The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus (3 page)

             
"Yes."

             
"Excuse me if I ask too many questions," Barnett said. "It's a habit that you get into if you're a journalist."

             
"Quite all right," Sefton said. "Actually, I'm here on the same business you are: the sea trials of the Garrett-Harris submersible. I seem to have become the Royal Navy's submarine expert."

             
"Ah!"

             
Sefton bounced his walking stick against the sidewalk. "The Royal Navy, you understand, has no interest in submarines.
"

             
"
No interest?" Barnett asked.

             
Lieutenant Sefton nodded. He evidently got a great deal of perverse pleasure from telling this story. "The Holland submersible was tested in New Haven, Connecticut, last year, and I observed. My report was favorable. I strongly suggested purchasing one and beginning our own testing program for the craft.

             
"The report went all the way up to the First Lord of the Admiralty. He scribbled one line across the cover and sent it back, and that was the end of that."

             
"One line?"

             
"Yes. It was: 'Of what use is a boat which sinks?' "

-

             
The street they were following ended in a steep flight of stairs, below which the blue waters of the Golden Horn danced and shimmered in the late morning sun. The sails and masts of a myriad of boats of all shapes and sizes bobbed and nodded in front of them. There were galleys and galleons, caiques and scows, ships of every age and race of Man. Directly ahead of them, like a great humpback watersnake, was the floating bridge. Over a quarter mile long, it had a line of shops and coffeehouses along one side of a roadway that was wide enough for two four-
wheelers to pass abreast. The bridge floated on pontoons, and a draw section in the middle could be raised to let the water traffic through.

             
Off in the distance two great buildings rose out of the haze on the Stamboul side. The dome of the Mosque of the Sultana Validé shimmered directly in front of them, and off to their left, gleaming white across the water, the
suleimanieh,
the gigantic and ancient mosque of Soliman, straddled a tall hill and frowned out over both the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara.

             
They descended the stairs and each paid his penny to the white-robed toll collector. The bridge was as crowded, Barnett thought, as the Bowery on a Saturday afternoon. And such people as were never seen on the streets of New York: Persians in flaring red robes and tall, conical hats; Circassians with curled blond beards, wearing long, black caftans and bearskin caps
...
Four black Turks trotted by with an ebony and ivory sedan chair on their shoulders. A veiled harem girl stared soulfully through the gauze curtains at Barnett, and then giggled as the chair passed.

             
"I'm getting a peculiar feeling as we cross this bridge," Barnett told Sefton. "It's hard to explain, but it's as though we were going, step by step, backward in time."

             
"The nineteenth century has yet to reach Stamboul," Sefton agreed, "for all that it's almost over. For us, it's 1885. For them"— he pointed with his stick at three women in front of them wrapped in layer after layer of concealing linen—"who is to say what year— what age—it is. As they reckon time, it is the year 1302 of the
Hegira.
These young ladies are
halaiks
—slave girls—belonging to the harem of some emir, and the two tall Negro gentlemen escorting them are eunuchs from his court."

             
They reached the Stamboul side of the bridge, and Barnett stepped thoughtfully into an alien world. "Well!" he said,
"there's
an article for my paper. We're still a mite sensitive on the subject of slavery in the United States, having eliminated it from our own shores a bare twenty years ago. And you might say we did it the hard way, too. Is slavery an accepted institution here?"

             
Lieutenant Sefton nodded, the trace of a hard smile on his face. "Slavery, bigamy, harems, eunuchs, exotics, exquisites—and a hundred things we've never heard of, and another hundred for which English has no words."

             
"Goddamn!" Barnett said. "You'll have to tell me all about it. This might make the Sunday Supplement! Course, I'm not exactly sure how to explain to our readers what a eunuch is, but I'll give it a stab and let the rewrite desk worry about it."

             
The Sublime Porte, a connected maze of palaces and gardens surrounded by a high wall, contained the palace of the sultan's chief minister, the grand vizier, along with the ministries of foreign affairs and war. Lieutenant Sefton led the way into the palace and took Barnett through a series of offices and waiting rooms. In each he spoke to someone, a few lire notes changed hands, and they were forwarded to the next. Although the official language of the Ottoman
government was French, Sefton spoke in Turkish, and Barnett merely stood by and tried to look intelligent.

             
Finally, they were taken to a richly appointed room on an inner courtyard of the palace. "We have arrived," Sefton said, sinking into a gold-brocade overstuffed armchair. "The Captain Pasha himself is going to see us."

             
"The Captain Pasha?"

             
"The Osmanli equivalent of the First Lord of the Admiralty," Sefton explained, darting his eyes around the room like some great hawk.

             
"Was it really necessary to bribe all those people to get here?" Barnett asked.

             
Lieutenant Sefton focused his gaze on Barnett and studied him as he would a whist hand. "You
are
serious," he decided. "My dear man, those weren't bribes. You're in the Levant. Simple gratuities, incentives. Thus we arrived in this office in slightly over an hour instead of two weeks. This despite the fact that the Captain Pasha actually wants to see us."

