Chapter 7

TO McLEAN'S ASTONISHMENT

"It is no end of good of you, Jack, to take this trouble," Andrew McLean remarked appreciatively, looking up from his scrutiny of the packet which his unexpected luncheon guest had pushed over to his plate.

"Uncommon thoughtful. It's undoubtedly a twin to that locket, the portrait of the man's wife--whatever his name was."

"Delcassé," said Jack Ryder promptly.

Gratefully he drained the second lemon squash which the silent-footed Mohammed had placed at his elbow. It had been a hard morning's trip, this coming in from camp in high haste, and he was hot and dusty.

"You might have sent the thing," McLean mentioned. "I daresay that special agent chap has left the country, for I recollect he said he was at the end of his search.... And, of course, this isn't much of a clue--eh, what?"

"It's everything of a clue," insisted Ryder. "It shows where this Frenchman was working, for the first thing--"

"Unless it had been stolen by some native who lost it in that tomb."

"Natives don't lose gold lockets. Of course it might have been stolen and hidden--but that's far-fetched. It's much more likely that this was the very tomb where Delcassé was working at the time of his death. For one thing, the place showed signs of previous excavation up to the inner corridor, and there I'll swear no modern got ahead of me. And for another thing, it's a perfect specimen of the limestone carving of the Tomb of Thi which Delcassé wrote his book about--looks very much as if it might be by the same artist. There's a flock of hippopotami in a marsh scene with the identical drawing, and there's the same lovely boat in full sail--but there, you bounder, you don't know the Tomb of Thi from a thyroid gland. You're here to administer financial justice, the middle, the high, and the low; your soul is with piasters, not the past. But take my word for it, it's exactly the spot where an enthusiast of the Thi Tomb would be grubbing away.... Lord, they could choose their find in those days!"

"It's uncommonly likely," McLean conceded, abandoning his demolished cherry tart and pulling out his briar. "And if the locket proves the duplicate of the other it indicates that it's a portrait of Madame Delcassé, but it doesn't indicate what has become of Madame Delcassé.... Though in a general way," McLean deduced with Scotch judicialness, "it supports the theory of foul play. The woman would hardly have lost her miniature, or have sold it, except under pressing conditions. In fact--"

Ryder was brusque with his facts.

"That doesn't matter--Madame Delcassé doesn't matter. The thing that matters is--"

As brusquely he broke off. His tongue balked before the revelation but he goaded it on.

"That there is a girl--the living image of that picture."

"I say!" McLean looked up at that, distinctly intrigued. "That's getting on.... You mean you've seen her?"

Ryder nodded, suddenly busy with his cigarette.

"Where is she, now? In Cairo? That's luck, man!... And you say she's like?"

"You'd think it her picture."

"It's an uncommon face." McLean bent over it again. "I fancied the artist had just been making a bit of beauty, but if there's a girl like that--! Fancy stumbling on that!... But where is she? And what name does she go by?"

"Oh, her name--she doesn't know her own, of course." Ryder paused uncertainly. "She's in Cairo," he began again vaguely. "She'd be just about the right age--eighteen or so. She--she's had awf'ly hard luck." Distressfully he hesitated.

The shrewd eyes of McLean dwelt upon him in sorrowful silence. "Eh, Jock," he said at last, with mock scandal scarcely veiling rebuke. "I did not know that you knew any of that sort--the poor, wee lost thing.... Tell me, now--"

"Tell you you're off your chump," said Jack rudely. "She's no lost lamb. Fact is, she's never spoken to a man--except myself." He rather enjoyed the start this gave McLean after his insinuations. It helped him on with his story.

"The girl doesn't know her own name at all, I gather. She thinks she's the daughter of Tewfick Pasha. Her mother married the Turk and died very soon afterwards and he brought up this girl as his own. She says she's his only child."

He paused, ostensibly to blow an elaborate smoke ring, but actually to enjoy McLean's astonishment. As astonishment, it was distinctly