The Light of the Day - Eric Ambler [77]
The first thing I saw on the terrace was the cardboard box which Harper had brought back with him from Pendik. It was open and discarded on a chair. Harper, Fischer, and Miller were contemplating something laid out across two tables.
It was a block and tackle, but of a kind I had not seen before. The blocks were triple-sheaved and made of some light metal alloy. They were so small that you could hold both of them in one hand. The “rope” was a white cord about a quarter of an inch in diameter and there was a lot of it. On another table there was a thing that looked like a broad belt with hooks at each end, like those you see on dog leashes.
Fischer looked up and stared at me haughtily.
“Miss Lipp told me to come here and have a drink,” I said.
Harper waved to a table with bottles and glasses on it. “Help yourself. Then you’d better have a look at this.”
I gave myself some raki and looked at the cord of the tackle. It was like silk.
“Nylon,” Harper said; “breaking strain over a ton. What you have to remember about it is that it’s also slightly elastic. There’s a lot of give in this tackle. You know how these things work?”
“Yes.”
“Show me,” said Miller. He picked up the belt and hooked it around one of the terrace pillars. “Show me how you would pull this pillar down.”
I hooked one block to the belt, tied the other to the balustrade, and pulled on the tackle.
“Okay,” said Harper, “that’ll do. Leo, I think you’d better carry the tackle. Arthur’s too fat. It’ll show on him. He can take the sling and the anchor rope. I don’t think Hans should carry anything except his gun and the water flask.”
“It is only because my skin is very sensitive that I object,” said Miller.
“Well, it won’t be for long. As soon as you’re inside you can take it off.”
Miller sighed irritably but said no more.
“May I know what it is I have to do?” I asked.
“Just pull on this tackle, Arthur. Oh, you mean about taking this gear along? Well, you’ll have to carry that sling”—he indicated the belt—“and this extra rope here, wound around that beautiful body of yours under your shirt, so that nobody can see it. It’ll be a bit warm for a while, but you’ll have plenty of time to cool off. Any other questions?”
I had a dozen and he knew it, but there isn’t any sense in asking when you know you’re not going to be answered.
“Who is going to carry the bag?” asked Miller.
“You’d better take that, folded in your pocket.”
Miss Lipp came out. “Lunch in thirty minutes,” she said.
“Lunch!” Miller looked sour.
“You can eat eggs, Leo. You’ve got to eat something.” She took the drink Harper handed her. “Does Arthur know that he’s going to have to wait for his dinner tonight?”
“I don’t know anything, Miss Lipp,” I said calmly; “but I will say this. I was told that I would be given a briefing today. So far, all I have been given is a bad attack of nervous indigestion. Whether I eat dinner or not, and, for that matter, whether I eat lunch or not, are matters of complete indifference to me.”
She went quite red in the face, and I wondered for a moment if I had said anything offensive; then I realized that the damned woman was trying not to laugh. She looked at Harper.
“Okay,” he said. “Come in here.” He led the way through a french window into the drawing room. Only Miss Lipp followed with me. I heard Fischer asking Miller to pour him another drink and Miller telling him that he ought to exercise the hand, not pamper it. Then, I no longer listened. Harper had walked to the library table, opened a drawer in it, and pulled out the “map.”
“Recognize this place?” he asked.
“Yes.”
It was a plan of part of the Seraglio area and of the roads adjacent to the walls. The triangular shape I had noted was formed by the coastline.
“This is what we are going to do,” he went on. “When we leave here, we will drive to a garage in Istanbul. Our bags will be in the trunk of the Lincoln. At the garage, Mr. Miller, Mr. Fischer, you, and I will get out of the Lincoln and into a different car, which