“Anything at all as long as it’s warm: leather, sheepskin, looks don’t matter.” He paused. “I wouldn’t be sending you there if they did, but you should have quite a choice.”
After he’d gone, Ranklin wished he’d told him to pick up some lead shot, too. If some miracle put them within reach of the gold coin, he’d better be prepared. So he went out early himself, found a gun dealer in the Grande Rue where most of the European shops were, and bought a kilo of No. 3 shot. Then he took a cab to the Imperial Ottoman Bank.
The moment he got there, he realised he knew the building already since its bulk dominated the lower slope of Pera: at least seven storeys high and with the south side looking more Indo-Chinese than Turkish with bits of wide roof sticking out three-quarters of the way up. Perhaps the French had got muddled and sent the plans to the wrong address. Ranklin walked up the broad steps at five to eleven and realised he didn’t really know who to ask for.
“M’sieu Lacan?” he tried, but that meant nothing. Reluctantly, then: “Ou M’ sieu D’Erlon?”
“Ah, oui – vous etes I’Honorable M’sieu Snaipe?” In Constantinople French that sounded very much like the Orrible Mr Snaipe, but Ranklin agreed and presented his card. He didn’t need to: a flunkey was detailed to escort him personally. Up a wide staircase to the main “public” floor which, if not truly grand in the Sultan’s-palace sense – a sultan would hardly have chosen so much brown marble – was grand enough since it was all some sort of marble: square pillars, counter tops and the Eastern-style grilles instead of balustrades. And with that odd habit banks have of building to show how little they care about money, the core of the place was pure wasted space: an indoor courtyard surrounded by umpteen levels of balconies to a glass roof.
It was also busy: unlike the cathedral calm of a British bank, this looked as Ranklin imagined the Stock Exchange to be: prosperous-looking men stood chatting in groups or sat in niches, many of them wearing fezzes above well-filled European suits or frock coats. Waiters weaved through them carrying silvery trays of coffee cups and tea glasses. And everybody smoked. It seemed an amiable way to do business if that’s what they were doing.
The flunkey led him down a quieter corridor away from the busyness, around a few corners, knocked and opened a door, and there was Edouard D’Erlon, smiling, handsome, well-dressed and welcoming. There were also Corinna, looking bored, Dahlmann looking sour and Streibl, who seemed happy since he was probably daydreaming of railways.
* * *
This must be the Grand Bazaar, only Ranklin had forgotten to tell him it was entirely roofed over. So at first sight it was a tunnel of murmuring humanity, churning in the dimness, with lamplight winking off cascades of metalwork. On second sight, it was a whole labyrinth of such tunnels, reeking of spices, tanned leather, hot metal and people. It was daunting but it was also much more like the Mysterious East than anything O’Gilroy had yet seen, so after a moment’s pause, he stepped inside.
After a few minutes he no longer noticed the noise, a constant babble that echoed from the vaulted roof where a little light, green where it filtered through plants wind-seeded on the roof, came from small glassless windows. He also realised it was divided into districts: a whole tunnel of stalls selling brassware, then one selling carpets, then embroidered silks . . . and all the stalls tucked into arches like miniature versions of London railway bridges. Happily anonymous, he just wandered, weaving around porters under massive loads and men carrying tea glasses on trays with handles like shopping baskets. He smiled and shook his head at imploring stallkeepers – who couldn’t follow far from their stalls – confident he’d find what he wanted eventually.
* * *
After the inevitable tea or coffee they had finally got down to business and the whole party – now about a dozen including various Bank employees, one of which wore a uniform and pistol belt – were tramping along a dim-lit corridor somewhere beneath the Bank. Dahlmann plucked Ranklin’s coat and hissed: “Why are you here?”
“Er, Beirut Ber – M’sieu Lacan – invited me to come as a witness.”
“You should not have agreed. It connects the gold with Lady Kelso’s mission.”
“Oh, sorry about that,” Ranklin said, cheerily vapid.
Dahlmann glowered. “Also, your manservant – did you know he was going about the city alone last night?”
“Really? I sent him out to buy some tobacco and he hadn’t got back by the time I had to go to the Embassy . . . Probably got lost. Did you find him for me?”
“Ach, no . . . I heard . . .” Dahlmann shouldn’t have opened a subject without thinking where it might lead. “Then you did not send him to . . .”
There, he’d done it again. Ranklin helped: “To buy some tobacco? Yes, I told you. He didn’t break any laws, did he?”
“No . . . I think . . .” He pulled himself together and in an announcing whisper said: “You must be ready to leave today at three o’clock. Half past two,” he amended, allowing for vapidness.
There was a clicking of keys and bolts from the front of the column and they had arrived at a vault of whitewashed stone with a single light bulb dangling from a recent cable in the ceiling and several oil lamps hung around the walls. But they weren’t what lit the room: their light was sucked in and glowed back by a tabletop of gold. Among all these moneymen, Ranklin was the only one who should have been impressed, but there was a long moment of reverent silence from everyone.
Then D’Erlon made an elegant if flamboyant gesture and said: “Bitte, Herr Doktor Dahlmann-”
Looked at more soberly, the gold didn’t really cover the table, which was big and solid, since there was plenty of room for a set of brass scales and a heap of small canvas bags as well. But someone had spent a happy morning arranging eight hundred stacks, each of twenty-five twenty-five-franc pieces so that they covered nearly a square yard to a depth of about three inches. And the result was certainly impressive.
Dahlmann must have begun his career as a mere cashier and hadn’t forgotten his dexterity with the stuff of human happiness. He bent down and squinted to make sure the stacks were all of even height, picked one up, flickered through a count, paused to examine a coin or two more closely, then another stack . . .
Around the vault were several hard chairs and one elderly leather-and-gilt one, almost a throne. Probably it was for a Turkish grandee to lounge in while the infidels counted out his wealth, but Corinna got it this time. Ranklin began to feel bored, then decided Snaipe would be childishly fascinated by all this loot, so had to became that instead.
Finally Dahlmann said: “Sehr gut. Danke,” and stood back.
D’Erlon waved up two helpers who began scooping stacks into bags – five hundred coins to a bag, Ranklin reckoned – then sealing the drawstrings with a dab of wax. D’Erlon reached into a pocket and put half a dozen gold coins on the table. “Just in case we have made a mistake,” he smiled.
Dahlmann looked at the coins coldly. “We are bankers. I am sure there is not a mistake.” And for once, Ranklin actually felt sorry for D’Erlon.
Already standing close, he picked up one of D’Erlon’s coins. It was roughly the same size as a sovereign, and its neat, tiny detail was a wry contrast with the brutal crudity of the dungeon that was the natural home of such things in such quantity. He turned it this way and that to catch the light, then put it down again. “That reminds me: I’d better change some sovereigns into some of these, if this is the usual currency in Turkey. Can I do that upstairs?”