“And where,” asked Tarlyon reasonably, “does His Excellency come in?”
“He won’t come in anywhere after to-night. His Excellency is going to
die. And with that the Armenian suddenly stopped in his unwilling
stride, and looked from one to the other of us. His broken nose made
fantasy of his dark face, but I remember thinking that it must once have
been a handsome enough face of its kind, for not even a broken nose made
him quite ugly. He was as tall as Tarlyon, but slighter; his was a
dangerous thinness. He addressed Tarlyon. He did not seem to have a very
high opinion of me.
“Sir,” he said--an Armenian habit, I suppose, that “sir”--“you have
intruded your company on me, but I have accepted you. I have trusted
you. I have treated you as gentlemen, being by nature an optimist, and I
take it for granted that you will neither betray me nor try to deter me.
You will understand the vigour of my purpose when I say that a young
girl is concerned in this, that I have sworn a vow, and that if you
were in my position you would do what I am going to do. Good-night,
gentlemen. I hope we will meet again when I am less occupied with more
important business.”
“Hold on,” cried Tarlyon. “What on earth were you chasing that car for?
And who the devil is His Excellency? We’d like to know, you see, so as
to be able to pick him out from among the other murders in to-morrow’s
papers.”
“Achmed Jzzit Pasha, the Young Turk,” said the Armenian softly.
“Ah!” said George Tarlyon. “I see. Enver Pasha, Djemal Pasha, Talaat
Pasha, and Achmed Jzzit Pasha, of the Committee of Union and Progress. I
see. Talaat Pasha has already been killed, hasn’t he?”
“Four of us,” said the Armenian sombrely, “set out from Armenia last
year, and each of us had a mission of revenge. One of us--you will
remember?--shot and killed Talaat Pasha in a street in Berlin some
months ago. Djemal Pasha was lately slain in Syria. Enver Pasha has fled
to Bokhara. A murder has been arranged and will shortly take place in
Bokhara. And I, the fourth, have at last found Achmed Jzzit, the foulest
murderer of all. There is not an Armenian in the world who would not
shoot Achmed Jzzit Pasha on sight if he had the chance--but Armenians
who come to Western countries only too soon acquire nasty Western habits
of money-grubbing and forget the glory there is in killing. But I, a
Zeytounli, have never forgotten it....”
“You speak English very well,” I remarked. “Were you educated at an
English public-school?”
“That, sir, is a matter of opinion. But even an English public-school
could not make me forget that I am an Armenian, and that an Armenian’s
first business is to kill Turks; failing Turks, he may, of course, kill
Kurds or ravish Circassian maidens----”
“Oh, not Circassians!” I pleaded.
“Well, Albanian,” he allowed. “During the war I fought through the siege
of Zeytoun, and then as an irregular under Andranik; and since the war I
have pursued Achmed Jzzit Pasha--and to-night I have found him! He has
been here in London for some months, but under an assumed name, for he
knows that he is marked by the Dashnakists[A] and the Henchakists,[A]
and he is afraid. It is my present business to cure him of his fear for
ever.” And with a wrench his arms were free of our gently restraining
hands and he was off down the square. But Tarlyon was swift, very
swift; I panted up just as he was again “intruding himself” on the
Armenian.
“You don’t seem to realise,” breathed Tarlyon, “that you can’t enter a
house in Brook Street, kill a Pasha, and get away----”
“I don’t care if I get away or not,” the other broke in fiercely.
“Besides, my friend who killed Talaat in Berlin was acquitted. And I
cannot believe that your English juries are as thick-headed as you would
have me think. So will you please excuse me, sir?”
It was marvellous what venom that broken-nosed young man could put into
a simple question!
“I’ve taken rather a fancy to you,” murmured Tarlyon, “and I hate to
think of your going off murdering Pashas. Come and have a drink instead,
there’s a good fellow.”
“If I tell you,” snapped the Armenian, “that there is a girl in that
house, and that I must rescue that girl, then you will perhaps see your
way to minding your own business.”
“Has the Pasha got your girl?” I asked kindly.
“She is my sister, O fool,” he said wearily. “And do you think I can
allow my little sister to stay in that loathsome old creature’s house
one night more than I can help?”
“Collar him,” said Tarlyon to me; and I grabbed the young man’s other
arm, though I didn’t in the least want to, and again we began hauling
him round the square. As I walked close to him I could feel a solid
bulky thing in his hip-pocket, and I did not like the feeling.
“Now,” said Tarlyon, very business-like, “what’s all this about your
sister?”
The Armenian almost screamed with impatience.
