The Panther and The Pearl

by Doreen Owens Malek

  “Why not? For a few days? Don’t you think you could use a rest in the English countryside?”

  “I’ve had a rest here.”

  “Then for your mother’s sake? Emily was her favorite sister, you must remember that.”

  “Why is it so important to you that I go?” Sarah asked, lowering the lid of the suitcase.

  James sighed. “You need to be among allies, Sarah. Bea and I could only do so much, and I’ve been watching you sitting here day after day, waiting for that...scalawag...to show up here, growing paler and thinner by the minute...”

  “I expect the ‘thinner part’ will change quite soon,” Sarah said dryly.

  “Forget him,” James said sharply.

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Then go back to him. Existing in this half world is sapping your health and that isn’t good for the baby.”

  “You know why I can’t go back to him, James, we’ve discussed it endlessly. And sitting in an autumn English garden with Mum’s middle aged sister isn’t going to change anything.”

  “How do you know that? Maybe you will feel better. And don’t forget, this may be your only opportunity to see Aunt Emily, she isn’t getting any younger and she rarely leaves England since her husband died.”

  Sarah stared at him, exasperated, then burst out laughing, shaking her head helplessly.

  “What?” James said, shrugging.

  “You are relentless, do you know that? All right, I’ll go to Dover and see Emily.”

  James grinned.

  “You didn’t tell her anything of my situation in your letter?” Sarah asked.

  “No, of course not. I just said that you enjoyed an extended visit here and were now returning to Boston.”

  Sarah nodded. “I’ll have to change my itinerary. Instead of staying in Paris and going on from there I’ll need transportation from Paris to Calais.”

  “I’ll arrange it,” James said briskly, and left the room, whistling merrily.

  Sarah walked over to the window and looked down at the bustling street, wondering again why she hadn’t heard from Kalid. Why was he bothering to have the house watched, why had he delayed her departure, if he didn’t plan to contact her. Had Roxalena’s information been wrong?

  She would never know. She was leaving Turkey in the morning and she would not see him again.

  “You will write to us often?” Bea said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. In the background, boarding passengers said goodbye to their companions at the station while the locomotive steamed restlessly, ready to depart.

  “Yes, I will,” Sarah replied.

  “We’ll be so concerned about the...you know.”

  “Baby, Beatrice. You can say the word.” Sarah leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

  “And give our best to Aunt Emily,” James added.

  “I will.”

  “You look very pretty,” he added lamely, glancing at the porter who was walking away with Sarah’s bags.

  “Thank you.” In a vain attempt to lift her spirits, Sarah had splurged on a traveling outfit in one of the Constantinople shops that catered to Western visitors. It was a street dress of gray and black striped bengaline with a modified bustle and an apron skirt. A fitted black jersey jacket buttoned over it, and a matching gray hat trimmed with raven’s feathers and edged with black grosgrain ribbon sat on her upswept hair.

  In two months’ time, the only item still fitting her would be the hat.

  “All aboard!” sounded in their ears. The command was repeated in French, then Turkish, as the last straggling passengers climbed aboard the train. The whistle hooted shrilly and the engine belched a cloud of acrid smoke.

  “I must go,” Sarah said, extracting her fingers with difficulty from James’ grip.

  He embraced her again, tears standing in his eyes.

  “If you need anything...” he said for the hundredth time, searching her face.

  “I will write, I promise,” Sarah said.

  Bea hugged Sarah in her turn, and then husband and wife stood back and watched as Sarah ascended the mobile steps to the passenger car and turned in the doorway to wave again. Then she vanished inside as the porter whisked the steps away.

  “I feel like I am sending her off to certain disaster,” James said huskily.

  Bea said nothing, her expression mournful.

  In her own repressed and childless way, she was very fond of Sarah.

  They stood there until the train had departed and disappeared around a bend in the tracks.

  Kalid looked around the sumptuous Presidential suite at the Hotel Delacroix with satisfaction. The three rooms were banked with flowers, a bottle of the finest champagne stood in a silver ice bucket in the reception area, and two elaborate fruit baskets sat on a side table. He glanced in the gilt edged mirror on the silk covered wall and adjusted the vest of his Turnbull and Asser suit. He was in his Oxford mode, dressed by the best British tailors and speaking the King’s English.

  If this didn’t work, he was out of ideas.

  He looked at the clock on the mantel and frowned. Sarah’s train should have been in an hour ago, and the hotel was near the station. He had asked the desk to notify him when she arrived, but so far he had heard nothing.

  Kalid left the suite and walked along the lavish figured carpet to the newly installed Otis elevator, a slow contraption powered by steam which closed with an iron grille across the door. The immense Baccarat chandelier hanging from the enameled plaster ceiling vanished as the elevator descended to the lobby level.

  Kalid walked to the registration desk and looked around him as he waited for the desk clerk to appear. A black walnut main staircase at the rear of the lobby swept down from a central platform which led to the second level of the hotel. The stairs were fitted with a red plush carpet and all the gas jets had shades designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The reception desk where Kalid waited was of the same black walnut as the staircase.

  He hit the bell with the flat of his hand.

