A Dead Man in Athens (3 page)

‘So when does she taste it?’

‘When she comes in, Effendi,’ said Ahmed, still prone on the floor.

‘And did she do that on the morning the cat died?’

‘It appears not, Effendi.’

‘Appears? But are you sure?’

‘Suleiman swears that she did not.’

‘Is Suleiman here?’

A man came forward.

‘Effendi, every morning she tastes. But that morning she did not. She was late, and came hurrying in, and picked up the bowl and rushed out again. I saw she had not tasted the milk but I thought, what does it matter? We know the milk is the best. And, anyway perhaps she will taste it before she gives it to the cat.’

‘Suleiman, did anyone else go to the milk? While it was standing on the table?’

‘Oh, no, Effendi. Only Miriam. We must not go near it, lest we spill dirt or grease into it. The milk must be pure, Effendi. Pure for His Highness’s cat.’

‘Thank you, Suleiman. And thank you, too, Ahmed.’

He was carried away.

‘Why was he beaten?’ asked Seymour.

The dark-suited man shrugged.

‘The milk was to blame,’ he said. ‘Therefore those who are to do with the milk are also to blame.’

‘Next, Leila,’ said Seymour.

And with Leila, naturally, Talal. They went through the same indirect pattern as before. Seymour found it frustrating because he liked to see people’s faces as they spoke and make his assessment. Here the witness was doubly removed, by sight and also by language. With the language, though, he could pick up something. In the case of Miriam, the language she and Talal had used had been some kind of Slav tongue, Serbian, possibly. Seymour couldn’t speak it but he could speak Russian and Polish so could gather a sense of what she had said without relying wholly on Talal. In the case of Leila, the language was Russian, which he understood much better.

Yes, said Leila, Miriam had called for her. She had just started doing Irina’s hair. Before that she had been helping Miriam look for Samira’s shoes. Samira had been in a great passion and had had them all joining in the search. But Irina had been getting cross, too, she had been waiting for her hair to be done, so Leila had gone to her. And she had just started when Miriam had called. Leila had known at once that there was something very wrong. Miriam wouldn’t have called otherwise. She had left Irina’s hair and rushed out to Miriam, still with the brushes in her hands.

And there she had seen the cat. She had seen at once that it was too late to do anything. She had shouted for Talal –

‘That is true, Effendi,’ said Talal.

– and then there had been a great commotion, but she had had to go back to Irina, if only because Irina had wanted to know what was going on. And then Irina had gone in to see Samira, and they had both summoned Leila and Miriam to give them accounts of what had happened. And then the other wives had wanted to know, and meanwhile the eunuchs were rushing around. And then the Vizier had come, and they had all known that there would be trouble.

And there
was
trouble. First Miriam had been beaten, and then Ahmed. Others had probably been beaten, too, but Leila had not yet heard their names. The Sultan was said to be mad with grief, and Leila could quite believe it, she knew how he had cared for that cat.

All this was poured out in a great flood which taxed Talal’s interpreting skills severely. Leila, it appeared, was in a state of great excitement, and so, too, it appeared, was the entire harem. They had talked of nothing else for days, even Irina, who normally had no time for harem gossip. It had all been –

A lot of fun, thought Seymour.

‘– absolutely horrible,’ said Leila breathlessly.

‘Samira,’ said Seymour.

The dark-suited man was taken aback.

‘The Lady Samira? But she is one of the wives!’

‘I won’t need her for long.’

‘Yes, but –’

The man, perturbed, went off to see the Acting-Vizier. Abd-es-Salaam reflected, and, possibly, checked with His Highness himself, and then agreed. What was one woman among so many? What was a woman, anyway? Set against the background of important issues and events? Whether she was a wife or a slave.

Yes, but . . . how, the man evidently asked? Having already given time to this question, the Acting-Vizier was not inclined to give more time. He had answered it once, the same answer would surely do. Talal.

But Talal as a medium for a servant girl was one thing, the assistant pointed out, Talal as medium for a wife was surely quite another. The Acting-Vizier, who had not made such a difference between the two categories, said that his answer stood. The assistant, who appeared to be a kind of secretary, swallowed and set the process in motion.

