From across the street, Sigerson observed the front of Jamal’s house. Forty-five minutes had passed since they had left Fairuza’s house. They had hurried to the government building where Jamal was employed and while Sigerson had waited in the shadowed alley opposite, Zeki had called upon Jamal.
He had reemerged, troubled and alone, for a quick conversation with the clerk manning the front desk had revealed that Jamal had already left the building.
They had immediately worked their way through the back streets to Jamal’s residence and carefully quartered the surrounding roads for signs of the black Imperial vehicles that would tell them the Germans had arrived before them. The roads were empty and innocent and Zeki’s knock on Jamal’s front door had elicited no response.
So they had found a discreet place across the way to observe the front door and wait for Jamal’s return.
“The clerk said he left the office immediately after receiving a telephone call,” Zeki ventured now, still puzzling over the events.
“But he did not know who it was that telephoned Jamal,” Holmes reiterated.
“No.” Zeki licked his lips. “I cannot think who it might be that could call him and cause him to abandon his post without word or notice.”
“Given Fairuza’s abrupt and unexpected detainment, Zeki, I fear you are right to worry. The telephone call Jamal received must have a connection to that event.”
“He should have reached home long before now.”
“Yet there is no sign of his arrival.”
“His wife—”
“He is married?” Sigerson asked abruptly.
“Yes.”
“Children?”
“Three, I believe.”
Sigerson was silent for a moment. “You choose your recruits in a cavalier fashion.” The criticism in his tone was clear and unmistakable.
The reproach stung. “He volunteered. He insisted, despite my refusal.”
“That did not raise a question in your mind?”
“Of course. But I knew him, once. Long before.”
“Ah. Then he must be one of those relentless Young Turks. You would have found many sympathetic ears among them.”
“That is true but I was careful. Their ranks were penetrated by the old guard long before the war broke out. The old ones…their sympathies run along a different path.”
Sigerson took three steps across the rough pavement, turned and walked back. He appeared to be thinking, for his head was lowered and his hands were behind his back.
“The timing of the telephone call, Zeki…it worries me. I fear—”
At that moment a muffled revolver shot sounded, from the house across the street.
Sigerson whirled to face the building.
“Did Fairuza have a telephone in her building, Zeki? Quickly!”
Zeki frowned, trying to recall the three occasions he had been to Fairuza’s home. “Yes, I think…in the hall.”
At that moment, the breathless, still afternoon air was punctuated by a scream, so laden with despair and pain that the skin at the back of Zeki’s neck rippled and tightened.
Sigerson swore. “We are too late,” he said. He dashed across the deserted street and shouldered his way through the door and into the house.
Zeki was only paces behind and when he entered the house he saw Sigerson stepping into one of the front rooms, from where the sound of intense sobbing could be heard.
Zeki approached the doorway reluctantly, for the scream he had heard and the gasping, pitiful cries he listened to now told him a tragedy had occurred—one he was reluctant to observe. The helpless sobs tightened his stomach.
Sigerson had halted just inside the doorway. In front of him, splayed out across the carpet lay a man’s legs encased in neat pinstriping. A revolver rested close by one shining shoe.
A dark-eyed woman with olive skin sat cradling the remains of the man’s head, rocking to herself, expressing her grief with undulating cries. She did not appear to notice the men standing at the door, or the blood and matter that covered her hands and clothing.
“Zeki?” Sigerson asked softly.
Zeki knew what he wanted. “Yes, that was Jamal.”
Behind them, voices expressed queries, concern. Shuffling steps approach the doorway.
“We cannot afford to linger,” Sigerson murmured. “Von Stein will be here any minute.” He turned away.
* * * * *
“You did not find this place by accident, did you?” Zeki asked, his voice emerging from between his knees.
The place he referred to was their dubious shelter. Night had fallen shortly before but the shadows were long by the time Holmes had led Zeki into the abandoned palace overlooking the Bosphorus. They had camped in a big room, with high arched ceilings and wide double doors all along one wall. The floor was littered with rubble and the cooking fires of previous short-term tenants. Discarded items of clothing and rubbish lay everywhere on the floor.
