Moïse probed excitedly in his pockets and produced a paper in Turkish which he flourished under my nose.
“There you are!” he said. “The seal! The signature! He wrote the order. I merely translated. I told him how great was the scientific value, how important is the experiment. He said the Spook gives war news. It is his fault, not mine.”
“Is the Commandant also a believer?” I asked.
“Assuredly! He has much studied the occult. He often consults on problematic difficulties women and witches in this town, but mostly by cards. He greatly believes in cards.”
“Yes,” I said, “there is much in cards, but it is rather an old-fashioned and cumbersome method. Now the Ouija——”
Jimmy Dawson rushed up to find out if the Pimple had any parcels for him in the office, and I seized the opportunity to depart. As I went I hugged myself. The Commandant too!
Kiazim Bey, Bimbashi of Turkish Artillery and Commandant of our camp, was the most nebulous official in Asia. He did not visit us once in three months. He answered no letters, took not the least notice of any complaints, refused all interviews, and pursued a policy of masterly inactivity which was the despair of our Senior Officers. He was a sort of Negative Kitchener—the very antithesis of organizing power—but he had the same genius for silence. Endowed with a native dignity and coolness which contrasted favourably with our helpless anger at his incapacity and neglect, he was comfortable enough himself (thanks to the contents of our food parcels) to be able to view our discomforts with a philosophic calm. And, withal, he was more inaccessible than the Great Moghul. Of the man himself, of his likes and dislikes, his hopes, his fears, his ambitions, his most ordinary thoughts, we knew less than nothing. How long, I wondered, would it be before I could get him into the net? Would he ever consult the Ouija as he consulted the “women and witches” of Yozgad? Would the Spook be able to play with him as it played with Doc. and Matthews and the rest of my friends?
The whole thing looked very impossible, but in less than a twelvemonth this “strong silent man” was to be clay in the potter’s hands, and evict his pet witch to give houseroom to two practical jokers—Lieutenant C. W. Hill and myself.
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH THE COOK APPEARS AND THE SPOOK FINDS A