by Joan Fleming
Hadji had gone upstairs to Madame’s room; having taken sleeping tablets she was soundly asleep; Hadji had taken the revolver from her handbag and loaded it. In the hall the young man had been standing by the bier, with his back to Hadji, who had fired twice from close range. He had not fallen dead but had turned and staggered across the hall; Hadji had retreated, panicked and fired again, this time wide. The young man had fallen and Hadji had left him, dying, and run to hide. Then, a few hours later, he had gone back to the hall to find him dead. He had undressed him with the idea of tying the body into a sack weighed down with big stones from the rockery, and casting it into the Bosphorus, as all unwanted corpses were cast. But he had been too heavy, too unwieldy. Hadji had had the cunning idea of wrapping him tightly in the winding sheet in which Valance was wrapped.
Said Hadji: he should not have pushed Valance into the Bosphorus in the hurried, crude manner he had employed. When erring women went into that stream, they went in in the way he had described and, because she had not done so, she had reappeared, down by the Sweet Waters of Asia in a most unseemly manner, with clothes above her head and general disorder. The worry of it had nearly killed him and, given another chance, he seized the opportunity to carry out the obsequies as was meet and right. For years he had had a suitably large sack ready—made almost to measure, and for an equal number of years had marked the large pieces of basalt rock he would use for the operation. It had been a matter of five minutes to do what he had visualized doing, so often; her body had gone into the water, her head protruding from the tied neck of the sack in the old, old way. He had kicked her down the water steps and now she lay, a distance of not more than two feet from the bottom step, but a long way down; food for the Bosphorus.
Said Hadji: it was, of course, Allah who had sent the Frenchwoman, Valance’s sister.
Nuri bey became deeply thoughtful. He was ready to subscribe to the splendid ambiguity of assuming that Miasma knew nothing whatever but that did not prevent him from thinking that she certainly made a first-class accessory.
He said: ‘Hadji, you are a wicked, little …’ he paused for a second before saying: ‘eunuch.’
And after along silence and much more thought he said, ‘And only now I begin to understand. In her way, I think Miasma loved you, Hadji, though she never ceased to abuse you. The fiendish idea of taking the young English girl to the public hanging was not one which suddenly dropped into her mind. She had been thinking about it with regard to you, Hadji.’
‘How so?’
‘She wanted you to realize that, if you were discovered, you would hang.’
‘That may be so. She was frantic to have the money for the opium, Efendim, and I think now she wished to go away, and to take me, possibly to the hotel at which she stayed in Beirut when Valance was away, and where she first met her contacts. That may, indeed, be so.’
‘And if you are discovered you will hang after all, Hadji!’ and Nuri bey’s heart sank because he knew he would have to do something more to help him to escape death on the gallows.
Said Hadji: ‘A life without my mistress is no longer of any use to me, I no longer need it, or need the money.’ He pointed a trembling finger at the sodden leather satchel, still lying on the water steps. ‘Take that, Efendim. It is all the money I saved for her in all the years I have served her. I owe it to you for the loss of your house. There is quite a lot of it. It is wrapped carefully in waterproof material, you will find it quite dry.’
‘Hadji, the police will surely be here soon with a warrant. There has been someone in the road watching the gate all night. They will come without any doubt.’
‘Let them come, I will tell them all. It will be a relief.’
‘But you will be hanged!’
‘I wish for the idam sehpasi, the tripod of death, astride my miserable body and to hang at dawn before the Sultan Ahmed Mosque,’ he murmured.
And that was that.
Nuri bey made tea which they drank together without another word being spoken by Hadji, who sat in absolute apathy and dejection. When the police finally arrived, they banged loudly on the door and Hadji spoke:
‘Leave me, Efendim, I beg you. This has nothing to do with you any more. Go quickly, and leave by the small gate at the end of the garden which has not been opened for years. It is bolted on this side and will be rusty. Go and catch the bus in the square. I do not wish you to see me leave the house in this … unseemly … condition … wrapped in a blanket.’