Holmes remembered a more graceful state of affairs here. The palace had seen better days.
They had the room to themselves that night, although numerous piles of cold cinders told him that this was not always so.
Holmes had wrenched one of the remaining doors off its hinges and broken it up for firewood. Now a small fire burned between them, while Zeki sat with his back against the wall, his knees pulled up tight against him and his arms wrapped around his legs.
“You did not search for this place. You led me straight here,” Zeki pointed out. “You’ve been here before.”
Holmes let his gaze rake across the arches of the ceiling and the crumbling walls once more. It was like rubbing an irritable tooth. “Yes, I’ve been here before,” he admitted.
Zeki shivered a little and clamped his legs tighter. “You know Constantinople.”
“A little.”
Zeki grinned, his dark eyes narrowing. “A lot,” he corrected. “You’ve lived in this city before, haven’t you?”
“More or less.”
“You lived here,” and Zeki’s gaze lifted to indicated the room they were in. “That’s why you knew exactly where to come.”
“This place was derelict even then,” Holmes answered and reached for his packet of cigarettes.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Holmes carefully lit his cigarette, concentrating on the task. Then he rearranged himself into a more comfortable position and studied the young man across the flames. “And what of you, Zeki?”
“Me?”
“My brother’s associate informed me you were a subject of the Ottoman Empire and a native of Constantinople. A fine young Turk. I was told you were willing to assist Britain’s efforts in the war as his Majesty’s government has shown sympathy toward your cause.”
“Your brother’s associate did not lie.”
“Not knowingly. But in fact, you are no more a native of Constantinople than I, are you?” His tone was pleasant.
Zeki’s eyes widened. “Effendi?” The Turkish title of respect sounded unforced.
“If you had grown up in this city, you should know the streets intimately. Yet twice this morning when we were making our way to Fairuza’s you could not name the compass bearing we were heading in until you had checked the sun—yes, boy, I saw your quick sighting look.”
“I was rolling my eyes with exasperation! You were driving me mad!”
“You covered it up almost perfectly, I give you that. You are extremely skilled at dissembling, but I am better. I’ve spent a lifetime exposing the truth. I have seen all its guises, and I know you did not know the way about the streets this morning.”
Zeki shook his head, his curly hair dancing. The riotous curls were part of his camouflage. They gave him an innocent air that made him appear even younger than he was. “It is true—I did not know where I was this morning but that does not mean it is all a lie! Constantinople is a great city. A big city! I do not know every square and fountain, not even every mosque! It is impossible to know a city in that way. Do you know London…every single cobblestone of London?”
“Almost. Enough to know I would not have been bewildered this morning had we been in London. I have made it my task to know every cobblestone. We are in Constantinople, however. Yet I was not lost even here and my familiarity with this city comes from six short weeks, over twenty-five years ago.”
Zeki licked his lips. “You confused me with all your questions and demands….”
“Granted, everything you say might be true, although I doubt it. You are a quick thinker, Zeki, or you would not have survived so long in such a demanding role. But that does not explain the photograph.”
“The…”
“There was a photograph on your windowsill. I moved it last night when I checked the catch and I spent some time studying it from the table while you were writing your list. The people in it…they are your mother and sister.”
Zeki’s mouth opened a little, as did his eyes.
“Your room has no personal touches in it anywhere. You have quite properly arranged things so that you might abandon everything in that room at a moment’s notice, save for the photograph. You were irritated when I brushed it aside so callously. Your irritation told me the photograph has some personal value to you. You are too young and too adventurous to have already married, therefore the women in the picture are most likely your sister and the older woman your mother.”
Holmes leaned over the flame and extracted a burning splinter, which he used to light another cigarette, before continuing.
“It is quite a picturesque background too. A holiday, was it? The sea behind them looked most inviting…all that sunny sparkle.”
Zeki’s eyes narrowed and this time there was no smile to accompany it. “I do not understand.”
“Come, it is simple enough! They are your sister and mother, yes?”
