by Eric Ambler
I hid the carnet under some shelf lining paper on top of the wardrobe and went out. It took me about ten minutes to walk to the Hilton.
I approached the car park briskly, swinging my keys in my hand as if I were going to pick up a car already there. I guessed that either the man who had telephoned or someone acting on his instructions would be waiting for the Lincoln to arrive, all ready to drive it away the instant I had gone. In Istanbul, it is unwise to leave even the poorest car unlocked and unattended for very long.
I spotted him almost immediately. He was standing at the outer end of the Hilton driveway smoking a cigarette and staring into the middle distance, as if he were trying to decide whether to go straight home to his wife or visit his girl friend first. Remembering that I would have to give Tufan his description, I took very careful note of him. He was about forty-five and thickset, with a barrel chest and a mop of crinkly gray hair above a brown puffy face. The eyes were brown, too. He was wearing a thin light-gray suit, yellow socks, and plaited leather sandals. Height about five ten, I thought.
I walked through the car park to make sure that there were no other possibilities there, then came out the other side and walked back along the street for another glimpse of him.
He was looking at his watch. The car should have been there by then if I were following instructions.
I walked straight back to the Park Hotel. As I unlocked the door to my room I could hear the telephone inside ringing.
It was the same voice again, but peremptory now.
“Simpson? I understand that the car is not yet delivered. What are you doing?”
“Who is that speaking?”
“The friend of Miss Lipp. Answer my question, please. Where is the car?”
“The car is quite safe and will remain so.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The carnet is in the hotel strong-room and the car is garaged. It will remain that way until I hand it over to Mr. Harper or someone holding credentials from Mr. Harper.”
“The car is the property of Miss Lipp.”
“The carnet is the name of Miss Lipp,” I answered; “but the car was placed in my care by Mr. Harper. I am responsible for it. I don’t know Miss Lipp except by name. I don’t know you even by name. You see the difficulty?”
“Wait.”
I heard him start to say something to someone with him: “Il dit que…” And then he clamped a hand over the telephone.
I waited. After a few moments he spoke again. “I will come to your hotel. Remain there.” Without waiting for my agreement, he hung up.
I went upstairs to the foyer and told the desk clerk that I would be out on the terrace if I were wanted. The terrace was crowded, but I eventually managed to find a table and order a drink. I was quite prepared to make the contact; but I had not liked the sound of the man on the telephone, and preferred to encounter him in a public place rather than in the privacy of my room.
I had left my name with the head waiter, and after about twenty minutes I saw him pointing me out to a tall, cadaverous man with a narrow, bald head and large projecting ears. The man came over. He was wearing a cream-and-brown-striped sports shirt and tan linen slacks. He had a long, petulant upper lip and a mouth that drooped at the corners.
“Simpson?”
“Yes.”
He sat down facing me. Brown eyes, one gold tooth left side lower jaw, gold-and-onyx signet ring on little finger of left hand; I made mental notes.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Fischer.”
“Will you have a drink, Mr. Fischer?”
“No. I wish to clear this misunderstanding relative to Miss Lipp’s car.”
“There is no misunderstanding in my mind, Mr. Fischer,” I answered. “My orders from Mr. Harper were quite explicit.”
“Your orders were to await orders at the hotel,” he snapped. “You have not complied with them.”
I looked respectfully apologetic. “I am not doubting that you have a perfect right to give those orders, Mr. Fischer, but I assumed, naturally, that Mr. Harper would be here, or if not here in person, that he would have given a written authorization. That is a very valuable car and I…”
“Yes, yes.” He broke in impatiently. “I understand. The point is that Mr. Harper has been delayed until tomorrow afternoon and Miss Lipp wishes her car at once.”
“I’m sorry.”
He leaned across the table towards me and I caught a whiff of after-shave lotion. “Mr. Harper would not be pleased that you put Miss Lipp to the trouble of coming to Istanbul herself to claim her car,” he said menacingly.
“I thought Miss Lipp was in Istanbul.”
“She is at the villa,” he said shortly. “Now we will have no more of this nonsense, please. You and I will go and get the car immediately.”
“If you have Mr. Harper’s written authority, of course.”
“I have Mr. Harper’s authority.”
“May I see it, sir?”
“That is not necessary.”
“I’m afraid that is for me to decide.”
He sat back breathing deeply. “I will give you one more chance,” he said after a pause. “Either you hand over the car immediately or steps will be taken to compel you to do so.”
As he said the word “compel,” his right hand came out and deliberately flicked the drink in front of me into my lap.
At that moment something happened to me. I had been through an awful twenty-four hours, of course; but I don’t think it was only that. I suddenly felt as if my whole life had been spent trying to defend myself against people compelling me to do this or that, and always succeeding because they had all the power on their side; and then, just as suddenly, I realized that for once the power was mine; for once I wasn’t on my own.
I picked up the glass, set it back on the table, and dabbed at my trousers with my handkerchief. He watched me intently, like a boxer waiting for the other man to get to his feet after a knockdown, ready to move in for the kill.
