A Dead Man in Athens (2 page)

The band went off across the square and came to a halt outside a large building on the other side.

‘The Palace,’ said Dr Metaxas. ‘They’re changing the guard. We have this rigmarole every morning.’

They all sat down again.

‘I don’t believe in palaces,’ said Mr Metaxas. ‘Or kings, either. As you see, I am in a minority.’

The doctor’s sympathies were apparently well known since no one seemed to take umbrage. Seymour caught, indeed, a few grins at surrounding tables.

‘In any other country,’ said Metaxas, ‘including, I believe, your own, the monarch is treated with indifference. Only in Greece is he taken seriously. While this was understandable initially – when we became independent it was pardonable to demonstrate enthusiasm for having a ruler of our own – to persist with it is folly. It is a betrayal of the deep democratic instinct that makes the Greek special.’

He looked challengingly at Seymour, as if expecting his dissent.

‘Yes, my Greek friends in London say something similar,’ said Seymour.

‘Ah, you have Greek friends in London?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Let us drink to such friendship!’

Seymour felt he could not demur this time, and the waiter brought two glasses.

And then two more. And then two more.

‘What about the post-mortem?’ said Seymour, after a while.

Metaxas brushed it aside.

‘Post-mortem? On a cat? Ridiculous!’

He waved a hand to the waiter again.

Seymour began to feel unhappy.

‘You don’t think –’

Metaxas glared at him.

‘I,’ he said, ‘am a medical practitioner from the School of Medicine at Athens. My business is healing people. Not animals. If they want an animal looked at, why don’t they ask a vet? Why do they ask me, Metaxas? It is an insult. Not just to me, but to Greece! The Sultan, yes, his body I would examine. With pleasure. Very great pleasure. But the cat! No!’

He banged his hand on the table.

No one took any notice but a young woman suddenly appeared before them. She was dressed in black and had a dark shawl over her head.

‘You are becoming argumentative,’ she said to Metaxas. ‘It is time for you to go to the hospital.’

‘Hey! He can’t!’ cried Seymour. ‘He’s got a job to do!

’ ‘I know his jobs,’ said the woman, standing over them implacably, like some dark figure from Greek tragedy.

‘You’ve been drinking,’ she said accusingly. ‘Again!’

‘I’ve been having breakfast!’

‘And you’ve been encouraging him,’ she said to Seymour.

‘No, I haven’t!’ protested Seymour.

‘He is a guest, a colleague!’ cried Metaxas. ‘Just out from England!’

‘Is this true?’ she asked Seymour.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a doctor?’ she said. ‘Out from England?’

‘I’m a policeman.’

‘He arrived last night,’ said Metaxas. ‘I went to the hotel this morning and he hadn’t had breakfast. So –’

‘So you took him to the Plaza? Well,’ she said to Seymour, ‘perhaps you really don’t know any better. But you do,’ she said, turning back to Metaxas.

‘Breakfast. That’s all it was,’ said Seymour, conciliatorily.

‘And in England it is the custom to drink ouzo at breakfast?’

‘Listen,’ said Dr Metaxas, ‘I needed a drink before going to the mortuary. That’s where the job is.’

‘Is this true?’ she asked Seymour.

‘Yes.’

She thought for a moment, and then nodded.

‘All right, then. You’d better go. To the mortuary.
Just
to the mortuary. And then bring him home,’ she said to Seymour. ‘
Straight
home.’

‘Are you married?’ asked Metaxas.

‘No.’

‘Take my advice: don’t. And if you do, don’t have a daughter. Women are always up your tail.’

‘Are you going?’ she demanded.

‘All right, all right,’ said Metaxas, getting up.

Arms folded, she watched them set out across the square.

‘And you tell your mother I’m bringing a friend home to lunch,’ he shot back over his shoulder.

She gave the slightest of nods. Her face, however, remained expressionless. It looked as if it had been carved from marble. And, thought Seymour, rather beautiful.

‘Smell!’ he instructed.

Seymour did so.

‘Recognize it?’

Seymour nodded.

‘You don’t really need anything else,’ said Metaxas. ‘But we have done everything else. All the usual tests. And for a cat!’

‘Have you opened it up?’

‘Of course.’

‘And found?’

‘Traces. Administered in sufficient quantity to cause death.’

‘On one occasion?’

‘I would say so, yes.’

‘Presumably it was with something, or in something?

’ ‘Milk. Again there are traces.’

‘What kind of milk?’

‘What kind of milk?’

‘Goat’s, or cow’s?’

Metaxas looked at him with a new respect and then turned to one of the white-coated attendants and repeated the question in Greek.

