Dear Millicent, I was somewhat taken aback this morning on entering the office to find Orhan Ahmet caressing our secretary Ayse Kiraç, who did not seem to be discouraging him. Perhaps I misunderstood the nature of the gesture. It is only three weeks since they met for the first time. Massaging her head to cure a toothache seems to be excessively familiar behavior, in an office context. I offered her a couple of painkillers, for which she thanked me. Orhan turns his hand to every task: telephonist, translator, waiter, negotiator, postman, typist, cleaner. Now he is both toothache-curer to Ayse and part time researcher for Mrs. Brown. He spent yesterday afternoon in the city offices looking for the marriage certificate and the death certificate of our landlord's mother. The Countess sent him on that errand. Why she did so, I have no idea; she now considers me too 'mundane' for confidences. Generally, one trusts a man to know whether his mother is alive or not and Mr. Muftu said that his mother was alive. The crazy thing is that Orhan did find Mrs. Muftu's death certificate. Why did Mr. Muftu claim that she was alive but 'never goes out'? And why did the Countess doubt this and start investigating. Orhan only told me about the business because he has to account to me for his timetable. I have warned him that tasks undertaken for the Countess should not be done on office time. Though he is diligent and dependable, he treats his duties lightly, almost as if he were playing a game. Walter's lack of gravitas results in skittishness on the part of his driver. I hope Colette doesn't exhume the landlord's mother in our residence. I have been reading in Edith Sitwell's English Eccentrics that in the eighteenth century Miss Beswick, a Manchester spinster, left her fortune to Dr. Charles White on condition that she should not be buried after what appeared to be her death and that he should pay her a visit every morning. She resided in his attic, embalmed, for nearly eighty years. There is no mummy in our attic. I checked. If there were, Colette would smell it out. If only she rested occasionally and gave the rest of us a rest.
Pierre, though devoted to her, is sometimes sufficiently exasperated to tell me of the latest contretemps. She commandeers what are admittedly her own supplies, when she considers that some poor family is in urgent need. This is no real problem when she confines her charity to hand outs from the store cupboard. One day last week, Pierre discoverd, just before the guests arrived, that four individual servings of Coquilles St. Jacques, intended for lunch, were missing. How could he serve scallops to nine guests and something else to the remaining three? (He always has at least one 'spare'.) The alternative was to serve melon to everyone, and his melons were not yet à point. Pierre downed tools. The Countess said that a self-respecting cook would allow more than one spare helping and why should the poor get only tinned salmon. If Pierre could not see reason, she would ask the local butcher to send up deep fried sheep's trotters for a first course.
The lunch was for a visiting Irish banker and a delegate from the Turkish Central Bank. We hope for joint financing of one of the Turko-Irish industrial projects that Walter is promoting. I was unaware of problems until Gül rang to ask me to mediate.
'Thaw something fishy, Gül, serve it in scallop shells, dressed to look like the others.'
'But we do not have shells,' she wailed. 'Shall I pipe pomme duchesse around saucers?'
I remembered the shells you picked up one evening on Sandymount Strand, Millicent, and gave me to use as ashtrays. I rushed them to the residence and they saved the day.
An inspector from the Society for Research into Psychic Phenomena is to come to the residence, next week, at Walter's request. It is a scientific society. Its reports, to date, would not encourage belief in the supernatural. Researchers have uncovered chicanery, self-delusion, occasional unexplained incidents but no evidence of genuine extra-sensory phenomena. I regret that I won't meet the representative. I'll be in Istanbul.
'You still think the noises are caused by subsidence?' I asked Walter.
'I'm afraid not,' he said grimly. 'I think I know what causes them, but I'd prefer to have someone else find out.'
'The shadow of a crime committed here in the past?'
'No, Denis. The only crime committed here will be committed in the future.'
It was lightly said but there was an incisive quality in his voice.
Millicent, I have just returned from Istanbul. I bought you a rug in the bazaar there. It a small, but genuine, hand-knotted woolen rug, in natural colours. The salesman assured me that it was made from 'live sheep'. Ayse says that sheared wool is considered livelier for carpets than wool salvaged from skins. So there you are; a handsome bedside mat which is still, in some dimension, trotting around the hills. Colette had given me a list of books she wanted from the 'Crusoe' bookshop on Istical Cadessi. I brought them to the residence this evening. She thanked me but seemed abstracted.
