The Sultan's Tigers (3 page)

It must have worked, because Marko raised his price. “I'll give you fifteen hundred.”

“Two thousand euros or nothing.”

Marko thought for a moment. Then he nodded. “Fine. You got me. It's a deal. Where are they?”

“I don't know.”

“I thought you said . . . You little creep.” His hand reached for the knife.

“Wait.” I backed away, my arms up. “I'll find them.”

“You just said you don't know where they are.”

“I don't. But I'll find them.”

“How?”

“I'll search this house.”

“I don't believe this.”

His lip curled and I suddenly thought I'd made a terrible mistake, trying to play him. I backtracked as fast as I could. “You don't have to worry. I'm going to find them. I will. I promise.”

“You'd better.”

“I said I will.”

“Come on, then. Where are they?”

“Give me a minute. Let me think.”

“We don't have time for thinking. Just find them.”

I glanced at the knife, then Marko's face. If I actually gave him these documents, would he really pay me two thousand euros? Or would he grab what he wanted and stab me?

I didn't want to think about that now.

I just smiled and said, “Let's go this way.”

I remembered my grandfather. I thought about my uncle. I told myself:
This is the way to be a real Trelawney. I don't want to be the type of person who surrenders to fear. I'm not going to give up. I'm a Trelawney!
Sure, I was scared. Of course I was. This guy was probably planning to kill me. I just had to keep him talking, make him think I was going to give him the documents, and hope my folks hadn't ordered another bottle of wine to toast Grandpa's memory.

We did the living room first, then the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. Marko must have been through all that already, but he just stood back and watched me search again, opening drawers and cupboards, lifting carpets, tapping floorboards, hunting for hiding places. I could sense his eyes on me all the time.

We went upstairs to Grandpa's bedroom. Under the bed, I encountered three socks, a beer bottle, and an apple core so ancient that it crumbled into dust as I tried to pick it up, but no historical documents, nothing that could possibly be worth two thousand euros.

There were two more rooms on that floor and an attic above, accessed by a shaky metal ladder. We went through everything, even pulling up loose floorboards and checking the water tank.

We were walking downstairs again, heading for the garden and its mossy old shed, when I finally heard the noise that I'd been waiting for: a car pulling up outside. Marko hurried to the window. A second car was parking behind the first.

Marko glanced at me.

For a moment I thought he was going to pull out the knife and shut me up permanently. Or would he kidnap me, force me to go with him? Instead he said, “I need those letters, Tom. You'd better find them. I'll be watching you.”

Then he was gone, running down the stairs and leaving the house through the back door.

A moment later there was
a knock at the door. I opened it. My brother and sister were standing there, looking smug and well fed.

“Hi, bro,” said Jack.

“Hi.”

“We brought you a doggy bag.” Grace held up something wrapped in silver foil. “We thought you must be hungry.”

“I've had lunch, thanks.”

“What did you have?”

“I found a can of soup.”

“Was it delicious?”

“It was OK.”

“Ours was delicious. I had smoked salmon, followed by lamb noisettes on a bed of creamed spinach, and a chocolate pudding for dessert.” Grace takes notes whenever she eats out. She wants to be a celebrity chef when she grows up.

“I had steak and fries,” said my little brother.

I got mugged by a guy with a knife
, I could have said. Instead, I thanked my sister for the doggy bag and scooted into the house before Mom and Dad arrived. I was surprised they hadn't commented on my appearance. Didn't I look like a guy who'd just been tied up, knocked over, and pushed around? Obviously I didn't. I must have looked like just my normal self.

Once I was safely inside the living room, I stood for a moment with my back against the door, waiting for my parents to come and bug me, but they must have decided to leave me alone. That was lucky. I needed some time to myself. I had to check out these historical documents, whatever they were. I wanted to know why they were worth two thousand euros.

As soon as Marko started talking about them, I knew where they would be hidden.

While he was interrogating me, I had tried to push the knowledge out of my mind, not wanting to give any sign that I'd solved his mystery for him.

We didn't visit Grandpa often. He lived three thousand miles away, but that wasn't why. We wouldn't have visited much even if he'd lived next door. He and Dad couldn't spend more than a few minutes in the same room without arguing. But we once came to Ireland on vacation and stopped for lunch in Grandpa's house. Mom, Dad, Grace, and Jack went for a walk in the afternoon, leaving me with Grandpa. He talked to me, telling me some stuff about his life and giving me several pieces of advice, which I'm sure were very useful, although unfortunately I can't remember a single thing he said. But one thing did lodge in my mind. He had shown me something that he called his treasure box.

Shelves filled the niches on either side of the fireplace. Most of them were crammed with all kinds of junk—old magazines, tangled wires, jam jars filled with nails, a stack of crappy DVDs—but two of the shelves were filled with books. I scanned the spines, running my eyes over the titles and the names of the authors. None of them meant anything to me. None of the books looked familiar. Had it gone? Had he moved it? Or was it there and I just couldn't remember what it was called?

Then I saw what I was looking for. A thick hardback, the creased leather spine embossed with faded gold letters:

 

Cornish Highways and Byways; a Description of Some Rambles Around Penzance, Land's End and Zennor, Incorporating Illustrations of Local Personalities and Wildlife by Edward Charles Trelawney

 

I pulled the book from its shelf and opened the front cover. The pages had been cut away, leaving a gap, a space, a place to keep valuables.

The day that I was last here, my grandfather had pointed it out on the shelf. He said, “Do you want to see a book written by one of your ancestors?”

When I pulled it down and opened it up, he started laughing. “You didn't really think a Trelawney had written a book, did you? Most of us can't even read.”

