message inside it was still in my hip pocket and apparently undetected. I left it where it was. With any luck, I thought, I might be able to add to it. My papers were there. The radio was in its case.
From the bedroom Fischer said: “I have finished with this bathroom. You may use it.”
“I think I will go and get some coffee first.”
“Then bring all your papers and money in here.”
There was no point in arguing. I did as he said, put some trousers on, and found my way downstairs to the kitchen.
Mrs. Hamul was there. The sight of the hired driver unshaven and wearing a pajama jacket at eleven in the morning must have seemed odd to her. She looked at me as if I were raving mad. I asked her for coffee. She gave me tea, and some of the previous day’s bread toasted. The tea wasn’t bad. My head began to clear. As I ate the toast, I wondered if I could muster enough Turkish to persuade her or her husband to take a message to the surveillance people on the road. Then Miss Lipp came in, well groomed and very chic in white and yellow stripes.
“Good morning, Arthur. How do you feel?”
“Good morning, Miss Lipp. I feel terrible, thank you.”
“Yes, you look it, but I expect you’ll feel better when you’ve cleaned up a bit. What’s the Turkish for ‘eggs’?”
“Yumurta, I think.”
Mrs. Hamul heard the word and they began a sign-language conversation about eggs. I went back upstairs.
Miller was helping Fischer to pack. I slipped the empty cigarette packet and a pencil into my shaving kit and went into the bathroom. There was a lock on the door. While my bath was running, I added to the message I had written the previous night. Am forced replace injured Fischer and closely watched. Event planned for tonight. Details unknown. Miller may be key person.
The bedroom was empty when I returned to it. I dressed, packed my bag, and went back down to the kitchen.
Miss Lipp was supervising the Hamuls’ preparations for lunch. She looked up as I came in.
“The others are out on the terrace, Arthur,” she said. “Why don’t you go out there and get yourself a drink?”
“Very well.”
I went through the dining room into the main hall. There, I hesitated. I was still trying to think of a way of getting down to the road and back without their knowing. As they were on the terrace, it was, of course, hopeless to attempt to cross the courtyard. I would have to find some way round the back and down through the trees. But that might take twenty minutes or more. And supposing Miss Lipp came out to the terrace and asked where I was? I gave up, and decided to rely upon dropping the cigarette packet.
The first thing I saw on the terrace was the cardboard box which Harper had brought back with him from Pendik. It was open and discarded on a chair. Harper, Fischer, and Miller were contemplating something laid out across two tables.
It was a block and tackle, but of a kind I had not seen before. The blocks were triple-sheaved and made of some light metal alloy. They were so small that you could hold both of them in one hand. The “rope” was a white cord about a quarter of an inch in diameter and there was a lot of it. On another table there was a thing that looked like a broad belt with hooks at each end, like those you see on dog leashes.
Fischer looked up and stared at me haughtily.
“Miss Lipp told me to come here and have a drink,” I said.
Harper waved to a table with bottles and glasses on it. “Help yourself. Then you’d better have a look at this.”
I gave myself some raki and looked at the cord of the tackle. It was like silk.
“Nylon,” Harper said; “breaking strain over a ton. What you have to remember about it is that it’s also slightly elastic. There’s a lot of give in this tackle. You know how these things work?”
“Yes.”
“Show me,” said Miller. He picked up the belt and hooked it around one of the terrace pillars. “Show me how you would pull this pillar down.”
I hooked one block to the belt, tied the other to the balustrade, and pulled on the tackle.
“Okay,” said Harper, “that’ll do. Leo, I think you’d better carry the tackle. Arthur’s too fat. It’ll show on him. He can take the sling and the anchor rope. I don’t think Hans should carry anything except his gun and the water flask.”
“It is only because my skin is very sensitive that I object,” said Miller.
“Well, it won’t be for long. As soon as you’re inside you can take it off.”
Miller sighed irritably but said no more.
“May I know what it is I have to do?” I asked.
“Just pull on this tackle, Arthur. Oh, you mean about taking this gear along? Well, you’ll have to carry that sling”-he indicated the belt-“and this extra rope here, wound around that beautiful body of yours under your shirt, so that nobody can see it. It’ll be a bit warm for a while, but you’ll have plenty of time to cool off. Any other questions?”
I had a dozen and he knew it, but there isn’t any sense in asking when you know you’re not going to be answered.
“Who is going to carry the bag?” asked Miller.
“You’d better take that, folded in your pocket.”
Miss Lipp came out. “Lunch in thirty minutes,” she said.
“Lunch!” Miller looked sour.
“You can eat eggs, Leo. You’ve got to eat something.” She took the drink Harper handed her. “Does Arthur know that he’s going to have to wait for his dinner tonight?”
“I don’t know anything, Miss Lipp,” I said calmly; “but I will say this. I was told that I would be given a briefing today. So far, all I have been given is a bad attack of nervous indigestion. Whether I eat dinner or not, and, for that matter, whether I eat lunch or not, are matters of complete indifference to me.”
She went quite red in the face, and I wondered for a moment if I had said anything offensive; then I realized that the damned woman was trying not to laugh. She looked at Harper.
“Okay,” he said. “Come in here.” He led the way through a french window into the drawing room. Only Miss Lipp followed with me. I heard Fischer asking Miller to pour him another drink and Miller telling him that he ought to exercise the hand, not pamper it. Then, I no longer listened. Harper had walked to the library table, opened a drawer in it, and pulled out the “map.”
“Recognize this place?” he asked.
“Yes.”
It was a plan of part of the Seraglio area and of the roads adjacent to the walls. The triangular shape I had noted was formed by the coastline.
“This is what we are going to do,” he went on. “When we leave here, we will drive to a garage in Istanbul. Our bags will be in the trunk of the Lincoln. At the garage, Mr. Miller, Mr. Fischer, you, and I will get out of the Lincoln and into a different car, which will be waiting there. I will then drive you to the Seraglio Palace. There, Mr. Miller, Mr. Fischer, and you will get out. The Palace is open to the public until five. The three of you will buy tickets and enter in the ordinary way as tourists. You will then cross the Second Courtyard to the Gate of Felicity. When you are sure that the guides have lost interest in you, you will go through into the Third Courtyard and turn left. You then have a short walk-exactly sixty paces-before you come to a big bronze gate in a courtyard to the left with a small door beside it. Both gate and door are kept locked, but Mr. Miller will have a key to the door. Beyond the door is a passage with a stairway leading up to the roof of the White Eunuchs’ apartments”-he pointed to the plan-“here. Then you lock the door behind you and wait. Clear so far?”
“Quite clear, except about why we’re doing all this.”
“Oh, I thought you’d have guessed that.” He grinned. “We’re just going to have ourselves a piece of the old Sultans’ loot. Just a little piece, that’s all-about a million dollars’ worth.”
I looked at Miss Lipp.
