Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (14 page)

The three of them arose stiffly from their floormats. They would have to wash on their way down the hill, at the public well, Sandor told them; Madrali was bringing them tea and fruit for their breakfast. They would also be carrying their lunch on the bus with them—it was already packed in a basket: two jugs of water and the remains of their evening meal. He produced a small cardboard suitcase that looked as if it had been possessed by a dozen other people first. Into this Mrs. Pollifax packed her suit for Magda to wear, and Colin added a number of spare reels of film. His cameras he insisted upon carrying in a string bag. Mrs. Pollifax again checked her pantaloons for the wads of money and Magda’s passport, all secured with large safety pins. Her flowered hat was presented to Mr. Madrali with instructions to dispose of it, as well as her useless, emptied purse.

They started out in the pale light of dawn, and at the base of the hill wrung Mr. Madrali’s hands, thanked him and were once again on their own, a little more secure in their new identities but a little less secure at being on the street.

“I think I could get to like these baggy pants,” said Mrs.
Pollifax, lengthening her stride. “Is my headgear properly wrapped? Are you sure we’re all right, with everything where it should be?”

“Good, very good,” Sandor said gravely. “Except slower—please! You act like American. Dressed as you are dressed you come from a small village—do not walk so fast, so happy, and please—stay behind us men!” He shrugged apologetically. “Not for myself, you understand, who know precisely who you are but for the role, the act. Anatolian women, they work hard, say nothing. And to wear the shawl pulled so across the mouth you must be very shy, very small village. You understand?”

“All right.”

Sandor added, “You do not look so Turkish as the other lady, you see.”

“Oh—sorry,” she said contritely, falling still another pace behind him and Colin.

“And stop talking English,” contributed Colin, delivering the final snub.

Magda’s eyes were gleaming over her veil with amusement. “It worked,” she said.

“What did?”

“You look properly cowed and snubbed now. Your shoulders droop, you look shamed and subservient.”

Mrs. Pollifax said in a peevish undertone—she really had been feeling expansive—“It’s all very well for you—he said you look the part.”

“Touché,”
said Magda with a throaty little laugh that reminded Mrs. Pollifax she would be delightful company under more relaxed circumstances. They turned down a broad, tree-rimmed boulevard lined with buildings so modern that Mrs. Pollifax might have forgotten she was in the Near East but for the sight of goats being herded down a side street, and a flock of turkeys being driven screeching, wings flapping, across an intersection.

When they reached the square they learned what Sandor had meant about bus transportation to Yozgat. A bulging and ancient wooden vehicle stood beside the curb—“It’s early,” explained Sandor—and around it squatted dozens of families who looked as if they had been waiting all night long. Sandor reminded them they must not speak to anyone, not
even to one another, but smile and keep smiling agreeably. They silently sat beside the others. After about an hour the driver of the bus came whistling across the boulevard, unlocked the bus and began shouting orders to the passengers to bring their suitcases to him for storage on top of the bus. A policeman wandered over and watched, then alarmed Mrs. Pollifax by asking to see the cards of identity and the bus tickets of everyone waiting to leave.

“Do not panic,” whispered Sandor. “Steady does it.”

When the policeman reached Mrs. Pollifax she concentrated on looking as small and submissive as possible. “Yurgadil Aziz,” he said musingly, as he examined her identity card. “Bilet?” he added, holding out his hand.

Sandor arose, spoke easily in Turkish and produced four bus tickets from his pocket. Mrs. Pollifax gathered that she had been asked for her ticket, and because the tickets had all been sold days earlier the possession of one precluded any of them being newly arrived Americans wanted by the police. The tickets were handed back, the policeman moved on, the bus driver shouted, passengers shouted, and like lemmings rushing to the sea they swarmed onto the bus. A child vomited. A pig squealed. Those without seats sat on the floor. Men and women laughed and congratulated themselves upon being there, and the trip to Yozgat was begun.

Seven hours and one hundred and thirty-eight miles later the bus jolted into Yozgat following innumerable stops to cool and refill an aging radiator, exercise children, revive fainting women and change a tire. After seven hours in such cramped quarters any disguises had become academic: everyone aboard knew that three of the passengers did not speak Turkish but no one appeared to even question the fact or to care. They were foreigners and therefore guests. Whether they were Yugoslavs or Rumanians or Bulgars—apparently no one even conceived of their being Americans—they were treated charmingly: smiled at, handed grapes, peaches and sweets and offered seats on the aisle several inches farther from the dust that billowed in through the open windows. Nevertheless the seven hours seemed endless and Mrs. Pollifax could feel only compassion for the majority of the
passengers who were bound for Sivas. “When will they get there?” she asked Sandor.

