Ancient Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (27 page)

Sam, who’s culinary experiences were greater than mine, as he’d grown up in New York City where, he claimed, you could get just about any kind of food you could imagine, enjoyed his meal of lamb skewered on spikes and grilled over an open flame. He called them shish-kebabs and, given his wider knowledge of the world’s foods than mine, I saw no reason to doubt him. Harold had the same, and made me eat a bite of lamb from one of his skewers. I had to admit it was delicious, but my stomach was so full by that time, I couldn’t eat another bite.

Gazing at me critically—the only way he ever gazed at me—Sam said, “Well, I’m glad you managed to eat something, but you still look like hell. Harold and I have to put some meat on your bones before we take you home to your family, or you’ll give ‘em all spasms.”

“Surely I don’t look that bad!” cried I—softly, out of respect to our being in a classy restaurant.

“You want to risk your father’s heart on it?” Sam asked.

My mouth fell open. Fortunately, it was empty at the time. “That’s plain cruel, Sam Rotondo! You know I love my father with all my heart, and I’d never do anything to hurt him. Besides, it’s not my fault I got sick just when I was already so . . . vulnerable.” I refused to use words like skinny or gaunt or any of the others that had been flung at me recently, including skeletal, which had been contributed by Sam himself.

Sam said, “Huh.” I glowered at him.

“We’ll get her to eating again, Sam,” Harold said in a bolstering sort of voice. “It’s encouraging that she was hungry tonight.”

“I guess,” Sam grumbled.

The waiter brought us some kind of dessert, which he called boreck and which was flaky and fabulous, according to Sam and Harold, although I had to take their word for it, since my abused stomach couldn’t hold a single other thing, not even a flake of the pastry that looked so good and which the men gobbled up like candy.

After everything had been taken away, Sam pushed his chair back a bit, looked from Harold to me, and said, “That’s about the best meal I’ve ever eaten, except at your house, Daisy.”

“I’m going to see if I can find a Turkish cookbook for Aunt Vi,” said I. “Only it’ll have to be in English or she won’t be able to use it.”

“And when did you say you’re going to take this sight-seeing trip of yours?” he asked.

“Day after tomorrow,” said Harold. “Ali is going with us to guide and guard us. Along with you, of course.” He added the last sentence hastily as if he worried Sam might berate him if he didn’t. Which he probably would have, given that Sam was Sam.

“Good. We’ll plan our strategy tomorrow then.”

Harold and I exchanged one last glance for the evening.

* * * * *

Yet the following day wasn’t so bad. Sam wasn’t as grumpy as he’d been the day he arrived, and he was polite as the three of us went down to breakfast, which he took with us at Harold’s invitation of the previous evening. Harold and I both brought the travel brochures and maps Mr. Ozdemir had given us, and it was fun going over them together in the hotel lounge after breakfast—which, by the way, I ate. It perhaps sounds rather odd to other Americans—it sure sounded odd to me—but I had a warm yogurt soup flavored with mint.

According to Dr. Weatherfield, who had paid me a last visit the night before and who’d recommended it to me, the soup was called yayla corbasi and, also according to him, “It’ll fix you right up. It’s the perfect food for people who’ve been sick with dysentery.” He then went on to give me something of a lecture about the joys and benefits of yogurt, but I won’t go into the matter here, since you probably aren’t interested in fermented milk products and so forth.

Anyhow, the soup was good, and it settled into my formerly disturbed tummy as lightly as a butterfly landing on a leaf.

“Are you sure that’s all you want?” Harold asked, frowning at my empty yogurt bowl.

“Positive. I’m stuffed. Don’t forget that last night and this morning, I’ve taken the only solid food, except apples, for almost a week.”

“That stuff didn’t look very solid to me,” he grumbled.

“It was, though. And it was delicious, too,” I assured him.

“Well . . .”

“It’s all right,” said Sam, eyeing me severely. “We’ll make her eat more for lunch.”

