Greenmantle by John Buchan (reading strategies book .TXT) 📕

make a long story short, I got to Constantinople, and pretty soon found touch with Blenkiron. The rest you know. And now for business. I have been fairly lucky—but no more, for I haven’t got to the bottom of the thing nor anything like it. But I’ve solved the first of Harry Bullivant’s riddles. I know the meaning of Kasredin.

“Sir Walter was right, as Blenkiron has told us. There’s a great stirring in Islam, something moving on the face of the waters. They make no secret of it. Those religious revivals come in cycles, and one was due about now. And they are quite clear about the details. A seer has arisen of the blood of the Prophet, who will restore the Khalifate to its old glories and Islam to its old purity. His sayings are everywhere in the Moslem world. All the orthodox believers have them by heart. That is why they are enduring grinding poverty and preposterous taxation, and that is why their young men are rolling up to the armies and dying without complaint in Gallipoli and Transcaucasia. They believe they are on the eve of a great deliverance.

“Now the first thing I found out was that the Young Turks had nothing to do with this. They are unpopular and unorthodox, and no true Turks. But Germany has. How, I don’t know, but I could see quite plainly that in some subtle way Germany was regarded as a collaborator in the movement. It is that belief that is keeping the present regime going. The ordinary Turk loathes the Committee, but he has some queer perverted expectation from Germany. It is not a case of Enver and the rest carrying on their shoulders the unpopular Teuton; it is a case of the Teuton carrying the unpopular Committee. And Germany’s graft is just this and nothing more—that she has some hand in the coming of the new deliverer.

“They talk about the thing quite openly. It is called the Kaába-i-hurriyeh, the Palladium of Liberty. The prophet himself is known as Zimrud—‘the Emerald’—and his four ministers are called also after jewels—Sapphire, Ruby, Pearl, and Topaz. You will hear their names as often in the talk of the towns and villages as you will hear the names of generals in England. But no one knew where Zimrud was or when he would reveal himself, though every week came his messages to the faithful. All that I could learn was that he and his followers were coming from the West.

“You will say, what about Kasredin? That puzzled me dreadfully, for no one used the phrase. The Home of the Spirit! It is an obvious cliche, just as in England some new sect might call itself the Church of Christ. Only no one seemed to use it.

“But by and by I discovered that there was an inner and an outer circle in this mystery. Every creed has an esoteric side which is kept from the common herd. I struck this side in Constantinople. Now there is a very famous Turkish shaka called Kasredin, one of those old half-comic miracle plays with an allegorical meaning which they call orta oyun, and which take a week to read. That tale tells of the coming of a prophet, and I found that the select of the faith spoke of the new revelation in terms of it. The curious thing is that in that tale the prophet is aided by one of the few women who play much part in the hagiology of Islam. That is the point of the tale, and it is partly a jest, but mainly a religious mystery. The prophet, too, is not called Emerald.”

“I know,” I said; “he is called Greenmantle.”

Sandy scrambled to his feet, letting his pipe drop in the fireplace.

“Now how on earth did you find out that?” he cried.

Then I told them of Stumm and Gaudian and the whispered words I had not been meant to hear. Blenkiron was giving me the benefit of a steady stare, unusual from one who seemed always to have his eyes abstracted, and Sandy had taken to ranging up and down the room.

“Germany’s in the heart of the plan. That is what I always thought. If we’re to find the Kaába-i-hurriyeh it is no good fossicking among the Committee or in the Turkish provinces. The secret’s in Germany. Dick, you should not have crossed the Danube.”

“That’s what I half feared,” I said. “But on the other hand it is obvious that the thing must come east, and sooner rather than later. I take it they can’t afford to delay too long before they deliver the goods. If we can stick it out here we must hit the trail ... I’ve got another bit of evidence. I have solved Harry Bullivant’s third puzzle.”

Sandy’s eyes were very bright and I had an audience on wires.

“Did you say that in the tale of Kasredin a woman is the ally of the prophet?”

“Yes,” said Sandy; “what of that?”

“Only that the same thing is true of Greenmantle. I can give you her name.”

I fetched a piece of paper and a pencil from Blenkiron’s desk and handed it to Sandy.

“Write down Harry Bullivant’s third word.”

He promptly wrote down “v. I.”

Then I told them of the other name Stumm and Gaudian had spoken. I told of my discovery as I lay in the woodman’s cottage.

“The ‘I’ is not the letter of the alphabet, but the numeral. The name is Von Einem—Hilda von Einem.”

“Good old Harry,” said Sandy softly. “He was a dashed clever chap. Hilda von Einem? Who and where is she? for if we find her we have done the trick.”

Then Blenkiron spoke. “I reckon I can put you wise on that, gentlemen,” he said. “I saw her no later than yesterday. She is a lovely lady. She happens also to be the owner of this house.”

Both Sandy and I began to laugh. It was too comic to have stumbled across Europe and lighted on the very headquarters of the puzzle we had set out to unriddle.

But Blenkiron did not laugh. At the mention of Hilda von Einem he had suddenly become very solemn, and the sight of his face pulled me up short.

“I don’t like it, gentlemen,” he said. “I would rather you had mentioned any other name on God’s earth. I haven’t been long in this city, but I have been long enough to size up the various political bosses. They haven’t much to them. I reckon they wouldn’t stand up against what we could show them in the U-nited States. But I have met the Frau von Einem, and that lady’s a very different proposition. The man that will understand her has got to take a biggish size in hats.”

“Who is she?” I asked.

“Why, that is just what I can’t tell you. She was a great excavator of Babylonish and Hittite ruins, and she married a diplomat who went to glory three years back. It isn’t what she has been, but what she is, and that’s a mighty clever woman.”

Blenkiron’s respect did not depress me. I felt as if at last we had got our job narrowed to a decent compass, for I had hated casting about in the dark. I asked where she lived.

“That I don’t know,” said Blenkiron. “You won’t find people unduly anxious to gratify your natural curiosity about Frau von Einem.”

“I can find that out,” said Sandy. “That’s the advantage of having a push like mine. Meantime, I’ve got to clear, for my day’s work isn’t finished. Dick, you and Peter must go to bed at once.”

“Why?” I asked in amazement. Sandy spoke like a medical adviser.

Sandy spoke like a medical adviser. “Because I want your clothes—the things you’ve got on now. I’ll take them off with me and you’ll never see them again.”

“You’ve a queer taste in souvenirs,” I said.

“Say rather the Turkish police. The current in the Bosporus is pretty strong, and these sad relics of two misguided Dutchmen will be washed up tomorrow about Seraglio Point. In this game you must drop the curtain neat and pat at the end of each Scene, if you don’t want trouble later with the missing heir and the family lawyer.”