Amazing Mrs. Pollifax Page 8

  “Know the city like the back of my hand!”

  “A veritable jewel,” she murmured.

  As they walked back to the van Colin said in a low voice, “Of course you realize he’s wanted by the police.”

  “Then he’s in good company,” she pointed out in a kind voice. “What would you guess his crime to be?”

  “Smuggling’s big along the coast, and if he’s been a sailor he’s probably been involved in smuggling. Opium, probably.”

  “Opium,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, and smiled. “So now we have joined the underworld! How very surprising life can be …!”

  CHAPTER 8

  They drove along nibbling at the grapes with which Sandor had equipped himself for his night in the graveyard. Following his initial shock at discovering they already had a passenger—“She dead, too?” he had asked with professional interest—Sandor announced that he was going to sleep before he did any driving. “But I’ll know if you stop,” he said, drawing a serviceable gun from a pocket. “I’ll sleep on the floor. Any monkey tricks and I’ll shoot.”

  “Why didn’t you show your gun earlier?” asked Mrs. Pollifax curiously.

  His glance was withering; obviously he felt that his wits and his tongue were sufficient for gullible foreigners. “Did I need to?” he asked with a shrug. “Now, drive.” Whereupon he lay down on the floor of the van, curled up and began snoring.

  The moon that had perversely haunted them hours earlier now disappeared just when it would have been the most appreciated, and to further depress Mrs. Pollifax the road to Izmit was bumpy. At first the Bay of Kadiköy cheered her with its cluster of lights, and later there were sustaining glimpses of the Sea of Marmora but presently a light rain began to fall, blurring all the lights and with it any hope of sightseeing. Mrs. Pollifax’s thoughts darkened equally: she had neither slept nor eaten anything of substance since her arrival in Istanbul and she was beginning to feel the lack of both: lemonade and grapes served only as an appetizer for a dinner that moved increasingly out of reach. She was also beginning to feel the irregularity of her situation: having never in her life received so much as a parking ticket she was under suspicion by the police in this supposedly friendly country, and presently she might even become the subject of a nationwide alarm. She had arrived in this country with Henry, and Henry was dead. There was no one at all to whom she could appeal—certainly not to Dr. Belleaux now—and her companions in exile were a young British misfit and a disreputable blackmailer acquired in a cemetery.

  It was difficult to figure out just how it had all happened. Perhaps I’m too flexible, she thought, and turned to scrutinize Colin beside her. She was not a fool. There were high stakes involved in this assignment, and many crosscurrents which she would probably never know about. It had already occurred to her that Mia Ramsey could have been artfully placed on the plane beside her to girlishly suggest looking up Colin. But there had been no certainty that Mrs. Pollifax would contact Colin at all, and several hours later it was Colin who had saved Magda by concealing her from the police. If he were part of a vast and sinister scheme it was doubtful that he would have telephoned and left a message asking Mrs. Pollifax to retrieve her lost friend; Magda would instead have disappeared forever. No, she had to regard Colin as a small miracle.

  The van’s headlights picked out pretty little suburban villas and strange place names: Kiziltoprak, Goztepe, Caddebostani Erenkoy, Saudiye, Bostanci. At a town called Maltepe the road met the sea again and followed it on to the seaside port of Kartal. To keep Colin awake Mrs. Pollifax read the road directions from the small guide book she had purchased in London. When this palled she read from the same book brief histories of the Ottoman and then the Seljuk Empires until a listless Colin complained that Sandor’s snoring was more stimulating than ancient history. They then argued whether, once past Izmit, they should drive to Ankara by way of Bolu or Beyzapari.

  “Which is the route people usually prefer?” she asked.

  “Bolu. The road’s excellent.”

  “Then I think we should go by way of Beyzapari.”

  They were still arguing this when they reached Izmit at half-past three in the morning. As they crossed the railroad tracks to leave the town they saw the first brightening of the horizon in the east, and seeing it Colin nodded. “All right, Beyzapari. The thought of getting to Ankara quickly is very tempting—after all, it’s 292 miles and we’ve gone only sixty—but if dawn’s coming, and the police will be looking for the van, then I concede we might not get to Ankara at all if we go by Bolu. By the way, what exactly do you expect—being an experienced undercover agent,” he added dryly.

