The Eunuch of Stamboul

by Dennis Wheatley

  “You have passed on to me every word of the description that he gave you of her?”

  “Every word.”

  “Does it fit any woman who frequents the hotel?”

  “There are half a dozen at least who are tall, slim, fair-haired—and that he said she was beautiful tells me nothing—he would think that whatever her looks if he happens to be in love with her. But if he does not return she will come to my stall for the letter in the morning.”

  Almost imperceptibly Kazdim shook his enormous head. “I think not. My men shall keep watch on the off-chance but I have a feeling that something scared him away. He returned to the hotel a little after eleven and left again before twelve. His heavy luggage is still there yet his dressing-case is gone, even though the Kavass swears that he did not take it with him. If I am right he will have warned the woman so she will not come—but it is he whom we must find.”

  Again he sat silent, smoking his interminable cigarettes while Tania waited. Then at last he spoke again:

  “How many times has this man talked with you?”

  “Almost every day since his arrival.”

  “Then he must have let something drop into your little ears which can be of use to me.”

  “No, nothing, I promise you. He only spoke of the weather and the news in the papers that he …”

  “Silence!” he piped with sudden vehemence. “A chattering woman is a scourge to thought. Take heed now, did he say nothing of the purpose which had brought him to Istanbul?”

  “Not a thing that I can remember.” Tania answered wearily.

  “No? Let me aid your memory then.”

  “I mean that I should remember if he ever had said anything,” she corrected herself hurriedly.

  “I wonder. You will try a little harder perhaps if I remind you that your mother and yourself are aliens, allowed to remain in Turkey only on a permit at my pleasure. This matter is important. If you cannot remember something which will assist me to find this man I may not remember to renew that permit. Then that foolish old woman and yourself will be expatriated to Russia. The rest of your career I leave to your imagination and the Bolsheviks.”

  “You wouldn’t do that—you can’t,” Tania pleaded. “I’ve served you well—brought you lots of little pieces of useful information.”

  He raised his eyebrows until they formed two semicircles in his high bald forehead. “Can I not? And why? Do you think then that you have the only body that men will lust after in Istanbul? There are a thousand like you with whom I could fill your place to-morrow. Allah! why is it that thou hast cursed women by making them such imbeciles? Think girl. Think I say! This matter is important.”

  “I can’t,” Tania moaned, “honestly I can’t think of anything he said that mattered.”

  “Listen,” Kazdim spoke quite calmly again now and almost as if he was addressing a small child. “Go over in your mind all the reasons for which he might have come. We know the truth now but he must have had some ostensible reason to cover his secret activities. Was he a doctor or engineer? Did he speak of visiting the museums which might make you think him an antiquary? Was he always eager to see the latest market reports in the papers and so a financier perhaps? Did he discuss the shipping in the Port? Had he ever one of those leather cases which hold samples with him? Did he express interest in aeroplanes, or clothing, or the new buildings which are going up in the city? Was he concerned with any of our industries? Carpet manufacture, scent …”

  “Stop—I have it,” Tania exclaimed. “Tobacco. He is something to do with one of the Tobacco Depots. He only mentioned it once—just after he arrived—and that is such a long time ago now that it had slipped out of my mind.”

  “Well that is something. Not much it is true since there are scores of Tobacco Depots within ten miles of the city but at least it gives me one line of investigation.”

  The Eunuch stared at Tania for a moment as he considered whether he should try to screw something more out of her, but he had decided, long ago, that she was not withholding anything wilfully, and now he thought it unlikely that she could help him further, however hard he pressed her.

  With a sudden lurch he came to his feet, then with an astonishingly swift movement he seized the lobe of her ear between his finger and thumb, twisted it violently causing her momentary but acute agony, chuckled gleefully as he released it, and turned towards the door.

  “Take care of the young one you were with to-night while he is here,” he shot at her in his curious treble. “He may prove a useful source of information to us later if he returns regularly to Istanbul.” Then without another glance he left her.