This was his secret hiding place. Then it had contained a wad of twenty-pound notes and a chunky gold necklace.

Now it was full of letters.

Two thousand euros' worth of old letters scrawled in faded ink on crinkly paper.

Was Marko really going to be watching me?

He said he would and there was no reason to doubt him. He might be parked across the street. I just had to walk out of the front door holding the letters. He couldn't steal them from me in broad daylight. He'd have to make a deal.
Give me the money. Give me the two thousand you agreed on with Grandpa
.

I didn't want to hand them over right away. I wanted to know what they really were, and why they were worth so much to Marko.

I opened the door. I could hear voices from the kitchen and the clatter of cutlery and dishes. The rest of my family had gotten to work. They were tidying the house. We had to make it respectable before the real estate agents arrived on Monday morning, the day after tomorrow.

Hoping no one would hear me and tell me to come and help, I snuck upstairs to Grandpa's bedroom. His bed was saggy and damp—the sheets probably hadn't been changed all year—but it was comfy enough, so I sat with my back against the headboard, picked the first letter from the top of the pile, and started reading.

 

7 June 1795, Southampton, Hants.

Dear Miss Pickering,

I much enjoyed our conversation at last night's ball and hope I may have the pleasure of conversing with you again at your soonest convenience. Our departure has been delayed once more, so with your permission, and that of your mama, would you care to visit the fair with me this coming Saturday? There is supposedly a man with two heads, and a rhinocepede from deepest Africa. If you would agree to accompany me, I should be the happiest man in England.

Your devoted servant,

Horatio Trelawney

 

That made sense. Now I knew why the letters were here. Horatio Trelawney must have been one of us. The letters were a family heirloom. Had they been passed down from generation to generation until they reached Grandpa? Why didn't anyone else know about them? And why did Marko? I didn't understand why a bunch of old letters would be worth anything to a guy like him. There must some information in them. Unless Grandpa had conned him, of course. I'd already seen how Uncle Harvey cheated money out of rich men, playing on their vanity. He'd sold a Picasso to Otto Gonzalez in Peru for a hundred thousand dollars, an amazing price for a painting that should have been worth six or seven million, and Otto had been delighted with his purchase until he discovered it was actually a worthless fake. Like father, like son. Maybe Grandpa had done the same thing. Maybe he'd written these letters himself, faking the ink and the paper to make them look old. But why would he do that? Who would he have been trying to cheat? Historians? Collectors? Why should they want these letters? Why should they care about Horatio Trelawney's love life?

Questions, questions, questions, but no answers yet.

Patience
, I told myself. There were a lot more letters to read. A whole box packed with them. Maybe the secret was hidden further down the stack.

I put the first letter face-down on the bed, picked up the next one, and opened the crinkly paper on my knees.

 

19 June 1795, Southampton, Hants.

My dear Miss Pickering,

Thank you for your letter of Friday last. Of course your mother and both your sisters would be more than welcome to join us. I should not like to visit the theatre unchaperoned! Lord knows what the good people of Southampton might think. I shall call for you at your house at six o'clock on Tuesday next. Thank you for the gift of Clarissa, which looks like a very fine book, although I have not yet had a chance to read beyond the first page. Our battalion has been excessive busy with parades.

With fondest wishes,

Your newest friend,

Horatio Trelawney

 

Maybe Marko had been telling the truth. Maybe he wasn't lying to me or trying to cheat me. He hadn't fought with Grandpa or killed him. These letters might really be nothing more than historical documents, describing the dreary life of one of my ancestors.

Then why would Marko want them? Why would he break into a house and tie me up, just for a bunch of crinkly old love letters?

I unfolded the next letter.

 

18 August 1795, near Dublin, Ireland.

My dearest Miss Pickering,

We have been in this bog-ridden, rain-sodden country for a fortnight now. The food is foul-tasting. The natives are foul-tempered. I would give my right arm to be back in Southampton. No, I would not give my right arm, nor my left neither, for I would need both of them to hold my sweet Susan. I enclose a small token of my affections. Please write to me at the barracks here in Dublin. The address is on this envelope. I hope to see you within two months at the very most.

With all affection,

Your devoted admirer,

Horatio Trelawney

 

A voice shouted up the stairs. “Tom!”

It was Mom. She'd probably seen the broken window and wanted to blame it on me.

I shouted back: “Yes!”

“Where are you?”

“In Grandpa's room.”

“What are you doing up there?”

“Nothing.”

“Can you come down here, please?”

“Why?”

“Just come down here, please!”

I snuck the letters under the duvet and headed out, trying to think of an excuse to explain the smashed window and the broken glass on the floor.

She and Dad were standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was struggling with a vacuum cleaner and she had her arms folded.

“The rest of us are cleaning up the house,” said Mom. “Would you like to help?”

Ah, that was good. They must have thought the window had been broken before. Grandpa must have done it himself, they'd decided, or a bird or a fox had bashed it out while the house was empty. Well, I couldn't see any reason why I should help them clean up the house. Not after the way they'd treated me. So I shook my head. “No.”

“Tom—”

“I said no.”

“Tom—”

“You wouldn't take me to Grandpa's funeral lunch.”

“Yes, but—”

“So I don't see why I should help clean up the house.”

“Tom, it's not—”

“I'm going back upstairs.”

“Tom. Come back here, Tom!
Tom!
”

I was already halfway up the stairs. She could have run after me. She could have threatened me with all kinds of unusual punishments. She could have done just about anything, but she didn't, because, I think, she knew I was right and she was wrong. They really should have taken me to the lunch.