Ancient Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (29 page)

“He’s here. I need to speak to you.”

“It is truly Ali, Missus Majesty.”

I recognized Gaffar’s voice, m
y heart leapt into my throat—it had been doing some exceptionally odd things recently—and I flung the door open. Sure enough, there he was: Ali! My Ali!

“Oh, Ali, I’m so happy to see you! Do you know where Sam is?” Now where in the world had that question come from? I hadn’t even asked poor Ali if he was well or if he’d suffered any damage during the melee in the palace; I’
d just popped out and asked about Sam. “I mean—”

He held up a hand as if to tell me I needn’t explain. “Missus Majesty. I know where your friend is. Ahmet and me, we follow the white men. They take him to a house in
Beşiktaş
.”

“Where?”

Ali glanced surreptitiously around him. Gaffar nodded, and Ali said, “Can come in? Need to talk. About getting friend back. Sam. Sam good man. He speak my language.” Then he tilted his hand back and forth in what I guess is the universal form of “more or less.”

“Oh, yes. Please, come in. Let’s do talk

Ali nodded and entered my suite, closing the door firmly behind him.

“Please,” said I, “take a seat.

He sat in one of the abundant chairs in the sitting room, and I sat in a chair facing his. He sat very stiff and straight, and I got the feeling he’d rather be sitting on the rug with his legs crossed, in the posture I’d seen so many Turks and Egyptians assume. I doubted I could even take the position, much less remain in it and then get to my feet again. It’s got to be some kind of learned behavior. But that wasn’t the point.

“So you know where Sam is? With that information, maybe we can get the police—”

“No police,” Ali said firmly.

“No police? But why not? The police from London have been after the men who took Sam for a long time. At least, that’s the impression I got from them and from Sam.”

“Police too much noise. We creep up. Must creep. Be silent. Ahmet, Mister Harold and me.”

“And me,” I said, every bit as firmly as Ali had just spoken.

“You woman,” he said.

“Yeah? So what? I’m as capable as any man!”

Ali rolled his eyes, thereby marking him a man of Sam’s stamp.

“Listen to me, Ali. You Turks gave women the vote two years before we women in America got it. You must think women are capable!”

“But not in a fight.”

A fight?
Hmm. I hadn’t thought about a fight. Maybe Ali was right.

But no. If there was any saving of Sam to be done, darn it, I aimed to be part of it.

“Nevertheless, I’m going with you to . . . wherever you said.”

“
Beşiktaş
.”

“Right. What’s Bes . . . that place,
anyway?”

“It district by water. House there with Mister Sam. Men tie him up and hit him. Ask him questions.”

My hand flew to my mouth. “They hit him?”

Ali nodded. “They hitting him. Say, ‘Where is it?’ He tie to chair.”

My brow crinkled, reminding me of my recent injury, so I uncrinkled it. “Where is what?”

With a shrug typical of those parts, Ali shook his head. “I not know. They think Mister Sam know.”

“Shoot. I wish I knew. They’ve been plaguing me for what seems like forever, and I don’t even know what they think I have. Maybe I do have it. I don’t know if I do or not, because I don’t know what it is.”

Ali merely stared at me as if I were babbling, and I guessed he was right. I got up from my own chair cautiously, in deference to my head. Then I began pacing, my nerves jumping, wanting to set out that very minute to get Sam back. “You see, these men have been after me since we were in Egypt, and we don’t know why. But from what you just told, me they think I have something they want.”

“Yes. You say so before.”

“I did? Yes, I guess I did. Oh, dear, Ali, what will we do?”

He gave another shrug. On him those shrugs looked good. Well, heck, everything looked good on Ali. “Go to
Beşiktaş, fight men, rescue Mister Sam. Bring him back here.”

I blinked at him. “Yo
u make it sound easy.”

“It be easy. I get my brothers. They help.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” I clasped my hands to my bosom—what there was left of it after too many weeks of unwitting dieting.