And here things began to go wrong. Not a lot happened in the harem and Samira was quite prepared to give interest to her day by answering the tall, handsome Englishman’s questions (any man was handsome, after the eunuchs, she told Talal). She readily agreed to the sug-gested process. She was, or had been once, a Muslim and was, of course, eager to observe the proprieties. A woman could speak to a strange man only in the presence of a male relative or substitute for him, and, lacking anyone else, Talal would do. However, once the questioning had started, Samira took over.

‘If I may ask the Lady Samira a few questions . . .’ began Seymour.

‘Certainly!’ said Samira, and then, in excellent French, ‘Go ahead.’

‘My Lady –’ began Talal.

‘Shut up.’ And then, to Seymour: ‘What did you wish to ask me? And how long have you been in Athens? Dreadful place, isn’t it? Not like Paris. Now, that’s where I would really like to go. Have you been there?’

‘I come from London –’

‘Not bad. Regent Street is quite good for the shops, I understand, and I would like to ride up the Mall.’

‘And have been to Istanbul,’ said Seymour desperately.

‘Tough. But not in a carriage. At least, not in a closed one. A landau would be better, so that everyone could see me. But actually I wouldn’t mind riding on a horse.’

She took a quick look at Seymour to see the effects of her words.

‘So that everyone would see you?’ said Seymour gamely. ‘You would be a sensation.’

‘I expect I would. But I couldn’t wear trousers. That would be immodest. And a skirt on a horse looks rather silly, don’t you think? So it had better be a landau.’

‘The cat,’ said Seymour doggedly.

‘Damn the cat!’ said Samira.

‘Willingly. But nevertheless there are some questions I have to ask you about it.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said Samira sulkily. ‘Make them short, though, so that we can talk about other things.’

‘Lady Samira –’ began Talal feebly.

‘Shut up. The cat, then. Do we have to?’

‘Yes,’ said Seymour firmly. ‘A distressing occurrence –’

‘Not very,’ said Samira. ‘A damned good job, if you ask me. It tore my stockings once. Good stockings they were, too, from Paris. I’d have killed the brute myself only someone got in ahead of me.’

‘It was poisoned. And in the harem.’

‘It would have to be in the harem. It never goes anywhere else.’

‘Yes, but, you see, that restricts the possibilities for poisoning it. And the people who could have done it.’

‘Look, when I said I could have done it, I didn’t really mean –’

‘No, no, I’m not suggesting that.’

‘It could have been anybody. Irina, for instance. She’s the sort of ruthless bitch – but it could have been anyone.’

‘Exactly. And so I need to know about the precise circumstances. The poison was in the milk the cat was given. The milk was fetched by Miriam, the slave girl –’

‘Who should have tasted it,’ interrupted Samira. ‘I’ll bet it was poisoned before it got to the harem.’

‘That is a possibility, of course. Alternatively, the poison could have been put in the milk
after
it had got to the harem. Miriam put the bowl on the floor and then you called her – Did you, in fact, call her?’

‘Yes.’

‘She left the bowl and went to your room. For how long was she with you?’

‘Not long. I had lost one of my shoes.
She
had lost one of my shoes. It was a shoe I particularly wanted to put on, it went with the dress I had chosen. And then she couldn’t find it! And, do you know what? It was under the bed all the time! The useless bitch! She found it as soon as she really started looking.’

‘And that took about how long?’

‘Ten minutes? No longer.’

‘And then she went back to the cat. By this time it had drunk up all the milk and was already feeling the effects. So it must have been in that time, in those ten minutes, that the poison was put in the milk.’

‘So it wasn’t me, then,’ said Samira with relief.

‘So who could it have been, then?’

‘It couldn’t have been Leila, because she was with me. She came to help look for the shoe when Miriam went to the kitchen.’

‘There would be others, though?’

‘Let me think. It’s a sort of puzzle, isn’t it? Who could it have been? The wives would have been dressing. Except for Berthe, who would still have been flat on her bum in bed. But everyone else would have been getting up, and their maids would have been with them. It’s a busy time, that time in the morning. Everyone’s busy.’

‘How many wives are there?’

‘Six. Here, that is. He only brought six. He had to leave the rest behind.’

‘And how many servants?’

‘Five women. He should have brought six, one for each. I told Abd-es-Salaam that. But he said he had to cut back and it was either wives or servants, so it was going to be wives.’

