“What should we do?” I knelt by the side of the pool, blinded by tears, by the lamplight. Violet’s eyes were in darkness, but I could sense the intensity of her gaze.
“We can let the current take her,” she said matter-of-factly, as if she were disposing of kitchen leavings. “No one will know where she died or how. By morning, she’ll be frolicking with the dolphins in the Marmara. But we’ll have to get her farther out where the current is stronger.”
Frolicking. I couldn’t decide whether to be appalled by Violet’s levity or absurdly comforted by the image of Mary, golden hair streaming, riding a dolphin like a Greek deity.
“We have to call the police,” I said numbly. “Ismail Dayi will know what to do.”
“And tell them what? That three women were alone at night in an abandoned sea hamam and one died? How are we going to explain how she died? They’ll blame you, you know.”
I looked up at her. “Why me? It was an accident.”
“They always blame the weakest person. The cracked vessel shatters first.” Her face, lit from below, was distorted by the lamplight.
I rocked back and forth, eyes on the black window of water.
Violet submerged again. After a while, her hands pushed a shoe onto the platform, then another, Mary’s skirt, shirt, and undergarments. I crouched by the pitifully small pile.
“The clothes would make the body float,” she explained, gasping, climbing out of the water. “I couldn’t get the jewelry. I’ll try again.” The bracelet of woven gold from the Bedestan where we first met. The silver pendant I unclasped in childish greed from Hannah Simmons’s neck and gave many years later to Mary, who adored Ottoman jewelry. The necklace of a drowned woman was clinging to Mary, who had suffered her same fate.
Appalled, I stayed Violet with my hand on her thigh. “Leave it.”
She explained in a calming voice, as if to a child, “I’m going outside now. There’s a landing in the front. If I jump in there, I can pull her through from the outside. There’s a strong current just a short way out. Stay here.” She disappeared into the shadowy corridor. A dog barked, then was abruptly silent.
I sat on the wet quilt, its satin stained by seawater, regarding the garments of my friend whom I had meant tonight to join in living. They lay before me like the remnants of a lifeless sea creature. I pulled the lamp closer. The pool’s black eye regarded me malevolently. The sound of a splash tore through the silence. A thin line moved across the water.
53
They move cautiously through the opulent rooms, listening for a reply to their calls.
Bernie looks around at the man-high china vases, the cabinets of china, gilded screens, statues, wall hangings. “The person who collected all this is obsessed by China. These are all Chinese antiques, extraordinary antiques.”
“Asma Sultan?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Bernie stops at a shelf containing rows of scrolls. He unrolls one and holds it close to the lamp. He beckons Kamil over.
“Look at this-a Chinese manuscript. Someone here can read this stuff.”
“Asma Sultan is your contact inside the palace?” Kamil asks incredulously.
“That’s what it looks like.” Bernie shakes his head in wonder. “Why would she want to overthrow Abdulhamid? Her husband is his grand vizier.”
“Perhaps she is unhappy with her husband.”
“That would give half the women in the world a motive, but they don’t go around scheming with foreign governments to overthrow their husband’s employer just to get him fired. Besides, she’d be undermining her own welfare.”
“Not really. As daughter of a sultan, Asma Sultan is wealthy in her own right.”
“Well, her father was deposed and then killed himself, so I guess that could leave a chip on your shoulder about whoever replaced him.”
They move from room to room, calling Sybil’s name.
Kamil emerges from one of a series of bedrooms along a corridor. “It’s an enormous house, but it looks abandoned. Perhaps it belonged to Asma Sultan’s mother. She would have moved to the Old Palace after her husband’s death.”
“So maybe it’s her mother who’s out for revenge. Angry at being booted out of the palace after her husband is deposed. It fits the poem. Is her mother still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Bernie swings the lamp around the room and calls out Sybil’s name again. “We have to find her. I wonder if Asma Sultan killed Hannah. Once the secret police started sniffing around, she might have eliminated anyone who could lead them to her. She probably thinks Sybil knows something that could give her away.”
He holds the lamp up to Kamil’s face. “Can you have her arrested?”
“Arrest a member of the royal household?” He doesn’t meet Bernie’s eye. “No, my friend. My jurisdiction doesn’t extend that far,” Kamil answers slowly, shielding his eyes from the light.
He remembers Ferhat Bey’s evasiveness that he had interpreted as incompetence. Perhaps the old superintendent had more courage than he, Kamil, the rational bureaucrat who cuts his morality to fit his jurisdiction. He reaches into his pocket for his beads, but they offer no comfort.
“In any case, I might no longer have a post. My superior, Nizam Efendi, will be delighted to hold me responsible for executing Hamza without a trial.”
“Thanks to our friend Michel.” He casts a sidelong glance at Kamil’s grave face. “Anyway, I’d put my money on the secret police being behind all of these killings, not Asma Sultan. They probably wanted to find out from the girls who their contact inside the palace was. Problem is, they didn’t know anything. I wish I knew who ratted on them.”
There is a sound of glass grating under his boots.
“What’s this?” Bernie brings his light closer to a broken object on the floor. “Well, this sure doesn’t belong in here.” He touches it with his toe.
“What is it?”
“Wax flowers under glass-the latest obsession in England. Looks like someone dropped it here. A bit incongruous in a house full of Chinese art, wouldn’t you say?”
They look at each other’s faces, grim in the lamplight.
“Sybil would have brought a gift.”
Bernie calls out, “Sybil!” his voice lost in the cavernous room.
“We’ve checked the whole house. She’s not here.”
“Let’s look outside.” Bernie pulls open the glass doors and unlatches the shutters. They step out onto the patio.
Kamil gestures that they should stop and listen. There is the low boom of water echoing, but no other sound.
“What’s that?” Bernie walks to the edge of the patio and looks over the balustrade. “Look. The water comes right under the house.”
“That’s so the residents can get into their boats directly from the house.” Kamil peers into the darkness below the balustrade. “There might be some kind of boathouse down there.”
Footsteps cause them to whirl around, hands on their weapons.
The embassy driver, Sami, emerges from the house with another lamp.
“Well met, Sami,” Bernie greets him with a nod. “Glad you found us. Are the others coming?”
“Yes, efendi. They’ll be here soon. I rode ahead.”
They walk along the patio, shining their lamps in all directions.
“Over here.” Kamil holds his lamp over a small table still set with food. “It’s fresh.” He reaches into his boot with his other hand and slides out the long, thin blade.
“Damnation. I’ll bet the other guest was Sybil. Where the heck is she?” He calls out, “Sybil!”
“Help! Get me out! Help!” Sybil’s voice is faint and curiously distorted. It is followed by splashing, then silence.
Kamil shouts, “Sybil, keep talking. Where are you?” He looks over at Bernie, whose mouth is set in a thin line. “It came from over there.” He points toward the far end of the patio. “Be careful.”
Bernie calls again, but there is no answer. He pulls out his revolver.