“Yes.”
“The men in the background are wearing multicolor cummerbunds and loose shirts. And your family stands in front of a sea which sparkles in the sun.”
“I suppose…yes.”
“You have stared at that photograph innumerable times. What else is on the sea besides sunlight?”
“I-I do not recall.”
“There is a boat. Toward the horizon and almost out of the frame but you can clearly see the fisherman on it casting his net. Fishermen cast their nets early in the morning. The ground behind your mother and sister is shadowed by their long silhouettes. Morning, with the sun on the sea. A sun that is obviously behind the camera operator. Was that you, Zeki? A box Brownie, perhaps?”
Zeki shook his head a little, his mouth opening as if he were about to speak but nothing emerged.
“I see I shall have to complete the picture for you. You were standing with your back to the sun, boy. You were facing the sea. A western sea. The western seas near here are either the Sea of Marmara, the Mediterranean, or the Black Sea that laps upon the shores of Georgia. It can’t be the Mediterranean, or the men would be wearing dishdashahs and the boat would have a triangular sail. Neither are the men Turks, as they would be if that were the Sea of Marmara. It is the Black Sea. Your family and you, Zeki, are either Georgian or Armenian.”
Holmes lifted the revolver in his hand to point it at Zeki across the flames and cocked it. “You are not who you say you are.”
Zeki sat motionless for a silent, strained moment, staring at the gun. He had grown pale.
“Someone told the Germans where to find Fairuza. It could not have been Jamal as his fear of them was so great he killed himself rather than face their retribution. It was not I. It could have been you, Zeki. You are posing as someone you are not. How deep that double identity reaches remains to be seen.”
Zeki leapt to his feet, cinders crunching beneath his shoes, spun to face away from the fire and sprinted for the solitary external door, at the far end of the room.
Holmes watched until Zeki was halfway toward his destination before aiming and firing the revolver. The bullet ricocheted off a large lump of masonry barely a foot in front of Zeki’s position, leaving a long white scar on the rough face. Chips and powder flew into the air and Zeki threw his arms up in front of his face, protecting it. He came to a sliding halt on the pebble-strewn floor, a gasping exhalation his only expression.
“I’ve picked out smaller targets than that rock from twice the distance. A target the size of your head will present me with no problems at all.” Holmes spoke calmly.
Zeki remained very still, his back turned and his arms still raised.
“If it was you who betrayed those agents, Zeki, do not expect the slightest leniency from me, for your betrayal may have cost my brother his life. I warn you.”
Zeki lowered his arms very slowly and the slightest murmur came from him.
“What?”
“They’re all dead!” he cried, turning to face Holmes. “They’re dead, all of them. Do you not understand?”
“Your family?”
“They took them away. Put them in trucks. Too many. Too many of them.”
“They?”
“I was hiding, you see. I was scared… I didn’t want to go. I watched them put Mama and Karli into the truck. They pushed them in, even though there was no room. They were screaming. Karli was afraid. Even my mother was afraid. I knew if my mother was afraid then it was very, very bad and that’s why I hid. I didn’t want to face what scared my mama…”
Startlingly, tears appeared on his cheeks and slid quickly down to his chin.
Holmes lowered the revolver, de-cocking it. “You speak of the Mehmedchiks?” he asked quietly.
Zeki wiped his cheeks with two violent swipes of his hand. “I tried to find them, afterward. They were driven to a staging post. Then they walked. To the camps in Syria.” He was staring at the flames of the fire, speaking to himself. “I followed them, always too far behind. There were bodies on the way. Graves, markers and sometimes no grave at all. There were children and old people and further on, even young ones. Whatever territory they marched through, there was an enemy that swooped on them. Kurds, Syrians, Bedouins…all of them encouraged by the Turkish pigs!”
Holmes put the gun on the floor beside him. “Sit down,” he ordered gently.
Zeki shuffled toward the fire and sat down heavily. He sniffed.
“You are Armenian.” It was not a question.
Zeki nodded. His eyes were glazed, their focus turned inward, upon memories.