‘Cow’s,’ the man said.

‘Isn’t that unusual?’ asked Seymour, also in Greek. ‘In Athens?’

‘It is, yes. Mostly we drink goat’s milk.’

‘I don’t know anything about cats,’ said Seymour. ‘But don’t they have a keen sense of smell? Wouldn’t the cat have smelt it if it had been put in the milk?’

‘It is possible that it was administered with something else that would have disguised the smell,’ the man said. ‘Marzipan, for instance.’

‘Marzipan?’

‘We thought we detected traces of marzipan in the bowel contents. The smell would have been not dissimilar, and the taste of the marzipan might have disguised the taste of the other. Especially if the cat was befuddled.’

‘Why would it be befuddled?’

‘Because it had drunk some alcohol, too.’

Seymour looked at Metaxas.

‘Hasn’t this cat been living it up a bit?’

Metaxas shrugged.

‘It’s a royal cat,’ he said.

‘Any signs of other damage? Wounds, that sort of thing?’

‘No,’ said Dr Metaxas. ‘But every sign of it being pampered, overfed and generally indulged. Whoever killed it was wasting his time. It would have died soon anyway.’

‘So,’ said Metaxas, as they left the mortuary, ‘you speak Greek?’

‘Yes.’

‘How does that come about?’

‘As I told you, I have Greek friends. There are a lot of Greeks in London.’

‘There are a lot of Greeks everywhere.’

They walked on in silence. Then Metaxas said:

‘You realize that that’s what this is all about, don’t you?’

‘This . . .?’

‘All this nonsense about the cat. And the Sultan. And the war.’

‘About speaking Greek?’

‘And there being Greeks everywhere.’

‘Why should that lead to –’

‘Think of all those Greeks. Scattered everywhere. All round the Mediterranean, in places like Egypt, the Levant, everywhere in the Ottoman Empire. Suppose you could bring them together! Greece would be a great country again. That’s what the politicians say, or, at any rate, that’s what Venizelos says.’

‘Venizelos?’

‘Our Prime Minister. It’s his “Great Idea”. That’s what he calls it. He has a dream of the scattered Greeks reunited. Beware of dreams, young man, because they’ll lead you astray. They are things of the darkness and they will lead you into the darkness. Venizelos is a good man but he has a dangerous dream. For how are they to be reunited except by war? Great Idea?’ He snorted. ‘Great Lunacy, I call it!’

They were crossing the square again. He looked at the people sitting at the tables.

‘But they like it,’ he said. ‘The fools! They lap it up like a cat lapping milk from a saucer. A Greater Greece! A return to the old days. What old days? The days of Alexander? But Alexander’s been dead for a long time, and he was a Macedonian anyway! But they lap it up. You’ve seen the flags, the marching? Wave your flags one day and the next march off to kill and be killed. Show the Ottomans that the Greeks are great again! Pah! Fools! Idiots!’

They were passing the caf´e. Metaxas wavered. He looked at his watch.

‘Time for an aperitif, I think,’ he said, and sat down at a table.

‘One only,’ stipulated Seymour.

Metaxas gave him an amused look.

‘You sound like my daughter,’ he said.

The waiter brought two glasses.

Seymour took a little sip and then put the glass down.

‘I take it that the Sultan himself has been given a medical examination?’ he said. ‘In view of his stomach pains?’

‘Oh, yes. Several. By an increasing number of eminent specialists. As the findings of each one in turn are challenged. I myself have examined him.’

‘And what did you find?’

‘A bad case of indigestion. And fear.’

It sounded as if a motor car was approaching. But, wait a minute, there was something funny about it; it sounded as if it was up in the air. Christ, it
was
in the air!

He jumped up. Everyone was standing up excitedly.

The thing suddenly emerged above the top of the buildings.

‘It’s one of the new Bl´eriot machines!’ someone shouted.

Bl´eriot machines! He’d read about them, of course, in the newspapers. Indeed, he could remember the Frenchman’s original flight across the Channel three years before. But he had never actually seen one.

It swooped low across the square, so low that he could see a goggled, helmeted figure in the cockpit.

There was a cheer from the people at the tables.

And then it had passed and was disappearing over the roofs of the houses towards the mountains beyond the city.

A babble of excited conversation broke out in the square.

‘There!’ someone said. ‘We’ve got three now!’

Seymour sat down again.

‘It’s the latest craze in Athens,’ said Dr Metaxas. ‘A rich banker bought one for his son. Then his son’s friend persuaded
his
father, also rich, to buy one for him. And now, I gather, someone else has been persuaded.’

‘They say we’re the only city in the world to have three Bl´eriot machines,’ said someone proudly.