             
"I wasn't making a moral judgment," Barnett assured him. "This sort of thing exists in the States. It's just the openness of it here that surprises me. A Tammany politico would take you in the back room with the lights turned down low. And he'd have four relatives and a judge all ready to swear that he was somewhere else at the time."

             
"Our Western ways are slow to take hold here," Lieutenant Sefton said, "no matter how hard we try to show them the superiority of our methods."

             
A very short, very wide man waddled through a door at the far end of the room. He wore a fur-trimmed green robe, under which yellow boots peeked out as he walked. His face was creased in a permanent smile. "Ah, my dear, dear Captain Sefton," he said, with a pronounced British accent, crossing the room with his arms outstretched. "My heart leaps with pleasure that you have been able to return to Constantinople."

             
"Your Excellency," said Sefton, jumping to his feet and pulling Barnett with him. "It is good to see you again. I am pleased that my government has once more sent me here to watch and learn from the master."

             
The Captain Pasha waved a pudgy hand of disclaimer at the praise and turned to Barnett. "And you must be the American correspondent, Mr. Benjamin Barnett." He took Barnett's hand and pumped it with the enthusiasm of one who is unaccustomed to the ritual of handshaking and still finds it faintly amusing. "We are honored at your presence here, sir. A representative of the press of your great democracy is always welcome."

             
"The honor is mine, Your Excellency," Barnett said, keeping to the spirit of the exchange. "It gives me an occasion to acquaint myself with your remarkable city."

             
"Ah, yes," the Captain Pasha said. "Constantinople, the jewel of cities. You are lucky to have Captain Sefton as your guide. He knows the city as few Europeans do."

             
"Lieutenant," Lieutenant Sefton said pointedly.

             
The Captain Pasha turned around, his hands in the air, his fingers waggling in horror. "No!" he said. "It cannot be! A man of your talent and intelligence still only a lieutenant? I will not permit it! Come, I offer you an immediate commission in the naval service of Sultan Abd-ul Hamid. You shall come in as a full commander.
Captain next year. In five years you shall be
oula,
in ten,
bala.
Guaranteed. My word."

             
Sefton gave a polite half-bow. "Every man knows the worth of your word, Excellency. I am disconsolate that I cannot accept your offer."

             
"And why not?" asked the Captain Pasha. He flipped his hand at the outside world. "They do not appreciate you. I do. You will have a career of honor and reward in a navy that values your ability. And remember that Sultan Abd-ul Hamid is an ally of your Queen Victoria. There can be no dishonor in fighting in the cause of an ally. I give you my most solemn word," he said seriously, "that if we ever declare war upon Great Britain I shall release you from your service."

             
"I shall consider your words, Excellency," Lieutenant Sefton said, "and I thank you for them. Even though I am afraid that it can never be."

             
"Never be?" the Captain Pasha chuckled. "You should not use such terms. Is it not written that no man's eye can pierce the veil that hides the face of tomorrow?" He turned to Barnett. "My secretary will bring you the documents you need. I shall arrange for you both to have places on board His Supreme Highness's steam yacht
Osmanieh,
from which to observe the trials. May Allah, in His Infinite wisdom, assure that we meet again soon."

             
The Captain Pasha left as abruptly as he had entered. A moment later his secretary came in and handed them each a thick gray envelope sealed in red wax bearing the device of the star and crescent. Then a tiny page boy in an ornate red-and-gold uniform escorted them through the maze of hallways to the outside world.

-

             
Lieutenant Sefton glanced up at the sun, then checked its position against his pocket watch. "It is still early," he said, "although we do seem to have missed our lunch hour. Would you like to see the Covered Bazaar? It's quite fascinating, really. We can have a bite to eat on the way, if you like." He headed off down a cobblestone street, tapping a marching beat on the stones with the ferrule of his stick.

             
"Was the Captain Pasha serious?" Barnett asked, falling into step beside him.

             
"About what?"

             
"Taking you on as a captain in the Turkish navy?"

             
"Oh, yes," Sefton assured him. "It's quite commonly done, actually. One way for a second-rate service to upgrade their officer corps. The Royal Navy always has more officers than it needs. Some chaps have done quite well in the service of foreign governments."

             
"Are you going to take him up on it?"

             
"My dear man," Sefton said, raising one eyebrow quizzically. "After all, I haven't gone quite
that
native."

             
Lieutenant Sefton led the way through a complex of narrow, twisting streets and alleyways. Barnett followed, looking this way and that at the exotically unfamiliar city he was passing through. He concentrated on observing the details of costume and architecture and taking an occasional note in the small black notebook he always kept in the inner pocket of his jacket. He would be expected to file several reports on "local color" so the readers of the
New York World
could vicariously experience the thrills of wandering through old Stamboul. The reports would take over a month to reach New York by ship's mail, but the
World
would never pay cable rates for background or filler material.