Three men occupied the room. A naval lieutenant sat on the bed smoking a cigarette, a young man who did not raise his eyes to glance at the intruder. The owner of the room was a major, who was seated at a small escritoire near the window, and whose belt and cap hung over a chair. He was a man of thirty-odd, as clean as though he had been scoured and scraped in boiling water, the small absurd moustache as decorative as a nail-brush, and with a look of capable insolence in his blue-gray eyes. A small safe at his side was open and he remained stooping over this as he looked up and saw Mr. Dainopoulos standing by the door. The other man was in civilian tweeds, astride of a chair with his arms on the back, smoking a large curved meerschaum pipe. A clean-shaven circular-faced man of doubtful age, he was the only one of the three who regarded their visitor in a humane manner. He nodded slightly in response to the low bow made by Mr. Dainopoulos on his entry. The latter, however, knew better than to presume on this. He paused until the major invited him to approach, and the major did not do this. He simply waited, leaning over his safe, for Mr. Dainopoulos to explain his intrusion, his existence on earth, and his intentions as to the future, and anything else which might be regarded as extenuating his conduct. When Mr. Dainopoulos remarked that he had called on a little matter of business, the major bent his head again and went on investigating the papers in the safe, as though Mr. Dainopoulos had suddenly and completely evaporated.
"Well," he observed at length, straightening up and laying some papers on his desk, "why do you call on a little matter of business in the middle of the night?" He brought his left arm up in a peculiar whirl to the level of his eyes and looked at his wrist watch. "Eleven-twenty," he added in a tone of detached contempt, and shot a severe look at his visitor.
Mr. Dainopoulos remained standing by the door and maintained his attitude of calm urgency. He explained that the departure of the consuls had led him to remodel his arrangements. All three looked at him with attention when he made this statement. The naval lieutenant, whose work it was to examine and pass all neutral vessels, knew Mr. Dainopoulos very well. To his regret he had never found that gentleman doing anything at all shady, but he had never abandoned his conviction that he would catch him some day. The civilian, who was a censor and decoder of neutral correspondence, was familiar with the Dainopoulos dossier in his office and had read with surprise the chatty letters to girls in London which came from the man's wife. He, however, was not in a position to reveal his knowledge, and looked at Mr. Dainopoulos with good-tempered curiosity. The major, who knew his visitor better than either of the others, having purchased large quantities of stores from him at a handsome profit to the vendor, looked as if he had been insulted when the consuls were mentioned. As well he might, since those astute gentlemen had done their best to keep all possible material out of his hands, had blandly checkmated the armies of occupation at every turn, even preaching a holy war against them among the owners of Turkish baths in the Via Egnatia. They had financed Hellenic Turks who laid injunctions on rights-of-way, issued writs against movement of goods, and sought to inflame French against English and Italian against both. The consuls had been the curse of every executive at Headquarters, for their resources and nerve seemed unlimited. They worked together like a team of experienced crooks on a steamship, and never for a moment were the invaders permitted to forget that the local government was neutral. The major was happier than he had been for a long while, though he lacked the emotional demonstrativeness proper to such a mood. All three of these men, by their reports, had aided in the grand coup which had culminated that evening in the expulsion of the consuls across the frontier. But their first thought, when Mr. Dainopoulos mentioned consuls, was that by some ghastly mischance the consuls had got back into Saloniki and the whole weary business was to begin again.
"Eh?" said the major, snarling up his upper lip so that his moustache looked more like a nail-brush than ever, and looking as if he were about to spring up and fasten his teeth in his visitor's neck. "What's that?"
Thus having evoked a suitable interest in his affairs, Mr. Dainopoulos drew a small notebook from his pocket and began to enumerate the list of goods the sudden departure of the consuls had left on his hands. In the midst of it, the major nodded to a chair and said, "Sit down over here, please." Mr. Dainopoulos came forward, sat down, and proceeded. The naval lieutenant reached over to the dressing table, took up a Turkish dagger and began turning it over in his hands, examining the edge with an intense stare. The censor drew steadily at his pipe and looked Mr. Dainopoulos up and down. He was a novelist, and of the three may be said to have had some practice in the gauging of character. He was aware, in spite of a life spent exclusively in southern England and among one small exclusive caste of English people, that this Levantine might have a view of his own. He was interesting. Where had he picked up that English wife? A slight shudder passed over him in spite of himself at the thought of an English woman in a Levantine's arms. No doubt, however, she was a house-maid or something of that sort. Must be making a lot of money. The censor felt a surge of indignation over this. His own family's resources had been quadrupled by the war; but that of course was the reward of patriotic endeavour. He found it intolerable that a neutral should make money out of bloodshed. Mr. Dainopoulos proceeded as calmly and collectedly as though he were a salesman in Birmingham or Liverpool. He certainly was unaware of inspiring horror and contempt. He even mentioned a thousand yards of Indian cotton drill which he had in his warehouse and which he had purchased for a song from a German firm in Alexandria a few days before the English had sequestered the business. The only point on which he was reticent was the fact that he had already been paid in gold for most of it by the consular agents; a most satisfactory arrangement for him, but unfortunate for them in the present juncture, since they had no receipt and the goods were to be held against their order. There was something exasperating in the spectacle of this man sitting there, with all the marks of clandestine knavery about him, merely offering bona fide goods for sale. He was a Greek in Greece, transacting business which, although he did not yet know it, was of vital importance to them, for a whole string of vessels bound for Saloniki had been sunk inside of two days, from the Start to Karaburun. They were at a loss for a week or so, and a week or so in war is not to be ignored. And here was an unprepossessing person offering them, at a comparatively reasonable rate, a remarkable consignment of material. Apart from their own needs in Macedonia they had recently sent a few thousand men to an island in the Ægean to prepare a base, and the ships bearing their stores were unreported. Sunk, of course. They sat in various poses thinking of all this, and Mr. Dainopoulos closed his notebook and took out a cigarette.
It should be said for him that if he had known their actual position his price would have been slightly higher, just as later on English merchants' prices became so high that men spat at the sound of their names. But he was not a profiteer in the modern sense. He knew nothing of advertising, for example. He thought 100 per cent. an adequate reimbursement for the risks of trade.
He was asked when he could effect delivery. He said in a week or ten days, some of it being on board a steamer on its way now from Alexandria.
"What steamer is that?" demanded the lieutenant.
"The Kalkis, four hundred tons," he replied. "I have had her a year now."
"What speed?"