‘Well, we’re not likely to have many more,’ said Dr Metaxas. ‘That’s about exhausted the supply of rich fathers in Athens.’

‘Oh, yes, but the Government’s going to buy some for the army. I read it in the newspaper.’

‘They say Venizelos himself is behind it.’

‘It’s coming back!’ shouted someone excitedly.

‘There’s another one!’

‘Two of them!’

Despite himself, Seymour couldn’t help standing up.

‘Perhaps they’ll land! In the square! One of them did, you know. The other day. It circled the Acropolis and then flew down the Rue de Stade. And then it landed! Right here in the square!’

The original Bl´eriot machine had, indeed, been joined by another one and they were both coming back over the city.

At the last moment one of the machines, the one they had seen before, peeled away and headed back towards the Acropolis. The other, distinguished by its different markings, plunged low over the square. They could see the pilot clearly. He waved a gloved hand to the people below.

Dr Metaxas, at the table, went still.

‘My son,’ he said, with a mixture of pride and resignation. And something else, Seymour thought. Was it fear?

Chapter Two

‘Your son?’ said Seymour. ‘But I thought . . .’

‘You are wondering if I am one of the rich fathers? Alas, no. But my son is friendly with one of the rich sons. They’re in the same class at university. “Has the son got a sister?” I say to him. “Because you’d be doing much better to be spending your time with her.”’

He shook his head.

‘The trouble about going around with rich people,’ he said, ‘is that you develop rich tastes. Without having the money to support them.’

It was evidently a sore topic. He shook his head again and contemplated the bottom of his glass. Then, slightly to Seymour’s surprise, he got up from the table.

‘We’d better be going,’ he said. ‘My wife will be expecting us.’

They had lunch in the Metaxases’ small garden. It was filled almost entirely with trees crammed close together, fig trees, orange trees and olives, but in the middle was a small space where there was a table and some cane chairs. Shade, Seymour guessed, was what they were after, although here and there among the green foliage were spots of colour where Mrs Metaxas had trailed nasturtiums and marigolds.

Mrs Metaxas was there waiting for them. She was tall and striking, like her daughter, but, unlike her, she was blonde and had the high cheekbones and general cast of face of a Slav. She hardly seemed Greek at all. Well, it was possible, thought Seymour. There were plenty of Slavs close at hand. The daughter was much more like the father, dark and quick and intense.

A sixth place had been laid at the table.

‘Andreas won’t be coming, Mother,’ said the daughter.

‘No?’ Mrs Metaxas was disappointed.

‘He’s flying,’ said Dr Metaxas.

‘Again?’

Dr Metaxas shrugged.

‘He spends too much time flying,’ said Mrs Metaxas, ‘when he should be busy with his studies.’

‘He doesn’t fly
that
much,’ said the daughter, rushing to the defence of her brother. ‘Only when George lets him.’

‘George lets him fly too often,’ said Mrs Metaxas. ‘He’s another one who should be spending more time on his studies. He’s not as clever as Andreas is.’

‘Andreas is clever enough,’ conceded Dr Metaxas. ‘At least, as far as passing examinations goes. That’s not what worries me. What worries me is what goes along with all this. The cost –’

‘All you think about is money!’

‘Well, someone in the house has got to! And it certainly won’t be Andreas –’

‘Look, George is meeting the expenses –’

‘Yes, but it can’t go on like that, can it? Andreas will have to pay his share.’

‘For God’s sake!’

‘Aphrodite, will you go and fetch the salad, please?’ said Mrs Metaxas, intervening hastily.

The daughter got up reluctantly.

‘And the retsina!’ Dr Metaxas called after her.

‘Alexis, you are not to provoke her!’

‘Provoke her?’ said Dr Metaxas, amazed. ‘She’s provoking me!’

Aphrodite returned with a bowl of salad.

‘Anyway,’ she said, as she put it down, ‘the costs will be less now. Now that the Government’s buying some Bl´eriots. It has already set up a servicing base and got an English engineer in. We’ll be able to make use of it, and it will bring the cost down –’

‘We?’ said Dr Metaxas. ‘You’re not in on this too?’

‘Well –’

‘Aphrodite,’ said Mrs Metaxas, laying down her knife and fork, ‘I hope you’re not thinking of going up in one of these things yourself?’

‘Well –’

‘I absolutely forbid it!’

‘Why?’ said Aphrodite.

‘Because it’s dangerous.’

‘Andreas is perfectly sensible –’

‘But George isn’t! You know he’s not. He’s too reckless –’

‘Look, I’m not thinking of going up with George –’

‘Don’t think of going up with anybody!’

