“Mademoiselle unfortunately does not consent to accompany me,” he interpreted with a smile.  “So I am afraid I will have to take her back without her consent.”

“If you do, Hamdi Effendi,” said Pasquale in a light tone of conversation, but with the ugliest snarl of the lips that I have ever beheld, “I shall most certainly kill you.”

Hamdi turned to him with a polite bow.

“Ah, it is Monsieur Pasquale.  I thought I recognised you.”

“You have every reason to do so,” said Pasquale.

“I saved you from prison.”

“You accepted a bribe.”

“For heaven’s sake,” cried Judith, “go on speaking in low voices, or we shall have a scene here.”

One or two idlers hung near with an air of curiosity and the huge beuniformed commissionaire watched us with an uncertain eye.  I kept a tight hold of Carlotta and drew her more behind the screen of a palm near which we happened to stand.

“Madame is right,” said Hamdi.  “We can discuss this little affair like gentlemen.”

“Then, in the most gentlemanly way in the world,” said Pasquale, “I swear to you that if you touch this young lady, I will kill you.”

“It appears, to be Monsieur,” said the obese Turk with a graceful wave of the hand in my direction, “and not you, who has robbed my home of its treasure, unless,” he added, and I shall always remember the hideous leer of that pulpy-nosed and small-pox pitted face, “unless Monsieur has relieved you of your responsibilities.”

For a moment I was speechless.  Pasquale put himself in front of me.

“Steady on, Ordeyne.”

“Sir,” said I, “I found this young lady destitute in the streets of London.  She is my wife and therefore a British subject; so you can take yourself and your infamous insinuations to the devil, and the quicker the better.”

“Or there’ll be two of us engaged in the killing,” said Pasquale.

Hamdi again exchanged a few sentences in Turkish with Carlotta, and then smiled upon us with the same unruffeled suavity.

"Au revoir, Mesdames et Messieurs." With a courteous salute he shuffled back towards the stall-entrance.

The tension over, Carlotta broke from me and clutched Pasquale by the arm.

“Oh, kill him, kill him, kill him!” she cried in a passionate whisper.

He freed himself gently and took out a cigarette case.

“Scarcely necessary.  He’ll soon die.”  And turning to me he added:  “Not a sound organ in his body.  Besides, it seems to me that if there is any murdering to be done, it’s the business of Sir Marcus.”

“There is going to be no murdering,” said I, profoundly disgusted, “and don’t talk in that revolting way about the wretched man dying.”

I regained possession of Carlotta who, seeing that I was angry, cast a scared glance at me, and became docile as suddenly as she had grown passionate.  I turned to Judith.