The Panther and The Pearl (34 page)

Sarah covered Roxalena’s hand with her own. “I will miss you when I go back to Boston.”

“Perhaps I will come and see you one day,” Roxalena said mysteriously.

“What does that mean?”

“Osman and I are making plans,” Roxalena replied, smiling radiantly.

“To get away from Topkapi?”

“To get out of the Empire altogether.”

“How?”

“Osman is making arrangements to go to Cyprus and get a job there. If he can work it out, I will go with him.”

“Roxalena, will you be able to give all of this up?” Sarah said, lifting the princess’ silken sleeve with a forefinger. As much as she loved her friend, Sarah suspected that Roxalena was fond of the trappings of Ottoman royalty.

“In a second,” Roxalena said firmly. “I am a prisoner at Topkapi, just like the men in my father’s dungeons. The only difference is that I am better dressed.”

Sarah laughed. “Then good luck with your plans.”

Listak came in with the tea tray and both women fell silent, waiting to continue their conversation until the servant had left the room.

“When is the train leaving?” Kalid asked Turhan Aga.

“At two in the afternoon.”

“So it should be going through the Greek mountains a day and a half later,” Kalid said musingly. “And then reach Paris on the tenth. Where does it stop?”

“Gare St. Lazare. And she has a reservation at the Hotel Delacroix for that night.”

Kalid nodded.
 

“Master, I counsel against this plan,” Achmed said.

Kalid looked at his khislar, who had recovered from his encounter with the bedouins, except for a two inch bandage on his head to cover the healing scab of his wound.

“I am not interested in your opinion,” Kalid replied.

“You have no jurisdiction in France!” Achmed said anyway. “If the ikbal resists you then you can be prosecuted by the French government on any number of charges.”

“The French are not going to prosecute me. They owe the Sultan four million francs in loans,” Kalid said darkly.

“You could create an international incident,” Turhan said warningly.

“Be quiet,” Kalid replied testily. “I remember your role in breaking up my wedding.”

“I did my job, master,” Turhan said quietly.

“Yes, well, you can go. You can both go.”

When they had left he paced back and forth, his expression absorbed.

He would take an earlier train and be in Paris on the tenth when Sarah arrived.

“Why can’t you stop in England and see Aunt Emily on your way home?” James asked, watching as Sarah folded a scarf and placed it in a suitcase.

“My plans are already made, James.”

“But she says here,” James went on, waving a letter, “that you can get a boat from Calais to Dover and be across the Channel in a day. You haven’t seen your mother’s sister since you were ten. Don’t you think it’s worth going out of your way a little bit on your return trip to renew the family tie?”

“James, I know what you’re doing. I thank you for the effort but it’s really not necessary.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sure you wrote to Emily and asked her if I could visit. You’re trying to provide me with a distraction and I appreciate it, but I can hardly descend on a relative who hasn’t seen me since I was a child and unpack my bags.”

“Why not? For a few days? Don’t you think you could use a rest in the English countryside?”

“I’ve had a rest here.”

“Then for your mother’s sake? Emily was her favorite sister, you must remember that.”

“Why is it so important to you that I go?” Sarah asked, lowering the lid of the suitcase.

James sighed. “You need to be among allies, Sarah. Bea and I could only do so much, and I’ve been watching you sitting here day after day, waiting for that...scalawag...to show up here, growing paler and thinner by the minute...”

“I expect the ‘thinner part’ will change quite soon,” Sarah said dryly.

“Forget him,” James said sharply.

“Easier said than done.”

“Then go back to him. Existing in this half world is sapping your health and that isn’t good for the baby.”

“You know why I can’t go back to him, James, we’ve discussed it endlessly. And sitting in an autumn English garden with Mum’s middle aged sister isn’t going to change anything.”

“How do you know that? Maybe you will feel better. And don’t forget, this may be your only opportunity to see Aunt Emily, she isn’t getting any younger and she rarely leaves England since her husband died.”

Sarah stared at him, exasperated, then burst out laughing, shaking her head helplessly.
 

“What?” James said, shrugging.

“You are relentless, do you know that? All right, I’ll go to Dover and see Emily.”

James grinned.

“You didn’t tell her anything of my situation in your letter?” Sarah asked.

“No, of course not. I just said that you enjoyed an extended visit here and were now returning to Boston.”

Sarah nodded. “I’ll have to change my itinerary. Instead of staying in Paris and going on from there I’ll need transportation from Paris to Calais.”

“I’ll arrange it,” James said briskly, and left the room, whistling merrily.

Sarah walked over to the window and looked down at the bustling street, wondering again why she hadn’t heard from Kalid. Why was he bothering to have the house watched, why had he delayed her departure, if he didn’t plan to contact her. Had Roxalena’s information been wrong?

She would never know. She was leaving Turkey in the morning and she would not see him again.

“You will write to us often?” Bea said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. In the background, boarding passengers said goodbye to their companions at the station while the locomotive steamed restlessly, ready to depart.

“Yes, I will,” Sarah replied.

“We’ll be so concerned about the...you know.”

“Baby, Beatrice. You can say the word.” Sarah leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

“And give our best to Aunt Emily,” James added.

“I will.”

“You look very pretty,” he added lamely, glancing at the porter who was walking away with Sarah’s bags.

