Chapter 42
The spread laid out before Saffron was like something out of Elizabeth’s wildest dream. Her gastronomically inclined best friend would have devolved into drooling giddiness upon seeing the cart Kadriye rolled into the room just as the sun went down.
“What’s all this!” Saffron exclaimed, taking in the dishes laden with all manner of foods sweet and savory. The smells wafting off it were incredible.
Kadriye beamed at her. “A gift. Sir Randolph and Feldman efendi are not here. It must not go to waste.” She wrinkled her nose. “I learn these words very quick: not go to waste.”
Saffron laughed. “Sir Randolph is an economical employer?” When the maid quirked her brow in apparent confusion, she added, “He likes to save money?”
“Oh, yes. I think to work here will bring me good money, hard to find because I am Christian.” She brought out a chain from her collar to show a tiny cross.
“My family stay here after fire and war, but it is hard to find work. To be a maid here?” She shrugged.
“An easy job but not good money.” She gestured to the food again.
“They bring this for Feldman efendi, but he is away with Sir Randolph.”
“All this food was for Mr. Feldman?” She looked down at the tray, and nodded with understanding when she noticed the dolmas, which were identical to the ones she’d tried before. “This is from the same han, isn’t it? How kind to send him a special meal. But he had to leave?”
“He did not look sad to work more,” Kadriye said, looking dubious. “He is makine.”
Saffron puzzled over the word for only a moment before laughing. “A machine?”
Kadriya nodded. “He works very hard, very much. More than Sir Randolph.” Her smile was conspiring. “Feldman efendi reads all the papers, not Sir Randolph.”
“Ah.” Saffron took stock of the house, which was still and quiet about them. “I wish you would join me, Kadriye. As you said, it cannot go to waste, and I certainly can’t eat all this food.”
The young woman sent her another mischievous smile before darting to the door and closing it.
They ate companionably for some minutes, with Kadriye occasionally instructing Saffron in the correct method of eating certain foods and keeping one eye on Saffron’s plate and heaping more scoops of food upon it the moment any space was available, while eating bird-like bites of her own much more modest portions.
“Which han did you say this is this from?” Saffron asked. “I must go there.”
Kadriye grinned. “My mother says I must learn from the cook. She is the sister of my …” She paused, squinting up to the ceiling as if trying to work out the relationship, or perhaps how to explain it in English.
Eventually, she said, “My mother wants a marriage for me. If I make food like Bey efendi serves—”
The food turned to ashes in Saffron’s mouth. “This food comes from the han belonging to Bey efendi? Ali Fethi Bey?”
“You know the efendi?”
“No,” she said slowly, thinking. “But my husband …” Her mind whirled. “This is a very generous meal. Does the han often send Mr. Feldman meals like this?”
Kadriye jerked her chin up with a tutting sound. “I get the dolmas on Sunday. This is different.” She added with a sly smile, “Nice different.”
“Very nice different,” Saffron murmured, thinking. Was the food a bribe, perhaps? A very conveniently timed bribe, given what was happening with the dig and its missing artifacts. “Did they say why they wanted to give this food to Mr. Feldman?”
“I do not know. They brought it to the kitchen to give to him.”
“Just the food?”
Kadriye frowned. “There is a paper of …” She muttered under her breath in Turkish. “A paper for the money for the food.”
“A receipt.” It would be rare for a servant to be able to read, especially a female one, so Kadriye likely wouldn’t know what the receipt said, if it was, indeed, a receipt. But why would a gift come with a receipt? “May I see it? The receipt?”
With a frown, Kadriye hummed. “Why?”
“I’d like to know the English names for these foods.” She smiled. “I’d like to order them, should I go to the han.”
Kadriye hummed again, this time with understanding. “I get it.” She stood, tipped a curtsy, and hurried from the room, leaving the door ajar.
Those three inches of darkened hallway were a temptation Saffron found almost too powerful to deny.
It was a little too convenient, the timing of the food deliveries and Alexander’s reporting on Clark’s involvement in the smuggling operation with Bey.
In fact, Mr. Feldman had been present for every single conversation she’d had since entering this house.
If he’d been paying attention, as Saffron had been confident he had not been, that meant Mr. Feldman knew a good deal about Clark, the artifacts, Martin Neill’s murder, and the threat to the expedition’s continuation.
She could go to Mr. Feldman’s office and poke around. She could look for evidence of his own involvement, if he was working in cahoots with Clark and Bey. It was possible—
Kadriye slipped back into the room, paper in hand. She came up short and asked, “Is all well, hanim?”
“I’m not sure,” Saffron admitted, reaching for the paper with hands trembling with anticipation.
