Jason Goodwin - The snake stone

Yashim was about to lift the box to the desk when a sound from the corridor-light footsteps, perhaps, and a peculiar swishing noise-made him freeze. He was about to turn around when he heard the door click and the sound of a key turning in the lock.

He sprang for the handle. At the last moment he decided against rattling the handle and knocked on the wooden panel, instead: if the servant had returned, he might think the doctor had absentmindedly left the door ajar. But no one came. Yashim knocked again, much louder.

There were no sounds of retreating footsteps; he had certainly not heard the front door open or close. He pressed his ear to the panel. For a moment he had a sense that somebody was standing on the other side of the door.

He looked around the room. The window was hung with muslin curtains, against the street, and barred like the windows at the back of the house. He looked at the empty grate and sighed. Everything that made this room in Pera solid and English made it also a perfect prison.

He crouched down, with a faint hope that he might be able to retrieve the key from the keyhole on the other side. But the key was no longer in the lock.

Whoever had locked the door had done so deliberately, knowing that Yashim was inside.

The idea made Yashim frown. He went back and squatted down by the bookshelves, from where Millingen’s desk almost hid him from the door. To see him, someone would have had to lean in at the door. They would have had to approach along the corridor very quietly-as if they already knew he was there.

In which case, someone must have seen him going in. Not Millingen: he had gone out. But the servant-could he have doubled back while Yashim was coming through the coal chute?

But then-why wait so long to lock the door?

Yashim bit his lip. He lifted the box of papers onto the desk and bent over it.

He’d come to do a job, and now, it seemed, he was being afforded the leisure to complete it.

Several hours passed before Yashim, sitting in the doctor’s chair, heard the sound of the doctor coming back.

The manservant had returned long before, making his way noisily down the passage to the back of the house. He had let the servant go by: he wanted to see Millingen, after all. He closed his eyes and set about concocting an imaginary supper.

In his mind’s eye he had already set the meze down when he heard the sound of the key grating in the lock and Dr. Millingen came in, holding his hat like a tray. He was followed by the manservant, scowling fiercely.

“You!”

Yashim slid out of the chair and bowed.

Millingen glared at the box on the table. “This is an outrage!” He said. “I am a doctor. My practice depends on the bond of confidentiality. This study is where I keep my patients’ notes.”

“But I’m not interested in your medical records, Dr. Millingen,” Yashim said.

“I suppose I must take your word for that! The assurances of a mere housebreaker.” Dr. Millingen sneered. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain what does interest you before I turn you over to the watch.”

“Of course, forgive me. I came here on account of your coin collection.”

“My coins? The devil you did.”

Yashim spread his hands in a calming gesture. “I admit that I have no particular interest in coins. But I am intrigued by the collecting process, Dr. Millingen. Your method of acquiring specimens. Malakian, for instance-you described him as an excellent source.”

Millingen put his hat on the desk and picked up the box. “What of it?”

“Malakian is here in Istanbul. Athens might be a better place to look, if your specialty is the coinage of the Morean despots. I imagine that hoards of these coins are discovered there, buried in the ground or hidden in old buildings, or whatever. Is that so?”

“It happens,” Millingen said. He glanced at the label on the box, and set it down slowly. “Mostly in my dreams.”

“I wondered-your Athenian friend, who sends you coins? You said he was a doctor. Perhaps you were at Missilonghi together?”

“I have made no secret of my presence at Missilonghi, Yashim efendi. Dr. Stephanitzes was a colleague.”

“Of course. Now he writes books. He’s a firm advocate of what the Greeks call the Great Idea, isn’t he? I was curious about your correspondence.”

“Well, well. I wasn’t aware that even in Turkey curiosity was a warrant for entering a man’s house and rifling his private papers.” Dr. Millingen’s expression hardened. “I suppose you will tell me what conclusions you were able to draw?”

“Very few-I merely confirmed some ideas of mine. That, for example, the traffic between you and Dr. Stephanitzes was not all one way. In return for his coins, you were able to put him in the way of expanding his own collection.”

“I see. Well, go on.”

Yashim reached forward and opened the lid of the box of papers.

“Here, in his most recent letter, Dr. Stephanitzes refers to a former member of the collectors’ club. You’ve mentioned him surfacing in Istanbul with a potentially devastating offer. Stephanitzes remembers him leaving the club without paying his dues.”

“That’s correct,” Millingen said. “Ours is a very small world.”

“Yes, isn’t it? Yashim said pleasantly. “Dr. Stephanitzes confesses to being highly interested in the former club member’s offer. A late Byzantine hoard-no, forgive me, the very last Byzantine hoard. But I expect you remember all that.

“He urges you to inspect the hoard personally. I’d say your Dr. Stephanitzes is a skeptic: he doesn’t seem to trust the ex-member very far. But if the hoard proves to be genuine, he thinks that it could be exchanged for a considerable collection of valuable Greek coinage.”

“But what of that, Yashim efendi?” Dr. Millingen took a pipe from the rack on his desk. He opened a drawer and scrabbled with his fingers for the tobacco. “It strikes me that you have had a very dull afternoon here. You, after all, are not a collector. What would you know of our curious passions? You’d be surprised by the jealousies and satisfactions we experience in our little world. The intensity of our feelings. Even the level of our mutual mistrust.”

He sat down and tamped the tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. “Malakian-through your good offices-completed the set for me. I was elated for a day or two. But now? Rather depressed. I think I shall donate the collection to the British Museum.”

Yashim cocked his head. “I’d rather you explained about Lefevre’s hoard,” he said.

Dr. Millingen leaned back in his chair and gave a chuckle. “Well, well.” He sucked on his unlit pipe. “You’ve guessed, then. I did see the unfortunate Dr. Lefevre. And yes, we discussed a hoard. Unfortunately I was never able to inspect it, as my friend advised, so I don’t suppose we will ever really know what it was he was offering to exchange. Poor fellow. He had so many irons in the fire.”

“Another buyer, maybe?”

“Yes, that, too.”

Yashim frowned. “But you and Stephanitzes, you could trump all buyers, couldn’t you? If you wanted what he offered badly enough.”

Millingen hesitated. “You are forgetting, Yashim efendi, that Lefevre was only offering an idea. A promise, if you will. Why would I trust him?”

“Because he’d been your friend.”

“Lefevre my friend? I never knew Lefevre.”

Yashim shrugged. “Strictly speaking, no. But you did know Meyer. The Swiss doctor at Missilonghi. You shared a cause.”

He expected Millingen to jump, but the Englishman merely reached for a match and frowned. “Meyer?” He struck the match and it flared between his fingers. “He was a Savoyard, in fact.”