There was no answer.  “You, Mr. Charkian?”

“I think you are Major Grim.”

“Ah!  You wish to flatter me, don’t you?  Never mind; let us pretend I’m Major Grim disguised as an Arab; only, I’m afraid we must continue the conversation in Arabic; I might disillusion you if I tried to talk English.  We’ll say then that I’m Major Grim, disguised.  Let’s see now...  What would he do in the circumstances?  Here’s Yussuf Dakmar, wanted for murder in the city and known to be plotting a massacre, seen climbing a wall when the sentry’s back was turned, and caught in conference with Mr. Charkian, confidential clerk to the Administration.  I’m sorry I didn’t hear all that was said at your conference, for that might have made it easier to guess what Major Grim would do.”

“Don’t play with us like a cat playing with a mouse!” snarled somebody.  “Tell us what you want.  If you were Major Grim you’d have handed us over to those officers who passed just now.  You’re just as much irregular as we are.  Hurry up and make your bargain, or the guard may come and arrest us all!”

“Yes, hurry up!” complained the other man.  “I don’t want to be caught here; and as for those papers you have taken, if we are caught I shall say you stole them from the office—­you and Yussuf Dakmar, and that I followed you to recover them, and you both attacked me!”

“Very well,” said Grim’s voice pleasantly.  “I’ll let you go.  I think you’re dangerous.  You’d better be quick, because I think I hear the guard coming!”

“Give me back the papers, then!”

“Aha!  Will you wait and discuss them with the guard, or go at once?”

The Armenian clerk didn’t answer, but got up and slunk away.

“Why did you let that fool go?” demanded Yussuf Dakmar.  “Now he will awaken some officer and start hue and cry with a story that we robbed him.  Listen!  There comes the guard!  We had better both run!”

“Not so fast!” Grim answered.

And then he raised his voice perceptibly, as if he wished to be overheard: 

“I think those men who passed just now were not officers at all.  Perhaps they were strangers.  It may be that one of them is confused, and is leading the guard in the wrong direction!”

“Don’t make so much noise then!” retorted Yussuf Dakmar.  Jeremy, who thinks habitually about ten times as fast as I do, slipped away at once into the shadows to find Narayan Singh and decoy the guard elsewhere.  I didn’t envy him the job, for Sikhs use cold steel first and argue afterward when on the qui vive in the dark.  However, he accomplished his purpose.  Narayan Singh saved his life, and the guard arrested him on general principles.  You could hear both Jeremy and Narayan Singh using Grim’s name freely.  Yussuf Dakmar wasn’t deaf.  He gave tongue: 

“There!  Did you hear that?  They are speaking of Major Grim.  You are a fool if you wait here any longer.  That fellow Grim is a devil, I tell you.  If he finds us we are both lost!”