My gaze paid a visit to the ceiling, but I didn’t scold or object, because I figured there would be no point in doing so. As for Sam and Harold, they both ate man-sized breakfasts that included some kind of spinach pie and another form of boreck, only this time made with vegetables (Harold said eggplant; Sam said zucchini
squash; take your pick). I guess you can do a whole lot with pastry dough besides make desserts out of it.

At any rate, we had a good time planning for the morrow’s visits to various sites, including the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace and—at my insistence—the Grand Bazaar. “I’m still pretty weak, you know. I don’t want to do too much in one day. We can see the city gates and some of the other sights the next day.”

“Very well,” said Harold meekly.

Sam, who was never meek, grunted and said, “I’m going to hire a car to take us around. I don’t want Daisy walking on the crowded streets. Not only might she get sick again, but I don’t want her getting snatched.”

“I don’t think anyone’s interested in snatching me, Sam,” I said, and quite calmly, too. “Whatever these people are after, it seems to be something I have, not me.”

“You never know,” he said darkly, and I decided we’d both said enough on the subject.

After breakfast, Harold and Sam went out for a while. Sam wanted to introduce Harold to his police cronies from London, and Harold wanted to see some of the city. Poor fellow, he’d been trapped in the hotel caring for me ever since we’d arrived in Istanbul.

As for me, I was directed in no uncertain terms to “Go to your room, lock the door and rest. You have to be feeling well enough to do some sightseeing tomorrow.”

I saluted Sam, said, “Yes, your majesty,” and watched Sam roll his eyes. Then we all trooped back up to my room, where Sam and Ali greeted each other in Turkish—I swear, the man was totally unsociable to the rest of the universe, but he’d already made a friend of Ali—and I entered my room.

“Lock your door,” Sam commanded for about the ninetieth time.

“Yes, sir. Will do.”

After giving me a good hot scowl for form’s sake, he, Harold and Ali waited for me to turn the key in the lock, and then I heard two sets of footsteps taking off down the hallway and Sam and Harold talking to each other as if they, too, were fast friends. Would wonders never cease?

I spent the rest of that day sleeping and catching up on correspondence. Although I wanted to, I didn’t brave Sam’s temper by toddling downstairs and looking for postcards, but wrote my letters on the stationery provided by the hotel. I apologized to everyone for not having written for a few days, explained that I’d been sick but that I was better now, and told my family in their letter that Sam had joined us.

I don’t know why the man thinks I need a bodyguard, but he’s here, and he’s determined to make sure nothing bad happens to me while I’m traveling. I hate to admit it, but it was nice to see him. He, Harold and I are going to see some of
Constantinople’s many treasures tomorrow, and I hope I can write a more interesting letter tomorrow night.

Which just goes to show, I suppose, that one should be careful when putting what one thinks are newsy little quips down on paper.

* * * * *

Sam arrived the next day at nine o’clock. Harold and I had taken our breakfast in the hotel’s dining room—more yogurt soup for me, and I sampled some of Harold’s spinach pie, which was quite tasty.

Ali joined us in the lobby, and we traipsed out of the hotel and to the machine Sam had hired to take us around the city. A huge old Hudson Phaeton met our eyes as we walked down to the street. The machine looked like it had once maybe belonged to a sultan or something but had hit hard times since then. However, it was large enough to hold us all, and Sam had hired a Turkish driver to go along with the motor, so we seemed to be set for the day. Ali and the driver, a fellow named Ahmet Bayar, sat in front and Sam, Harold and I took the back seat. The two men sat on either side of me.

“Because I don’t want anyone to be able to get at you without going over us,” said Sam in his usual gruff manner.

I merely shrugged. “Whatever you say, Sam. I think they’re after my luggage, though, not me.”

“Huh.”

Typical.

The Blue Mosque was absolutely . . . well, I don’t have words to describe it. Fabulous, maybe? I made sure I was covered from tip to toe and wore a hat, and we all removed our shoes before Ahmet and Ali preceded us into the place. We didn’t linger, since it was a site holy to Moslems and except for the two Turks, we weren’t Moslems. I certainly didn’t want to offend anyone, but I was awfully glad that we’d visited the place.

