Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (9 page)

Mrs. Pollifax smiled faintly. “All right,” and returned her glance to the house. It was a two-storied rectangle of pale stucco with blue shutters. She wondered if Stefan and Otto had gone upstairs or down to the basement but there were no clues. She tiptoed to the screen door and peered inside; directly opposite, scarcely five feet away, a back staircase rose steeply toward the top of the house. Her decision had been made for her: they would try the upstairs first. “Look,” she whispered, pointing.

To the right lay a long kitchen, brightly lit but empty of people although she could hear the sound of running water from a distant corner. Mrs. Pollifax slowly opened the screen door, testing for squeaks. Nothing happened and she slipped inside and across to the staircase with Colin directly behind her. She did not pause until she was halfway up the stairs. Here the rising sounds of the party proved an irritant: it was a very large party and the murmur of voices rose and fell in waves, but if they concealed any sounds that she and Colin made they had the disadvantage of concealing approaching footsteps as well. She felt trapped in noises, all of them confusing; still, she could not remain exposed on this stairway for any length of time and so she rallied, brought out her absurd wooden pistol and moved to the top of the stairs.

Here she met a wide carpeted hallway containing six
doors, all of them closed. On her right, at the far end, the hall terminated in a stairwell and the carpet overflowed the stairs like a waterfall of gold; it was from this end of the house that music and conversation rose almost deafeningly. Mrs. Pollifax headed in the opposite direction, on the supposition that these rooms were farthest removed from people, and people would be what Stefan and Otto must avoid if they were here, and the thought of their being here—of all places!—still baffled and shocked Mrs. Pollifax.

The first door they opened was a bedroom but except for ornate hangings and baroque furniture it was empty. The second door proved to be a linen closet. With some impatience Mrs. Pollifax threw open the door to the third room, only to be reminded that impatience bred carelessness, for this time she had opened the door to a bedroom containing three people—the impact took her breath away—and in unison, also stunned, three people turned to stare at her.

It was as if she had abruptly cut the switch on an unwinding reel of film. Magda lay across a chaise lounge like a bundle that had been flung there, and Stefan, leaning over her, looked up in the act of withdrawing a hypodermic needle from her arm. Otto stood on guard a few feet from Mrs. Pollifax, his mouth open as he stared at her. He was the first to react: he moved so swiftly, so menacingly, that without a second to think about it Mrs. Pollifax lifted her right hand, flattened it as Lorvale had taught her, and dealt Otto a crisp karate chop to the side of his throat. He stared at her in astonishment and then his eyes closed and he sank slowly to the floor. Behind her Colin gasped,
“Mrs. Pollifax!”

“Get his gun,” said Mrs. Pollifax crisply.

Colin stooped and plucked it from the floor, pocketing his own wooden prop. Holding the live gun he gestured Stefan away from Magda. “Against the wall,” he ordered, waving the gun with growing enthusiasm.

Mrs. Pollifax, her flowered hat only a little askew, went at once to Magda, who was trying to stand. “Can you walk?”

“I’m drugged,” she said in an anguished voice. “Hurry!”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded, and, grasping her arm, led her to the door. Colin followed, walking backward with his gun pointed at Stefan. But Stefan refused to remain abjectly
against the wall: he took one step and then another, following Colin with a nasty grin on his face.

“There’s no lock on this door!” Colin said desperately, trying to slam it in Stefan’s face.

Mrs. Pollifax glanced back over her shoulder. Magda had already begun to sag and it was doubtful that she would remain upright if Mrs. Pollifax withdrew her arm to help Colin. Obviously Stefan was determined to follow them; he knew the gun was loaded because it was Otto’s, but he was not going to make it easy for Colin, who was so patently an amateur. To hesitate for long would risk their having to literally carry Magda out of the house in their arms. “If he comes too close, shoot him,” she said calmly, and headed down the hall to the stairs.

