n and a favor."

"You shall have the answer and my services."

"Do not promise before you have heard. 'Two acrobats cannot always dance
on the same rope,' as your proverb says."

"And 'Every sheep hangs by its own heels,'" said he. "I will take my
chance with you. First, the question, please."

"Did you ever hear of Alexander Patoff?"

Balsamides looked at me a moment, with the air of a man who is asked an
exceedingly foolish question.

"Hear of him? I have heard of nothing else for the last eighteen months.
I have an indigestion brought on by too much Alexander Patoff. Is that
your errand, Griggs? How in the world did you come to take up that
question?"

"You have been asked about him before?" I inquired.

"I tell you there is not a dog in Constantinople that has not been
kicked for not knowing where that fellow is. I am sick of him, alive or
dead. What do I care about your Patoffs? The fool could not take care of
himself when he was alive, and now the universe is turned upside down to
find his silly body. Where is he? At the bottom of the Bosphorus. How
did he get there? By the kind exertions of his brother, who then played
the comedy of tearing his hair so cleverly that his ambassador believed
him. Very simple: if you want to find his body, I can tell you how to do
it."

"How?" I asked eagerly.

"Drain the Bosphorus," he answered, with a sneer. "You will find plenty
of skulls at the bottom of it. The smallest will be his, to a dead
certainty."

"My dear fellow," I protested, "his brother did not kill him. The proof
is that Paul Patoff has come hack swearing that he will find some trace
of Alexander. He came with me, and I believe his story."

"He is only renewing the comedy,--tearing his hair on the anniversary of
the death, like a well-paid mourner. Of course, somebody has accused him
again of the murder. He will have to tear his hair every time he is
accused, in order to keep up appearances. He knows, and he alone knows,
where the dead man is."

"But if he killed him the kavass must have known it--must have helped
him. You remember the story?"

"I should think so. What does the kavass prove? Nothing. He was probably
told to go off for a moment, and now will not confess it. Money will do
anything."

"There remains the driver of the carriage," I objected. "He saw
Alexander go into Agia Sophia, but he never saw him come out."

"And is anything easier than that? A man might learn those few words in