Harold politely asked if it was all right to take pictures with his Kodak and was told to go ahead, but he didn’t take many on the inside of the mosque. The outside was another matter. That place is huge, and we spent a good deal of time walking its perimeter and stopping every second or three for Harold to take more pictures. He made Sam and me get into a couple of them, which made neither one of us awfully happy.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Harold snarled at one point. “It’s to give perspective. I want people to know how big this place is, and the best way to do that is to show the two of you standing in front of it. You don’t have to look as if you’re being sacrificed, you know.”

So I smiled. When Harold showed me the photos later, I learned that Sam didn’t. He looked, in fact, as if he were sorely aggrieved to have to stand next to me. By the way, Sam had shed his copper duds for the day and wore a typical white linen tourist’s suit. It actually looked good on him, although, of course, I didn’t tell him that.

We must have spent an hour or more at the Blue Mosque, and then Ahmet drove us to the Topkapi Palace. Boy. It was definitely a palace. And talk about your more-than-Oriental-splendor, as Rudyard Kipling might have phrased it. I could have spent the entire day studying the tiles alone. In fact, I became so fascinated by the tiled pool in the area that used to be set apart for the harem that I didn’t notice my companions had moved along. When I glanced up from staring at the amazing tile work and discovered myself alone, a spasm of alarm struck me.

An instant later something else struck me.

After that I didn’t know anything at all until I awoke on my bed in the Sultanahmet Hotel and saw Dr. Weatherfield peering down upon me with a worried frown on his face. My head ached something awful. Then I noticed Harold, who was drying his hair with a towel. That seemed extremely odd to me. And where was Sam?

“What happened?” croaked I, once more wishing I were dead.

“You were attacked,” said Harold. “By three men. You were right. Stackville was one of them, and I’m pretty sure his French pal and that other fellow were with him.”

“Why did they hit me?” I squinted at Harold. “And why are you all wet?”

“We realized you weren’t with us after we left the harem rooms. Sam and Ali and I rushed back to see what had become of you.” He gave me a fierce scowl. “For God’s sake, Daisy, after everything that’s gone on, didn’t you think it would be wise of you to stay with the group?”

“I didn’t realize you were going when you went. Where’s Sam?”

That’s when two other men approached my bed. I saw Mr. Ozdemir standing in the back of the room, wringing his hands. Shoot, the only people missing were Ali and Ahmet. And Sam.

“Missus Majesty?” a crisp English accent asked.

“Yes?”

“I am DI Albert Foxcroft, with the London CID. Detective Rotondo, I fear, has been captured by the men who were trying to kidnap you.”

My eyes practically bugged out of my head. “Sam? Sam has been kidnapped?” Then, even though it made my aching head hurt worse, I cried out, “Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

“Let me try to explain,” Harold said, jostling his way past the London policeman. “Sam and Ali had just gone back to the harem to see where you were when they saw Stackville and his two pals carrying you off. Sam let out a roar that echoed through the whole palace, I’m sure, and that’s when I ran into the room. Then he, Ali and I ran toward you and Stackville’s crew. There was a huge scuffle, and I think Ali managed to slice one of the bad guys with his dagger. I ended up in the pool, and the villains somehow managed to carry Sam off while Ali picked you up after they dropped you. I don’t know if that’s when you cracked your head or if they conked you before they tried to carry you off.”

I pressed a hand to my head. “Good Lord,” I whispered. “We have to get Sam back. Great heaven, where could he be?”

“Before you go haring off anywhere, young lady, I need to make sure you didn’t suffer a concussion,” said Dr. Weatherfield, sounding as though he were trying to hold his emotions in check. Whatever those emotions were, they seemed to be strong. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Fingers? Fingers?” I hate to admit it, but I slapped his hand away. “I don’t care about your cursed fingers! We need to get Sam back! Oh, my God, didn’t anybody see where they took him?” I sat up, my head swam, and Dr. Weatherfield caught me before I could clunk back down onto the bed. “Oh,” I whimpered, sounding pathetic to my own ears.