I called the waiter over. “If this gentleman wished to make a report about a missing car to the police, where should he go?”
“There is a police post in Taxim Square, sir.”
“Thank you. I spilled my drink. Wipe the table and bring me another, please.”
As the waiter got busy with his cloth, I looked across at Fischer. “We could go there together,” I said. “Or, if you would prefer it, I could go alone and explain the situation. Of course, I expect the police would want to get in touch with you. Where should I tell them to find you?”
The waiter had finished wiping the table and was moving away. Fischer was staring at me uncertainly.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “Who said anything about the police?”
“You were talking of compelling me to hand over the car to you. Only the police could make me do that.” I paused. “Unless, that is, you had some other sort of compulsion in mind. In that case, perhaps I should go to the police anyway.”
He did not know what to say to that. He just stared. It was all I could do not to smile. It was quite obvious that he knew perfectly well what was hidden in the car, and that the very last thing he wanted was the police taking an interest in it. Now he had to make sure that I didn’t go to them.
“There is no need for that,” he said finally.
“I’m not so sure.” The waiter brought me the drink and I motioned to Fischer. “This gentleman will pay.”
Fischer hesitated, then threw some money on the table and stood up. He was doing his best to regain control of the situation by trying to look insulted.
“Very well,” he said stiffly, “we shall have to wait for Mr. Harper’s arrival. It is very inconvenient and I shall report your insubordinate behavior to him. He will not employ you again.”
And then, of course, I had to go too far. “When he knows how careless you can be, maybe he won’t have much use for you either.”
It was a silly
thing to say, because it implied that I knew that the situation was not what it appeared on the surface, and I wasn’t supposed to know.
His eyes narrowed. “What did Harper tell you about me?”
“Until tonight I didn’t even know you existed. What should he have told me?”
Without answering he turned and went.
I finished my drink slowly and planned my movements for the evening. It would be best, I thought, to dine in the hotel. Apart from the fact that the cost of the meal would go on the bill, which Harper would be paying, I wasn’t too keen on going out just then. Fischer had seemed to accept the situation; but there was just a chance that he might change his mind and decide to get rough after all. Tufan’s men would be covering me, presumably, but I didn’t know what their orders were. If someone were to beat me up, it wouldn’t be much consolation to know that they were standing by taking notes. It was certainly better to stay in. The only problem was the ten o’clock telephone report. I had already noticed that the public telephones in the foyer were handled by an operator who put the calls through the hotel switchboard, so I would have to risk going out later. Unless, that is, I missed the ten o’clock call and left it until the morning at eight. The only trouble was that I would then have to explain to Tufan why I had done so, and I did not want to have to explain that I was afraid of anything that Fischer might do. My trousers were still damp where he had upset the drink over me, and I was still remembering how good it had felt to make him climb down and do what I wanted. I could not expect Tufan to realize how successfully I had handled Fischer if I had to start by admitting that I had been too nervous to leave the hotel afterwards.
All I could do was to minimize the risk. The nearest cafe I knew of was the one on the side street below my room. With so many lighted hotel windows above, the street would not be too dark for safety. The telephone would probably be on the bar, but with any luck the noise of the music would compensate for the lack of privacy. Anyway, it would have to do.
By the time I had finished dinner I was feeling so tired that I could hardly keep my eyes open. I went back to the terrace and drank brandy until it was time for the call.
As I walked from the hotel entrance to the road I had to get out of the way of a taxi and was able to glance over my shoulder casually as if to make sure that it was safe to walk on. There was a man in a chauffeur’s cap about twenty yards behind me.
Because of the contours of the hill and the way the street twisted and turned, it took me longer than I had expected to get to the cafe. The man in the chauffeur’s cap stayed behind me. I listened carefully to his footsteps. If he had started to close in, I would have made a dash for the cafe; but he kept his distance, so I assumed that he was one of Tufan’s men. All the same it was not a very pleasant walk.
The telephone was on the wall behind the bar. There was no coin box and you had to ask the proprietor to get the number so that he knew what to charge you. He couldn’t speak anything but Turkish, so I wrote the number down and made signs. The noise of the music wasn’t as bad inside the place as it sounded from my room, but it was loud enough.
Tufan answered immediately and characteristically.
“You are late.”
“I’m sorry. You told me not to call through the hotel switchboard. I am in a cafe.”
“You went to the Hilton Hotel just after six. Why? Make your report.”
I told him what had happened. I had to repeat the descriptions of the man at the Hilton car park and of Fischer so that he could write them down. My report on the meeting with Fischer seemed to amuse him at first. I don’t know why. I had not expected any thanks, but I felt that I had earned at least a grunt of approval for my quick thinking. Instead, he made me repeat the conversation and then began harping on Fischer’s reference to a villa outside Istanbul and asking a lot of questions for which I had no answers. It was very irritating; although, of course, I didn’t say so. I just asked if he had any additional orders for me.
