harbor. Two wooden piers jutted out from the road which ran parallel to the foreshore; one had a restaurant built on it, the other served the smaller boats and dinghies as a landing stage. The place swarmed with children.
I was edging my way along the narrow road towards the restaurant when Harper told me to stop.
We were level with the landing stage and a man was approaching the road along it. He was wearing a yachting cap now, but I recognized him. It was the man who had been waiting at the Hilton car park on the night I had arrived in Istanbul.
He had obviously recognized the car and raised his hand in greeting as Harper and Fischer got out.
“Park the car and get yourself something to eat,” Harper said to me. “Meet us back here in an hour.”
“Very good, sir.”
The man in the yachting cap had reached the road and I heard Harper’s greeting as the three met.
“Hi, Giulio. Sta bene?”
And then they were walking back along the landing stage. In the driving mirror, I could see a man from the Peugeot sauntering down to the quayside to see what happened next.
At the end of the landing stage they climbed into an outboard dinghy. Giulio started it up and they shot away towards a group of yachts anchored about two hundred yards out. They went alongside a sixty-foot cabin cruiser with a squat funnel. The hull was black, the upper works white, and the funnel had a single band of yellow round it. A Turkish flag drooped from the staff at the stern. There was a small gangway down, and a deck hand with a boat hook to hold the dinghy as the three went on board. It was too far away for me to see the name on the hull.
I parked the car and went into the restaurant. The place was fairly full, but I managed to get a table near a window from which I could keep an eye on the cruiser. I asked the headwaiter about her and learned her name, Bulut, and the fact that she was on charter to a wealthy Italian gentleman, Signor Giulio, who could eat two whole lobsters at a sitting.
I did not pursue my inquiries; Tufan’s men would doubtless get what information was to be had from the local police. At least I knew now what Giulio looked like, and where the boat which Miss Lipp had mentioned to Miller was based. I could also guess that Giulio was no more the true charterer of the Bulut than was Fischer the true lessee of the Kosk Sardunya. Wealthy Italian gentlemen with yachts do not lurk in the Istanbul Hilton car park waiting to drive away cars stuffed with contraband arms; they employ underlings to do such things.
Just as my grilled swordfish cutlet arrived, I saw that the Bulut was moving. A minute or two later, her bow anchor came out of the water and there was a swirl of white at her stern. The dinghy had been left moored to a buoy. The only people on the deck of the cabin cruiser were the two hands at the winches. She headed out across the bay towards an offshore island just visible in the distant haze. I wondered whether the Peugeot men would commandeer a motorboat and follow; but no other boat of any kind left the harbor. After about an hour, the Bulut returned and anchored in the same place as before. I paid my bill and went to the car.
Giulio brought Harper and Fischer back to the landing stage in the dinghy, but did not land with them. There was an exchange of farewells that I could see but not hear, and then they walked ashore to the car. Harper was carrying a flat cardboard box about two feet long by six inches wide. It was roughly tied with string.
“Okay, Arthur,” he said as he got into the car. “Back to the Hilton.”
“Very good, sir.”
As I drove off he glanced back at the piers.
“Where did you lunch?” he asked. “That restaurant there?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good food?”
“Excellent, sir.”
He grinned over his shoulder at Fischer. “Trust Giulio!”
“Our man Geven can cook well,” said Fischer defensively, “and I intend to prove it to you.”
“He’s a lush,” Harper said shortly.
“He cooked a castradina before you arrived which would have made you think that you were in the Quadri.” Fischer was getting worked up now and leaning forward over the back of the front seat. His breath smelled of garlic and wine.
I could not resist the opportunity. “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir,” I said to Harper, “I think Mr. Fischer is right. Geven is an excellent cook. The chicken soup he gave me last night was perfect.”
“What soup?” Fischer demanded. “We did not get soup.”
“He was upset,” I said. “You remember, Mr. Fischer, that you told him that he was not good enough to have a bathroom. He was upset. I think he threw away the soup he had made.”
“I told him no such a thing!” Fischer was becoming shrill.
“Wait a minute,” said Harper. “The cook doesn’t have a bathroom?”
“He has the whole of the servants’ rooms for himself,” Fischer said.
“But no bathroom?”
“There is no bathroom there.”
“What are you trying to do, Hans-poison us?”
Fischer flung himself against the back seat with a force that made the car lurch. “I am tired,” he declared loudly, “of trying to arrange every matter as it should be arranged and then to receive nothing but criticism. I will not so to be accused, thus…” His English broke down completely and he went into German.
Harper answered him briefly in the same language. I don’t know what he said, but it shut Fischer up. Harper lit a cigarette. After a moment or two he said: “You’re a stupid crook, aren’t you, Arthur?”
“Sir?”
“If you were a smart one, all you’d be thinking about would be how much dough you could screw out of this deal without getting your fingers caught in the till. But not you. That miserable little ego of yours has to have its kicks, too, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“Yes you do. I don’t like stupid people around me. They make me nervous. I warned you once before. I’m not warning you again. Next time you see a chance of getting cute, you forget it, quick; because if you don’t, that ego’s liable to get damaged permanently.”
It seemed wiser to say nothing.
“You’re not still saying that you don’t understand, Arthur?” He flicked my knee viciously with the back of his hand. The pain startled me and I swerved. He flicked me again. “Watch where you’re going. What’s the matter? Can’t you talk while you’re driving, or has the cat got your tongue?”
“I understand, sir.”
“That’s better. Now you apologize, like a little Egyptian gentleman, to Mr. Fischer.”
“I’m very sorry, sir.”
Fischer, appeased, signified his forgiveness with a short laugh.
The ferry from Uskudar was crowded with returning Sunday motorists and it took half an hour to get on a boat. Miss Lipp and Miller were waiting at the hotel entrance when I pulled up. Miller gave a wolfish grin and, as usual, leaped into the car ahead of Miss Lipp.
“You took your time,” he said to no one in particular.
“The ferry was crowded,” Harper replied. “Did you have a good afternoon?”
It was Miss Lipp who answered him. “Let the dogs be fed and clothed,” she said. It was the same sentence that I had heard Miller cackling over the previous night, and I wondered idly what it could mean.
Harper nodded to her. “Let’s get back to the villa, Arthur,” he said.
None of them uttered a word on the drive back. I sensed a feeling of tension between them, and wondered who was waiting to report to whom. As they got out of the car, Harper picked the cardboard box up off the floor and turned to me.
“That’s it for today, Arthur.”
“What time tomorrow, sir?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“The car is very dusty, sir, and there is no proper hose here. I would like to get it washed at a garage.”
“You do that.” He could not have cared less what I did.
I drove into Sariyer and found a garage where they would wash the car. I left it there and went to a cafe. I had a drink before I telephoned Tufan.
