“Yes, Arthur.”
“Wait a minute.” It was Miller. “Where is my coat?”
“With your luggage, sir.”
“It will get dirty in there. It should be on a seat in here.”
“Yes, sir.”
I got out again and retrieved the coat.
“What a fuss you make, Leo,” I heard her say. “The car’s quite clean.”
“The baggage in there is not clean. It has been in the belly of a plane with other baggage. It has been on the floor and table of the customs place. It has been handled by the man who searched it, handled again by the porter. Nothing is clean.” His accent had no American inflections, and he couldn’t pronounce his th ’s. I thought he might be French.
I draped the coat over the back of the seat in front of him. “Will that be all right, sir?”
“Yes, of course,” he said impatiently.
That type is always the same. They make the difficulties and then behave as if you’re the one who’s being the nuisance.
“Let’s go, Arthur,” said Miss Lipp. Her tone was noncommittal. I couldn’t tell whether she found him tiresome or not. I watched them in the driving mirror.
As soon as we were clear of the airport, he settled back and looked her over in a fatherly way.
“Well, my dear, you’re looking healthy. How are Karl and Giulio?”
“Karl’s fine. Giulio we haven’t seen yet. He’s with the boat. Karl was thinking of going over there tomorrow.”
“Have you anything planned for then?”
“We thought you might like to do a little sightseeing. That is unless you’re tired.”
“You are more considerate than a daughter, my dear.” The teeth leered at her and the pale eyes behind the rimless glasses flickered towards my back.
I had already realized that this was a conversation conducted solely for my benefit, but now I saw her face stiffen. She knew that I was listening hard and was afraid that he was overdoing it.
“You must persuade Arthur to show you around the Seraglio Palace,” she said. “He is quite an authority on it. Isn’t that right, Arthur?”
That was as good as telling me that the old fool would believe any cock-and-bull story I cared to tell him. On the other hand, it must be telling him something, too; perhaps warning him that the driver wasn’t such a fool as he looked. I had to be careful.
“I would be happy to show Mr. Miller what there is to see,” I said.
“Well, we must certainly think about that,” he replied; “certainly, we must think about it.”
He glanced at her to see if he had said the right thing. A sentence of my father’s came into my mind. “One moment they’re all full of piss and wind and the next moment…” At that point he would make a raspberry sound with his tongue. Vulgar, of course, but there was never any doubt about the kind of man he meant.
Mr. Miller kept quiet after that. Once or twice she pointed out places of interest, in the manner of a hostess with a newly arrived guest; but the only thing he asked about was the tap water at the villa. Was it safe to drink or was there bottled water available? There was bottled water, she told him. He nodded, as if that had confirmed his worst fears, and said that he had brought plenty of Entero Vioform for intestinal prophylaxis.
We reached the villa a little after five. Miss Lipp told me to sound the horn as I went up the drive.
The reception committee consisted of Harper and Fischer. Hovering in the background, ready to carry luggage, was an old man wearing an apron whom I took to be Hamul, the resident caretaker.
Tufan had said that Fischer was the lessee of the villa but there was no doubt who was the real host there. All Fischer received from the incoming guest was a nod of recognition. Harper got a smile and an “Ah, my dear Karl.” They shook hands with businesslike cordiality, and then Harper, Miller, and Miss Lipp went straight into the house. To Fischer were left the menial tasks of telling Hamul where Miller’s bags were to go, and of showing me where to put the car and where I was to sleep.
At the back of the villa there was a walled stable yard. Part of the stabling had been converted into a garage with room for two cars. It was empty except for a Lambretta motor scooter.
“The Lambretta belongs to the cook,” Fischer said; “see that he does not steal gasoline from the car.”
I followed him across the yard to the rear entrance of the house.
Inside, I had a brief glimpse of the polished wood flooring of a passage beyond the small tiled hallway, before he led the way up a narrow staircase to the top floor. All too obviously we were in the old servants’ quarters. There were six small attic cubicles with bare wood floors, bare wood partition walls, and a single skylight in the roof for all of them. The sanitary arrangements consisted of an earthenware sink with a water tap on the wall at the head of the stairs. It was stiflingly hot under the low roof and there were dust and cobwebs everywhere. Two of the cubicles showed signs of having been swept out recently. Each contained an iron bedstead with a mattress and gray blankets. In one, there was a battered composition-leather suitcase. Fischer showed me to the other.
“You will sleep here,” he said. “The chef has the next bed. You will eat your meals with him in the kitchen.”
“Where is the toilet?”
“There is a pissoir across the yard in the stables.”
“And the bathroom?”
He waved his hand towards the sink. He was watching my face and enjoying himself just a bit too obviously. I guessed that this had been his own wonderful idea of a punishment for the crime of calling him a servant, and that Harper probably did not know of it. In any case, I had to protest. Without some privacy, especially at night, I could neither use the radio nor write reports.
I had put my bag down on the floor to rest my arm. Now I picked it up and started to walk back the way we had come.
“Where are you going?”
“To tell Mr. Harper that I’m not sleeping here.”
“Why not? If it is good enough for the chef it is good enough for you, a driver.”
“It will not be good enough for Miss Lipp if I smell because I am unable to take a bath.”
“What did you expect-the royal apartment?”
“I can still find a hotel room in Sariyer. Or you can get another driver.”
I felt fairly safe in saying that. If he were to call my bluff I could always back down; but I thought it more likely that I had already called his. The very fact that he was arguing with me suggested weakness.
He glared at me for a moment, then walked to the stairs.
“Put the car away,” he said. “It will be decided later what is to be done with you.”
I followed him down the stairs. At the foot of them, he turned off left into the house. I went out to the yard, left my bag in the garage, and walked back to the car. When I had put it away, I went into the house and set about finding the kitchen. It wasn’t difficult. The passage which I had glimpsed from the back entrance ran along the whole length of the house, with a servants’ stairway leading to the bedroom floor, and, on the right, a series of doors which presumably gave the servants access to the various reception rooms in front. There was a smell of garlic-laden cooking. I followed the smell.
The kitchen was a big stone-floored room on the left of the passage. It had an old charcoal range along the rear wall with three battered flues over it, and a heavy pinewood table with benches in the middle. The table was cluttered with cooking debris and bottles, and scarred from years of use as a chopping block. Empty butcher’s hooks hung from the beams. There was a barrel on a trestle, and beside it a sinister-looking zinc icebox. A doorway to one side gave on to what appeared to be a scullery. A short man in a dirty blue denim smock stood by the range stirring an iron pot. This was Geven, the cook. As I came in he looked up and stared.
He was a dark, moon-faced, middle-aged man with an upturned nose and large nostrils. The mouth was wide and full with a lower lip that quivered much of the time as if he were on the verge of tears. The thick, narrow chest merged into a high paunch. He had a three-day growth of beard, which was hardly surprising in view of the fact that he had nowhere to shave.
I remembered that he was a Cypriot and spoke to him in English. “Good evening. I am the chauffeur, Simpson. Mr. Geven?”