“The Turks forced your people from your homeland, to the camps in Syria and killed so many of them. That is why you serve Britain?”
Zeki was still staring at the flames and after a moment of contemplation he shook his head. “I serve Britain because Britain fights the Turks and this is the only way I know how to fight them too. I fight for my mother. For Karli. Because I was afraid that day and did not fight for them then.” He glanced quickly at Holmes, then dropped his chin and gazed at his knees. Shame oozed from his rounded shoulders.
The silence between them grew and stretched, emphasized by the crackle of the little fire.
“Were you aware that Fairuza and Jamal knew each other?” Holmes asked at last.
Zeki’s head came up. His eyes began to gleam. “They could not have. I did not let any of them meet each other. Ever.”
“They both grew up in this city, did they not?”
“Yes but even if they knew each other from before, they could not have known their secret was one they shared.”
“Those who make the best agents have an innate ability to thoroughly understand people. Perhaps they met one day and in the course of conversation, Fairuza learned enough to suspect Jamal. If Jamal was a true friend, then suspicion would be enough. When Fairuza had the chance, she took it and telephoned Jamal to warn him. It did not matter if her suspicions were correct. She had no need for Jamal to confirm them.”
Zeki huddled closer to the fire, obviously feeling the cool night air more than Holmes, who had come from the depths of an English winter. “If Fairuza had been free long enough to make a phone call, then she might have used that moment to escape.”
“Indeed. She sacrificed the chance to warn another, then fought her captors every step of the way to delay their pursuit of Jamal.” Holmes dropped another handful of timber scraps on the fire and it sparked and spat back. “You chose well, when you chose Fairuza. She is apparently a quick-thinking woman of rare courage.”
“Allah be with her,” Zeki murmured. He stirred and shifted, glancing at Holmes. “Who betrayed us, if it was not Fairuza or Jamal? There is no one else.”
Holmes threw the last of his cigarette into the fire and sat up. “There is one other possibility. I had to eliminate all the other alternatives before I could afford to settle my attention upon this last one, for it will be no easy task to unearth him.”
“Who is he? I’ll slit his throat myself!”
“Peace, Zeki. Your task in this arena is best served by a clear mind, not one fouled with strong emotions.”
Zeki scowled. “Fairuza was a friend of mine too.”
“You will serve your friendship with her better if you remain calm.” Holmes stared at the young man until he shrugged and rested his chin on his knees, staring into the fire.
“I believe the fresh light of morning will be a better time to talk of the man we seek,” Holmes said. He let his gaze wander over the ruins picked out in soft moving light and shadows. “We’ll let the night draw between us and memories.”
Zeki shivered again. “As long as I survive the night,” he muttered.
* * * * *
Somewhere in the long hours that followed Zeki fell asleep, although he was only aware of the accomplishment when he roused and felt the roughness of stone beneath his flank. The fire still crackled in front of him and he was aware of extra warmth over his shoulders. There was an aroma that came with it, that his sleep-clouded mind took a moment to identify.
It was tobacco smoke. Specifically, Black Russians.
He blinked a little, then heard the quiet sound of a footstep, crunching in masonry debris and cinders.
It was possibly this sound which had woken him.
He moved his head slowly, in small movements that would not draw attention, until he could see beyond the fire.
The far one third of the long room was a series of tall, floor to ceiling arched windows, separated by elegant columns. Any glass in them had long since been broken or fallen foul of the elements. Beyond them was a narrow terrace that overlooked the Bosphorus but was made private by a filigree screen carved from stone. A little starlight and what remained of the moon shone through the intricate screen, enough to show Zeki Sigerson’s silhouette.
The older man stood in the frame of a window, leaning against it. The light showed he was without his jacket but he did not seem to mind the cold. The small breeze that drifted from the river brought with it the smells and sounds of Constantinople late at night, unnaturally hushed by the contingencies of war.
After a moment, Sigerson’s head dropped, bringing his gaze to his feet.
The pose was unnaturally still and Zeki shut his eyes, uncomfortably aware that he was witnessing a deeply private moment, one he knew Sigerson would not want to share.