But at the top of the rear staircase Mrs. Pollifax stopped in dismay, for the downstairs hall and entrance that had been deserted ten minutes ago was now aswarm with workers. The screen door through which they had entered was propped wide open. Buckets of ice were being carried in and empty trays wheeled out to a waiting truck. A heavy-set butler stood at the bottom of the stairs calling out orders and completely blocking the exit. He did not look as if he would give ground easily, or let them through unchallenged.

Mrs. Pollifax turned away. They had to get out of the house quickly, before Magda lost consciousness, and there was no alternative now but to use the main staircase. Propping up Magda she half-carried her to the stairwell, grasped the banister and began a step-by-step descent. They made a ludicrous procession, she thought, herself and Magda clinging together in the vanguard, followed by Colin walking backward and brandishing a pistol at Stefan, who continued to leer and follow three paces behind. As they descended Mrs. Pollifax could look down and see the massive oak door at the foot of the stairs. She knew that beyond, parked in the street, stood Colin’s van; if they could just get through that door …

The piano playing came to a sudden halt. Slowly the murmur of voices subsided into startled silence and Mrs. Pollifax found herself in full view of Dr. Belleaux’s party; she was in fact staring down into dozens of gaping faces. She supposed that two women on the stairs might have gone unnoticed but
that the sight of Colin holding a gun made for a certain conspicuousness. Rather wearily—it had been a long and violent evening—Mrs. Pollifax lifted her wooden gun and addressed the sea of faces below her. In her most imperious voice she said, “I will shoot the first person who tries to stop us.” It was a phrase culled from the late late movies but it was the best that she could manage under the circumstances.

Someone said, “Get Dr. Belleaux!”

Mrs. Pollifax reached the bottom of the stairs and pulled open the door, holding it wide. As Colin backed into her, stepping painfully on her ankle, she said in a low voice, “Take Magda and run.”

He nodded and pressed the functioning gun into her hand. “Thanks—I couldn’t possibly shoot it,” he admitted.

“I can,” she said calmly. “Just get her out, she’s going under.”

It was now Colin who bore the sagging Magda into the night and down the path, and Mrs. Pollifax who faced Stefan. “I am going to shoot the first person who walks through this door after I leave,” she called out, only a little embarrassed by her clichés. To her left, from a corner of her eye, she saw several people move apart, and for just one moment she allowed her glance to leave Stefan: she looked into the livingroom and into the eyes of the party’s host who had suddenly appeared. She thought,
Dr. Belleaux, I presume
, and then her glance swerved back to Stefan, she saw him coiled to jump at her and she fired the gun at the ceiling above him. Slamming the door behind her, she ran.

Colin was bundling Magda into the van across the street but unfortunately Henry was already there, which had led to difficulties. When Mrs. Pollifax reached the van Colin was starting up the engine with a dead Henry at his elbow and an unconscious Magda in the passenger seat. “Jump in somewhere—anywhere,” he cried in a harassed voice. “Try the floor or sit on Henry. Or Magda.”

Mrs. Pollifax climbed in and fell across Magda just as the van began to move and a second before it raced down the street. “I’m heading for the ferry, I’m going to get you out of Istanbul right now, before all hell breaks loose,” he said, and he turned on the van’s lights as they reached the corner. “You can’t go back to your hotel, and the first place Stefan
will look for you is Ramsey Enterprises, and after that they’ll begin watching the ferries and the airport. There’s not a minute to lose; the ferries don’t run as often at night.”

“I’m a wanted citizen,” Mrs. Pollifax said in a surprised voice.

Colin looked at her and grinned. “Well, look at the facts, Mrs. Pollifax,” he suggested. “The police have your passport and will be looking for you, Stefan and Otto will be looking for you, you’ll be wanted for burglarizing—not to mention kidnapping—and have you noticed the interesting passengers we’ve acquired? At the moment I can’t think how to explain a dead man with a hole in his chest or a woman who’s been heavily drugged.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at him. “Colin,” she said accusingly, “you
enjoyed
it!”

“Good God, it was terrifying,” he said. “What I am experiencing is the absolute relief at still being alive. Who would ever have believed we would get away with it! I say,” he added, “shouldn’t you do something about Henry before we reach the ferry?”

