A Dead Man in Athens (4 page)

‘Lady Irina, did anyone
see
all this? See you in the room? Or going into the room?’

‘How do I know?’

‘You might have met someone.’

‘Well, I didn’t. They were all busy, getting dressed. Or having breakfast,’ she shot at Talal.

‘At least I can prove it,’ said Talal. ‘Whereas you, My Lady Irina –’

‘Thank you, Talal. That’s enough from you. You’d better shut up or else I shall have to poison you too.’

Chapter Three

The next morning Seymour arrived at the Sultan’s residence early; so early that the stars were still twinkling in the sky. The house itself could barely be seen in the darkness, and only one Greek guard appeared to be on duty and he didn’t seem to be very much on duty, slumped as he was against the small hut which served as guard room. He looked up as Seymour went past, scrambled to his feet, felt for his rifle, which he couldn’t find, and said:

‘What are you doing?’

‘Going to see the Sultan. Here are my papers.’

The guard looked at them uncertainly. Seymour realized that he couldn’t read and pointed to the seal.

‘Official,’ he said. ‘The Government seal.’

The guard peered and traced round the embossment with his finger.

‘So it is,’ he said, surprised, and waved Seymour through.

The Ottoman soldiers, a little along the drive, were crouched around a small camp fire; and remained crouched when Seymour approached. At the last moment one of them opened his eyes.

His cry roused the others. They stood up and thrust at Seymour with their bayonets.

‘I’ve got a firman!’ said Seymour hastily.

‘Yes, but – It’s too early. No one will be up.’

‘They are expecting me.’

‘Expecting you? At this hour?’

The guards remained doubtful. Then one of them said:

‘What are you, then? You don’t sound like a Greek.’

‘I’m British.’

‘Oh, that’s all right, then. So long as you’re not Greek.’

The French and British guard was not in evidence at all. The gates were closed. Seymour hammered on them and eventually an English sailor appeared.

‘What’s all this, then?’

‘I am expected.’

‘Not by us, you’re not!’

‘Well, I bloody am! Why don’t you go in and find out? Seymour, the name is.’

The man went back behind the gates and Seymour heard him say: ‘Got a man ’ere –’

‘Is ’e the bloody milkman?’

The sailor came out and inspected Seymour.

‘Doesn’t look like it.’

‘He’s the one I want to talk to!’ said Seymour, exasperated.

‘Says ’e wants to talk to the milkman.’

‘Oh, yes. Very likely!’

‘Why don’t you bloody send –’

‘’E can’t be the milkman. The milkman’s just bloody coming.’

Up the drive came a small cart.

‘I’m from the fing Embassy and I’ve got an appointment!’

‘’E sounds quite British,’ said the sailor doubtfully.

‘I fing am, and I’ll have you hanged from the fing yardarm, or wherever they fing hang you from, if you don’t send in this minute –’

‘British,’ said the sailor, and went back inside.

Seymour could hear the muttered discussion.

‘There’ll be no one there.’

‘Yes, but ’e says ’e’s got an appointment. Get François to stick ’is ’ead in –’

‘Christ, there
is
someone there!’

‘Good morning, Mr Seymour,’ said the Acting-Vizier’s assistant, coming through the gates.

They followed the milkman’s cart round to the back of the house, where the milkman picked up the single urn it was carrying and took it through an open door. They followed him in and found themselves in the kitchen, where several men were already at work.

‘Right, Ari, put it down there, will you?’ said the senior servant, the one Seymour had spoken to the day before.

The milkman placed the urn carefully on the ground and then prepared to go out.

‘One moment, herdsman!’ said the Acting-Vizier’s assistant. ‘This is Seymour Effendi and he has some questions to ask you.’

‘Me?’ said the milkman, surprised.

‘It’s about the milk,’ said Seymour.

‘What’s wrong with the milk? It was a bit hot yesterday, that’s all it was. It got to the milk. But it’s all right today.’

‘No, no, I just wanted to know –’

‘Listen, the milk’s all right. You won’t find any better milk. The Vizier himself said so. He went round trying everyone’s milk all over the mountains and in the end he chose mine!’

‘Yes, yes. I’m sure,’ said Seymour soothingly. ‘It’s just that I wondered if there was any point at which anything could be added –’

‘You mean water? Listen, I don’t water my milk. Some do, but I don’t! The Vizier warned me about that. “The cat likes it creamy,” he said, “and that’s the way it’s got to be.” “No matter,” I said. “I’ve got the best grass on the mountain, and there’s a heavy dew-fall, see, which makes it rich and luscious.”’

