“Not at all. Please take another cigarette. I was saying that at the moment your position is curious. Tell me! Have you ever regarded yourself as indispensable in your business, Mr. Graham?”
Graham laughed. “Certainly not. I could tell you the names of dozens of other men with my particular qualifications.”
“Then,” said Colonel Haki, “allow me to inform you, Mr. Graham, that for once in your life you are indispensable. Let us suppose for the moment that your thief’s shooting had been a little more accurate and that at this moment you were, instead of sitting talking with me, lying in hospital on an operating table with a bullet in your lungs. What would be the effect on this business you are engaged in now?”
“Naturally, the company would send another man out immediately.”
Colonel Haki affected a look of theatrical astonishment.
“So? That would be splendid. So typically British! Sporting! One man falls-immediately another, undaunted, takes his place. But wait!” The Colonel held up a forbidding arm. “Is it necessary? Surely, Mr. Kopeikin here could arrange to have your papers taken to England. No doubt your colleagues there could find out from your notes, your sketches, your drawings, exactly what they wanted to know even though your company did not build the ships in question, eh?”
Graham flushed. “I gather from your tone that you know perfectly well that the matter could not be dealt with so simply. I was forbidden, in any case, to put certain things on paper.”
Colonel Haki tilted his chair. “Yes, Mr. Graham,”-he smiled cheerfully-“I do know that. Another expert would have to be sent out to do some of your work over again.” His chair came forward with a crash. “And meanwhile,” he said through his teeth, “the spring would be here and those ships would still be lying in the dockyards of Izmir and Gallipoli, waiting for their new guns and torpedo tubes. Listen to me, Mr. Graham! Turkey and Great Britain are allies. It is in the interests of your country’s enemies that, when the snow melts and the rain ceases, Turkish naval strength should be exactly what it is now. Exactly what it is now! They will do anything to see that it is so. Anything, Mr. Graham! Do you understand?”
Graham felt something tightening in his chest. He had to force himself to smile. “A little melodramatic, aren’t you? We have no proof that what you say is true. And, after all, this is real life, not …” He hesitated.
“Not what, Mr. Graham?” The Colonel was watching him like a cat about to streak after a mouse.