“No, but I have some information. Harper and the Lipp woman have reservations on an Olympic Airways plane from Athens tomorrow afternoon. It arrives at four. The earliest you will hear from him probably will be an hour after that.”
“Supposing he gives me the same orders as Fischer-to hand over the car with its papers-what do I do?”
“Ask for your wages and the letter you wrote.”
“Supposing he gives them to me.”
“Then you must give up the car, but forget to bring the carnet and the insurance papers. Or remind him of his promise that you could work for Miss Lipp. Be persistent. Use your intelligence. Imagine that he is an ordinary tourist whom you are trying to cheat. Now, if there is nothing more, you can go to bed. Report to me again tomorrow night.”
“One moment, sir. There is something.” I had had an idea.
“What is it?”
“There is something that you could do, sir. If, before I speak to Harper, I could have a license as an official guide with tomorrow’s date on it, it might help.”
“How?”
“It would show that in the expectation of driving Miss Lipp on her tour, I had gone to the trouble and expense of obtaining the license. It would look as if I had taken him seriously. If he or she really wanted a driver for the car it might make a difference.”
He did not answer immediately. Then he said: “Good, very good.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You see, Simpson, when you apply your intelligence to carrying out orders instead of seeing only the difficulties, you become effective.” It was just like The Bristle in one of his good moods. “You remember, of course,” he went on, “that, as a foreigner, you could not hold a guide’s license. Do you think Harper might know that?”
“I’m almost sure he doesn’t. If he does, I can say that I bribed someone to get it. He would believe me.”
“I would believe you myself, Simpson.” He chuckled fatuously, enchanted by his own joke. “Very well, you shall have it by noon, delivered to the hotel.”
“You will need a photograph of me for it.”
“We have one. Don’t tell me you have forgotten so soon. And a word of caution. You know only a few words of Turkish. Don’t attract attention to yourself so that you are asked to show the license. It might cause trouble with museum guards. You understand?”
“I understand.”
He hung up. I paid the proprietor for the call and left.
Outside, the man in the chauffeur’s cap was waiting up the street. He walked ahead of me back to the hotel. I suppose he knew why I had been to the cafe.
There was a guide to Istanbul on sale at the concierge’s desk. I bought one with the idea of brushing up on my knowledge of the Places of Interest and how to get to them. On my way down to my room I had to laugh to myself. “Never volunteer for anything,” my father had said. Well, I hadn’t exactly volunteered for what I was doing now, but it seemed to me that I was suddenly getting bloody conscientious about it.
I spent most of the following morning in bed. Just before noon I got dressed and went up to the foyer to see if Tufan had remembered about the guide’s license. He had; it was in a sealed Ministry of Tourism envelope in my mailbox.
For a few minutes I felt quite good about that. It showed, I thought, that Tufan kept his promises and that I could rely on him to back me. Then I realized that there was another way of looking at it. I had asked for a license and I had promptly received one; Tufan expected results and wasn’t giving me the smallest excuse for not getting them.
I had made up my mind not to have any drinks that day so as to keep a clear head for Harper; but now I changed my mind. You can’t have a clear head when there’s a sword hanging over it. I was careful though and only had three or four rakis. I felt much better for them, and after lunch I went down to my room to take a nap.
I must have needed it badly, for I was still asleep when the phone rang at five. I almost fell off the bed in my haste to pick it up, and the start that it gave
me made my head ache.
“Arthur?” It was Harper’s voice.
“Yes.”
“You know who this is?”
“Yes.”
“Car okay?”
“Yes.”
“Then what have you been stalling for?”
“I haven’t been stalling.”
“Fischer says you refused to deliver the car.”
“You told me to wait for your instructions, so I waited. You didn’t tell me to hand the car over to a perfect stranger without any proof of his authority…”
“All right, all right, skip it! Where is the car?”
“In a garage near here.”
“Do you know where Sariyer is?”
“Yes.”
“Get the car right away and hit the Sariyer road. When you get to Yenikoy look at your mileage reading, then drive on towards Sariyer for exactly four more miles. On your right you’ll come to a small pier with some boats tied up alongside it. On the left of the road opposite the pier you’ll see a driveway entrance belonging to a villa. The name of the villa is Sardunya. Have you got that?”
“Yes.”
“You should be here in about forty minutes. Right?”
“I will leave now.”
Sariyer is a small fishing port at the other end of the Bosphorus where it widens out to the Black Sea, and the road to it from Istanbul runs along the European shore. I wondered if I should try to contact Tufan before I left and report the address I had been given, then decided against it. Almost certainly, he had had Harper followed from the airport, and in any case I would be followed to the villa. There would be no point in reporting.
I went to the garage, paid the bill, and got the car. The early-evening traffic was heavy and it took me twenty minutes to get out of the city. It was a quarter to six when I reached Yenikoy. The same Peugeot which had followed me down from Edirne was following me again. I slowed for a moment to check the mileage and then pushed on.