‘Yes, yes. But could anyone
add
anything on the way here?’

‘Listen, I milk my cows early. About two o’clock in the morning. And then I bring it down here. Myself. In my own cart. And no one touches it on the way, and no one
could
touch it because I watch over it like a hawk. That’s the way the Vizier wants it, and that’s the way it is. Touch my milk?’ He snorted. ‘I’d like to see anyone try!’

‘The Vlachs,’ whispered the Vizier’s assistant, ‘are notoriously belligerent. Always causing trouble.’

‘What?’ said the herdsman.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said the Vizier’s assistant hastily.

‘And he’s a Vlach?’ Seymour whispered back.

‘Anything wrong with that?’ demanded the herdsman.

‘Certainly not!’

‘Oh, all right, then. I’ll be on my way.’

As he picked up the empty urn, the senior kitchen servant muttered something to the Vizier’s assistant.

‘Oh, yes. Herdsman,’ he said to the Vlach, ‘I don’t think we’ll be needing any more milk.’

The herdsman put down his urn.

‘Not needing . . .?’

‘The cat’s dead.’

‘Dead!’

‘Poisoned,’ said Seymour. ‘That’s why I’ve been asking questions about the milk.’

‘Well, I can tell you there’s nothing wrong with the milk when it gets here.’

‘Nor when it leaves the kitchen,’ said the senior kitchen servant swiftly.

‘I watch over it like a hawk.’

‘And I watch over it, too, like a mother watches over her newborn,’ said the senior servant unctuously. ‘Until the very moment it leaves the kitchen.’

‘It’s one of those bitches in the harem!’ said the herdsman.

‘Do you know, I think he could be right,’ said the senior kitchen servant.

‘Anyway,’ said the Vizier’s assistant, ‘the cat’s dead. So there will be no need for your services. See he’s paid!’ he ordered the senior servant.

‘A lot of bother, that cat!’ he muttered to Seymour, as they left the kitchen. He dropped his voice still lower. ‘Only don’t let anyone know I said that.’

Seymour was inclined to agree with him; and still more inclined by the end of the morning, after he had interviewed the other ladies of the harem and their servants. The ladies were insipid and the servants subdued. Even the excitement of the change in the routine did not inspire the ladies and as one muffled figure gave way to another, and as Talal – waxing in importance now that he was not having to handle Samira and Irina – reproduced one mechanical answer after another, Seymour became increasingly fed up with the whole business.

No one had seen or heard anything. The ladies had all been being dressed, the servants had all been dressing them, and the eunuchs claimed to have been enjoying an evidently interminable breakfast. Certainly – or so they claimed – no one had seen Irina enter the room where the cat had been. Equally, no one had seen anyone approach the bowl in the time between Miriam’s putting it down and her return to find a stiffening cat.

Seymour tried to check alibis but found it difficult. Unable to see the faces of the ladies, he couldn’t get a sense of whether they were telling the truth or not. When he tried to test one account against another, he found that the ladies all hung together like glue. The eunuchs, polite in the extreme, warily confirmed each other and their general absence from the scene. Only the servant maids showed occasional flashes of independent life, and these were hard to detect behind the dark drapes and the long veils which went from head to toe.

By the end of the morning Seymour had got nowhere; and the only thing that was clear in his mind was that if he had been in the harem he would probably have taken a pot-shot at the cat himself.

He had been invited to the Embassy for lunch but when he got there he found them having a meeting. A cavass went in to whisper that he had arrived and shortly afterwards the Second Secretary came out to invite him to join them.

They had obviously been discussing the situation with respect to the ex-Sultan. After he had been sitting there for a few minutes Seymour thought he had worked out who they were. There was a senior representative of the Greek Government and also an Ottoman representative, from, it appeared, a neighbouring Ottoman administration. Salonica, that was it. The British Embassy was, of course, well represented – the First Secretary was in the chair – and so was the French Embassy. There were also various people whom he couldn’t quite make out but suspected to be interested parties from countries round about.

‘Perhaps it would be helpful if Mr Seymour could give us his impressions,’ said the First Secretary.

‘Well, of course, they’re first impressions only but at the moment I’m inclined to believe that the cat’s death – which is what you’ve asked me to investigate – is something to do with a harem squabble, merely a by-product of a quarrel between the wives.’

