“You must realise, Mr. Graham,” he said suddenly, “that an attempt was made to kill you to-night.”
“Why?” demanded Graham irritably. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see it. I returned to my room to find that a man had got in through the window. Obviously he was some sort of thief. I disturbed him. He fired at me and then escaped. That is all.”
“You have not, I understand, reported the matter to the police.”
“I did not consider that reporting it could do any good. I did not see the man’s face. Besides, I am leaving for England this morning on the eleven o’clock train. I did not wish to delay myself. If I have broken the law in any way I am sorry.”
“Zarar yok! It does not matter.” The Colonel lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling. “I have a duty to do, Mr. Graham,” he said. “That duty is to protect you. I am afraid that you cannot leave on the eleven o’clock train.”
“But protect me from what?”
“I will ask you questions, Mr. Graham. It will be simpler. You are in the employ of Messrs. Cator and Bliss, Ltd., the English armament manufacturers?”
“Yes. Kopeikin here is the company’s Turkish agent.”
“Quite so. You are, I believe, Mr. Graham, a naval ordnance expert.”
Graham hesitated. He had the engineer’s dislike of the word “expert.” His managing director sometimes applied it to him when writing to foreign naval authorities; but he could, on those occasions, console himself with the reflection that his managing director would describe him as a full-blooded Zulu to impress a customer. At other times he found the word unreasonably irritating.