  Tania listened to his unexpectedly light tread as he pattered down the stairs. As the street door banged behind him she gave a sigh of relief and pulling off the smart little hat laid it brim upwards upon a chair. Five minutes later she had removed the cover from the divan and taken off her clothes, crossed herself before the Ikon that hung on the wall, blown out the lamp and tumbled into bed. Almost as soon as her head touched the pillow she was asleep.

  Another who slept that night in Istanbul from sheer exhaustion was Swithin Destime. When he had woken that morning he had known nothing of this conspiracy, heavy with fateful possibilities for Turkey, which was creeping like an invisible miasma amongst the inhabitants of the City. Picnicking on the Wall with Reouf he had learnt of it and sensed its possible importance. Afterwards he had spent anxious hours trying without success to get in touch with Diana. Then there had been the meeting on the roof top at Scutari, confirming Reouf’s view that the Kaka had popular backing. Supper with Arif, Reouf and Jeanette. His conference with Diana which had ended in such an alarming manner. His flight from the Pera to his secret refuge in the Tatavla flat. Diana’s arrival ten minutes later flushed with the success of her bold coup in getting away unchallenged with his dressing-case through the back entrance of the hotel. Another long conference and, after her departure, his decision that he must warn Reouf and Arif from asking for him at the Pera Palace in case they got into trouble through their association with him. The labour of changing into a suitable disguise, then out again to undertake the wearisome journey across the Bosphorus. A wrangle with a boatman who suspected, from his shabby clothes, that he could not pay the fare, until the money had actually changed hands. The anxious search through dark unknown streets to find the address upon the ornate gilt-edged card which Arif had given him, then the dropping of the note for the brothers saying that he had left the Pera Palace for private reasons that night, for good, and would communicate with them the following day. Back again to Tatavla and so—at last—to bed.

  As was to be expected he slept late the following morning but when he woke every episode of the previous day was clear in his mind. His first thought was of Diana. He turned over in bed, lit a cigarette and visualised her as he had seen her the night before. She had behaved magnificently, urging him to quit the Pera at once and leave her to do his packing. On his refusal she had insisted on cramming his dressing-case with many useful things that he would have been loath to leave behind and smuggling it out herself when they left by separate entrances.

  His whole view of her had changed again completely. He now had a boundless admiration for her courage tempered by a grudging regard for her efficiency. It was not that he was the least mean-natured, but, for a man of his temperament and rather old-fashioned outlook, it was a bitter pill to swallow that any good-looking young woman should show herself to have a quicker and apparently more analytical brain than his own. He did himself the injustice of forgetting that, having acted as go-between for her father on previous occasions, she had far more experience of the sort of work he was employed upon than he had, and it rankled with him that from start to finish her mind had been ahead of his the night before. Not being used to playing second fiddle to a woman, he soothed his ruffled plumage by attributing her abilities to a certain hardness in her nature. That fitted in with her ill-treatment of him on the yacht, for he considere
d her partial explanation of it far from satisfactory. Her story of playing a part in order to keep some member of the party under observation did not hold water for who, he argued, in that crowd had there been to watch.

  She was a darned good pal to have by one in a nasty hole, he told himself, but a heartless little minx where other matters were concerned. She had played with him in England and with Cæsar Penton on the yacht; now it seemed she was more or less willing to play with him again; but he wasn’t having any.… ‘Once bitten twice shy and we’ll stick strictly to our business,’ was his final verdict.

  He got up, breakfasted off a tin of sardines from an emergency store that he had laid in, and began to select some suitable clothes from his second-hand wardrobe, but it occurred to him that if he were going over to Arif’s house these tattered garments would need considerable explanation. The Turk knew him only as an English business man visiting Istanbul, and had no idea of the true reason which had brought him there. Obviously he must go dressed in his ordinary clothes, if he went at all, and that might be risky if the police were looking for him. However it was imperative for him to see Reouf if he wished to learn more of the Kaka so he decided to chance it.

