Free Amazing Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman

and handed it to him. “The bottom one is the home address,” she pointed out.
    He glanced at it, memorized it and handed it back to her. “That’s in the Taksim area. At this hour it won’t take long. I know that street—very posh.” He glanced down at Henry briefly. “Did you know him well?”
    “No,” said Mrs. Pollifax. “I was introduced to him in Washington just before I boarded the plane. But in London he winked at me, and he was one of the men who kept staring in fascination at my seat companion—why that was your sister,” she recalled in surprise.
    “He liked Mia,” Colin said soberly, and Mrs. Pollifax realized that they were giving Henry the nearest thing to a wake possible.
    They lapsed into silence, each of them involved in their own thoughts as the van negotiated the dark streets. Doubtless Colin was thinking of his uncle’s jeep—another disaster for him, she mused—while she tried not to think of what might be happening to Magda, or what had already happened to Henry. It must have been his murder that she hadinterrupted when she entered his room at the Oteli Itep to warn him. She recalled the curtains fluttering at the balcony window and shivered: his body must have lain behind those curtains. It was rather obvious now that Stefan had also hidden behind those curtains, and heard her call to Henry—and then she had led the murderers straight to Magda.
I should never have gone to Henry’s room
, she thought sadly.
Mr. Carstairs warned me—no, ordered me—to have no contact with him at all. How could I have forgotten? One softhearted moment and I betray Magda
.
    And Magda, she remembered, had been her assignment. Not Henry. In retrospect all kinds of ingenious little ideas came to her: she could have sent the manager’s son to room 214 carrying the guide book as well as a note for Henry, whom she had believed to be alive then. Or she could have slipped an anonymous warning under his door and fled. But no, she had gone instead to his room and entered, calling out his name, and now his enemies knew that Emily Pollifax, too, was not what she appeared to be.
    They were passing over the Galata Bridge now, and the lights of moving tugs and boats slashed the glistening inky water with long ribbons of gold. Even at midnight the bridge was filled with traffic: mules, trucks and donkeys bearing fruits and vegetables to the markets and merchandise to the bazaars. Pale moonlight etched out the silhouette of the mosque at the foot of the bridge and touched each passerby with a high light of silver. Mrs. Pollifax sighed and forced herself back to the moment, and to arranging explanations for the Dr. Belleaux whom she would presently meet. “How is it that you’ve heard of Dr. Belleaux?” she asked Colin. “Is he really that well-known?”
    “To live in Istanbul is to hear of him,” he said. “The police consult him on murders—he writes and lectures about criminology, you know—and the archaeologists consult him on bones, that sort of thing. He’s quite lionized as an author and scholar. Goes to all the ‘in’ parties.”
    “What does he look like?”
    “My impression is that he’s fiftyish, or early sixtyish, with a pointed white goatee. Rather thin, talkative, elegant.”
    “I do hope he’s of a practical nature.”
    “You mean practical enough to dispose of a body?” commented Colin dryly. “Ah, here’s the street, I told you it was an impressive one.”
    “Indeed yes,” she said, looking out upon well-spaced villas surrounded by charming gardens. The homes on the street were dark except for one in the center of the block that blazed with light. It was at this house that Colin applied the brakes. “You’re in luck,” he said. “Dr. Belleaux is not only up but from the look of all the cars parked here he’s giving a party as well—and they’ve not left much space to get through, damn it.” He leaned out and swore, maneuvered the van through the line of cars, turned around