Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

“Omar told us back in Alexandria that he was a designer of computer chips who traded in Oriental rugs in his spare time. He was bringing a carpet here to present as the prize in the final camel fight and asked us to come along. Perhaps he felt that having a staid British couple by his side would hide the true nature of his trip.”

“Which was?” Sevret asked.

“To sell his design for a highly advanced computer chip to the highest bidder. Once I remembered his occupation, I knew that had to be the reason. Why else would various governments and their representatives come all the way down here? Why else would Rolf Thadder have removed a quantity of cash from his consulate safe?”

“Why here?” Beth Sevret asked. “Such a deal could have been closed on a street corner in Istanbul.”

“I wondered about that myself,” Rand admitted. “But then I realized that Omar must have a preferred buyer down here. I remembered the carpet he’d offered as a prize in the final match. It was square, while surely the carpets used as prayer rugs are always rectangular. They must be, because a Muslim kneels on it and prostrates himself during his devotions. Omar’s rug was square, and what I’d taken for a geometric tree-of-life design was actually his design for an advanced computer chip.”

Omar spoke for the first time. “It was foolish, I suppose, but in my business there is a need for secrecy. I had the carpet hand-woven to my design and carried it with me quite openly. I even felt secure enough to leave it in the trunk of the rented car with a driver I barely knew. A thief would be looking for a tiny chip, not a prayer carpet. And if someone did steal the carpet it would be meaningless to him without a knowledge of its true importance. Since the chip’s function involved weapons-launching, I approached a number of smaller governments without the resources to develop such technology themselves. Mehmet’s government offered the most, but Berk and Thadder were still in the running. If Thadder stole the money to buy it, he may have been operating independently of his government. It mattered not to me.”

“But how did you know that Omar’s driver killed them?” Leila asked Rand.

“We must assume only one killer was involved. Of the few countries that knew about Omar’s chip, would more than one resort to assassination rather than paying cash for it? I don’t think so. But if the same person killed Thadder and Berk, that meant the killer had to be in Istanbul yesterday to plant the bomb in Thadder’s car. The police suspected he might have come here. That was why they asked to interview everyone who drove down from Istanbul yesterday. You’ll remember four people raised their hands, the two of us, Omar here, and the truck driver Jobar. The three of us could not have planted the bomb because Aytekin picked us up at the airport and we drove down here at once. Jobar might have planted the bomb, but he couldn’t have killed Plato Berk. He had to be with his camel in the arena when Berk was skewered. The same holds true for Mehmet, of course. He had to be near his camel during the fight. The Sevrets here were roaming the grounds, but they couldn’t have been in Istanbul to plant the bomb because they were busy here with their food preparation.”

“I was near the arena too, to award the prize,” Omar reminded them.

“But your driver wasn’t. And Aytekin didn’t raise his hand when the police asked to question those who’d come from Istanbul yesterday. Why not? Because he was fearful of police questioning. I noticed him earlier, over by his car, polishing it. Later I found discarded food on the ground there. Aytekin recognized Plato Berk in the crowd and went after him, pulling the food from his skewer so he’d have a weapon. The gun would have made too much noise. I imagine Berk drove down this morning, keeping out of sight after what happened to Thadder.”

“Would Aytekin have killed Jobar too, for winning the carpet?” Sevret asked.

Rand shook his head. “He never knew about the carpet or he’d have stolen it during the night. He ran out of possible buyers to kill so he had to go after Omar himself, imagining he carried the chip in his pocket.”

“Do you?” Leila asked the slender man.

“No, no, it is under lock and key. I brought only the carpet.”

“And now the wrong man has won it,” she observed. “What will that poor farmer Jobar do with it?”

Rand had an answer for that. “It is not the carpet but the design. Before the last fight I saw Mehmet take a picture of it. I imagine for the money he paid, he decided a camera was more trustworthy than a camel.”

Customer’s Choice by Brendan DuBois