But I found out the way they were going to get
him, and that knowledge was deadly. That's why I have had to decease.'
He had another drink, and I mixed it for him myself, for I was
getting interested in the beggar.
'They can't get him in his own land, for he has a bodyguard of
Epirotes that would skin their grandmothers. But on the 15th day of
June he is coming to this city. The British Foreign Office has taken
to having International tea-parties, and the biggest of them is due
on that date. Now Karolides is reckoned the principal guest, and if
my friends have their way he will never return to his admiring
countrymen.'
'That's simple enough, anyhow,' I said. 'You can warn him and
keep him at home.'
'And play their game?' he asked sharply. 'If he does not come
they win, for he's the only man that can straighten out the tangle.
And if his Government are warned he won't come, for he does not
know how big the stakes will be on June the 15th.'
'What about the British Government?' I said. 'They're not going
to let their guests be murdered. Tip them the wink, and they'll take
extra precautions.'
'No good. They might stuff your city with plain-clothes detectives
and double the police and Constantine would still be a
doomed man. My friends are not playing this game for candy. They
want a big occasion for the taking off, with the eyes of all Europe
on it.
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