“So you get Mister Harold, and we go?”

“Yes. I think he’s eating right now.”

“Mister Harold always eating.”

I couldn’t very well argue with that since it was true. I said, “I’ll go down to the restaurant and fetch him. You wait here.”

Ali rolled his eyes. “You stay here. I get Mister Harold. You don’t go nowhere alone.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot.”

Which pretty much tells you the state I was in. “While you get Harold, I’ll change into comfortable clothes so I won’t get in the way, and I’ll be able to help.”

“How you help?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I’ll think of something.” Boy, it galled me that Ali considered me so utterly worthless. I noticed the dagger thrust through Ali’s belt. “Do you have another one of those? Maybe I can use a dagger.”

He paused long enough for me to understand what he thought of that idea: not much.

“Well, then, maybe I can find a cudgel or something,” I said, feeling desperate. “I want to help, darn it!”

“Yes, yes. I know.” Ali sounded resigned.

Something then occurred to me that had me saying sharply, “And don’t you dare drag Harold out of the restaurant and then set out without coming back to get me! I need to be there to help get Sam back.”

From the way Ali looked at me then, I knew that the only reason he aimed to return to my suite and do my bidding was that he didn’t want to get into trouble with the hotel management if he didn’t—or maybe he was afraid I wouldn’t tip him if he refused to do what I asked of him. At that point, I didn’t care.

After Ali left, I hurried to my closet and took out a white shirtwaist and my jodhpurs. I slipped on some stockings and the boots I’d worn to climb the Great Pyramid, and grabbed a jacket and a serviceable hat that looked more like a man’s headwear than a woman’s. But that was a good thing. I didn’t want to attract attention, and I figured those clothes were about as anonymous as I could get.

Then I paced.

And paced.

And paced.

Just when I was about to bolt out the door and run to the dining room, and to heck with lurking kidnappers and/or assassins, another knock came at my door. I was rushing over to open it when Harold said, “Daisy Gumm Majesty, what’s this nonsense about foregoing the police and going to rescue Sam ourselves? If that’s not the most harebrained, idiotic—”

I flung the door opened, grabbed Harold’s arm and yanked him into the room, Ali following hard on his heels.

“Shut up, Harold. We can’t get the police involved, because they’ll make a huge official fuss. By the time they get organized, those men will have killed Sam. Even if they don’t kill him, they’ll certainly hear the noise made by the Turkish police and those London coppers coming from a mile away. What we’re going to do is sneak up on them and rescue Sam ourselves. Then we’ll tell the police.”

“We? Who’s this we of whom you speak so glibly?”

I don’t think I’d ever seen Harold so angry. And it’s not that I think he was essentially a cowardly sort of person. But he wasn’t your basic man of action, if you know what I mean. Harold was accustomed to running in his regular little ruts, and when he left them for any reason—like this trip, for instance—he made sure his road was smooth and his accommodations first class. He wasn’t the type of person who necessarily rescued other people on a daily basis unless he had a really good reason, and even then he might hire someone to do it for him. For which he had plenty of money, of course, but in this case, money wouldn’t help. What we needed was action, and Harold was going to act whether he wanted to or not.

“We can do it, Harold. Ali’s bringing Ahmet and his brothers. Ali’s brothers, I mean. They’ll be armed.” Actually, I wasn’t sure about that part. I turned to give Ali a questioning glance, and he nodded. I felt better knowing we’d be accompanied by armed men who knew where we were going and, with luck, what to do after we got there.

“For God’s sake, Daisy, do I look like the hero type?”

“No, actually, you don’t. But you can do it, Harold. I know you can. You’re my best friend, and my best friend can do anything. Heck, you helped me save a fair maiden once before. You can help me save Sam this time. And you’ll have lots of back-up, what with Ali and Ahmet and Ali’s brothers.”

“Good God.” Harold hung his head for only a moment. But he knew his was a lost cause. “If I survive this day’s work, Daisy Majesty, Del and I are going to be able to dine out on this story for months. Maybe years.”