He settled his head back on his bent arm and composed himself for sleep.
* * * * *
The next morning Holmes prodded Zeki awake and they breakfasted on the contents of Holmes’ hip-flask, which warmed them even though it did little to ease their hunger.
They brushed the dirt of an uneasy night from their clothing, then climbed out of the ruined palace to mingle with the stream of pedestrians heading for Galata, the commercial district of the city. Holmes took the lead.
The dawning day was bright and sunny but cool, for winter held the city in its grip. As they walked, the pair exchanged a few comments in Turkish, to all appearances another pair of clerks on their way to their appointed positions for the day.
Eventually Holmes murmured to Zeki in Arabic, “The building on your right—across the road. That is our destination.”
Zeki glanced casually at the low, one-story building, a disinterested pedestrian.
“The Oriental Export Company? It seems too innocent a place to hide the one we look for.” There were too many people in the city who spoke Arabic for them to risk speaking in plainer terms and perhaps being overheard.
“It is undoubtedly the place to begin our search,” Holmes assured him. He crossed the busy road and turned the corner, then moved along the side street.
“You promised an explanation,” Zeki pointed out.
“And you shall have it, young Zeki. But I prefer to give such explanation when we are away from casual eavesdroppers. We shall be in that position very soon.”
He was glancing up at the buildings beside him as he walked. Finally, he nodded in satisfaction. “Yes, it is manageable. A few fences to scale and roofs to cross and we will be there.”
Accordingly, several minutes later, they stood in a squalid yard enclosed on all sides by the solidly built rear elevations of shops and office buildings. It had taken the scaling of precisely two fences and one roof to reach this place. This was a busy, successful area but the owners of the commercial ventures poured their resources into appearances on the main streets. The rear of the buildings were forgotten and decrepit.
A small corner of one dark brick building jutted into the yard. Barely five paces of wall emerged from the buildings on either side but one of the walls was interrupted by a window. The window was opaque—possibly painted white on the reverse side. Thick iron bars protected it and they were secured with a good, strong padlock threaded through steel eyelets, facing the window.
Holmes reached through the bars and gave the padlock an experimental tug, while studying the bars and window.
“This is the back of the export company building?” Zeki asked.
“It is,” Holmes confirmed, reaching into an inner pocket. He withdrew a small, soft leather wallet and extracted two thin, oddly hooked probes.
“We are breaking in?” Zeki asked.
“It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?”
“Observing the shop front from a distance would not be sufficient? Your agent will presumably visit these premises sooner or later, would he not? Isn’t that why we’re here?”
“I don’t know the answer to that yet. Observation will not be sufficient. I’ll explain once we’re inside.”
While Zeki watched, absorbed, he pushed the probes carefully into the keyhole of the padlock and delicately twisted them.
“For a man like you, you have some strange skills, Effendi,” Zeki said in an undertone.
“Skills a younger man acquired, eons ago.” Holmes twisted his wrist and the padlock clicked and the clasp sprung open. “But they serve this particular man quite well,” he added, pulling the hasp away and swinging the bars aside.
He pressed against the frame of the sash window and stepped back, examining it. Then he rested his ear against the glass for long moments. “Silent,” he declared. “And quite empty, I believe.”
“Is there a wired alarm?” Zeki whispered.
“It would seem improbable when the window bears such strong bars…but a good long knife will soon tell us one way or the other.”
Zeki reached into his trouser pocket but Holmes was already reaching under his own jacket, behind his back. There was a quiet snick and he withdrew a glittering knife with a long, curved blade.
Zeki’s eyes widened. He watched as Holmes probed between the top and bottom frames of the window with the point. When the knife’s progress was halted a little more than a third of the way across the width of the window, Holmes nodded.
“Yes, there’s a wire,” he confirmed, then took a better grip on the knife and forced it down and sideways with a sharp, hard push. “But it no longer presents a problem,” he added. He pulled the knife out and hid it away beneath his jacket and glanced at Zeki. “Do you doubt now that this place is as innocent of purpose as you proposed? Bars on a window one can explain away but bars and an alarm? That is overly cautious even for this district and these times.”