He shrugged. “Six o’clock, eight o’clock, midnight, who knows? Only Allah. But do not worry, they are having the time of their lives.”

“Magda isn’t. She’s looking horrible again.”

“I will help her. Then I make discreet questions about the gypsies you seek,” said Sandor. “There are always men in the square, and in a town like this everyone knows everybody else’s business. I have thought further. In Yozgat there will not be many cars, and few gasolines. It will be less prominent to rent a horse and wagon. Wotthehell, okay?”

“What the hell okay,” said Mrs. Pollifax with a smile, and as the bus halted in Yozgat square, honking its horn dramatically, she stood up and looked for Colin, who had become trapped in the aisle in back of her and could only wave and shrug.

Magda was helped from her seat by Sandor, and the three of them made their way to the front of the bus. Sandor jumped down first, followed by Magda, who almost fell into his arms, and Mrs. Pollifax stepped down behind them, lifted her head to look around her at Yozgat, and abruptly stiffened.

A man had separated himself from the cluster of people on the pavement, and had stepped forward to scrutinize each passenger as they dismounted. Now he was staring attentively into Mrs. Pollifax’s half-concealed face; his glance moved to include Sandor and then fell upon Magda who swayed on Sandor’s arm.

The man was easy to recognize because of his small pointed white goatee. She had in fact already exchanged glances with him once, across a crowded Istanbul livingroom. It was Dr. Guillaume Belleaux.

Now he stepped forward and spoke to Mrs. Pollifax in Turkish, his eyes a little amused as they rested on the wisps of hair that escaped her shawl. Before she had even faced the problem of replying his hand moved and he whipped back her scarves to expose her face. “Mrs. Pollifax, is it not?” he said carefully. “Precisely the woman Mr. Carstairs asked me to take care of—which I plan to do at once!”

Mrs. Pollifax stepped back in dismay.

“And your two companions would be Madame Ferenci-Sabo and Mr. Colin Ramsey of Ramsey Enterprises.” He lifted an arm and waved to someone across the street. “I am aware that you know karate,” he continued smoothly. “One move toward me and the gun that I hold under this newspaper will kill you.”

“Wotthehell,” said Sandor, but whether he was shocked at being mistaken for Colin, or by news of the gun, it was impossible to guess.

Mrs. Pollifax sighed. To get safely away from the searching Ankara police they had endured those seven uncomfortable hours on a bus only to walk into Dr. Belleaux’s waiting arms. It did seem unfair, and exactly the sort of thing to blunt initiative.

“The car is coming—patience, please,” said Dr. Belleaux. “We have only a few streets to go, and I advise you to enter the car quietly.” He turned and looked at Colin, who stood paralyzed on the bottom step of the bus, gaping at him. He said sharply,
“Hareket etmek—cabucak!”

Colin closed his mouth—he had looked singularly stupid with it open—and to Mrs. Pollifax’s astonishment he snarled,
“Evet, evet,”
in a low surly voice and walked stiffly and angrily away.

For a moment Mrs. Pollifax was incredulous and then it dawned upon her that Dr. Belleaux had not recognized Colin; he had looked for two women and a man and he had found them without realizing that four of them traveled together now, or that Colin was also a member of the party. Colin, bless him, had understood this perfectly, and at once.

She and Sandor exchanged a long glance, and then the car drew up behind the bus and Dr. Belleaux said sharply, “Get in, please!” He held the door open. “No, Mr. Ramsey, sit in front, please, where I can shoot you if you prove difficult.”

To enlighten confused Sandor Mrs. Pollifax said coldly, “Allow me to introduce you. I believe this is Dr. Guillaume Belleaux—you are, aren’t you?—the leader of the gang who tried to kill us on the road to Ankara.” The impact of this on Sandor was appreciable: she saw his eyes blaze before they went studiously blank. “The gentleman beside you,” she added tartly, “is Stefan, who works with Dr. Belleaux and abducts people and drugs them, too.”

