"Well, when Inspector Sharpe met me at the door on my arrival he told me that his Excellency Mehemet Ali, with three strange gentlemen and the junior members of the commission, awaited me in the dining-room. I went in and was surprised to find the three visitors, for during the preceding month not a single stranger had entered the house save a member of the Government and one or two important officials of the Foreign Office, who came with me out of sheer curiosity to see a collection of remarkable diamonds.
"The strangers bowed politely when I was introduced. Two of them spoke neither French nor English, but the third man spoke French fluently. He had, by the way, a somewhat peculiar accent, different from that to which I was accustomed in the Turks. It was softer, more sibilant, and impressed me as that of a man who was accustomed to speak Italian. He was a good-looking chap, about my height and build, and were it not for his brown skin, one would not have regarded him as a Turk. One side of his face was deeply scarred with a sword-cut, but, if anything, this did not detract from his appearance, and it gave a manly aspect to an otherwise effeminate face."
Brett could not help smiling involuntarily.
"Are you sure it was a sword-cut?"
"It certainly looked like one."
"And his skin was very brown?"
"Oh, quite. Indeed it was a shade deeper than that of most Turks. I have seen very many of them. Although dark-featured, they are often pallid enough in reality, and their deep-hued complexion is due more to their black hair and eyebrows than to the mere colour of the skin."
Brett smiled again.
"I think," he said, "I will show you the same gentleman in a somewhat different aspect. But proceed."
"The explanation given to me by Mehemet Ali was both extraordinary and disconcerting, especially at such a late hour. He told me that the three gentlemen to whom I had been introduced—I am sorry, by the way, that I cannot remember their names, as they were all Mohammeds, or Rasuls, or Ibrahims, and the dramatic events of the night subsequently drove them from my mind—had been sent post haste from Constantinople on a special mission. They had only reached London that night, and they bore with them a special mandate, signed by the Sultan himself, directing Mehemet Ali to hand over the diamonds to their charge, and to at once return with his assistants to Yildiz Kiosk.