CHAPTER XV.
THE LAST OF LORD LYDSTONE.
The mixed population of Constantinople in these busy, stirring times was ripe for any great surprise. It was much moved and excited by a startling bit of news that spread very rapidly next day.
An atrocious murder had been committed on the Stamboul side, near the Bridge of Boats.
Certainly, murders were not unknown in this hive of complex life, harbouring as it did the very scum and refuse of European rascality. But the victims were mostly vile, nameless vagabonds, low Greeks, Maltese suttlers, Italian sailors, or one or other of the hybrid mongrel ruffians following in the track of our armies, any of whom might be sent to their long account without being greatly missed.
It was otherwise now: the murdered man was a prominent personage, an Englishman of high rank, a rich and powerful representative of a great people. No wonder that Constantinople was agitated and disturbed.
On this occasion Lord Lydstone was the murdered man.
He had been found at daybreak by the Turkish patrol, lying in a doorway just where he had fallen dead, stabbed to the heart.