It drained away as swiftly as it came; the paper was not written in English. It wasn’t Turkish, either, however, but a series of numbers.
“A receipt,” she murmured, eyes dancing over the rows. It could mean anything. It could be an actual receipt—for what?—or it could be a code.
“Banks!” she exclaimed as the idea occurred to her. He’d spent a good part of their drive to the hammam describing to her his process of decoding ancient texts. Perhaps he could take a crack at these numbers. Or Nick, of course, who was a literal spy and must have had worked codes.
Hope made her a little giddy, even as the creeping realization of danger grew in her stomach. If Feldman was involved in the artifact smuggling …
A door closed somewhere within the house. Saffron flinched at the sound.
“It is only Feldman efendi,” Kadriye said soothingly. She stood and started clearing the mostly full dishes onto the tray. “I go now.”
The door flew open, banging against the wall. The tall form of Mr. Feldman stood in the door, looking a little wild. His appearance was in its usual tidy order, but his eyes were wide, his usually ruddy color pale.
“Mr. Feldman,” Saffron began cautiously, “whatever is the—”
There was a silver glint at his waist. A gun, pointed at Saffron.
Kadriye must have noticed it also, for she gasped and took a step away from the food tray.
He didn’t move but for his eyes, which darted from Saffron to Kadriye. Panic and frustration warred on his face. “Curse it,” he muttered. To Kadriye, he barked a string of words in Turkish that sounded at once punitive and pleading.
Color drained from Kadriye’s face. “Hayir. Feldman efendi, hayir. Please.”
“What’s happening?” Saffron asked, slowing rising to her feet.
Feldman looked back at her, raising the gun. “Stop there, Mrs. Ashton. Don’t make this harder than it must be.”
Saffron stopped moving but to raise her palms to him in clear surrender. “I don’t know what this is. What’s the matter? What do you want?”
“Eleven years,” Feldman said, almost exasperated.
“Eleven years, I’ve sat in this building, doing all the work of the consulate through wars and fires and a new bloody government and getting looked over for every opportunity to move up and out of this little hole.
Ten years, I’ve worked with Bey to move things out of the city.
We’d just gotten our system back together after all the damn wars, devil take it!
And there you and your damned husband are, mucking it all up again.
Ashton nabbed our man off the street in front of the han, right in front of the police officers tailing him, curse it! ”
And he had returned to the consulate when he’d thought it was empty to remove Saffron?
That could only be his motive in coming here with a weapon.
And if he was here to deal with Saffron, Alexander was also in danger.
Even now, Bey could be sending someone to find him and silence him, too.
Her fear was drowned out by a hot, irrational anger at the man before her.
“We haven’t mucked up anything,” Saffron snapped at Feldman.
“You’re the one stealing artifacts and breaking the law!
I’d barely had any idea of your involvement before you came in here waving a pistol around!
” The hot wave of anger crested and faded, leaving her regretting deeply shouting at the man with said pistol.
Feldman’s face hardened. “It’s only a matter of time. And I’ve no intention of being imprisoned in this country or my own.”
“So, you’re just going to kill two innocent women?” She couldn’t stop the incredulity in her voice.
Kadriye looked desperately between them, clearly struggling to keep up with what they were saying.
Saffron looked at her and said very clearly, “He wants to kill us. He works for Bey to steal things.”
Her lips rounded in surprise. Then, shocking Saffron and Feldman, her hands flew to her hips and she began to—Saffron could only guess—scold him. Her tone was harsh, her frown disappointed and angry all in one.
Feldman gaped at them both, and tried to get a word in. “Don’t be preposterous, I’m not going to—”
The louder Kadriye’s voice grew, the more agitated Feldman became.
His pallid face pinkened, and his mouth mashed into a frown.
But he wasn’t pointing the gun directly at either of them anymore, and Saffron needed to get it out of his hands.
Then she needed to find help, but who? If Mr. Feldman was involved with Bey, then Sir Randolph might be, too.
The police thought she was a murderer, and she had no means of getting in touch with Nick. She had to get to Alexander.
But the gun first.
Feldman had apparently had enough of Kadriye berating him. He argued with her, and Saffron momentarily wondered what, exactly, they were saying. Was Kadriye really berating him, or demanding she be let go?
Another possibility chilled her. The maid was the one who brought Feldman the food from the han. She could be in the employ of the smugglers just as easily and be just as dangerous. She shuddered to remember the last the time she’d underestimated such a woman.
Equally, Kadriye could be innocent and be purposefully distracting Feldman to allow Saffron to escape or knock the gun from his hands.
She would have to put her faith in the young woman who’d shown her kindness, and hope she could keep Feldman busy long enough to save them both.