  “I am not an undercover agent,” said Mrs. Pollifax tartly. “I’m a courier. As to what I expect I would say just about anything, but that’s because of Dr. Belleaux, you see.”

  Colin said wryly, “You’ve not yet found that rational explanation for Magda’s being carried off to his house?”

  “No I haven’t,” she said frankly, “and the really frightening part of it all is that he’s a man whom everyone trusts. Carstairs told me he enjoys the confidence of the Turkish and American governments and you’ve described him as being a consultant to the police here and enjoying everyone’s confidence. I seriously doubt that Carstairs would even remotely consider Dr. Belleaux’s being involved in any treachery.”

  Colin said dryly, “Which leaves us the only two people who think otherwise? Damn it, that’s a horrible thought!”

  “Yes it is,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and shivered. “But no matter how kind we try to be to Dr. Belleaux there’s no getting around the fact that while he gives parties in his downstairs livingroom there are two chaps upstairs drugging a defenseless woman.”

  “Definitely a double standard there,” agreed Colin.

  She nodded. “His reputation makes it so patently unfair! There’s no way to fight him—except to run, and I’m not sure that running is sensible, either, since it leaves him with an absolutely free hand. Just think of the possibilities open to him!”

  “It’s better you don’t,” Colin said gently.

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. He was quite right: they would be rendered helpless, like the tiger in a tiger hunt, with the police and Dr. Belleaux—separately or even together—beating the bushes in a steadily diminishing circle until they were isolated and then flushed out. “At least I have Magda,” she said, but since she did not have the slightest idea of what to do with Magda, or how to get her safely out of the country before the police found them, this was not essentially comforting.

  “Could you get word to your friend in Washington?” Colin asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I was given strict orders not to. I was also given strict orders never to contact Henry; but then I did, you see, in order to warn him he was being followed, and you know what a monstrous mistake that was. I led Stefan straight back to Magda. A cable to Mr. Carstairs might do the same thing. Do you need to show a passport to send a cable?”

  “Probably. I have mine with me but of course by the time we get to Ankara the police may very well be looking for me, too.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax in a depressed voice, and resumed staring out of the window.

  Beyond Izmit the road dipped down to Geyve and then wound up again through hills covered with fields of wheat and tobacco. Dawn found them on a high plateau beyond Goynuk, and then they reached a pass and coasted down into a plain. Beyond the town of Nallihan Colin suddenly pulled the van off to one side of the road and braked to a stop. “We’ve gone nearly a hundred and sixty miles and I’m tired,” he said, mopping his forehead with his sleeve. “Sandor’s going to have to pay his way now. Sandor,” he called. “It’s morning—half-past seven—and your turn to drive.”

  “What the hell,” said Sandor, making a great deal of noise yawning. “This lady back here is staring at me,” he complained. “Is there breakfast?”

  “There’s a camp stove somewhere,” said Colin, “and the water jug is f
ull, I filled it myself—Uncle Hu is always very fussy about that. And I believe there are bouillon cubes, dusty but soluble.”

  “But that’s wonderful,” said Mrs. Pollifax with feeling. She crawled back to Magda who was staring at the roof of the van with a puzzled expression. Seeing Mrs. Pollifax she said in a weak voice that bore a trace of irony, “Where am I now?”

  “It’s a little difficult to explain.”

  “Who was that man who snores so dreadfully?”

  “That’s even more difficult to explain. How are you feeling?”

  “Weak and very thirsty. I have been drugged again?”

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “It might be wise for you to get some fresh air now. It’s very hot back here. Colin is making broth for you.”

  “Colin! That funny young man is still here?”

  “The situation is extremely fluid and unconventional,” Mrs. Pollifax told her, “but we are moving in the direction of Yozgat.” She helped her to her feet, and out of the van to the roadside where Colin had set up his sterno.

