“That I don’t already know what you are going to tell me.”

“It is impossible for you to know that,” he replied. “How can you know what is in my mind?”

I looked at him steadily, for perhaps half a minute, smiling a little.

“It is impossible for you to know,” he repeated.

“You forget, Commandant, or perhaps you do not know. I am a thought-reader.”

“Well?”

The time had come to risk everything on a single throw.

“Let me tell you, then,” I said. “You are going to ask me to find for you a treasure, buried by a murdered Armenian of Yozgad. You want me to do so by the aid of Spirits. And you are prepared to offer me a reward.”

The Commandant leant back in his chair, in mute astonishment, staring at me.

“Am I correct?” I asked.