'Did the person from the Psychic Research Society come?' I asked Pierre when I brought him his spices from the bazaar.
'Yes.'
'What did he find?'
'Madame has not said.'
'Has anything happened since?'
'I served a cheese soufflé for lunch today and it was perfection.'
I couldn't face grammar this morning, so I brought Ayse for an early coffee instead. I have offered to help her with her English studies in return for her coaching in Turkish. She is studying the Portuguese Sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Walter called me into his office and shut the door. He looks pale and tired.
'I asked the Psychic Research man for an oral report, so there is nothing on file,' he said. 'He found an assortment of wires and pulleys, devices capable of creating the phenomena we witnessed.'
'Who was responsible?'
'Do you need to ask?'
'Why should she play ghost?'
'She embodies the restless, enquiring, playful, creative aspect of humanity. She is the eternal monkey, Pandora opening the box daily. She believed in a ghost to begin with, then began to play themes on the subject.'
'No,' I said instantly, instinctively. 'She might play ghost once or twice ... but to persist, to rig up and use elaborate devices over a period? She would have become bored within a week. She would have exploded the ghost publicly and gleefully.'
'The experience may have been addictive.'
'Did the inspector find evidence of any kind of psychic manifestation that could not be explained by the devices?'
'He didn't. How could he?'
'Did you question Orhan? He must have helped her. She is not mechanically minded.'
'Colette took complete responsibility. I didn't feel it to be appropriate, after that, to question Orhan.'
It is all very well for an Ambassador to be so nice in his behavior, Millicent, but a third secretary, who is responsible for the nuts and bolts of the system has to be more particular. I decided to interrogate Orhan.
'Mrs. Brown couldn't have initiated the business.' I reminded Walter. 'The Ambassador of Portugual claimed that the house was haunted. I myself felt a degree of psychic unease there. Mrs. Brown saw a figure, which did not exist, in the pool.'
'Colette believed that she was lending substance to a ghost, rather than creating one,' said Walter. 'She regrets the excessive disturbance during the recent dinner party. She planned a mild diversion as a conversation piece but overestimated the degree of force necessary. The failure of the lights was coincidental.'
I didn't know what to say.
'Don't worry, Denis. Colette is the fizz in the stagnant water of existence. Without her, champagne would be flat. She has undertaken to have a successful exorcism next week while I am away. I would take it kindly if you could attend.'
'Why not let the matter drop? If nothing further happens, people will forget the business.'
'If there is no resolution, we will be asked continually about our ghost. I think, Denis, that you should try for a mock-serious atmosphere. After all it was a relatively benign ghost and we don't want to bring bell, book and candle to exorcise it. A good supply champagne, music and some very good h
ors d'oeuvres...'
It is late as I write. I have unpleasant thoughts. The most definite result of the 'haunting' was to have the basement locked up from dusk until the Ambassador's early morning swim. The Countess, with the key to the side door in her pocket, would have a quiet and private place at her disposal. Until now I believed her sensuousness to be innocent. Now, I can see where and how she could translate flirtatious behaviour into something less innocent. The fat white sofa by the bar might have been a love nest. But was it Barbellini, or her cousin, or another who joined her there? If anyone did.
'Why did the Countess play ghosts?' I asked Pierre. 'She assisted the ghost to manifest itself from the very highest of motives,' Pierre assured me. Her confession to the Ambassador was, also, designed to deflect attention from something of transcendent importance. So Madame has told me.'
'Might she have created the ghost in order to keep the basement empty because she was meeting a lover there?'
'Madame is honourable. She might permit herself a modicum of physical expression with M. d'Aubine. He predates the Ambassador and will postdate him. But why precipitate matters for a little frisson? They are not children to sport in the hay.'
'Orhan helped her.'
'Orhan, when I spoke to him, told me to stick to cookery.'
At lunchtime I invited Orhan to join me in the local kebab shop. I asked him if he had helped to fake the ghost.
'How can I answer such a question, my friend?'
'I believe that you installed the apparatus that the inspector found.'