Ignoring her Dr. Belleaux leaned forward. “Leave now, Stefan, the bus will remain here for some time, I think. You know the way? That street over there, then left and a sharp right.”

The car turned off the square, past a corner store whose signs read C
IKOLATA
—S
IGARA
—K
OKA
-K
OLA
(
I can read that
, thought Mrs. Pollifax numbly) and down a cobbled street that soon turned into a solidly packed dirt road of the most primitive type. “Where are we going?” inquired Mrs. Pollifax.

“Not far,” confided Dr. Belleaux; his voice was friendly and gracious; he was obviously a born host. “It seemed wisest to rent one of Yozgat’s abandoned houses, while we waited for you. We have expected you, of course, and I guessed you would have to arrive in some kind of disguise, or not at all, with the police looking for you so assiduously. But of course the police have never known that you were coming to Yozgat. It gave Stefan and myself
such
a pleasant advantage!” He leaned forward. “To the right now, Stefan. When you reach the house drive the car around to the rear. I don’t wish it seen from the road.” To Mrs. Pollifax he said in a kindly voice, “I have a gun, you know. Several, to be exact. It is best if you understand now that there is nothing for you to do but relax and tell me all I wish to know. Then we shall understand one another—once you understand your situation.”

They had pulled up beside a low, dusty stone house with a shuttered and empty look. The nearest house stood a quarter of a mile away. Stefan backed, and then drove up a rutted track to the back yard and cut the engine.

Dr. Belleaux said, “Assim is inside—blow the horn once, lightly. We will tie their hands tightly for the walk into the house.”

When the door shut behind them it closed out all sunshine. Not even the shutters betrayed lines or threads of light. They stood in darkness until Dr. Belleaux lighted a candle, and then a lantern. “In here,” he said and they were pushed into one of the two back rooms.

This was a room like a shed; obviously animals had once shared it with humans during cold winter nights. The floor
was of beaten earth; a pile of old hay still filled one corner and there was a strong smell of must and manure. Once there had been a rear door but it had been bricked in but not whitewashed. Three straight wooden chairs occupied the center of the room; one by one they were tied to them, first their hands behind their backs and then their ankles. When this had been accomplished by Assim, whose face was sullen and cruel, Dr. Belleaux beckoned his helpmeets into the other room and Mrs. Pollifax could hear them speaking together in Turkish in low voices. She said softly, “Magda—you are all right?”

Magda lifted her head and wanly smiled. “For the moment, yes. But to come finally to Yozgat, to be so close—” She stopped.

Sandor said in a voice choked with rage. “You understand even I have heard of this Dr. Belleaux. I am still shocked, still in a daze. There must be the way to get free. Must!”

Mrs. Pollifax sighed. “Such as what?”

“There’s Colin.”

Mrs. Pollifax said gently, “What can he do? He doesn’t even know where we are.”

“Surely something!”

“What?”

Sandor was silent and then he said angrily, “I don’t know!”

“He doesn’t know where we’ve been taken,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax, “and if he did, what could be done? He is alone, completely inexperienced and unaccustomed to violence.”

“Since meeting you he has seen a little,” pointed out Sandor dryly, and as the voices broke off in the other room he said, “We cannot just die like trussed pigs, there has to come a moment, just one—” He was silent as Dr. Belleaux reentered the room.

“Ah there you are!” said Dr. Belleaux, as if he had absent-mindedly misplaced them. “We have just been consulting on the arrangements. I have an interest in a small archaeological dig not far from here—you will be buried there tonight.” He chuckled. “In a few years you may be dug up and acclaimed a real archaeological find!”

“Very amusing,” said Mrs. Pollifax tartly. “And Mr. Carstairs? What will you tell him?”

Dr. Belleaux smiled charmingly. “Why, that I searched everywhere but that you and your little party had vanished from the face of the earth!”

“He really cabled you about me?” Mrs. Pollifax asked curiously.

Dr. Belleaux leaned against the wall and looked down at her in a friendly fashion. “Oh indeed yes, just last evening, and giving a very full description of you—which of course proved at once how dangerous you are to me! He had cabled me earlier about Henry Miles, naturally, but failed to mention you. It was fairly simple to dispose of Miles as well as the first chap whom I believed Miles was replacing, but I really had no idea who you worked for. When you stole Ferenci-Sabo from under my very nose—in full view of my friends—I still had no idea you worked for Carstairs, can you imagine?”