Aphrodite concentrated on her salad.

‘Actually,’ she said, after a moment, ‘I’ve not got to that stage yet. All I was thinking of doing was helping with the servicing.’

‘Helping with the servicing?’ said Dr Metaxas, stunned. ‘Of a machine that’s going to fly in the air? That really does reassure me! What the hell do you know about servicing a Bl´eriot?’

‘I’ve been learning. I’ve been working with George’s mechanic –’

‘When?’ interrupted Dr Metaxas. ‘When? When you’re supposed to be at classes? Jesus, I spend all my life’s savings on sending my children to university and now I learn they don’t go anywhere near the place!’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Alexis!’ said Mrs Metaxas.

‘I only go to the workshop in the afternoon,’ Aphrodite muttered sulkily.

‘But that’s when you’re supposed to be in the labs! I’ve told you! That sort of thing is absolutely essential if you’re going to become a good doctor –’

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Aphrodite, concentrating hard on her salad, ‘I was thinking of changing faculty.’

The Embassy had told him where the Sultan was presently residing and had made him an appointment for five o’clock. It took him most of the rest of the afternoon to get there. The house was on the eastern edge of the city tucked away in a pine wood. It was approached up a long drive. At the entrance to the drive some Greek soldiers, in bright tunics and baggy pantaloons, were standing guard. He showed them the letter he had been given by the Embassy, an authorization from the Greek Government to approach the house, and, after reading it laboriously, they let him through.

Further up the drive was a wooden barrier, manned this time by Ottoman soldiers in large red fezzes.

‘Firman?’

Seymour produced the permit that he had been given, signed this time by the Ottoman Government, and, after they had perused it even more laboriously, he was allowed to proceed.

The house was in a courtyard and at its gates some English sailors were standing sentry. Who was guarding whom from whom Seymour was not quite sure.

Inside the house two cavasses, in splendid uniforms, sprang to attention. A man in a dark European-style suit came forward.

‘Monsieur Seymour?’ he said in faultless French. ‘The Acting-Vizier is expecting you.’

He was shown into a large room and settled on some leather cushions spread on the floor. Perfumed sweets were brought and then some coffee. The dark-suited man sat opposite him and made polite conversation. None of it touched on what Seymour had come for. Seymour sat patiently, remembering from a recent visit he had paid to Istanbul that this was how it was done.

After some time an older man, in long, flowing robes, came into the room. The other man sprang up and introduced them.

‘Mr Abd-es-Salaam . . .’

The Acting-Vizier bowed and seated himself on a cushion. More coffee was brought. Mr Abd-es-Salaam questioned him politely about his journey out from London. This, too, Seymour knew, was how it was done.

‘And where would you like to begin, Mr Seymour?’

‘With the cat, if I may. I wonder if I could speak to someone familiar with its routines? Someone who could tell me, for instance, about how it was fed?’

‘You can speak to me.’

‘Oh, yes, well, thank you. Actually, I was hoping I could trouble someone less distinguished. Someone, perhaps, who was closer to the actual arrangements –’

‘I see to all arrangements.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. But you wouldn’t do the actual feeding yourself?’

‘A slave does that.’

‘Of course. I wonder if I could speak to him?’

The Acting-Vizier and the dark-suited man exchanged glances.

‘The slave is . . . an occupant of the harem,’ said the dark-suited man.

‘Yes?’

‘And therefore a woman.’

‘Oh, I see. There could be difficulties about my speaking to a woman?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Yes.’

‘I’m afraid I do need to speak to her, however.’

The Acting-Vizier and the dark-suited man exchanged glances again.

‘It would take too long to fetch a male relative,’ said the Acting-Vizier.

‘Perhaps Talal?’ suggested the younger man diffidently.

‘Yes, perhaps it could be through Talal. I will make arrangements.’

He went out. A little later the younger man was summoned. He returned with two people, a woman, dark, muffled and veiled, and a middle-aged man.

‘You are Talal?’

‘Yes.’

As soon as the man spoke, Seymour realized why he was suitable. He was a eunuch.

‘And this is . . .?’

‘Miriam.’

‘And she attends to the cat?’

‘She feeds it.’

‘And did she feed it the day that –’

‘Yes.’

‘Can she tell me what she did? Exactly.’

‘I fetched the milk from the kitchen –’

‘She fetched the milk from the kitchen –’

Seymour had wondered what language was spoken in the harem. Turkish? Arabic? This, though, was different; a Slav language of some sort.

‘And?’

‘Gave it to the cat.’

‘Was it already poured out for her when she got to the kitchen? Or did they pour it out while she was there?’

