Part 44

"Drain the Bosphorus," he answered, with a sneer. "You will find plenty of skulls at the bottom of it. The smallest will be his, to a dead certainty."

"My dear fellow," I protested, "his brother did not kill him. The proof is that Paul Patoff has come hack swearing that he will find some trace of Alexander. He came with me, and I believe his story."

"He is only renewing the comedy,--tearing his hair on the anniversary of the death, like a well-paid mourner. Of course, somebody has accused him again of the murder. He will have to tear his hair every time he is accused, in order to keep up appearances. He knows, and he alone knows, where the dead man is."

"But if he killed him the kavass must have known it--must have helped him. You remember the story?"

"I should think so. What does the kavass prove? Nothing. He was probably told to go off for a moment, and now will not confess it. Money will do anything."

"There remains the driver of the carriage," I objected. "He saw Alexander go into Agia Sophia, but he never saw him come out."

"And is anything easier than that? A man might learn those few words in three minutes. That proves nothing."

"There is the probability," I argued. "Many persons have disappeared in Stamboul before now."

"Nonsense, Griggs," he answered. "You know that when anything of the kind has occurred it has generally turned out that the missing man was bankrupt. He disappeared to reappear somewhere else under another name. I do not believe a word of all those romances. To you Franks we are a nation of robbers, murderers, and thieves; we are the Turkey of Byron, always thirsting for blood, spilling it senselessly, and crying out for more. If that idiot allowed his brother to kill him without attracting a crowd,--in Stamboul, in the last week of Ramazan, when everybody is out of doors,--he deserved his fate, that is all."

"I do not believe he is dead," I said, "and I have come here to ask you to make the acquaintance of Paul Patoff. If you still believe him to be a murderer when you have heard him tell his story, I shall be very much surprised."

"I should tear him to pieces if I met him," said Balsamides, with a laugh. "The mere sight of anybody called Patoff would bring on an attack of the nerves."

"Be serious," said I. "Do you think I would be so foolish as to interest myself in this business unless I believed that it could be cleared of all mystery and explained?"

"You have been in England," retorted Gregorios. "That will explain any kind of insanity. Do you want me to pester every office in the government with new inquiries? It will do no good. Everything has been tried. The man is gone without leaving a trace. No amount of money will produce information. Can I say more? Where money fails, a man need not be so foolish as to hope anything from his intelligence."

"I am foolish enough to hope something," I replied. "If you will not help me, I must go elsewhere. I will not give up the thing at the start."

"Well, if I say I will help you, what do you expect me to do? Can I do anything which has not been done already? If so, I will do it. But I will not harness myself to a rotten cart, as the proverb says. It is quite useless to expect anything more from the police."

"I expect nothing from them. I believe that Alexander is alive, and has been hidden by somebody rich enough and strong enough to baffle pursuit."

"What put that into your head?" asked my companion, looking at me with sudden curiosity.

"Nothing but the reduction of the thing to the last analysis. Either he is dead, or he is alive. As you say, he could hardly have been killed on such a night without attracting attention. Besides, the motives for Paul's killing him were wholly inadequate. No, let me go on. Therefore I say that he was taken alive."

"Where?"

"In Santa Sophia."

"But then," argued Balsamides, "the driver would have seen him carried out."

"Yes," I admitted. "That is the difficulty. But he might perhaps have been taken through the porch; at all events, he must have gone down the stairs alone, taking the lantern."

"They found the lantern," said Gregorios. "You did not know that? A long time afterwards the man who opens the towers confessed that when he had gone up with the brothers and the kavass he had found that his taper was burnt out. He picked up the kavass's lantern and carried it down, meaning to return with the next party of foreigners. No other foreigners came, and when he went up to find the Patoffs they were gone and the carriage was gone. He kept the lantern, until the offers of reward induced him to give it up and tell his story."

"That proves nothing, except that Alexander went down-stairs in the dark."

"I have an idea, Griggs!" cried Balsamides, suddenly changing his tone. "It proves this,--that Alexander did not necessarily go down the steps at all."

"I do not understand."

"There is another way out of that gallery. Did you know that? At the other end, in exactly the same position, hidden in the deep arch, there is a second door. There is also a winding staircase, which leads to the street on the opposite side of the mosque. Foreigners are never admitted by that side, but it is barely possible that the door may have been open. Alexander Patoff may have gone down that way, thinking it was the staircase by which he had come up."

"You see," I said, delighted at this information, "everything is not exhausted yet."