“I’ve no idea.”
“Five pounds,” he groaned.
“Think of it!” he continued a moment later. “Five pounds to a man like that! He put the money back on the desk, smiled, saluted and disappeared. The fellow who had to offer him the money told me his smile as he saluted keeps him awake at night still—the memory of it, I mean. He’s had to take a long sick-leave on account of insomnia. Of course, the man went straight into the trade, and I fancy he really organises the whole business. I’ve all the evidence I want against him, and when I get him, he’ll give away his English pals all right.”
“What’s his name?” I asked to fill another pause.
“Oh, names don’t count with a fellow like that. He’ll answer to anything—Osman, Ali, Jakoub—‘anything that comes to ’and,’ as the old lady said of her goat.”
“Jakoub?” I asked, startled.
“Yes. Why?”
A blur of impressions and calculations mingled in my tired mind. It suddenly occurred to me that the description was like our Jakoub. But he had been on the Astarte all this time. Nothing fitted in. Still, some instinct made me disinclined to give any particulars about my enemy, if such I could still consider him.
“Jakoub is my dragoman’s name,” I replied.
“It’s a common enough name,” said Brogden with a laugh. “They’ve only got about a dozen names among them.”