‘It was already poured out. In a special bowl.’

‘Which she took . . .?’

‘To the harem apartments.’

‘Where, exactly?’

‘There is a salon.’

‘What did she do then? Put it on the floor?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then?’

‘The cat drank it.’

‘At once?’

‘Yes. I was late, and it was hungry, and –’

‘Were you there? Did you actually see . . .?’

There was a little silence.

‘Please try to remember exactly. Were you there? All the time?’

The woman, behind the veil, seemed agitated.

‘Try to remember exactly.’

‘I had to go back to Samira,’ the woman said in a low voice. ‘She had lost a shoe. I had been looking for it. That’s why I was late. The moment I got back she called me again.’

‘So you didn’t see the cat drink the milk? Not actually drink it?’

‘I wasn’t gone long. Only a minute. The shoe was under the bed.’

‘And when you came back, the cat had finished the milk?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did it seem . . . all right?’

‘It was standing . . . stiffly. I thought it looked odd. But I had to take the bowl back to the kitchen, they don’t like it if it’s left around where people can trip over it.’

‘So you took the bowl back to the kitchen?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you smell it?’

‘Smell?’

‘The bowl. When you took it back.’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t notice a peculiar smell?’

‘I didn’t notice any smell. I – I was hurrying. I just picked up the bowl and ran. I didn’t notice – I swear!’ she said agitatedly.

‘All right, all right. And then you went back? To the harem apartments?’

‘Yes.’

‘Straight back? You didn’t go anywhere else?’

‘No.’

‘And what did you find when you got back?’

‘The cat – it was horrible! It was stretching and writhing. I could see there was something wrong, so I called Leila –’

‘Who is Leila?’

‘She is another slave. And she came at once but by then it was too late, the cat was already –’

She began to sob.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she said tearfully. ‘I have already been beaten.’

‘Beaten?’

‘Because she didn’t do what she should have done,’ said Talal.

‘What should she have done?’

‘She should have tasted it before giving it to the cat,’ Talal said. ‘To see that it was fit.’

The muffled figure withdrew, sobbing. Seymour sat for a moment thinking. Then he said:

‘To the kitchens, I think.’

The dark-suited man led him along corridors and then down some steps.

The kitchen was in a large cellar where several men were working. There were two or three ranges, several braziers and a large fire. It was insufferably hot.

‘I would like to speak to the man who prepared the milk.’

‘Prepared?’

‘Poured it into the bowl.’

The dark-suited man spoke to a short, squat older man who appeared to be the senior kitchen servant. Then he turned to Seymour.

‘He is not here.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He has been beaten.’

‘I want to speak to him.’

There was a short delay while the man was fetched.

‘Is it always the same man?’

The senior servant nodded.

‘And what does he do? Just pour?’

‘Yes, Effendi.’

‘Does he add anything?’

‘Add anything?’

‘Alcohol, for instance?’

‘Effendi, this is a Muslim cat!’

‘Maybe, but the hakims say that there was alcohol in the milk.’

‘Effendi, the hakims lie! The milk is pure. It has to be. This is His Highness’s cat.’

‘Where do you get the milk from?’

‘It is brought every morning. It has to be fresh.’

‘Who brings it?’

‘The herdsman.’

‘I wish to speak to him.’

‘Effendi, he is not here. He lives up in the mountains, where he keeps his cows. He comes in every morning. And then he goes back to his mountains.’

‘I will see him tomorrow morning.’

‘Effendi, he comes early . . .’

‘At about four o’clock,’ said the dark-suited man.

‘Nevertheless, I will see him.’

A man was carried in and thrown on the floor.

‘This is Ahmed. The man who pours the milk.’

‘Ahmed?’ said Seymour. He spoke in Arabic since that seemed to be the language of the kitchen.

The man lifted his head.

‘Ahmed, you pour the milk?’

‘To my cost, Effendi, I do.’

‘Tell me what you do. Exactly.’

‘It is not much, Effendi. I put the ladle into the urn and then empty it into the bowl.’

‘The urn is standing where?’

‘Over there in the corner, Effendi. Ari brings a new one every morning. It is special milk, Effendi. Cow’s, not goat’s. The cat would not have any other.’

‘Once the milk is in the bowl, where do you put it?’

‘Over there, Effendi, on the table. Then it waits until Miriam comes.’

‘Does anyone go near it?’

‘On pain of death, Effendi,’ said the senior servant.

‘Right. And then Miriam comes in and takes the milk. Where does she taste it?’

‘Taste it?’

‘I understand that she tastes it before giving it to the cat.’

‘It is part of her duties, Effendi.’