Mrs. Pollifax agreed; and as the van careened through the empty streets she alternately tugged and pulled Henry into the darkest shadows of the van.

At the Kabatas landing stage they encountered their first stroke of luck: a ferry was being readied to leave its slip. Ropes and chains were being cast off, but the gates had not yet closed. With a flourish Colin drove the van onto the ferry; only one more car followed and the gates swung shut. “But there are telephones?” pointed out Mrs. Pollifax bleakly.

“There are telephones, yes. Keep your fingers crossed that no one will be waiting for us on the other side!”

As they crossed the Bosporus they undertook a frenzied and certainly bizarre housecleaning of the van’s rear, which had been casually equipped for living purposes. Under Colin’s tutelage they set up a battered old army cot and chained it to the wall, placed a still heavily drugged Magda on it and covered her with blanket. They rolled Henry under the one piece of built-in furniture in the van: a high workbench which Colin explained was used for developing photographs, cooking meals on a sterno and even, in emergencies, as a bed. “Do you think the people at Dr. Belleaux’s party saw the van clearly enough to describe it?” asked Mrs. Pollifax, covering Henry with a blanket, too.

“From the window anyone could have seen the shape of it,” Colin said. “But the license or its color, no. It was too dark—the nearest light was far down the street. But you know they need only inquire what vehicles belong to Ramsey Enterprises to learn the registry number and description.
There’s the jeep, and this van, and then the second van that Uncle Hu’s taken to Erzurum. Do you think Stefan overheard Magda insisting on going to Yozgat?”

Mrs. Pollifax said in a dismal voice, “Probably.” She sighed. “It does seem the most wretched luck that Magda’s drugged again and can’t explain more. My orders were to get her out of Turkey quickly—to save her life at any cost—and I don’t
like
this Yozgat business. I’ve finally found her, and it would still be relatively simple to put her on a plane, whereas Yozgat—” Her voice trailed off uncertainly and she shook her head. “I don’t even know where it is yet!”

“I don’t mind dropping you off there,” Colin said. “I’ve thought about it, you know. I can’t go back to Istanbul until this blows over and I’ve decided to keep going and find Uncle Hu. He’s the only person who can untangle all this—for me at least—and he should be starting back from Erzurum tomorrow morning.”

“Colin—”

He smiled. “I know, I know, you hate to see me involved. It’s purest chivalry, of course—I’m cursed with it. I was raised on King Arthur.”

“I think that’s rather charming,” said Mrs. Pollifax thoughtfully, “but you’re taking me on face value alone which alarms me.”

“Rum, isn’t it?” he said smiling, and shrugged. “I can’t possibly explain it—call it a hunch or an instinct. Or put it this way: How can I possibly drop all this now and never know how it turns out? Good God, the thought appalls me. And do you realize that tonight—for the first time in my life—I’ve been involved in something I actually pulled off successfully? It’s positively dazzling. In the meantime your friend Magda seems to attract the most unwholesome bunch of toughs I’ve ever seen, and I can’t say very much for your other friend—I mean Dr. Belleaux, of course.”

“I can’t say very much for him, either,” said Mrs. Pollifax with feeling. “I think that Mr. Carstairs would be extremely surprised by what we’ve seen tonight, too.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Carstairs is the gentleman who—uh—arranged my coming here.”

Colin said with a crooked smile, “To have sent you he
must have a real sense of humor. There’s the warning bell—come along to the front of the van, we’re almost there.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Pollifax in a hollow voice, turned off the flashlight and crept back into the passenger seat.

The ferry nudged its way into the slip, chains rattled, gates opened and engines warmed up. The cars ahead began to move, and Colin inched the van forward. Slowly they drove off the ferry and into the night: no police whistles shrilled, no one ran toward them shouting at them to halt. They had crossed the Bosporus and left the peninsula of Istanbul behind without incident. “Now where are we?” inquired Mrs. Pollifax and brought out her guide book.