“Even though it would have cost me three hundred dollars?”
“It wouldn’t have cost you anything. The checks would have been returned to you eventually.”
“That’s true.” He nodded. “Not bad, Arthur. Now tell me what you meant when you told Mr. Fischer that he’d been careless. What did you think he’d been careless about?”
They were all three waiting for my answer to that. The men’s suspicion of me was in the air and Miss Lipp had smelled it as well. What was more, she didn’t look in the least puzzled by what Harper was saying. Whatever the game was, they were all in it.
I did the best I could. “Why? Because of the way he’d behaved, of course. Because he had been careless. Oh, he knew your name all right and he knew enough to get in touch with me, but I knew he couldn’t be acting on your orders.”
“How did you know?”
I pointed to the letter. “Because of that. You’d told me it was your insurance. You’d know I wouldn’t turn the car over to a complete stranger without getting my letter back. He didn’t even mention it.”
Harper looked at Fischer. “You see?”
“I was only trying to save time,” said Fischer angrily. “I have said so. This does not explain why he used that word.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said. The only way was to bull it through. “But this does. When he started threatening me I offered to go with him to the police and settle the matter. I’ve never seen anyone back down so fast in my life.”
“That is a lie!” Fischer shouted; but he wasn’t so sure of himself now.
I looked at Harper. “Anyone who pulls that sort of bluff without knowing what to do when it’s called, is careless to my way of thinking. If Mr. Fischer had been a dishonest servant instead of your helpful guest, you’d have said I’d been pretty careless to let him get away with a fourteen-thousand-dollar car. I’d be lucky if that was all you said.”
There was a brief silence, then Harper nodded. “Well, Arthur, I guess Mr. Fischer won’t mind accepting your apology. Let’s say it was a misunderstanding.”
Fischer shrugged.
Just what Harper thought I was making of the situation I cannot imagine. Even if I hadn’t known what was hidden in the car, I would have realized by now that there was something really fishy going on. Miss Lipp, in Turkey for a little ten-day tourist trip with a Lincoln and a villa the size of the Taj Mahal, was sufficiently improbable. The shenanigans over the delivery of the car had been positively grotesque.
However, it was soon apparent that nothing I might think or suspect was going to give Harper any sleepless nights.
“All right, Arthur,” he said, “you’ve gotten yourself a deal. A hundred a week. You still have that fifty dollars I gave you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will that take care of the bill at the Park?”
“I think so.”
“Right. Here’s the hundred you have coming for the trip down. Go back to town now. In the morning check out of the hotel. Then take a ferryboat back to Sariyer pier so that you get there around eleven. Someone will meet you. We’ll find a room for you here.”
“Thank you, sir, but I can find a room in a hotel.”
“There isn’t a hotel nearer than Sariyer, and that’s too far away. You’d have to use the car to get to and fro, and it’d always be there when we wanted it here. Besides, we’ve got plenty of rooms.”
“Very well, sir. May I have my letter?”
He put it back in his pocket. “Sure. When you’re paid off at the end of the job. That was the deal, remember?”
“I remember,” I said grimly.
Of course, he thought that, by still holding the letter over me, he was making sure that I toed the line, and that, if I happened to see or hear anything that I shouldn’t, I would be too scared to do anything but keep my mouth shut about it. The fact that he wasn’t being as clever as he thought was no consolation to me. I wanted to get back to Athens and Nicki, but I wanted that letter first.
“You will drive,” said Fischer.
I said “Good night, madam,” to Miss Lipp, but she didn’t seem to hear. She was already walking back up the steps with Harper.
Fischer got into the back seat. I thought at first that he merely intended, in a petty way, to show me who was boss; but, as I drove back down to the road, I saw him looking over the door panels. He was obviously still suspicious. I thanked my stars that the packing had been carefully done. It was almost comforting to see the sand-colored Peugeot in the driving mirror.
He didn’t say anything to me on the way. In Sariyer, I stopped at the pier approach and turned the car for him. Then I got out and opened the door as if he were royalty. I’d hoped it would make him feel a bit silly, but it didn’t seem to. Without a word he got in behind the wheel, gave me a black look, and tore off back along the coast road like a maniac.
The Peugeot had stopped and turned about a hundred yards back, and a man was scrambling out of its front passenger seat. He slammed the door and the Peugeot shot away after the Lincoln. There was a ferryboat already at the pier, and I did not wait to see if the man who had got out followed me. I suppose he did.
I was back at the Kabatas ferry pier soon after eight and shared a dolmus cab going up to Taxim Square. Then I walked down to the hotel and had a drink or two.
I needed them. I had managed to do what Tufan wanted, up to a point. I was in touch with Harper and would for the moment remain so. On the other hand, by agreeing to stay at the villa I had put myself virtually out of touch with Tufan; at least as far as regular contact was concerned. There was no way of knowing what life at the villa was going to be like, nor what would be expected of me there. It might be easy for me to get out to a safe telephone, or it might be quite difficult. If I were seen telephoning, Harper would immediately get suspicious. Who did I know in Istanbul? What was the number? Call it again. And so on. Yet I didn’t see how I could have refused to stay there. If I had argued the point any further, Harper might have changed his mind about keeping me on. Tufan couldn’t have it both ways; and I made up my mind to tell him so if he started moaning at me.
I had some dinner and went down to the cafe beside the hotel. A man with a porter’s harness on his back followed me this time.
Tufan did not moan at me as a matter of fact; but when I had finished my report he was silent for so long that I thought he’d hung up. I said: “Hullo.”
“I was thinking,” he said; “it will be necessary for us to meet tonight. Are you in the cafe in the street by the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“Wait five minutes, then go up to the hotel and walk along the street past it for about a hundred yards. You will see a small brown car parked there.”
“The Peugeot that’s been following me?”
“Yes. Open the door and get it beside the driver. He will know where to take you. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
I paid for the telephone call and bought a drink. When the five minutes were up I left.
As I approached the Peugeot, the driver leaned across and pushed open the door for me to get in. Then he drove off past the hotel and down the hill towards the Necati Bey Avenue.
He was a young, plump, dark man. The car smelled of cigarettes, hair oil, and stale food. In his job, I suppose, he had to eat most of his meals sitting in the car. There was a V.H.F. two-way taxi radio fitted under the dash, and every now and again Turkish voices would squawk through the loudspeaker. He appeared not to be listening to them. After a minute or so he began to talk to me in French.
“Did you like driving the Lincoln?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s a good car.”
“But too big and long. I saw the trouble you had in the narrow streets this afternoon.”
“It’s very fast though. Were you able to keep up with him when he drove back to the villa?”
“Oh, he stopped about a kilometer up the road and began looking at the doors. Did they rattle?”