  The clerk appeared from a side door immediately.

  “May I help you, Mr. Shah?” he said in French with the dockside intonations of Marseilles.

  “Yes. I am waiting for the arrival of a Miss Woolcott, and she should have been here by now. Can you check for me?” Kalid replied impatiently in his crisp, British accented French.

  “Mais oui,” the clerk said, and flipped open the ledger, then turned to a pile of telegrams stuck on a spike to his left. He riffled through them and then said, “Ouila!”

  “What is it?”

  “Miss Woolcott canceled her reservation with us, Mr. Shah. She will not be arriving today.”

  “What do you mean? I checked when I got here yesterday morning and the clerk on duty then said that she was due to check in this afternoon!”

  “I’m sure that was true at the time, Monsieur Shah. We only received the telegram in my hand this morning.”

  “And you don’t know anything else?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Kalid whirled from the desk and sprinted across the lobby.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” the clerk called after him.

  Kalid ignored him as he ran out the door.

  The clerk sniffed and closed his ledger.

  Foreigners.

  What could one expect?

  Chapter 15

  Kalid rushed up to an iron grilled ticket window at Gare St. Lazare and said rapidly in his brisk university French, “I need to track a passenger who arrived here two hours ago on the Orient Express from Constantinople.”

  “I’m sorry, monsieur, that information is confidential. We do not share the passenger manifest with the public.”

  Kalid whipped a two hundred franc note from his vest pocket and shoved it under the man’s nose.

  The ticket seller snatched it and said, “You would have to see the stationmaster. His office is just beyond that arch.”

  Kalid ran in the indicated direction, p
assing through crowds of men and women dressed in the latest European fashions, past newsboys in corduroy jackets and felt caps hawking their wares, past peanut and ice cream vendors and the uniformed porters who seemed to be everywhere. He heard the distant rumble and hiss of an arriving train as he knocked on the frosted glass door marked “Maitre d’gare” and then yanked it open abruptly.

  The stationmaster looked up from his lunch of rondelet bread with sardines and brie and stared at Kalid in shock.

  “I need information about a passenger who arrived on the Orient Express today,” Kalid announced. “The ticket seller said you would be able to help me.”

  The stationmaster put down his glass of burgundy and opened his mouth to speak. At the same time Kalid produced a five hundred franc note and held it aloft.

  The stationmaster’s expression changed. “What do you want to know?” he asked, rebuttoning the tunic of his uniform.

  Kalid explained his mission and the stationmaster rose to retrieve the passenger manifest from a drawer. He ran his finger down a column and then nodded.

  “Yes, monsieur. She arrived here several hours ago, as you say. At least she had a seat in her name, and someone used it.”

  “But she never came to her hotel.”

  The stationmaster gave a particularly Gallic shrug.

  “Can you tell from that list what car she was in, who might have been the porters?”

  “Mais oui. Henri Duclos and Pierre Montand.”

  “Then summon them here. If she hired a coach or went to another hotel she would probably have asked one of them to help her.”

  The stationmaster sighed.

  Kalid produced another five hundred francs.

  “Duclos is on another run. You will have to wait until he returns to the station to see him.”

  Kalid nodded.

  “But I will call Montand now. Wait here.”

  Kalid nodded again.

  The stationmaster went out and Kalid began to pace the small room, oblivious to the train schedules and posters and notes tacked to the peeling plaster walls, to the overpowering smell of garlic and sardines from the stationmaster’s lunch.

  He had to find Sarah.

  By the time Sarah reached Dover it was late evening and she decided to spend the night at a local inn called the Leaping Stag. James’ letter was not likely to reach Aunt Emily before Sarah herself did and although Sarah had sent a wire, she knew that Emily’s house was in a small village which did not have a telegraph office, so service was always delayed. She thought it impolite to barge in late at night unannounced, so she planned to hire a carriage in the morning and arrive at a reasonable hour.

  Her room was cozy with a cheerful fire, and although she had missed dinner the innkeeper said he would send up an order of “starry gazy pie”, a local delicacy on the order of shepherd’s pie. Sarah found that she was very hungry, which followed the pattern of her days now. She couldn’t think about food in the morning and by evening was ravenous, but because of the traveling and pregnancy induced seasickness she had skipped lunch on the boat. She was warming her feet before the fire when there was a tap at her door and the barmaid entered with a tray, the plate on it covered with a checkered napkin.

  “All cozy now?” she said, when she saw Sarah with her feet up on the embroidered footstool.

  Sarah nodded. It was wonderful to hear voices speaking her native language, even if it was with a thick Kentish accent sometimes difficult to decipher.

  “I saw you when you arrived tonight and you looked all done in, if you don’t mind my saying so,” the barmaid added, bending to place the tray on a table by the fire. “Cut up quite nasty outside, hasn’t it? Rain, rain, rain, this autumn, nothing but storms and showers, and now it’s gotten cold too. Did you have a long trip?”

  “Yes, from Turkey on the Orient Express, and then to Calais to take the packet to Dover.”

  The barmaid clucked her tongue sympathetically as she whipped off the napkin and poured a tankard of ale into a glass mug. “You HAVE had a long trek, pet, small wonder you looked all at sixes and sevens. Better now, though, eh?”