“Have I not told you all along that if you were in my position you would
do exactly what I am going to do? Must I explain to you that my little
sister was carried away by that old lecher before my eyes? Must I tell
you how Zeytoun on the hill was at last shelled to dust by the batteries
of two Army Corps under Achmed Jzzit Pasha, and how the Turks entered
the smoking town and gave no quarter to man, woman or child? Must I,
just to satisfy your wanton and asinine curiosity, ravage my heart with
retailing how my father and mother were bayoneted before my eyes, and
how I escaped only because those Turkish swine thought me already dead?
Must I tell you how my little sister was carried away to the harem of
Achmed Jzzit Pasha, who, on beholding her, swore a mighty swear that he
would not rest from disembowelling Christians until he had ravished her?
Did she give way? The slaying went on, day by day and night by night, so
that a count of the leaves of the trees in your puny but not
unattractive Green Park would make but a fraction of the number of the
dead bodies that to this day lie rotting in the plain of Mush. An expert
killer was Achmed Jzzit Pasha; and whether or not the natural blood-lust
of the illiterate Osmanli was heightened by his oath to ravish my sister
I do not know, but I do know that there has not been such a tale of dead
Christians since Timur passed through the land to meet Bajazet. And that
is the man who holds my sister in that house, while you detain me here
with the vain questions and idiotic comments peculiar to the high-minded
people of your patrician land. I followed him to Paris, but he escaped
me. I found him in Bournemouth, but again I withheld my hand while I
planned some way of rescuing Anaïs--fool that I was! But the idea in my
head was that I must first get the girl to some place of safety--and
then to come back, slay him, and pay whatever is the penalty in your
country for killing a loathsome animal. But now I have realised that
there is no other way of rescuing Anaïs but by killing him first.
Always, wherever he goes, he keeps her locked in a room next to his, and
thus it must be in this house. Bestial fancies seethe in his brain,
wherefore he sleeps lightly. And while the night is dwindling, here I
stand satisfying your idle curiosity. You really must excuse me now,
gentlemen.”
“But hold on!” cried Tarlyon. “Why kill the wretched man at all? Why not
rescue your sister with the charming name and let the Pasha go on being
a Pasha until he dies a horrible death by reason of those bestial
fancies which you mentioned? He won’t dare come after her--and I don’t
see much point in getting your sister back if you have got to swing for
it more or less at once. Eh, Ralph?”
“Quite right,” said I. “Come and have a drink instead.”
“This is no time for drink,” snapped the Armenian. “The night is
dwindling--and how can I desist from killing him when, as I have told
you, I cannot get into her room without awaking him? And it stands to
reason that as soon as I see him I shall also see red, and kill--as I
must, by reason of my vow and by order of the Dashnakists. As I have
told you, I would have preferred to have got Anaïs out of the house
first, but that seems impossible....”
Tarlyon opened his mouth and closed it. I knew what was passing in
Tarlyon’s mind, and I thought I would let it pass, so that he might
think again. But then he re-opened his mouth, and this is what he said:
“My friend and I,” he said, “might perhaps consider giving you a little
assistance, if in return you gave us a promise----”
“I promise nothing!”
“Drat the boy!” said Tarlyon. “What I wish to point out is that, if my
friend and I help you to get your sister out of that house, you must
drop this killing business. We will contrive some way of keeping His
Excellency quiet while you rescue your sister--but you must give us your
word of honour, or some efficient substitute, that you will not come
back and murder the wretched Pasha. Now, I want no back-chat about
it--either you will or you will not.”
“But I am bound to the Dashnakists!” cried the Armenian; rather
regretfully, I thought.
“Blast the Dashnakists!” said Tarlyon. “Yes or no?”
“I promise,” said the Armenian suddenly.
My native common sense now got the better of me.
“You seem to take it for granted that we just walk into the house. How
do we get in?”
“This cuts windows like a knife,” said the Armenian, showing us in the
palm of his hands a glittering little thing like a toy dagger. “An
Argentine invention.”
“The matter will be further facilitated,” said Tarlyon, “by our first
getting my car, which is opposite Claridge’s, and driving in it to the
front door. My reason for this step is that no policeman would dare
suspect anything wrong in a house while a Rolls-Royce is standing
outside it. Especially, Ralph, when your manly appearance is decorating
the driving-seat....”
“I shall be in the house,” I said firmly. Not that I wanted to be--but
one always says those things, and one always says them firmly.
“Perhaps that would be better,” said the Armenian. “It will certainly
take the two of you to keep His Excellency quiet while I break in the
first locked door I see and get Anaïs. And a Rolls-Royce car is, I
understand, even more impressive empty than when some one is in
it--people make it seem possible.”