I grinned at him and patted his back. “That’s the ticket.”

“Let me change my clothes,” Harold said grumpily. “I don’t want to ruin a good suit.”

So Ali accompanied Harold to his room so Harold could change his clothes, and I resumed pacing.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It wasn’t more than twenty minutes later that we set out for Beşiktaş. My sense of geography is iffy at best, but from what Ali told us, Beşiktaş was merely one of Istanbul’s various districts, in the western part of the city, and was mainly populated by fishermen because it was on the river. Which river, I couldn’t tell you, being geographically challenged, as I mentioned before. The house in which Sam was being held faced the river, whatever one it was.

We grabbed a donkey-drawn cab outside the
Sultanahmet Hotel, and when we told the driver where we wanted to go, he looked at us in a manner that told me people didn’t often ask to be driven to
Beşiktaş
. Oh, well. There was a first time for everything. For instance, this would be my first time rescuing a man. As referred to briefly above, I’d helped rescue a damsel in distress once, but that was in Pasadena and not nearly so frightening a prospect. Actually, come to think of it, I was plenty scared at the time, but that was because I was trying to hide the maiden from Sam Rotondo, the very man toward whom I was headed at that very moment, and whom I intended to rescue come hell or high water this very day.

Which just goes to show you how times—and attitudes—change. There had been many times during my acquaintance with Sam when I’d have gladly seen him captured by bad guys and removed from my life. Now I was scared to death for him and wanted him back in my life.

As I watched out the window of the cab, it seemed to me that the parts of the city we were driving through were becoming less and less prosperous looking. Well, I supposed a fishing settlement wouldn’t necessarily be a big tourist draw. The looks of the place didn’t do my state of anxiety any good, however, and I was glad I’d downed a couple more aspirin before we set out.

“I don’t like this,” muttered Harold, who’d changed into something khaki, I suppose thinking he’d be less conspicuous that way than in one of his white linen suits. I agreed with him. “And where are these famous brothers of whom you spoke?”

Ali answered the latter part. “They meet us there. They with Ahmet at house.”

“Ah. Wonderful.” Harold turned to me. “Do you have any kind of weapon, Daisy?”

“Um . . . no.”

“Well, I brought my revolver, but—”

“You brought a gun?” I was shocked. Perhaps I was even horrified. I couldn’t imagine Harold Kincaid with a gun. The mere thought was . . . I don’t know. Incongruous, I guess.

“No need gun,” said Ali, sounding sure of himself. “My brothers be armed, and also Ahmet.”

“With what?” asked Harold.

Ali squinted at him. “With enough weapons to get Mister Sam back.”

It occurred to me that he was probably talking about daggers and swords and stuff like that. Mind you, daggers and swords are all very well in their place, but I had a strong feeling that Mr. Stackville and his accomplices were armed with guns. My heart decided to do another hectic maneuver in my chest, and my head throbbed in rhythm. Blasted head. I wished I were in better shape for this mission. But we would prevail. Darned if I’d let those blasted Englishmen—well, and that Frenchman—get away with their hateful shenanigans.

As we traveled, the houses became taller and more exotic-looking. Made of some kind of stone or brick, they exuded an aura of the mystical Orient. Unless that was my imagination. I’d probably been reading too many Fu Manchu books; not that we were in China or anything, but boy, Istanbul sure didn’t look like Pasadena. Here were the shrouded women I hadn’t seen in the heart of the tourist part of the city, and the men in loose trousers and shirts belted any old how with bits of cloth. These folks didn’t wear the same kinds of robes as we’d seen in Egypt. For one thing, they were slightly more colorful, but they weren’t the nifty types of costumes Ali and his Sultanahmet fellow-workers wore, either. No glitter here. Only serviceable woolen garments—the wool was a guess on my part, Turkey, like Egypt, having lots of goats and sheep available.