"Do you know Mr. S.?"
"Why, certainly, I'm a friend of his." And White felt in his waistcoat pocket, as if searching for a card.
"His office is on the first floor," said the porter, satisfied. "Go straight up."
With a gulp of relief White passed up the stairway. Like myself on the day before, he had to wait many minutes before Mr. S. was disengaged; and like myself he was horrified to see Levy, the Jew kavass who had brought his letters and parcels to Gumuch Souyou Hospital. The kavass beamed, and delivered himself of an oily greeting, but failed to remember where he had met White.
"You speak as an Englishman," he said, after a few words of conversation. "You are a English prisoner, not?"
"Of course I'm an English prisoner," admitted White, slapping Levy on the back. "My guard's waiting outside."
The kavass fetched a chair for White and seemed disposed to ask more troublesome questions. Just then the visitor who had been engaged with Mr. S. left the office, and White walked inside, praying that the kavass and the porter would not compare notes, and identify Mr. Henry O'Neill, of Tarsus, with the British prisoner whose guard was waiting in the street.
The door being closed White explained his real identity to Mr. S., and offered apologies for the dangerous visit to which he had been forced by our desperate situation.
"You needn't worry about the money," said Mr. S., "I had no chance of paying it. I've destroyed the cheques."
He went on to relate how, not wishing to trust the Greek waiter with a large sum, he had sent a clerk to pay the banknotes into the hands of Titoff, at the Maritza. The clerk visited the little restaurant on the afternoon when Titoff waited in vain for Theodore. He dared not deliver the money there and then, for a Turk appeared to be watching the Russian engineer. When Titoff tired of waiting and went into the street the Turk followed, and shadowed him. The clerk, in his turn, trailed the Turkish agent unobtrusively. The three of them travelled in the same subway car from Galata to Pera. Titoff passed into Taxim Gardens. So did the agent and the clerk. He sat down and ordered a drink near the bandstand. The agent chose a table near him, and the clerk stationed himself within sight of both. At last, giving up hope of an opportunity to speak with Titoff, the clerk returned to Mr. S. and gave back the money.