‘Eunuchs?’

‘Three. I said we didn’t need them at all, but he said it would be a bad thing if everyone was a woman, you wouldn’t know what they were up to.’

‘And what would the eunuchs be doing while the wives were dressing?’

‘I don’t know. What would you be doing, Talal?’

‘Having breakfast. And completing my toilette,’ said Talal with dignity.

‘There you are! The poor dear would be completing his toilette! But you don’t need to bother about him. It wouldn’t have been any of the eunuchs. It would have been one of the wives. My goodness, how exciting. I’ll work out who it was and then let you know. You must come and see me again. Soon. Tomorrow, shall we say? About five in the afternoon. Now let’s forget about the cat because there are more interesting things I want to talk to you about . . .’

Talal gave a despairing look off-stage. Someone must have been standing there, probably the Acting-Vizier, for a moment later he came into the room.

‘Thank you, Lady Samira. That will be all.’

‘We were just getting to the interesting bit,’ grumbled Samira.

‘No doubt; however, there may be other people that Mr Seymour wishes to see.’

Seymour, still reeling, had his doubts about this. There was something surreal about the whole business of investigating the death of a cat; and what he had seen of the harem so far added to the surreality. However, there was policeman’s work to be done, and he grasped for it as a swimmer might grasp for a rock in a stormy sea.

‘Yes. Thank you. I do, indeed. The Lady Irina.’

Samira stopped on her way out.

‘Yes, that’s right. Question the bitch. She would definitely have had something to do with it. And she had never liked that cat.’

‘Thank you, Lady Samira.’

She was hustled off.

‘My Lord,’ said Talal hesitantly, ‘do you wish me . . .?

’ ‘Of course. But you’d better try harder this time. You let her do all the talking.’

The eunuch swallowed.

‘I do my best, My Lord.’

Another dark, veiled form appeared. This one was taller than the last and, Seymour thought, although you could never quite tell under all the muffle, slimmer.

‘My Lady Irina,’ said Talal determinedly.

‘Thank you, Talal, that will do.’

‘But, My Lady –’

‘French,’ she said to Seymour, ‘or Italian? You don’t speak Arabic or Turkish, I expect.’

‘French,’ said Seymour.

‘My Lady,’ said Talal, ‘it is not seemly for a Muslim lady to speak to a man –’

‘But I’m not a Muslim lady,’ said Irina. ‘I’m a Christian.

’ ‘But, My Lady –’

The Acting-Vizier came in.

‘It is not seemly for a Royal
wife
to speak to a man
either
,’ he said.

‘But, Abd-es-Salaam,’ cooed Irina, ‘I was just trying to be helpful!’

‘Let Talal do the talking,’ directed the Acting-Vizier, and went out.

Irina came forward and placed herself firmly between Seymour and Talal.

‘What was it you were going to ask him to ask me? ’ she said.

‘It is about the cat,’ said Seymour.

‘Of course. The poor, fat, crazed cat that His Highness so much loved, and that Samira poisoned.’

‘I don’t think she could have poisoned it, My Lady Irina. She was in another room when the milk was brought in and stayed there, with her servant, Miriam, whom she had called, the whole time the cat was drinking the milk.’

‘So?’ said Irina. ‘She got somebody else to put the poison in the milk. Talal, for instance.’

‘I was having my breakfast!’

‘So you say!’

‘Along with Hassan and Ali. They can prove it.’

‘The eunuchs always stick together,’ said Irina dismissively.

‘It could have been anyone in the harem, My Lady,’ said Seymour. ‘Yourself, for instance.’

‘So it could,’ admitted Irina cheerfully. ‘Because I went in to see the cat that morning. I was going to pick it up so that I could have it on my lap when His Highness came in so that he could fondle it and not me.’

‘You went into the room?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Where the cat was drinking the milk?’

‘Yes.’

‘You actually saw it?’

‘Yes. Only it was spewing it up disgustingly so I thought I would leave it. Let him pick it up, I thought, if it’s that messy.’

‘And then what?’

‘I went back to my room and lay on the divan. And then I heard Miriam shouting, and then Leila, and then one of the eunuchs – was it you, Talal? – and someone said that the cat was a goner, so I thought: That’s a relief! and stayed where I was until it had all been cleaned up.’