Palewski and Yashim regarded him in silence.
“I was about to offer coffee. Yashim?”
They took their coffee to the window seat, having turned Compston’s head so that his nose was not pressed flat against the mahogany. Outside it was dark, the distant sound of barking dogs mingling with the slow rumble of the English boy’s snores.
“Poor Byron!” the ambassador exclaimed. “One minute the chap had a headache—who wouldn’t with all those Greeks dunning him right, left, and center—and the next, dead. Bled and physicked by a pack of quacks. He didn’t stand a chance.”
“No. Perhaps it was deliberate?”
“Deliberate? No, no. Doctors spend their professional lives killing people. It’s what they do.”
“Even so,” Yashim said, “Millingen was at Missilonghi for the Greek cause. Byron’s death led on to Greek independence. It rallied the Europeans.”
“Deep, Yashim. I like it. Deep, improbable, but worth contemplating. You’re beginning to think like a Pole.”
Yashim gave a wan smile. “You think it’s ridiculous.”
“Not altogether. A fashionable Scottish doctor who accidentally let the greatest living English poet die on him. Not a calling card in Mayfair, is it? Millingen must have come here because there wasn’t a patient in Europe who’d have him. Byron’s reputation was legendary. But Millingen feels safe out here. You Ottomans—it’s what makes you so lovable—wouldn’t know Byron from a syringe. You told me that yourself.”
Yashim nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. He took a sip of coffee. “We wouldn’t know Dr. Meyer either, for that matter, if he suddenly showed up in Istanbul.”
“Meyer?”
“The doctor Byron couldn’t abide. The man who didn’t get away.”
Palewski half turned his head. “As Compston says, Yashim, it was a massacre.”
“A massacre. Sometimes—in the confusion—people have a chance to escape.”
Palewski nodded. “True. They lie doggo in the water, breathing through a reed. Or play dead. Tumbled into a common grave, sneaking out when the devils are gone. That sort of thing.”
Yashim shrugged. “Meyer survives. Twelve years later, he comes to Istanbul.”
“Very well.”
“He has headaches. He consults a doctor—Millingen. Dr. Millingen would remember him.”
Palewski slowly closed his eyes. He shook his head. “Why consult a doctor if you are one?”
“I don’t know. But that’s exactly what Lefèvre did—he told us so.”
A look of pain slid across the ambassador’s face. He sank back against the shutter case.
“Yashim.”
“Dr. Meyer was the one with the interest in Greek archaeology. The one Byron disliked on sight.”
Palewski considered the ceiling.
“You disliked Lefèvre on sight yourself,” Yashim insisted. “And then there’s a coin trick they all learned from one another. Lefèvre did it. Millingen does it.”
Palewski whistled. “You think Meyer and Lefèvre were the same man?”
“One or two things I still don’t understand—but yes. It makes sense.”
“You can’t fault Lord Byron’s judgment, if that’s the case. But why? Why change his name and all that?”
“I don’t know yet,” Yashim confessed. “If I did, I’d have the answer to how he died.”
“Why show himself to Millingen?” Palewski asked. “The man who could still prove who he was?”
Yashim clasped his hands together. “Look at it this way. What was Lefèvre doing, in the days before he was killed?”
“Reading old books. Getting scared. What else?”
“Negotiating, that’s what Malakian thought. Lefèvre had something he could sell.”
“Or buy?”
Yashim shook his head. “Not so likely. After all, he had no money left.”
Palewski took a deep breath. “But he had nothing of value on him, either, except the little book. And it’s not worth all that much.”
“He didn’t necessarily possess what he was selling. Or not yet.”
“Very well. But why break his cover and go to see Millingen?” Palewski unfolded himself from the chair and went to the door.
“Marta! Brandy!”
He stood by the door, listening. Then he came back and flopped back into his chair.
“I said you were thinking like a Pole, Yashim, but don’t overdo it. Have one of these,” he added as Marta brought the tray into the room. “Thank you, Marta.”
Marta smiled and poured two glasses of brandy. When the door closed Yashim said: “The Hetira is a society devoted to the restoration of the Greek empire: that’s the Great Idea. But restoration means healing, too. Restoring to health.”
Palewski pulled a face. “A society of doctors?”
“Millingen was at Missilonghi for the cause, wasn’t he? We know Stephanitzes was, and he was the only Greek among them. Bruno worked for Byron: he followed the poet. Meyer edited the Chronica Hellenica. Perhaps he believed in the Great Idea, or perhaps he simply hoped for reward when the kingdom established itself.”
“That fits,” Palewski said. “Damn it, Yashim. English doctors don’t go around murdering people like that.”
“I couldn’t say,” Yashim remarked. “But Lefèvre also visited another man before he was killed. Mavrogordato.”
“That’s it!” Palewski slapped his thigh. “The Greek banker, ship-owner, whatever. He knew where to find Lefèvre that night—you’d booked him a passage on one of his ships. These bankers are doing quite all right, don’t want to rock the boat. Lefèvre comes in, babbling about the relics, and Mavrogordato panics. He uses his wealth and influence to have the whole thing discreetly taken care of.”
Yashim sighed. “I wouldn’t call any of those murders discreet. If Mavrogordato wanted Lefèvre killed, why did his wife call me in to dig around? Mavrogordato doesn’t sneeze without his wife’s permission. He wouldn’t organize a string of murders on his own. She might. But then she wouldn’t have called me in.”
“Confound it, Yash. Why in the name of God did she call you in?”
“Exactly. Why was she so interested in Lefèvre?” Yashim put his fingertips together. “Something about him confused her.”
“Confused her?”
“I don’t think that Lefèvre came babbling to her husband about relics. Mavrogordato could have told her if he had. There was something about Lefèvre that she wanted to know—something Mavrogordato couldn’t tell her. Not because he wouldn’t—he’d tell her everything he knew. No secrets.”
“Out with it, Yashim.”
Yashim smiled. “I don’t have the answer, my friend. At least, not yet.”
“But you have an idea?”
Yashim nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. Yes, I do have an idea.”
Compston gave a huge snort and rolled sideways off his chair, onto the floor.
He sat up blearily, rubbing his head.
“I—I wasn’t asleep,” he mumbled automatically.
95
THE valide leans forward. Some things, she says to herself, do not change: they must not. I did not believe it, when I was young. I fought the old women: I scandalized them. But I see it clearly now: this is my role.
She watches for a deviation. She can remember her last visit; she compares it with this.
Now he drinks the pure water from the cup, and now he dips his bread in a plate of salt, to show his brotherhood.
The watermen cross their arms flat against their chests.
They bow to the new recruit. There are spots of color on his cheeks.
The sou naziry, the chief of the watermen’s guild, raises his hands. “Water is life.”
“Water is life,” the new recruit answers in a firm voice.
“It is the blessing of the spirit.”
“And the spirit is with God,” he answers.
“Be He blessed, the Merciful, the Creator.”