“Well, you’re about the coolest and most clever thief I’ve ever met! Do you know that your confounded Turkish concession isn’t worth the paper it’s written upon?”
“What do you mean?” asked Ansell, with an air of injured innocence.
“I mean, sir,” cried the speculator, “I mean that you are a thief and a swindler, and I now intend to call in the police and have you arrested for palming off upon me a bogus concession. As it happens, my son is in the British Consulate in Constantinople, and, having wired to him to investigate the facts, he has just sent me a reply to say that the Grand Vizier has no knowledge of any such concession, and that it has not been given by him. Indeed, the concession for wireless telegraphy in Turkey was given to the Marconi Company a year ago, and, further, they have already erected two coast-stations on the Black Sea.”
Mr. Silas P. Hoggan, of San Diego, Cal., unscrupulous as he was, stood before his irate visitor absolutely nonplussed.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE FALLING SHADOW.
The country château of the Earl of Bracondale, though modestly named the Villa Monplaisir, stood on the road to Fécamp amid the pines, about half a mile from the sea, at St. Addresse, the new seaside suburb of Havre.
St. Addresse is, perhaps, not so fashionable as Etretat or Yport, being quieter and more restful, yet with excellent sea-bathing. Along the broad plage are numerous summer villas, with quaint gabled roofs and small pointed towers in the French style—houses occupied in the season mostly by wealthy Parisians.