“Are you ever wrong, Mr. Sigerson?” Zeki asked.
Holmes smiled. “More often than I can comfortably confess.” He pushed the bottom window up a little, bent to peer inside, then pushed it up fully and indicated Zeki should climb in.
Holmes eased his way in after the agile man and found Zeki standing barely two paces away, stock still, with his eyes closed, breathing deeply. His face held an expression of pure bliss.
Zeki stood in a narrow corridor of a large, high ceilinged room. On either side of him were rows of bags, bundles, boxes and other anonymous packages. Most had writing stenciled on them, in a variety of languages. Holmes could see Arabic script, Farsi, English, French and German from his position by the window. There was very little Turkish script to be seen.
“Imports,” Holmes murmured.
The packaging was anonymous but the pungent aromas that flooded the room told a far better tale. There was the unmistakable miasma of spices and herbs and unidentifiable scents that spoke of exotic substances.
“Food!” Zeki breathed, swallowing.
Holmes slid the window shut and refastened it. He walked to the end of the narrow corridor and looked around the corner. Another glass-fronted door stood at the end and as Holmes looked, the shadow of a passerby crossed the frosted glass. Holmes moved to the door and tested the handle. It was locked. On the other side, letters were painted across it and after mentally reversing the letters, Holmes made out the word Ambar. In Turkish, it meant storeroom, or warehouse.
He went back to Zeki and found him sitting cross-legged on the bare floorboards, a package of dried figs in his hands. It had been ripped open and he was busy chewing on some of the contents, with the joy of a hungry child.
“You add theft to a tally that already lists breaking and entering?” Holmes whispered.
“I am hungry!” Zeki protested, his words distorted by the mouthful of fig. He chewed some more and swallowed mightily. “There are some sultanas there too!”
Holmes glanced at the gaping wound in the side of a carton sitting atop a tea chest. The script on the side bespoke Italian origin.
“Thank you but I prefer more civilized dining,” Holmes replied.
Zeki burrowed back into the packet in his lap. “Then tell me why we are here,” he suggested, selecting another fat fig and biting into it with overt relish.
Holmes lifted his left forearm and slid the cuff back to display a bare wrist. He frowned and lowered the arm. “I believe we can spare a few minutes and I promised you an explanation. We’re unlikely to be interrupted in here, as the door is locked—and we would have plenty of warning. Very well.” He lifted the broken box of dried fruit aside and settled himself on the tea chest.
“I had very little time in London to investigate the man I now seek but Mycroft had long ago researched and documented all the information to be had about him. This information was given to me by Mycroft’s superior just before I left London.”
“You have it here?”
“It is prudent when posing as a Turk to not walk around with documentation on English agents in one’s pockets. The information is safely tucked away somewhere else. Its authenticity you will have to accept as established.”
Zeki nodded. “And the man’s name?”
“I don’t know.” Holmes rapped the tea chest with a quick little tattoo. “A cigarette would not go astray just now but it would quickly lead to our detection, I fear. Alas….” He took a deep breath. “This man with no name has been feeding Mycroft information about the Ottoman Empire since before the war. Troop movements, German strategies and personnel, Turk policies, underground political movements…all excellent information.”
“Mr. Mycroft took such information from a man with no name who he had never met?”
“Not at first. The initial package arrived in early 1913. It had been sent by penny post—just as all information packages since then have arrived. It was addressed to Mycroft personally, which was somewhat alarming, for Mycroft’s position within the government hierarchy is not commonly known. The information itself was a treatise of the political and military positions of the Ottoman Empire and the German interests in those parts. It included biographies of key people and their weaknesses and strengths. The thing was a useful resource in its own right. After careful verification of some fifty or so facts in the document, it was assumed the balance was reliable and the document became a key element in British war plans. However, the anonymous donor was still suspect.”
“Then more packages arrived?”
“Yes. A steady, regular flow of them. None of them were as comprehensive as that first package. But all of them were rich in data that Mycroft could use and pass on and upward.”
