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I remember that I took each one separately and chewed on it for hours. Kasredin there was nothing to be got out of that. Cancer there were too many meanings, all blind. V. I. that was the worst gibberish of all. Before this I had always taken the I as the letter of the alphabet.
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.
You have chosen the roughest road, but it goes straight to the hill-tops. He handed me the half-sheet of note-paper. On it were written three words 'Kasredin', 'cancer', and 'v. 'That is the only clue we possess, he said. 'I cannot construe it, but I can tell you the story. We have had our agents working in Persia and Mesopotamia for years mostly young officers of the Indian Army.
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.
He mumbled his name, but beyond that and the fact that there was a Something coming from the West he told them nothing. He died in ten minutes. They found this paper on him, and since he cried out the word "Kasredin" in his last moments, it must have had something to do with his quest. It is for you to find out if it has any meaning. I folded it up and placed it in my pocket-book.
'Well, to 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.
'He's the General believed to be commanding against us in Mesopotamia. I remember him years ago in Aleppo. He talked bad French and drank the sweetest of sweet champagne. I looked closely at the paper. The 'K' was unmistakable. 'Kasredin is nothing. It means in Arabic the House of Faith, and might cover anything from Hagia Sofia to a suburban villa. What's your next puzzle, Dick?
Wherefore, I argued, the words must be intelligible to somebody or other of our persuasion, and likewise they must be pretty well gibberish to any Turk or German that found them. The first, 'Kasredin', I could make nothing of. I asked Sandy. 'You mean Nasr-ed-din, he said, still munching crumpets. 'What's that? I asked sharply.
'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.
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