“Thank you.” In a vain attempt to lift her spirits, Sarah had splurged on a traveling outfit in one of the Constantinople shops that catered to Western visitors. It was a street dress of gray and black striped bengaline with a modified bustle and an apron skirt. A fitted black jersey jacket buttoned over it, and a matching gray hat trimmed with raven’s feathers and edged with black grosgrain ribbon sat on her upswept hair.

In two months’ time, the only item still fitting her would be the hat.

“All aboard!” sounded in their ears. The command was repeated in French, then Turkish, as the last straggling passengers climbed aboard the train. The whistle hooted shrilly and the engine belched a cloud of acrid smoke.
 

“I must go,” Sarah said, extracting her fingers with difficulty from James’ grip.

He embraced her again, tears standing in his eyes.

“If you need anything...” he said for the hundredth time, searching her face.

“I will write, I promise,” Sarah said.

Bea hugged Sarah in her turn, and then husband and wife stood back and watched as Sarah ascended the mobile steps to the passenger car and turned in the doorway to wave again. Then she vanished inside as the porter whisked the steps away.

“I feel like I am sending her off to certain disaster,” James said huskily.

Bea said nothing, her expression mournful.

In her own repressed and childless way, she was very fond of Sarah.

They stood there until the train had departed and disappeared around a bend in the tracks.

Kalid looked around the sumptuous Presidential suite at the Hotel Delacroix with satisfaction. The three rooms were banked with flowers, a bottle of the finest champagne stood in a silver ice bucket in the reception area, and two elaborate fruit baskets sat on a side table. He glanced in the gilt edged mirror on the silk covered wall and adjusted the vest of his Turnbull and Asser suit. He was in his Oxford mode, dressed by the best British tailors and speaking the King’s English.

If this didn’t work, he was out of ideas.

He looked at the clock on the mantel and frowned. Sarah’s train should have been in an hour ago, and the hotel was near the station. He had asked the desk to notify him when she arrived, but so far he had heard nothing.

Kalid left the suite and walked along the lavish figured carpet to the newly installed Otis elevator, a slow contraption powered by steam which closed with an iron grille across the door. The immense Baccarat chandelier hanging from the enameled plaster ceiling vanished as the elevator descended to the lobby level.

Kalid walked to the registration desk and looked around him as he waited for the desk clerk to appear. A black walnut main staircase at the rear of the lobby swept down from a central platform which led to the second level of the hotel. The stairs were fitted with a red plush carpet and all the gas jets had shades designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The reception desk where Kalid waited was of the same black walnut as the staircase.

He hit the bell with the flat of his hand.

The clerk appeared from a side door immediately.

“May I help you, Mr. Shah?” he said in French with the dockside intonations of Marseilles.

“Yes. I am waiting for the arrival of a Miss Woolcott, and she should have been here by now. Can you check for me?” Kalid replied impatiently in his crisp, British accented French.

“
Mais oui
,” the clerk said, and flipped open the ledger, then turned to a pile of telegrams stuck on a spike to his left. He riffled through them and then said, “
Ouila!”
 

“What is it?”

“Miss Woolcott canceled her reservation with us, Mr. Shah. She will not be arriving today.”

“What do you mean? I checked when I got here yesterday morning and the clerk on duty then said that she was due to check in this afternoon!”

“I’m sure that was true at the time,
Monsieur
Shah. We only received the telegram in my hand this morning.”

“And you don’t know anything else?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Kalid whirled from the desk and sprinted across the lobby.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” the clerk called after him.

Kalid ignored him as he ran out the door.

The clerk sniffed and closed his ledger.

Foreigners.

What could one expect?

Chapter 15

Kalid rushed up to an iron grilled ticket window at Gare St. Lazare and said rapidly in his brisk university French, “I need to track a passenger who arrived here two hours ago on the Orient Express from Constantinople.”

“I’m sorry,
monsieur
, that information is confidential. We do not share the passenger manifest with the public.”

Kalid whipped a two hundred franc note from his vest pocket and shoved it under the man’s nose.

The ticket seller snatched it and said, “You would have to see the stationmaster. His office is just beyond that arch.”

Kalid ran in the indicated direction, passing through crowds of men and women dressed in the latest European fashions, past newsboys in corduroy jackets and felt caps hawking their wares, past peanut and ice cream vendors and the uniformed porters who seemed to be everywhere. He heard the distant rumble and hiss of an arriving train as he knocked on the frosted glass door marked
“Maitre d’gare”
and then yanked it open abruptly.

The stationmaster looked up from his lunch of
rondelet
bread with sardines and
brie
and stared at Kalid in shock.

“I need information about a passenger who arrived on the Orient Express today,” Kalid announced. “The ticket seller said you would be able to help me.”

The stationmaster put down his glass of burgundy and opened his mouth to speak. At the same time Kalid produced a five hundred franc note and held it aloft.

The stationmaster’s expression changed. “What do you want to know?” he asked, rebuttoning the tunic of his uniform.
 

Kalid explained his mission and the stationmaster rose to retrieve the passenger manifest from a drawer. He ran his finger down a column and then nodded.

“Yes,
monsieur
. She arrived here several hours ago, as you say. At least she had a seat in her name, and someone used it.”

“But she never came to her hotel.”

The stationmaster gave a particularly Gallic shrug.

“Can you tell from that list what car she was in, who might have been the porters?”