house servants, and he, if
necessary, admitted any person who came, closing the door; but the
visitor had to be examined by the policeman stationed in the passage
before he was permitted to come any further. On this occasion I went out
and found three gentlemen standing there. They were Turks, as could be
easily seen by their attire, and appeared to be persons of some
consequence."

"What do you mean by the words 'their attire'?" interrupted Brett. "Were
they dressed in European clothes or in regular Turkish garments?"

"Oh," said the inspector, "I only meant that they wore fezzes; otherwise
they were quite accurately dressed in frock coats and the rest, but they
were unmistakably Turks by their appearance. Two of them could speak no
English, and the third, who acted as the leader of the party, first of
all addressed me in French. Finding I did not understand him, he used
very broken, but fairly intelligible, English. What he wanted was to be
taken at once to his Excellency, Mehemet Ali Pasha. I said that his
Excellency was dining and that perhaps he had better call in the
morning, but he replied that his business was very urgent, and he could
not wait. He made me understand that if I sent in the cards of himself
and his companions they would certainly be admitted at once. I did not
see any harm in this, so I took the three cards and gave them to
Hussein, who was crossing the hall at the moment."

"As the cards were printed in Turkish characters you could not, of
course, tell what the names were," said Brett.

A look of blank astonishment crossed the inspector's face as he replied:
"That is a good guess, but it is so. The hieroglyphics on the piece of
pasteboard were worse than Greek. However, Hussein glanced at them. He
appeared to be surprised; he went into the dining-room, returning with
the message that the gentlemen were to be admitted. Of course I had
nothing else to do but to let them in, which I did, accompanying them
myself to the door of the dining-room, and making sure, before the door
was closed, that their presence was expected."

"How did you do that?" said Brett.

"Well, although they spoke in what I suppose was Turkish, it is not very
difficult to distinguish by a man's tones whether his reception of
unexpected visitors is cordial or not, and there could be no doubt that
the visiting cards had conveyed such names to his Excellency as
warranted the introduction of the party into the house. The six