"He's done damned good work," assented Hugh gratefully. "Bless his old heart. So you just went up to Constantinople, and lay doggo?"
"Just that. We slept most of the day, and after dinner sneaked away, and boarded the Greek fisherman's ketch. We took the Curlew about ten, I think, and steered straight for Tokalji's house. And oh, Hugh, if there hadn't been that opening from your dungeon!" The tears came into her eyes. "To think what Nikka had to stand! And you others would have had it, too."
"If there hadn't been that there would have been something else," Hugh reassured her. "And now we have a secret way to follow direct into Tokalji's lair."
"But after you get in you will have a pitched battle before you can control the place," Nikka pointed out. "I don't see that you are likely to profit very much by it unless you are willing to put the issue to the proof by cold steel."
There was no gainsaying this argument, and none of us was inclined to advocate wholesale slaughter, not even Nikka, with his aching shoulder and memory of Toutou's brutality. We had hashed over the subject pretty thoroughly by the time the Curlew was docked, without discovering a solution of our problem, and from sheer weariness abandoned the discussion by mutual consent. It was too late to find one of the variable Pera taxis, and we walked up through the deserted streets of Galata, tenanted only by homeless refuges. In the hotel lobby we said good-night—it was really good-morning—and went to bed to sleep the clock around.
Twenty-four hours rest made us fit. Nikka's arm and shoulder were still lame, but he had Watkins rub him with liniment that suppled the strained muscles, and declared that he was as game for a fight as any of us. And when Watkins brought us an invitation to breakfast in the Kings' sitting room we were able to muster a degree of optimism, despite the difficulties of the situation.
"It boils down to this," said Hugh over his second cup of coffee. "We know that the Instructions are correct and that we have a desperate crew of criminals to reckon with. Our job is to trick Toutou's crowd."
"But how?" I asked.
"Ah, that's the question!"
"You can't trick them," snapped Nikka. "They are as clever as we."