In this work Kim was of inestimable value to me. In fact, without him I would not have succeeded at all. All the households kept by the Turkish officials and their favorites swarm with negroes of the various types. A white man has not the slightest chance of finding the way into their confidences. The universal golden key does not unloose tongues in such cases in the Orient. But Kim as a member of the once mighty Zulu nation (he was really a descendant of a prince of the house of Dingnan) was able, through a mysterious free masonry still existing among colored races the world over, to obtain most valuable information.
My method of campaign was to ascertain the name of one of the favorites of the Turkish officials, to locate her residence and then put Kim to work. Finally locating one of these women, I would manage to learn her name and where she lived. Then it was time for Kim.
"Kim," I said, "I want you to find out who comes to see her, whether it is always the same official and if so, how frequently. I want you to learn everything you can about any letters she may receive. I want to know just where she gets her money from, if she has any outside sources of revenue, other than in Constantinople. I want every scrap of any kind of information about her."
And Kim would go his way, seek out the servants in that household and he would generally come back with all this information.
Now I noticed that a certain Mlle. Balniaux was very much in the company of Abdulla, who was at that time the influential adviser of the Grand Vizier. It was known in Berlin that the Grand Vizier had lately become very deaf and antagonistic to German influence. The Wilhelmstrasse knew that France and Russia were at work, but were in the dark as to the channels. Therefore I sent Kim to ascertain if Mlle. Balniaux was visited by Abdulla at her private residence. I told him to learn the exact hour of arrival in each instance and the length of the visits. The bare fact that Abdulla might be seen in her company in public bore no particular significance. These women are always accompanied by a whole retinue of officers and young Turkish noblemen. It is part of their work. Their method of procedure is to bewitch young officers and officials, attach them to their person, make them spend huge sums of money and then play their card. I noticed that the money Turkish officers squandered on these women compared to their pay and income was tremendous. They think nothing of going ahead blindly and buying the most expensive jewels; I have seen them even buy motorcars. The result is not difficult to forecast. The young officer soon finds himself head over heels in debt. Two courses are open to him. Either he must pay the debt or be transferred to some dreary interior post, and a Turk who has been in the gay life of Constantinople would rather commit suicide than go to any inland garrison. Those women then pay the debts, exacting state secrets as the price of their timely assistance.
Abdulla, therefore, might only be one of these hangers-on. Kim established connections with Mlle. Balniaux's household and soon I had the required information. He brought me letters and scraps of paper that Mlle. Balniaux's dark skinned servants had stolen for him. He supplemented this by conversations that the servants had overheard and told to Kim. All this showed me that more by good luck I had stumbled upon the hotbed of the prime mover of the whole intrigue, Mlle. Balniaux. There was not the slightest hope of intimidating or buying over this particular lady's allegiance. I had to learn exactly who was subsidizing her machinations and there was no possibility of obtaining the clew from her.
I must find the accessible person among her intimate friends. From time to time I had seen her with a pretty little dark-haired girl who danced in the Folies Arabic. I learned her name was Cecelia Coursan. I began to frequent the Folies, a kind of cabaret crowded every night with Turkish officers. Admiration was no longer a delight to her and she accepted it with a wooden smile.
The Folies is quite dissimilar from its European or American prototypes, by reason of its Oriental atmosphere. Most of the year round it is conducted in the open. Picture a large court, the center of which is covered with a priceless Smyrna carpet. Seated around on little divans and silk cushions are the principal native performers, Neulah girls wearing the teasing Yamashk, covering half their faces although the rest of their figures are visible through gauzy Damascene shawls. The European performers, dressed in the latest and most startling Paris creations, flirt and flitter among the audience--seated round on dainty marble-topped bamboo tables, inhaling, in the case of Madame, a dainty "Regie," or if Bey or Effendi, a Tshibuk or Narghile, gravely drawing on the amber mouthpiece and slowly exhaling the perfumed smoke. The gorgeous officers' uniforms, mostly a vivid red, blue and gold; the picturesque flowing robes and burnouses, with here and there a six-foot stalwart silk trousered Albanian with gold and silver inlaid daggers and pistols thrust in his sash, make a picture reminding one of the Sheherezade.
Observing that everybody was bent on spoiling this popular little houri by emphatic admiration, I made myself conspicuous by a peculiarly British stony indifference. Nor was I wrong in my tactics. The piqued little dancer was not to be ignored.
One night she approached my table and challenged me in French, at which I gave a noncommittal smile. I pretended that I did not know French. Then she tried indifferent German and I looked at her with puzzled blankness. Finally she spoke to me in a piquant English and I answered. She spoke English extremely well and it developed that she had been a choriphyée at the London Empire. I let the acquaintance grow leisurely. One night I found her in a fit of despondency, over a quarrel with her friend, Mlle. Balniaux. My subterfuge getting effective, I was just beginning to ply her with questions when a Turkish officer full of cognac wandered by and dropped a remark to her in French. It went against the grain for those swine to cast innuendoes to a white woman and forgetting my play acting, I told him his comments were uncalled for and advised him to draw in his horns a bit. After a little bluster to which I angrily replied in French, he disappeared, and, as I sat down at the table, Cecelia was looking at me with a queer smile.