  Colin was saying, “Presently we’ll be crossing the Anatolian plain and there will be even more sun, wind and dust.” The water he was nursing came to a boil, he stirred bouillon into it and carefully divided it among four battered tin mugs. “Here you are,” he said.

  Never had Mrs. Pollifax tasted anything kinder to her palate: at first she rolled the broth on her tongue, savoring its wetness, and then she drank it greedily. “Purest nectar,” she said with a sigh, and saw that color was coming back into Magda’s white face for the first time. “At what hour do you think we will reach Ankara?” she asked.

  Sandor was noisily smacking his lips. “With me driving we go like the wind. Another forty miles to Beyzapari, beyond that sixty maybe.” He was studying the van. “She has a Land Rover body?”

  Colin nodded. “She’s a rebuilt Land Rover, yes. Four-wheel drive and all that.”

  Sandor nodded. “Very good! By early afternoon we get there, or near enough. Then we go by back roads. They are very bad,” he added regretfully, “but very very private.”

  “You are wanted by the police?” inquired Mrs. Pollifax companionably.

  Sandor grinned. “You are a nice lady but you ask too many questions. In Ankara I have fine friends and I let you go free.”

  “Free?” said Mrs. Pollifax with amusement. “I didn’t realize we’d been captured.”

  He patted his pocket with meaning. “I have you under guard, beware. Now wotthehell, let’s go.”

  For some moments Mrs. Pollifax had been aware of a small piper cub plane drifting lazily along the horizon at a distance; she had watched it as Sandor talked. Now with one foot on the running board of the van she said in an alarmed voice, “Colin, look!” For the plane, having momentarily disappeared behind a ridge ahead of them, had suddenly reappeared now and was flying toward them at a shockingly low altitude. Colin stood behind her carrying the camp stove and squinting at the sky. The sound of the plane’s engine grew frighteningly loud and for a moment Mrs. Pollifax wondered if they were going to be strafed: the plane passed so low that she could clearly see the face of the pilot, who in turn looked down at them; and then just as abruptly the plane’s nose lifted, it climbed and began a long circle that carried it over the ridge again and away toward Ankara.

  “Damn fool,” Sandor shouted, shaking a fist at the horizon.

  Colin said in a choked voice, “What the devil does that mean!”

  “Reconnaissance, I think,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “But by whom?” She was rather unnerved by the incident; until now she had felt safely removed from Istanbul, but she resolutely put aside her anxiety, helped Magda back to her cot and insisted that Colin have the dubious honor of napping on the floor because he was the more tired from driving. Again she took the passenger seat, this time beside Sandor, and they set off—or rather flew off, thought Mrs. Pollifax, clinging to the sides of the leather seat, for Sandor drove with abandon, swerving gaily around the holes in the road, swearing in Turkish and English at the holes he did not miss, and frequently taking both hands off the wheel to rub dust from his eyes or to light an evil-smelling cigar which almost immediately was extinguished.

  They climbed now to a ravined and arid plateau, and the dust they raised all but obscured the sun. It was hot, the van captured and retained both the heat and the dust, and their water supply was gone. Since leaving Nallihan they had passed only one car and that one had been abandoned beside the road—probably with a broken axle, thought Mrs. Pollifax ominously. Nothing moved except the mountains on the horizon, which swam in the rising heat like mirages, until far ahead of them Mrs. Pollifax saw an approaching cloud of dust. “Dust storm?” she inquired—it was impossible to doze at all with Sandor at the wheel, and he had just finished telling her that dust storms were frequent in summer on the road to Ankara.

  “Car,” he said briefly.

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded; she had begun to feel that if Sandor said it was a car it would be a car—and as it drew nearer it was indeed a car, a very old dusty touring car of 1920 vintage. The sun shone across its windshield, turning it opaque, so that as it approached them it appeared to be driven by remote control. It was therefore all the more startling to Mrs. Pollifax when she saw a hand and then an arm extend full-length from the passenger side of the car. When she saw the gun in that hand she stiffened. “Watch out—a gun!” she cried, and ducked her head just as the windshield in front of her splintered.

  Sandor virtually stood on the brakes. “Wotthehell,” he shouted, and fought the steering wheel to get them off the road.

