The manager, of course, sympathised with his wealthy visitor, and often came up for an hour’s chat, now that the busiest week of his season was over.
All the time Ansell’s inventive brain was busy. He was devising a new scheme for money-making, and concocting an alluring prospectus of a venture into which he hoped one “mug,” or even two, might put money, and thus form “the original syndicate,” which in turn would supply him with funds.
He knew Constantinople, the city where the foreign “crook” and concession-hunter abounds. Among his unscrupulous friends was an under-official at the Yildiz Kiosk, with whom he had had previous dealings. Indeed, he had paid this official to fabricate and provide bogus concessions purporting to be given under the seal of the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. For one of these concessions—for mining in Asia Minor—he had paid one thousand pounds two years ago, and had sold it to a syndicate in St. Petersburg for ten thousand. When the purchasers came to claim their rights they found the document to be a forgery.
He was contemplating a similar coup. He had written to Youssof Effendi asking if he were still open for business, and had received a telegram answering in the affirmative. Therefore, after days of thought, he had at last decided upon obtaining a “concession” for the erection and working of a system of wireless telegraphy throughout the Turkish Empire, and opening coast stations for public service.
His ideas he sent in a registered letter to his accomplice in Constantinople, urging him to have the “concession” prepared in his name with all haste.
And now he was only waiting from day to day to receive the document by which he would be able to net from some unsuspecting persons a few thousand pounds.
True, the bogus documents concerning the mining concession had borne the actual seal of the Grand Vizier, but though an inquiry had been opened, nothing had been discovered. Corruption is so rife in Turkey that the Palace officials ever hang together, providing there is sufficient backsheesh passing. Ralph knew that, therefore he was always liberal. It paid him to be.
A few days before the date of the closing of the hotel a large, official envelope, registered and heavily sealed, was brought up to Mr. Hoggan’s room by a page, and Ralph, opening it, found a formidable document in Turkish, which he was unable to read, bearing four signatures, with the big, embossed seal of the Grand Vizier of the Sultan.
With it was an official letter headed “Ministère des Affaires Étrangers, Sublime Porte,” enclosing a translation of the document in French, and asking for an acknowledgment.