"Ah! And tonight? Where will you be tonight?"
"Why?"
"Because I propose to make a disclosure. And—ah—hee-hee!—you would like to live, I take it, and not be sent back to Damascus in a coffin? I have—ah—some assistants who—hee-hee!—would watch your movements. If you were to betray me afterwards to the Administration, there would remain at least—the satisfaction— of—you understand me?—the certainty that you would suffer for it!"
Grim laughed dryly.
"I shall be at the hotel," he answered. "In bed. Asleep. The car comes before dawn."
"That is sufficient. I shall know how to take essential precautions. Now—you think I am a man of words, not deeds? You were near the Jaffa Gate this morning, for I saw you there. You saw a man killed—a policeman, name Bedreddin. That was an unwise underling, who stumbled by accident on a clue to what I shall tell you presently. He had the impudence to try to blackmail me—me, of all people! You saw him killed. But did you see who killed him? I—I killed him, with this right hand! You do not believe? You think, perhaps, I lack the strength for such a blow? Look here, where the force of it broke my skin on the handle of the knife! Now, am I a man of words, not deeds?"
"You want me to report to Mustapha Kemal that all the accomplishment in Jerusalem amounts to one policeman killed?"
"No, no! You mistake my meaning. My point is that having proved to you I am a ruthless man of action, I am entitled to be believed when I tell you what next I intend to do."
"Well—I listen."
"There is going to be—hee-hee!—an explosion!"