  “Yes, I think so. That food smells good.”

  “Oh, indeed, Albie serves up the best tucker in the district and no mistake. You’ll enjoy that, it’ll put some color back in your cheeks. Go ahead, don’t let me stop you.”

  Sarah took a bite of a biscuit and a sip of ale as the barmaid looked on approvingly, her beefy reddened hands folded over her apron and her kindly face wreathed in smiles.

  “You’re not British, are you?” she said, as Sarah chewed enthusiastically.

  “No, American.”

  “Have you been away from home long?”

  “Several months. It seems long.”

  “You must be missing the States, I expect.”

  “I didn’t realize how much until I got off the boat in Dover and saw all the signs printed in English. It was like a...welcoming sign, somehow.”

  “Oh, it would be. I’ve never traveled abroad myself, if you’re happy where you are I think you should stay there.”

  Sarah put down the biscuit and looked out the streaming window at the dark. “There are times I wish I’d stayed at home,” she said softly, and to her horror, she started to cry.

  The barmaid sat on the edge of the featherbed and patted her hand.

  “There, there, miss. Have you got troubles?”

  Sarah nodded, wetly.

  “Something to do with your trip?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you meet a man?”

  “How did you know it was a man?” Sarah inquired, her eyes streaming.

  “With pretty young ladies, it usually is. Have you left him, then, is that the problem?”

  “I’ve left him, and what’s more, I’m pregnant,” Sarah replied, sobbing louder.

  The barmaid sighed. “You are in a pickle, aren’t you?” she said quietly.

  Sarah wiped her eyes with her fingers and the barmaid handed her the checkered napkin. Sarah blew her nose, wondering how much lower she could sink.

  She was now having weeping fits in front of strangers.

  The barmaid handed her the mug of ale and Sarah drank deeply, closing her eyes.

  “My name is Ethel,” the barmaid said, “and in this job I’ve heard everything, so you can tell me all about it.”

  Between bites of her dinner, Sarah did.

  “So you thought he would come after you,” Ethel said twenty minutes later, as Sarah pushed aside her empty plate and picked up an apple.

  “In the beginning I was too angry to think about anything, I just wanted to get away from him. But then I began to miss him terribly, and when I heard from Roxalena that he was watching James’ house I thought...”

  “Roxalena is the Princess?” Ethel said.

  “Right. She said that he arranged it so I couldn’t get a train ticket and I thought that meant he was delaying my departure so he could intercept me...”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No, he didn’t. And now here I am and I’ll never see him again and I’m going to have his baby and I’m just...”

  “Miserable?” Ethel suggested.

  “Pretty much. I mean, I’m happy about the baby, but the thought that I have to live the rest of my life without him is overwhelming, do you understand?”

  Ethel nodded. “But why did you come to England? Aren’t you going home?”

  “I’m visiting my aunt. She lives in Gilly-on-Strait. How far is it to the village?”

  “About two miles straightaway down the post road. What’s her name?”

  “Emily Hepton. She’s a widow now, she was married to Giles Hepton, the cabinetmaker? He had a store in Dover.”

  “I knew him well, he used to stop off here for a pint on his way back from the market. Never met the wife, though.”

  “She kept the house and stayed on alone. We all thought she’d come back to Boston, but she prefers to remain where she lived with her husband.”<
br />
  “People get set in their ways, love.”

  “But she must get so lonely,” Sarah said, threatening to lapse into tears again.

  “Then she’ll be very glad to see you,” Ethel said, standing. “I’ve got to go down and do the washing up for the night or Albie will be getting after me. You’re our only guest tonight but we get the old duffers in the bar until all hours and the glasses will be standing there waiting for the cloth.”

  “Yes, yes, go ahead, I understand. I’ve kept you too long already, please forgive me.”

  Ethel gathered up the tray and bent to put another log on the fire.

  “Got to keep you and the little one warm,” she said.

  “It was so hot in Turkey I can’t get used to the change of weather here,” Sarah said.

  “You’re a long way from Turkey now.”

  Sarah sighed in agreement. “Do you know where I can hire a coach in the morning?” she asked.

  “There’s a livery stable just down the road. My boy Henry works there, you can ask for him and tell him I sent you. He’ll take care of you right enough.”

  Sarah looked up at her and smiled. “Thank you for your kindness, and I’m sorry about...you know, the little scene I made.”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” Ethel said. “Don’t give it a thought. You’re just going through a bad patch, and we all hit them. I’ll set you up with a hearty English breakfast in the morning and you’ll feel much better when you see your auntie.”

  Sarah nodded, trying not to think about breakfast, especially a hearty one, since she knew she would be in no mood for it when the sun rose.

  When the door closed behind Ethel the room seemed suddenly very empty.

  Sarah let her head fall against the plush back of the overstuffed chair and stared morosely into the fire.

  “Calais?” Kalid said, staring at the porter. “What do you mean, she went to Calais?”

  Henri Duclos spread his hands. “Just what I said, Monsieur. The American woman you described asked me to arrange transportation for her to Calais.”