They exchanged the Moslem leave-taking and Nuri bey went to the french window. ‘Farewell, Hadji,’ he said, turning round.
Hadji was walking towards the door; oddly enough, wrapped in his blanket, the creature achieved a strange dignity; he had instinctively wound it about him in the traditional way and now he looked like one of the original Wise Men.
‘Don’t forget the money,’ he called over his shoulder.
If he went back to the Hilton Hotel, he would be lost; he would fall for sentiment and a fairy-tale ending. So he strode the streets, damp satchel hanging over his shoulder, until it was time to go to the station.
And when he saw her in her sheep-minding wesket and saw her face light up in her enchanting smile, he nearly changed his mind.
‘Darling Nuri bey! Thank goodness you’re there!’ She clung to him and Nuri bey trembled at his own weakness.
‘It’s all over,’ he told her. ‘Miasma is accidentally drowned in the Bosphorus and Hadji will soon be hanged for the murder of Tony Grand and Valance his grandmother. And you have had some narrow escapes and must now go back to your own country where I hope nothing more will happen to you.’
They talked a lot more, as they walked to the train, found a single seat and stood side by side on the platform, watching people settling themselves for the long trans-European journey.
In desperation she said: ‘But, Nuri bey, I love you!’
‘I love you, Jenny!’
‘Well, then …?’
‘If you love me you will do something for me?’
‘Anything in the world!’
Nuri bey shook his head. ‘A blind promise! Jenny Bolton, you love too easily.’ He opened the satchel and took out the thick bundle of Turkish money. ‘You will take half of this!’
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t!’
‘You must. You promised! I want you to take this and do not declare it. When you get home to England go to this address.’ He wrote on a slip of paper. ‘They are friends of mine and will give you English money in exchange.’
‘But what are you going to do?’
The guard was shooing everybody into the train which was about to leave. Jenny flung her arms round Nuri bey’s neck and kissed him. He pushed her away and into the train. She let down the corridor window and leaned out.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I still have my land. I shall clear it and rebuild my house. I shall live in it and study my people, whom I have never noticed before.’
‘But what about Oxford, Nuri bey? You’ve always longed to go.’
‘I longed when I had not the money to go. Now that I have, I dare not go. I dare not … in case the substance does not equal the shadow.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Let us say, I would rather stay here and … be a big fish in a small pond.’
A kind of child’s trumpet was blown and the train gave a jerk.
‘Oh, Nuri bey!’ she cried. She stretched out a hand and he caught it, running along beside the moving train. ‘I’ve been ditched again!’ Her face was crumpled and tears were streaming from her eyes, her enchanting baby’s mouth was stretched to an impossible shape. He ran faster but at last he had to leave go and stood with arm raised until she was drawn from sight.
He stayed on the spot where he had stopped running and, fumbling a little, brought out his passport which she had returned to him and stared down at it.
‘Or, perhaps,’ he said aloud, ‘like Potemkin, I only wanted to l
ong for something.’
WINNER OF THE 1962 GOLD DAGGER AWARD
BRITISH CRIME WRITERS’ ASSOCATION
SET IN ISTANBUL, THIS THRILLING TALE CONVEYS THE MYSTERY AND MAGNETISM OF THE OLD IMPERIAL CITY AT THE CROSSROADS OF EUROPE AND ASIA.
Nuri bey is a Turkish philosopher and scholar who lives for his books. An innocent and dreamy man, he yearns to go to Oxford, but with his relatively poor background it’s a dream that may never be realized without the help of his wealthy mentor, Madame Miasma. When she asks him to deliver a parcel to a friend of hers at the airport, Nuri bey obliges, and events bring him in touch with a side of life that is dark and dangerous. A security guard is shot, and Nuri bey flees the scene, because the last thing this philosopher wants is to be involved with a nefarious crime in a country where convicted murderers are hanged in public…
T H E L A N G T A I L P R E S S
w w w . l a n g t a i l p r e s s . c o m
