The Great Game Read Online Free Page B

the kettle on."
     
                  Paul did as he had been bidden and dropped into the other chair. "What was stolen?"
     
                  "The church bells. Sometime in the sixteenth century, I believe, they were stolen. It is my opinion that the church itself stole them, as the authorities were planning to take them and melt them down for cannon. The authorities at that moment had a great need for cannon. The Turkish army, I believe, was at the gates and behaving in an unfriendly manner."
     
                  "Ah!" Paul said.
     
                  The two sat in comfortable silence while Davoud busied himself filling and lighting a long, curved clay pipe. With a gesture he offered Paul some tobacco from an ornately carved wooden box, and Paul took a well-chewed brown pipe from his jacket pocket and filled it with the strong latakia mixture. "Thank you," he said. "Cigarettes for action, but a pipe for reflection."
     
                  "That's what I say myself," the old man replied.
     
                  "I know." Paul smiled. "I was quoting you."
     
                  "Ah!" The two men were puffing away contentedly when, a couple of minutes later, Joseph wheeled a tea tray to the space between the two chairs and filled two cups from a silver urn.
     
                  Davoud took the clay pipe from his mouth and put it aside. "I saw a woman—a lady, actually—smoking a cigarette earlier today," he said, taking his cup in both hands and breathing in the aroma of the fresh-brewed tea. Paul looked at him inquiringly.
     
                  He nodded. "It was at the Hotel Metropol, where I went to meet the young nobleman who wished to permit me to advance him five thousand kronen. She sat in the lobby. A dainty young thing with her hair up in a bun—so—and a trim black lace bonnet with a satin ribbon and a black velvet half-cape over a hunter-green gown. Elegant, she was. And while I waited for the youth to appear, she lit one of those long Balkan cigarettes and puffed away at it."
     
                  "You have a better eye for women's clothing than most men," Paul commented.
     
                  "My wife, God rest her soul, was a dressmaker," Davoud explained.
     
                  "So, what happened?"
     
                  "The young branch of a noble bush finally showed up—"
     
                  "With the lady who smoked," Paul interrupted.
     
                  "Well, in the end nothing," Davoud said. "The manager and the desk clerk and a couple of other hotel employees gathered in a clutch to discuss the matter in horrified tones, but I heard the name 'Princess Someone-or-Other' mentioned a couple of times, which I gathered referred to the young lady in question, and in the end it was evidently decided that royalty trumps manners, so they retreated. Eventually she put the cigarette out. Now tell me, Herr Donzhof, what can I do for you today?"
     
                  "A cup of tea," Paul said, "a little conversation."
     
                  "And perhaps a discreet name or two from my list of distinguished clients?"
     
                  "If any new ones have come your way ..."
     
                  Davoud pointed a long, arthritic finger across the tea tray at Paul. "I wonder about you," he said.
     
                  "I thought you might," Paul said.
     
                  "You are not what you seem."
     
                  "You are the second person to tell me that today," Paul said. "Is my nose growing longer? Is there no hope that I'll become a real boy?"
     
                  Davoud shrugged a tiny shrug. "I am not suggesting that you lie, that would be pointless. Of course you lie. We all lie. Complete honesty would quickly become unbearable. What you do is"—he searched for a