A Dead Man in Athens by Michael Pearce Page A

means as well as you would expect given your initial position.’
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    Dr Metaxas sighed.
    ‘Take me, for instance. In my opinion the Sultan is suffering from an over-active and self-pitying imagination. I would expect to find him self-pitying away. And that is precisely what I have found. Whereas . . .’
    ‘Whereas?’
    ‘My colleague, Fahkri Bey, has perceived symptoms consistent with mild arsenic poisoning.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Yes. The trouble is, Fahkri Bey is, possibly alone among my colleagues, an experienced, competent physician.’
    ‘He could be right, you mean?’
    ‘We shall have to await the results of the tests.’
    ‘But, meanwhile, the Sultan’s life is not in danger?’
    ‘That depends on your initial position.’
    ‘Hmm.’
    ‘There is, though, common ground among us. We are all agreed on the need for continual close monitoring of the patient’s condition. We are all professionals,’ he said, carrying on down the corridor, ‘and we want to keep the money coming in,’ he said over his shoulder.
    ‘Your view?’ asked Abd-es-Salaam, as they sat in his dimly lit room.
    ‘I have not changed my view,’ said Seymour, ‘that this is merely the consequence of a trivial harem squabble.’
    The Acting-Vizier nodded.
    ‘A stupid dispute between silly women. I think I understand you. You see a dead cat and you think: this is silly, I should not be spending time on this. You wonder what you are doing here.’
    ‘More or less, yes.’
    ‘Despite what happened this morning?’
    ‘If anything happened this morning.’
    Abd-es-Salaam nodded again.
    ‘I have, I must admit, sometimes been tempted to share your view. I have sometimes wondered if the Sultan’s stomach cramps are merely a physical expression of his natural fears and anxieties. I put this to Fahkri Bey, and he said he had sometimes wondered this too. But not this morning. He thinks the pains are real and caused by the ingestion of a noxious substance. The symptoms, he said, are consistent with mild arsenic poisoning.’
    ‘If that proves to be the case then my view will naturally be affected.’
    ‘Of course, if may be partly right. It may well be a harem matter. Only not a trivial one, not the issue of a silly dispute between foolish women, but something far graver.
    ‘You see,’ he went on, ‘I see it differently from you. I see a man surrounded, an animal at bay. Imagine a man with power, nearly absolute power. And then suddenly it is snatched away. He feels naked, vulnerable. And this is not just imagination. He really is in danger. In his time wielding power he will inevitably have made enemies. Now is their chance to be revenged. My job is to protect him from them.
    ‘But that is just my first job. My second is to protect him from a different kind of enemy. Do you play chess, Mr Seymour? Imagine a king who has become a pawn. He is now a piece that others can play with, fit to their designs. Possibly take. The Balkans are a turbulent world and there are many players and different designs. And many of these designs involve His Highness.
    ‘So I see a man surrounded. I see a man in the middle of a ring of enemies each of whom may wish to kill him. Well, of course, I am not alone in seeing this and there are other people, some with great power, who, for their own reasons, do not wish to see him killed. They try to guard him, and, of course, I try to guard him too.
    ‘The attack from without, I think I and my allies can guard him from. But an attack from within is a different matter.
    ‘And now, perhaps, you can see why a dead cat may be important. It may mean that an enemy has got behind the defences.
    ‘So I do not dismiss the cat as silly: and I hope, Mr Seymour, that you will not do so either. And you may be right –I think you are – that this is a harem matter. But wrong in thinking that this is just a question of a silly dispute between foolish women. They, too, may be pawns in a much bigger game.’
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