  Behind her Colin shouted, “Stay down, Mrs. Pollifax!”

  Metal protested, tires squealed and Mrs. Pollifax’s hat fell off as the van lurched across the ridge that contained the road; they bumped uncomfortably over untilled ground. Sandor was tugging at his belt with one hand; he brought out his gun but the car had already passed them: the sound of a second bullet rang ping! against the rear of the van.

  In alarm Mrs. Pollifax turned and saw that Colin was reacting with astonishing efficiency; he had remembered that he had a gun, too, and now he was slashing at the glass in the round porthole window in the back; as she watched she saw him lift the gun he had taken from Stefan and push it through the window. She thought he fired it, but there was too much confusion to know. Sandor was swearing as he fought the wheel again, turning the van to head it back to the road.

  “Look out!” screamed Mrs. Pollifax as the van swung around, for the ancient dust-ridden car had also turned and was heading toward them at accelerated speed, hoping to ram them if it couldn’t shoot their tires first. For a second the van’s wheels spun uselessly in a gully, then Sandor roared the engine and the van shot back on to the road just as the elderly Packard left it. A bullet zoomed over Sandor’s head, again just missed Mrs. Pollifax and went out the open window. But Sandor had fired, too. He seemed to have three hands, one for the gearshift, one for the wheel, and one for firing. With a wrench of the wheel he turned and backed the van and tried to shoot down the car but the Packard swerved, circled and returned to the road to face them head-on.

  They remained like this for several seconds, each car facing the other on the road with a distance of perhaps twenty yards between them, each driver revving his engine and waiting. Then with a burst of noise the Packard started down the road at full speed, heading directly toward them. “Hooooweeeeee,” shouted Sandor, his eyes shining—it was clearly a game to him—and he recklessly steered the van straight at the Packard, not giving an inch. Mrs. Pollifax screamed and slid from seat to floor. From here she looked up to see a familiar face—Otto’s—almost at their window, saw the Packard hurtle past them, barely missing them. As the Packard passed from sight she heard Colin’s gun begin firing from the rear window, heard the scream of tires, a terrifying sound of metal twisting and turning, twisting and rolling, and Mrs. Pollifax put her hands to her face. “They’ve turned over,” cried Sandor, braking, and leaped out.

&nbs
p; Mrs. Pollifax slid from her side of the van and jumped to the road. The Packard was lying upside down in the dust after rolling over several times. Mrs. Pollifax began to run. “We must help them,” she cried, and then suddenly the silence was rent by a great explosion and flames turned the Packard into a funeral pyre. Mrs. Pollifax stepped back and covered her eyes. “Did anyone get out?” she gasped in horror.

  Colin was beside her with a hand on her shoulder. He looked pale and shaken. “No,” he said. “I watched. It was Otto driving, and a man I’d never seen before doing the shooting.”

  Sandor said belligerently, “What the hell goes on here, they maniacs? Nuts? They tried to kill us!” He looked incredulous. “What the hell they want?” he said, shaking a fist.

  “Us,” Mrs. Pollifax told him in a trembling voice.

  He gaped at her. “Those jerks were gunning for you?”

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded a little wearily. “Yes. First they sent the plane—there must have been radio communication, and then—”

  Sandor looked from her to Colin and back again. “But why?” he demanded indignantly.

  Mrs. Pollifax said weakly, “They apparently didn’t want us to get to Ankara.”

  “That I could see for myself but what the hell’s going on?”

  Mrs. Pollifax hesitated and then recklessly took the plunge. “You might as well know, Sandor, that not only those men are after us but the police, too.”

  “Police!” He stared blankly. “You?”

  “Yes.”

  His mouth dropped. “You did shoot the guy you was unloading in the cemetery!”

  “No,” she said patiently, “but Otto did—the man driving the Packard.”

  A light of comprehension dawned in Sandor’s eyes. “I’ll be damned,” he said, and to Mrs. Pollifax’s surprise he gave her a look of grudging admiration. “I’ll be damned,” he said again, scratching his head, and then he began to laugh. “You’re crooks too!” he cried delightedly.