Appolonius.' I do not know what that means, nor did M. Duval, but he searched for other writings. When he saw a page glued down, he loosened it--and you know what has resulted."

Coghlan said vexedly, "I wouldn't know what an adept is, and I can hardly guess what a frigid beyond is, or a warm one either. But I do know an Appolonius. I think he's a Greek, but he calls himself a Neoplatonist as if that were a nationality, and says he hails from somewhere in Arabia. He's trying to get Mannard to finance some sort of political shenanigan. But he wouldn't be referred to. Not seven centuries ago!"

"You were," said Ghalil. "And Mr. Mannard. And 80 Hosain. I think M. Duval and myself will investigate that address and see if it solves the mystery or deepens it."

Duval suddenly shook his head.

"No," he said with a sort of pathetic violence. "This affair is not possible! To think of it invites madness! Mr. Coghlan, let us thrust all this from our minds! Let us abandon it! I ask your pardon for my intrusion. I had hoped to find an explanation which could be believed. I abandon the hope and the attempt. I shall go back to Paris and deny to myself that any of this has ever taken place!"

Coghlan did not believe him, said nothing.

"I hope," said Ghalil mildly, "that you may reconsider." He moved toward the door with the Frenchman in tow. "To abandon all inquiry at this stage would be suicidal!"

Coghlan said: "Suicidal?"

"For one," admitted Ghalil, ruefully, "I should die of curiosity!"

He waved his hand and went out, pushing Duval. And Coghlan began to dress for his dinner with Laurie and her father at the Hotel Petra. But as he dressed, his forehead continually creased into a scowl of somehow angry puzzlement.

All the taxicabs of Istanbul are driven by escaped maniacs whom the Turkish police inexplicably leave at large. The cab in which Coghlan drove toward the Hotel Petra was driven by a man with very dark skin and very white teeth and a conviction that the fate of every Pedestrian was determined by Allah and he did not have to worry about them. His cab was equipped with an unusually full-throated horn, and fortunately he seemed to love the sound of it. So Coghlan rode madly through narrow streets in which foot-passengers seemed constantly to be recoiling in horror from the cab-horn, and thereby escaping annihilation by the 

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