiger’s Eye (1962), Secret of the Missing Footprint (1971), and Mystery of the Scowling Boy (1974). She received three lifetime achievement awards: the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985, the Agatha in 1989, and the lifetime achievement award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1995.
Whitney continued writing throughout the rest of her life, still traveling to the locations for each of her novels until she was ninety-four years old. She released her final novel, the touching and thrilling Amethyst Dreams, in 1997. Whitney was working on her autobiography at the time of her passing at the age of 104. She left behind a vibrant catalog of seventy-six titles that continue to inspire, setting an unparalleled precedent for mystery writing.
A young Whitney playing with her doll in Japan.
Whitney with her family in Japan, where they lived for approximately six years. From left: Lillian (Lilly) Whitney, Charles (Charlie) Whitney, Phyllis Whitney, and Philip (Whitney’s half-brother).
Thirteen-year-old Whitney dancing in the Philippines.
Twenty-one-year-old Whitney at her graduation from McKinley High School in 1924.
Whitney worked at the World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, in 1933. She was pregnant with her daughter, Georgia, at the time.
Frederick Nelson Litten, Whitney’s mentor in writing and teaching, in Chicago, 1935.
Whitney’s first publicity photo for A Place for Ann, 1941.
Whitney, forty-eight, in her first study in Fort Hill Circle at her Staten Island house, where she lived with second husband Lovell Jahnke, 1951.
Whitney at sixty-nine years old with Jahnke in their home in Hope, New Jersey, 1972. Behind them hangs a Japanese embroidery made by Whitney’s mother.
Whitney at seventy-one years of age with Pat Myer, her long time editor, and Mable Houvenagle, her sister-in-law, at her house on Chapel Ave in Brookhaven, Long Island, New York, 1974. After her husband died in 1973, she lived close to her daughter, Georgia, on Long Island.
Whitney at eighty-one years old on a helicopter ride over Maui, Hawaii, to research the backdrop for her novel Silversword, 1984.
Whitney giving her acceptance speech for her Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985.
Whitney rode in a hot-air balloon in 1988 to use the experience for her novel Rainbow in the Mist.
Whitney ascending in the hot-air balloon, 1988.
Whitney in her study in Virginia in 1996 at ninety-three years old, looking over her “Awards Corner,” which included three Edgars, the Agatha, and the Society of Midland Authors Award.
Whitney at ninety-six years old with her family in her house in Virgina, 1999. From left: Michael Jahnke (grandson), Georgia Pearson (daughter), Matthew Celentano (great-grandson), Whitney, and Danny Celentano (great-grandson).
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1964 by Phyllis A. Whitney
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4391-5
This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
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