'Denis, don't take this the wrong way. I am much obliged to you and in any other matter I would take great pains to assist you, but on this topic I will speak only to the Ambassador or Mrs. Brown.'
I couldn't get anything more out of him.
The ghost, my dear Millicent, has been exorcised. The Countess invited me to the event. She said that business dress would be appropriate. Light refreshments would be served. I ask her if she really believed there was something to exorcise.
'But of course, Denis. There is always the Devil. Come early and get a good seat.'
I anticipated something in the nature of a brief religious ceremony, a general blessing of the house and its inhabitants, with no indiscreet references to recent happenings. I knew that Monsignor de Grace, the Papal Nuncio, could carry off the business with aplomb. He was present, but he did not seem aware that he was to officiate at a ceremony. The Imam of the local mosque arrived. So did a Methodist minister who is visiting relations in Ankara. The Countess had decided on a concelebrated ritual and required me to inform the celebrants accordingly.
I think I controlled the damage. They agreed with me that she had acted in innocence. All three would withdraw immediately and quietly, before they could be put on the spot. The Countess, when she saw her exorcists escape, felt that I could not have explained what she required of them.
'You will have to officiate yourself, Denis. You were an altar boy once, weren't you? I'll find you some holy water. An exorcism we must have, for Walter's sake.''Your spiritualist friend, Miss Steele, is here...'
The lady agreed. Colette relayed her instructions.
'Miss Steele says all guests must, please, sit in a circle and join hands. We must put out the light.'
There were nine of us.
'Denis, sit on my left. Colonel Barbellini, sit on my right.'
Pierre and Gül stood to attention by the side with brandy and glasses on a trolley, 'in case anyone is overcome.' Orhan stood in the doorway. I caught his eye. It twinkled. I frowned. Miss Steele twittered a little about her lack of experience, but was clearly delighted with her role. She told me afterwards that she was disappointed that the ministers of religion had been called away. She would have enjoyed co-operating with them. The Countess made a pious statement about peace between this world and the next. She held my right hand firmly. The Colonel held her right hand, pressed to his knees. Across the circle from us sat Angelina Barbellini, who had been placed between the medium and a friend of hers. I could feel Angelina's eyes sending darts of fire across the circle and wondered if she would remain seated if her hands had not been held firmly by two determined ladies.
The ghost responded to our minute of silent concentration with creaks and groans of the type that one associates with central heating pipes. Orhan was no longer to be seen. Some tinny plosive sounds came from near at hand. If you read Dorothy Sayers's account of Wimsey's Miss Climpson, as medium you will understand why I would have liked to run my hand along the Countess's inner leg. I am sure I would have found an empty tin box. A door banged below.
'I have done it,' cried the exorcist. 'You are free at last'
'Thank you,' said the Countess, blowing kisses in all directions.
The lights were switched on. Pierre raised the lids from dishes on the hostess trolley, releasing savoury smells. Colette invited Angelina to partake of refreshments. Angelina glared at her and stalked out. The Colonel stayed. I had to return to the office.
'So, our ghost is laid,' I said to Colette on my way out.
'Oh no,' she said. That was just for Walter's sake. The ghost is alive and well and living here still, Denis.' Truly, Millicent, she is impossible.
I'm just in from a Turkish/Austrian celebration of a joint archaeological venture in the Phrygian highlands. Walter invited me to join him and some others for supper in the Anatolia but I came home instead. I'm a bit hungry since I'm never sufficiently at ease at receptions to eat enough. Colette wasn't there. I think she had to go to a ladies' meeting about animal welfare. Félix d'Aubine put in a brief, late appearance in his capacity of local agent for an Austrian wine merchant. He was the tallest, portliest, most snazzily dressed man there. He stayed well away from Walter but cornered me to tell me that he loves W.B. Yeats. He recited a verse from 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' with Gallic élan and not much concern for accuracy, waving a chicken wing in time with the metre. I told him that I don't much like Yeats. He asked me to convey his regards to Colette, glanced at his watch – an ostentatious model – tut-tutted and began to move away.
'Seven thirty-five. I'll have to run. Isn't this archaeological co-operation exciting. Walter looks a bit peakish. He should get more exercise. Wonderful evening.'
The Barbellinis were there.