“My dear girl, you must have noticed that M. Karalampi does you the honour to admire you. Of course it’s impossible that you could have the bad taste not to admire him.”
“I think you forget that I am engaged,” said Cecil, in her stateliest manner.
“Not at all, dear, nor does he. He only thinks that it is a merciful dispensation of Providence which has removed Dr Egerton from Baghdad and left the way clear for him. They didn’t love each other, those two. Really, Cecil, I could have danced at times to see Dr Egerton freeze him with a look, and to behold the murderous glances M. Karalampi bestowed upon him behind his back. He daren’t have looked at you then,—it would have been as much as his life was worth,—but now he has a fair field. How do you like him, dear?”
“Myrta, you know that if there is a person I detest, it’s that man. I wish you would not make up these things about him. I don’t like it.”
“But I am perfectly in earnest, I assure you—much more so than he is. Of course he only intends a flirtation, just to pass the time, for he has a wife somewhere. Some people say he has a wife in a good many places, but no doubt that is merely scandal. But seriously, Cecil, the creature has the conceit to believe that now that Dr Egerton is safely out of the way, his own charms will prove irresistible. I believe he has a bet with young Vogorides on the subject. His sister, Arghiro, let something drop about it when she was here yesterday, and I thought I would give you warning.”
“Thank you, Myrta. I don’t think M. Karalampi will make any more bets about me.”
“But you won’t make a scene, Cecil?”
“I don’t think I am likely to want the world to know how M. Karalampi thinks of me,” said Cecil, as she rose to go, and her hostess could learn no more from her. Nor, to her great disappointment, did she ever succeed in finding out the exact results of her warning. Whether Cecil snubbed M. Karalampi in public, or administered a few home-truths to him in private, Mrs Hagopidan never knew, but M. Karalampi’s visits to the Residency became once more few and far between, and Arghiro Vogorides let slip that her brother had won his bet, but could not get the money paid. That was all, and Cecil went on her way satisfied, and unconscious that her own name was added, deeply underlined, to the long list in M. Karalampi’s black-books. In this list there were to be found already all the names of those from whom he had received slights, or against whom he had conceived a grudge, and also of some of those whom he had injured, and therefore found it impossible to forgive. In which category the Pasha’s name appeared it would be difficult to say,—possibly in all three,—but both that of the Um-ul-Pasha and that of Azim Bey might have been found in the first. Most of M. Karalampi’s employers were in his black-books, and it was one of the chief beauties of his peculiar method of working that he was able to play them off one against another, and to punish them all in the course of business.
The account against Azim Bey was allowed to stand over for a while just now. By way of making himself agreeable to all parties, M. Karalampi had done what the Bey wanted, and succeeded in banishing Charlie from Baghdad. He had even improved upon his instructions by arranging for the abstraction of the letters, a master-stroke which delighted Azim Bey when it was communicated to him; but now he returned to his former employers, whose interests were by no means identical with those of Cecil’s pupil. The Um-ul-Pasha was once more embarked on a plot in favour of her eldest grandson, but this time M. Karalampi held the threads in his own hands, and the result bade fair to be a work of art. The old vulgar methods of secret assassination, which had been attempted in vain two years before, were decisively dropped, and M. Karalampi luxuriated in the employment of moral suasion alone. He could set strings in motion at Constantinople which would ensure the Pasha’s ruin if needful, and it was on this fact that he relied. At the proper moment the question would be put before him, and he must choose between disgrace and dishonour. Unless he broke his promise to Azim Bey’s dead mother, and made the outlawed Hussein Bey his heir, the intriguers who surrounded the Padishah would bring about his downfall. In either case M. Karalampi would be happy and victorious. Already he was gloating in anticipation over the thought of his triumph, already he imagined himself fingering the reward of his unrighteousness, when a single unlooked-for event dashed all his plans to the ground.
After spending some time comparatively quietly in the hills, Hussein Bey had recommenced his raids into the low country, and his practice of exacting blackmail from travellers. Attacking one day a rich caravan which had crossed the mountains in safety from Persia, he met with an unexpected resistance, which was speedily accounted for by the arrival of a body of the Pasha’s troops, who had been on the march from one town to another, and to whom the merchants had sent a swift messenger imploring help. The robber band was hopelessly outnumbered by the combined forces of the troops and the armed servants of the travellers, and a short conflict ended in the death of Hussein Bey and the utter defeat of his followers. In this way Ahmed Khémi Pasha was freed from the son who had for so long been a thorn in his side, and the Bey’s mother and grandmother and their fellow-plotters were left without an object for their schemes. All their arrangements were useless, and they recognised this fact after a good deal of mutual recrimination on the subject of the delay which had occurred. It was undeniable that Hussein Bey’s death had been so utterly unexpected that the wisest head could not have arranged the dénoûment of the plot in time, and nothing more could be done.