"Hear of him? I have heard of nothing else for the last eighteen months. I have an indigestion brought on by too much Alexander Patoff. Is that your errand, Griggs? How in the world did you come to take up that question?"
"You have been asked about him before?" I inquired.
"I tell you there is not a dog in Constantinople that has not been kicked for not knowing where that fellow is. I am sick of him, alive or dead. What do I care about your Patoffs? The fool could not take care of himself when he was alive, and now the universe is turned upside down to find his silly body. Where is he? At the bottom of the Bosphorus. How did he get there? By the kind exertions of his brother, who then played the comedy of tearing his hair so cleverly that his ambassador believed him. Very simple: if you want to find his body, I can tell you how to do it."
"How?" I asked eagerly.
"Drain the Bosphorus," he answered, with a sneer. "You will find plenty of skulls at the bottom of it. The smallest will be his, to a dead certainty."
"My dear fellow," I protested, "his brother did not kill him. The proof is that Paul Patoff has come hack swearing that he will find some trace of Alexander. He came with me, and I believe his story."
"He is only renewing the comedy,—tearing his hair on the anniversary of the death, like a well-paid mourner. Of course, somebody has accused him again of the murder. He will have to tear his hair every time he is accused, in order to keep up appearances. He knows, and he alone knows, where the dead man is."
"But if he killed him the kaváss must have known it—must have helped him. You remember the story?"
"I should think so. What does the kaváss prove? Nothing. He was probably told to go off for a moment, and now will not confess it. Money will do anything."
"There remains the driver of the carriage," I objected. "He saw Alexander go into Agia Sophia, but he never saw him come out."