The necessary arrangements for my preliminary expenses were discussed with one of his secretaries and I then went back to my quarters to think over a plan of campaign and prepare myself for the mission. The transfer from Captain Tappken's department pleased me for I knew that at the Wilhelmstrasse I would be in closer touch with the bigger affairs of diplomacy. Tappken had hinted at my finding favor with the Wilhelmstrasse and I guessed that coming on top of my Port Arthur success a delicate private mission was responsible for it. To cite the case:
Germany keeps a watch on all her officers. When one of them is spending more money than his income, he is promptly investigated. I recalled how they had sent me to the Spandau Garrison to inquire into the affairs of an officer who was too lavish with his money to suit the Intelligence Department. He was an ordnance officer in a small arms factory at Spandau and it was the natural conclusion that he was obtaining this extra money by selling state secrets.
I encountered, however, an entirely different situation. I learned that he was absolutely innocent on that score but that he was receiving money from a certain princess who had become infatuated with him. She was of a very high house and I realized that her name could not be mentioned in a report to Captain Tappken. This situation required delicate treatment. I solved the dilemma by reporting to Tappken that the ordnance officer was guiltless of any act of treason against his country. I then made a private report, covering the intimate facts, which went direct to officials of higher responsibility. The princess' name did not appear as far as subordinates were concerned and the whole affair was hushed up. My fortunate discretion in this matter undoubtedly strengthened my standing with the Wilhelmstrasse.
By this time I had installed myself in quiet quarters on the Mittelstrasse, and Kim, who had been transformed from a Basuto boy into an efficient man servant, looked after my comforts. To secure myself from the questions of prying neighbors, I had caused it to be known that I was a retired South African planter inclined to poor health. This was the most likely explanation for my curious mode of living and my sudden periodical disappearances, for I was away from the Mittelstrasse for months at a time. Presumably I was traveling about to the different watering places on the Continent for my health.
My mission to Constantinople called for some considerable thought in selecting the most advisable character to impersonate. A tourist came first to mind. A tourist was out of the question, because tourists do not stay long in one place and I expected to be three or four months in Turkey. There was nothing to study in Constantinople. I thought of a student of botany, the rôle I had used at Port Arthur. But that would not do. The idea of a merchant came to me, but I dismissed the idea of a prosperous merchant, for it would necessitate making business connections, a careful and slow process, the fulfillment of which would consume entirely too much time. I finally decided to travel as a physician, or to use the Turkish word a Hakim. A Hakim is always accorded respect, even reverence, by Turks and Arabs. This character determined upon, I went to the telephone and requested the Service Intelligence Department to give me letters of introduction to the German hospital and the Pera Hospital in Constantinople. They were sent to me signed by the authorities of the Charitee in Berlin and described that I was going to study tropical and Asiatic diseases and requested that the hospitals give me every facility for research work. I had Kim pack a case of medical instruments and told him to have everything in readiness to leave Berlin that night, on the Orient Express. He was necessary to my plans and was to accompany me. A messenger from Wedel brought a few final verbal instructions, my funds and sealed instructions. I was bidden to keep away from all official German intercourse in Constantinople. Wedel might have saved himself the trouble of that word of caution for I knew enough of the subtle Oriental mind to keep away from anything that would raise the slightest suspicion in regard to my identity. If I pride myself on anything, it is a knowledge of Eastern character. With the instructions were a thousand marks cash and a draft for 5000 marks on the Ottoman Bank of Constantinople that had been deposited in my name.
It may strike the reader as curious that I took Kim with me, but I knew he could be of tremendous use to me in Constantinople. In addition to speaking his Kaffir dialects, he knew Arabic. Any negro boy who could speak Arabic could learn almost anything in Constantinople, which abounds in black men of all tribes and nationalities. Among the servants of every household, Kim would find many compatriots from whom he could get information, impossible for any European to obtain.
After an uneventful trip to Constantinople, I took preliminary quarters in the Brasserie Kor, a quiet, second-rate hostelry on the Rue Osmanly. I went to an unpretentious place to avoid attracting any particular attention. Had I put up at an expensive hotel there would immediate]y bave been queries about me. Who is this stranger? He seems to have money. If it isn't his money, whose money is he spending? It is not well to invite a Turk's suspicion. As I was totally unacquainted with Constantinople, I used the first week for getting familiar with the geography of the city. It was necessary that I learn the location of the various legations and the residences of high court officials. The next week I found lodgings in the very center of the district of court residences and began to seek out the haunts and places of rendezvous of demi-mondaines, favorites and hangers-on of the Turkish officials. On the second day of my arrival, I had presented my credentials and letters at the German Pera Hospital, and had my name entered as a visiting honorary surgeon. Every day thereafter, rain or shine, I made it a point to spend some time at these hospitals, and it was well that I did. Once a day and often twice I would sign the book at the hospital and I believe that the signature Dr. Franz von Graver appears on the record books of the Pera and German Hospitals in Constantinople, at least one hundred times. Was I not fulfilling my duties as a physician doing research work?
I finally located myself in the residential district of Pera where I rented a small residence, typical of the well-to-do Turk of the middle class and quite in keeping with my assumed character. An elaborate residence would have aroused immediate suspicion, for there is no country on earth where curiosity and suspicion is so easily roused as in Turkey. Kipling, who knows the East so well, portrayed Port Said as the dwelling place of concentrated wickedness. He is right, but I do not think he has ever visited Stamboul. In Stamboul there is with no exception the most conglomerate mixture of nondescript nationalities on the face of the earth. Not only are all nationalities represented but breeds of men that defy all pathological research, hideous in their conglomerate intermixtures. If an Albanian bandit, himself a mixture of Greek and Nubian mulatto, has issue by an Arab woman with French blood--find the genealogy. Can you imagine a more difficult field of operations for an Occidental and a stranger?
In the course of my preliminary observations, I found Constantinople to be a city of sharp contrasts. The quarters inhabited by your true Ottoman are characteristically clean and comfortable. The remainder of the city except foreign quarters is intolerably dirty. With true Oriental tolerance, the Turk lets things gang their ain gait. The casual observer and traveler always confounds the Turk with the rest of the nondescript mass of humanity that swarms in Constantinople. That is a crass mistake. Your true descendant of Ossman is a clean, dignified, easy-going gentleman with a deep philosophical strain in his make-up, contaminated by hundreds of years of contact--not association, for your true Turk does not associate--with the outcast Mischling of southern Europe and Asia Minor.
My mission was indeed a difficult one and only by tedious, painstaking work, observing the life of the city and its character, I succeeded in isolating the individual who gave me the key to the circumventuous political life and the government of Constantinople. It took me a full month of night work to become familiar with the innumerable demi-mondaines. They were of French, Russian and Circassian birth and extraction, and were identified with the various Turkish court officials from the Grand Vizier down to an officer in the Ganitsharies. This preliminary work is always exhausting, but it is so necessary on a mission of this kind. One blunder, one step in the dark, and you are gone. One spends months without any tangible results, often going on the wrong track. One has to be excruciatingly circumspect in one's inquiries. To use a hunter's expression, there is no quarry so wary, sharp-sighted and keen at smelling the wind as a political demi-mondaine.