The Devil She Knows - By Diane Whiteside Page 0,90

better gauge his greeters’ social rank.

But behind them rose the immense white marble block of Chiragan Palace, more dangerous to the unwary than the Tower of London. The etchings around its windows and doors seemed to writhe in the fitful light and pour water like demons grasping for his soul.

Two big brutes grabbed his arms and half threw him onto the terrace.

“I say, now!” he protested. “I’m a British diplomat.”

A boot on his neck ground his face into the tiled surface. More enormous ruffians pinned his legs and back against his attempts to rise.

He yelled again. Surely they wouldn’t treat a foreigner like one of their own ignorant heathen.

They rolled him over, two men on every limb and others on his torso. The indignity was more than any St. Arles had tolerated since Cromwell’s time.

“Release me, you filthy buggers!” He bucked, outrage washing away diplomatic platitudes.

A boot smashed into him, precisely between his legs.

Fiery pain ripped him apart, more crippling than anything he’d ever endured. Fierce as the worst agony he’d seen in a bed partner’s eyes before she died.

His scream came from the bottom of his soul. He tried to jackknife but the fiends held him still, even piled on more to hold him down.

When he could speak again, cold black eyes watched him above a gold-braided uniform, lit by an equally impassive golden moon.

“You will speak politely of my men, English,” the officer remarked, “or you will regret it. That is, if you are English.”

His accent was barely understandable.

St. Arles spat. “You fool—”

The officer kicked him in the ribs.

The pain wasn’t as foul as its predecessor. On the other hand, St. Arles was certain he had at least one broken bone.

He lay on the terrace, sweat streaming down his face, and stared up at a dozen foreign heathen. All of them were big, strong, and clearly ready to use their big knives on him.

For the first time in his life, terror crystallized his bones, not his bed partner’s.

“Why are you here, English?” the officer asked. “The truth please, or you will speak only to the torturer.”

“I was—” He stopped to wet his lips. He was a diplomat; where had the clever words fled to?

“Explanation, English.” The officer’s tone hardened.

“Visiting a lady.” Surely they wouldn’t ask him to produce her as his alibi.

“So you went swimming during a storm? Fully dressed? Here at Chiragan Palace, which is close to nobody’s home except the Sultan?” The Turk put one hand onto his sword hilt, a gesture echoed by all of his men.

All the water St. Arles had swallowed surged into molten poison inside his belly.

“Liar!” Another kick hurtled into St. Arles’ ribs. “You are only disguised as an Englishman.”

“No,” gasped St. Arles. How could he get a message to the Ambassador?—if the chap was even at home to receive one in time.

“You are a traitor who hopes to steal the former sultan and replace our glorious master.”

St. Arles stopped writhing and stared at his interrogator. How had the fellow guessed the plot? An instant later, he pulled the old diplomatic mask back on but the damage was done.

“So—you are a traitor! Guards, take him to the torturer. He will extract the truth.”

The brutes started to lift him up and St. Arles kicked out wildly. He could not let them interrogate him and discover the British network here in Constantinople.

His hand slipped free, then a leg. A wrestlers’ twist, learned on a Portsmouth dock, left them holding only his coat.

He raced for the terrace’s railing.

“Grab him!” shouted the officer.

Twice as many thugs leaped upon him this time and his head banged against the paving. He threw off some of them but more came until every inch of him was weighted down. His ribs slashed into his chest, a fiery reminder of past pain and future torment. Fiery stars blurred his sight.

“Take him away.”

Prayer was for weaklings. Instead, St. Arles offered them a golden bargain.

The senior Turk belted him in the side of the face and St. Arles’s teeth ripped free into the wind.

The last fresh air St. Arles ever breathed was tainted by the officer’s contempt.

From The Times of London, 10 May 1887:

We regret to announce the sudden death of the Earl of St. Arles at the shockingly young age of thirty-eight. His lordship had been visiting Constantinople in pursuit of his photographic hobby, a pastime he first embarked upon while commissioned into the Royal Navy. He was suddenly overtaken by a tropical disorder, sinking rapidly into a decline from which