“Did he?”
“Reluctantly, at first. But as his own circle of agents—your group, Zeki—grew and began to supply an alternative source Mycroft could use for verification, he did begin to rely upon it.”
“Then why do you believe this agent was responsible for the attack upon Mr. Mycroft?”
“Mycroft himself came to believe the information was suspect. All your agents were supplying information which, between them, was verified. The faceless agent’s data was just a little bit too different. It wasn’t enough to cause alarm until an unknown person attempted to murder Mycroft.”
“Why would the agent want to do that? It would tip his hand.”
“I’m not sure of the motive yet but Mycroft was meeting your Ottoman courier the night he was assaulted. Perhaps the courier had facts that pointed conclusively to the faceless one’s duplicity. The messages the courier should have been carrying were taken and Mycroft didn’t have them. Perhaps the rogue agent wanted to learn the identities of those agents you had left. It’s a curious coincidence that quite soon after Mycroft’s attack, the remaining agents in your group are removed from the chessboard.” Holmes shrugged. “It doesn’t matter right now why he did it, only that he did do it and might do it again.”
“Why do you believe that?” Zeki licked his fingers a little. “There is nothing there that says he will try again.”
“There is nothing to assure me he will not. The rogue arranged the attack on Mycroft, then finished off the courier too. Since my arrival here in Constantinople he has seen to the complete disintegration of your entire network. Yesterday we established that the culprit was not part of your group and last night I was fully satisfied that it was not you. There is no one else we know of. The rogue agent is the last possibility.”
Zeki waved his hand around the room. “And he is here? Why here?”
“The letters sent by penny post would normally be a perfect means of cutting off any trace back to the source. Mycroft, however, is crafty and had the full resources of his Majesty’s government at his disposal. The letters were traced back to a company in London. Yet the paper and ink, as well as the contents, point toward a Middle East origin. Therefore there is some sort of channel between the London company and the Middle East. The connection was not hard to find. The company, by name, is the British Occidental Export Company, established 1908 and doing a respectable business. They have branches in Alexandria, Constantinople and Bahrain, with constant shipping and transport from the Middle East. The war has only slowed the pace of their commerce.”
“And the Constantinople branch?”
“The address was this very building, Zeki. I memorized it before I stepped off the ship at Gaza.”
“But this isn’t that British company you named. It was…” Zeki frowned, obviously stretching to recall the name.
“The Oriental Export company. As opposed to the British Occidental Export company. The names are not dissimilar. And a company with obvious British connections would find trade difficult to come by here. A minor change of name would be prudent. And one cannot dispute the address, Zeki. The British company lists this address as their Constantinople branch.”
“That means the agent, whoever he is, sends the information to the British company from this company.” Zeki frowned. “Then he must have some sort of connection with this company. A stranger, even a regular customer, wouldn’t be given such a regular, reliable channel of communication.”
“Well done, Zeki. This very point was proven by Mycroft’s investigators two years ago. They learned that regular packages addressed to the manager were shipped to the London company along with other exports. When the manager of the London company received such packages and opened them to discover another sealed package addressed to a Mycroft Holmes, he was to purchase postage for the package and post it. There has been a succession of three managers in that company since the information has been arriving upon Mycroft’s doorway but always, the orders are obeyed.”
“Orders?” Zeki said sharply.
“Yes. Orders that have been in place since before the war. The original managers who would have put the orders in place have long since departed for overseas postings. With the outbreak of war, investigation in Constantinople itself—the next logical link—became impossible. For reasons of prudence and security it was decided not to call you in to investigate on Mycroft’s behalf. As the anonymous agent was theoretically a friend, not a foe, the investigation was dropped at that point and Mycroft’s people reverted to accepting the agent’s facts at face value.” Holmes pursed his lips, as if suppressing a strong reaction.
“But now we investigate? Now my people have been sacrificed?”
“Your people…and my brother,” Holmes said softly.
Zeki pushed the packet of figs aside and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He got to his feet. “I am ready.”