It didn’t go down well.

The senior French representative frowned.

‘No, no,’ he said, ‘you haven’t got the picture.’

‘It is early days yet,’ said the Greek representative genially, ‘and Mr Seymour has not yet had time to penetrate through the murk. But when he has, he will find that there is a political dimension.’

‘He certainly will,’ said the Ottoman representative, ‘and that most of the politics are directed at the person of His Esteemed Highness, Abdul Hamid.’

‘Not so esteemed,’ retorted the Greek representative. ‘You threw him out.’

‘He stepped aside,’ said the Ottoman representative loftily, ‘in the interests of peace.’

‘Peace is in everyone’s interests,’ said the First Secretary. ‘It is what we all want.’

‘It’s not what the Greeks want,’ said the Ottoman representative. ‘They want war. And they are prepared to murder the Sultan Abdul Hamid in order to get it.’

‘If anyone murders Abdul Hamid,’ responded the Greek representative, ‘it will be the Ottomans. They want to get rid of him, and they want it to look as if we did it!’

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ said the First Secretary. ‘I thought we were all agreed that these dark suspicions must be carefully looked into. And that is exactly what Mr Seymour has started to do.’

‘He hasn’t got very far yet.’

‘He has allowed the wool to be pulled over his eyes.

’ ‘Naive!’

‘He has made a start,’ said the First Secretary patiently.

‘Start, pooh!’ said one of the interested parties. Macedonian, perhaps? ‘He had better get on with it. Anyone can see what is building up. First, the cat, then the Sultan. And then war.’

‘It must stop at the cat,’ said the French representative.

‘Mr Seymour, I am sure, will see that it does.’

‘Maybe,’ said the Greek representative. ‘But, just to be sure, we are putting an extra guard around the Sultan.’

‘Of Greeks? That will fill everyone with confidence!’ said the Ottoman representative sarcastically. ‘I am afraid that in that case we will have to put an extra guard around the Sultan, too.’

The French and the British members looked at each other.

‘I am afraid that is not very satisfactory,’ said the First Secretary.

‘No,’ said the senior French representative. ‘I am sorry, but we shall have to insist that there be an independent international guard too.’

‘Why?’ said the Greek representative. ‘I must protest! This is Greek territory!’

‘Temporarily,’ said the Ottoman representative. ‘And I must point out that the Sublime Porte has consistently argued that Greece is still part of the Ottoman Empire!’

‘It is for these reasons,’ said the French representative, ‘that an international guard is necessary.’

The Second Secretary, sitting on Seymour’s right, passed a slip of paper to the First Secretary, on Seymour’s left. As it passed, Seymour read it: ‘Lunch,’ it said.

The First Secretary began to gather up his papers.

‘We are agreed, then? Good! I think I can say that the Sultan’s life is precious to all of us.’

Seymour had had much to do with politics. He was in the Special Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard and his work in the East End was almost exclusively on the political side. That is to say, it was concerned with the revolutionaries, anarchists, terrorists and political activists who, in the opinion of the newspapers, constituted the bulk of the immigrant population of East London. In Seymour’s experience it wasn’t quite like that but the newspapers persuaded the politicians and the politicians persuaded the police and the police, anyway, it sometimes seemed to Seymour, persuaded themselves and there certainly were lots of nutty, although on the whole pacific, people in the areas he worked in, who kept him happily occupied. He found himself developing quite an affection for the dirty underworld of politics. He found, too, as his duties began to draw him occasionally abroad, that his experience of domestic politics gave him considerable insight into the great world of international politics: although the domestic politics he had in mind was not that of the unfortunate sub-groups of the immigrant East End but that of Whitechapel police station, Special Branch versus the others in Scotland Yard, and Scotland Yard versus the Home Office and the Government generally.

As he matured, or, as his sister put it, his nasty work turned him nastier, he began to develop a political sense of his own. He could see the internal politics in most places.

And certainly in the harem. But the politics he could see there didn’t seem to tie up at all with the sort of politics that these blokes seemed bothered about. War? They must be joking. But the Greek representative and the Ottoman representative hadn’t seemed to be joking.

‘You know,’ he said hesitantly to the Second Secretary, as they walked along the corridor together, ‘I’m really not convinced that the cat’s death
was
political. Not in your sense of the word, at any rate.’