  For once the sky was overcast so he was able to compromise by covering his lounge suit with a filthy old mackintosh, which was among his gear, without risk of drawing undue attention to himself, and which he could remove on his arrival. He completed his costume by a rather dusty bowler worn right on the back of his head and, as he surveyed himself in the mirror, he wondered gleefully just what his friends at home would think if he walked into the Club in Brook Street dressed like that.

  Actually the disguise was very adequate, for far more depends upon such trifling alterations in the manner of wearing head-gear and a different type of walk than theatrical false beards and moustaches so, despite the fact that his description had already been circulated, the Eunuch’s men never gave him a second glance as he boarded the steamer ferry at Galata bridge, and he reached Arif’s house by twelve o’clock.

  A stout, swarthy-faced female answered the door through which he had dropped his note in the small hours of the morning but to his inquiry for Reouf she shook her head:

  “He is not here to-day,” she said slowly, “and he did not sleep at home last night, but perhaps you may find him at the University. Allah puts it into the heads of these young students to do crazy things at times although Reouf is a serious one and not apt to be afflicted by the Most Merciful in this way.”

  Swithin then asked for Arif and elicited the information that as usual he could be found in his office at the Haidar Pacha terminus goods station. Arif would obviously be busy with his work and it was Reouf whom Swithin really wanted to get hold of so he recrossed the water, walked to the old Arsenal in which he knew the University now to be situated and, after considerable difficulty, managed to find a student who knew his friend. This pot-bellied young gentleman had not seen Reouf that day and could tell him nothing, so he returned to his flat annoyed and disappointed.

  Knowing no other place in which he might profitably search for the young Turk he spent the remainder of the afternoon thinking out subtle questions to ask him in the evening, for he had little doubt that Reouf, obviously having been kept out the previous night on the Eunuch’s secret business, would return home by dusk and have a most interesting story to tell if only it could be got out of him.

  When night had fallen Swithin crossed to Scutari for the fourth time since he had gone there with Reouf to the meeting, made his way by side streets to Arif’s house, and sent in his name by the old woman whom he had seen earlier in the day.

  Arif received him in a long, low room the furniture of which was a curious mixture of Edwardian-French and Oriental. Plush, gilt studded chairs, apparently little used, were ranged stiffly round the walls but at one end there was a sumptuous divan; an ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling and the electric globes with which it was fitted shed so harsh a light that the delicate colours of the fine rugs upon the floor became almost blurred when dazzled eyes looked down upon them.

  The Turk promptly observed the rules of hospitality by calling for coffee but apart from outward civility he did not appear particularly glad to see his visitor. He resumed his place cross-legged on the divan, inquired abruptly if Swithin would care to smoke and, on the acquiescence of his guest, handed him an amber mouthpiece which was attached by a long tube to the already bubbling narghile on the floor. Then he picked up his own pipe and began a constant nervous puffing.

  When the coffee arrived they exchanged a few sentences and Swithin inquired for Reouf, upon which, Arif replied that he had not seen him since the night before. That, obviously, was the cause of his anxiety yet Swithin felt once again that he dared not reassure him by saying that both Reouf and Kazdim were members of the Kaka.

  Despite his European clothes Arif seemed to have reverted entirely to the Oriental as he sat there cross-legged upon the divan. He spoke only occasionally and with grave courtesy about nothing in particular. Swithin replied with equally measured and well considered words. Between each exchange long silences occurred and after a little the Englishman began to think that this formal procedure had its uses. He knew quite well what was in the other man’s mind, but surely this stoical repose under the strain of anxiety was more dignified than striding up and down endlessly repeating futile speculations or insincere assurances that he was not really worried about his brother at all.

  An hour, two hours, drifted by. Swithin sat on, determined not to leave, unless he had to, before he had seen Reouf, and at least arranged another meeting. Arif, if not a glowing host seemed at all events not unwilling that he should remain, for once when he half-heartedly suggested that it was growing late, the Turk pressed him to stay on with a sudden eagerness which showed that he preferred not to be left alone.

  Then footsteps shuffled in the hall. Swithin was unable to refrain from standing up; Reouf at last, he thought, it will be devilish interesting to know what Kazdim kept him busy on all this time, but instead of Reouf, an old man entered. He stood there looking at Arif for a few seconds in silence then he said:

  “I grieve for you brother. The fishermen found him. His body was washed up by the current upon the far side—about three miles below the spot where the Wall reaches the sea. It is the will of Allah—Praise be upon His name and that of the Prophet.”

  Then half a dozen other men followed him into the room. They carried a bier which they set down on the floor.

  Arif had risen. He snatched at the cloth which covered it. Reouf’s face, unnaturally swollen, stared up at them. Two of the men silently turned the body over, the clothing squelched and a trickle of water ran out upon the floor. Its arms were bound behind the back with strong cords.

  Swithin had a fleeting vision of the Tower of Marble, jutting out into the Marmara Sea, as he had seen it the day before, and of the sinister chamber within it, then of the gloating face of the Eunuch as he had pointed to the dark shaft, below which lay the rushing waters, and described the terrible fate which had overtaken so many people in that place of ghosts—because they knew too much.

  “Allah is great,” chanted the old men. “He is the merciful—The Compassionate—and blessed are the believers upon Mahomet His Prophet—for them there are Gardens beneath which Rivers flow and they shall dwell therein for aye.”

  CHAPTER XV

  ‘FOR THESE ARE THE FELLOWS OF THE FIRE AND THEY SHALL BURN THEREIN FOR AYE’

  (The Qur’ân)

  Swithin was momentarily overwhelmed by the thought that he had brought this tragedy upon the brothers, but his sense of proportion soon reasserted itself. He had been the innocent instrument through which fate had worked perhaps, but no more. Reouf’s own hot-headed fanaticism and enthusiasm for his cause, which he had confessed to displaying so indiscreetly to Kazdim after Swithin left them together on the Wall, were obviously the prime cause of his death. Yet the fact that he could absolve himself from blame hardly l
ightened Swithin’s distress for, although he had known the youth barely forty-eight hours, he had taken a genuine liking to him.

  After the first shock Swithin was brought back with a jerk to the effect this hideous business might have upon his own affairs. The body of the young Turk lying there, damp, swollen and repulsive, brought home to him as nothing had before the real gravity of his own situation. If Diana had not urged him to leave the Pera Palace on the previous night he too might have been sent, with his arms trussed behind his back, to feed the fishes in the Bosphorus. Subconsciously he had been a little inclined to take insufficient heed of the obvious fear with which the name of Kazdim Hari Bekar filled other people, but now he had an all too horrible example of the man’s swift ruthlessness and realised that his life henceforward hung upon his own caution. One false step and he would be like that silent, still dripping, thing upon the floor.

  Arif gave a muttered order. The men replaced the cloth over Reouf’s face and moved the bier into the centre of the room. Swithin saw that as a stranger it was impossible for him to remain there any longer; the women of the family would be coming to mourn their dead. In a low voice he expressed his sorrow and sympathy to the bereaved Turk, bowed to the others and then left the house.

  Once in the street he walked a hundred yards, sat down on the edge of a horse-trough, lit a cigarette and began to think things out.

  For nearly twenty-four hours Kazdim’s people must have been searching for him and his mission was not yet half accomplished. So far he had only ascertained that there was a plot hatching against Kemal, but he knew nothing of its extent, its leaders, the methods they meant to employ in order to gain their ends, or when it was likely to come to maturity.

  With fresh anxiety he realised that he had been counting on Reouf to furnish him with all these details, or at least give him the necessary leads, after skilful pumping, which would enable him to find them out from other sources—and now poor Reouf was dead. That avenue was closed for ever so he must start from the beginning again by winning someone else’s confidence; a difficult enough business at any time but infinitely more so now that he no longer dared move in the open for fear of being recognised by the police.