Most of our baggage was on the floor, but one fairly heavy valise was in the rack over Yussuf Dakmar’s head.  Jeremy got up to examine it when the pistol had ceased to amuse him, and taking advantage of a jerk as the train slowed down, contrived to drop it into the Syrian’s lap; who rather naturally swore; whereat Jeremy took offence, and accused him of being a descendant of Hanna, son of Manna, who lived for a thousand and one years and never enjoyed himself.

It was our turn to eat sandwiches after that, while Yussuf Dakmar recovered from his disgruntlement.  But just before the meal was finished Jeremy revived the game by asking suddenly in an awestruck whisper where “it” was.  He slapped himself all over in a hurry, feeling for hidden pockets, and then came over and pretended to search me.  There wasn’t anything to do but fall in with his mood, so I resisted, searched my own pockets reluctantly, and said that we might as well take the next train back, since we had lost the important document.

Before we started we had put into a wallet the fake envelope that Grim had carried in his hand the previous night, and had entrusted the wallet to Jeremy in order to have an alibi ready for Mabel in case of need.  Grim took up the cudgels now and reminded me respectfully, as a servant should when speaking to his master, that I had taken all proper precautions and could not be blamed in any event.

“But I think it will be found,” he said hopefully.  “Inshallah, it is not lost, but in the wallet in the pocket of that hare-brained friend of yours.”

So Jeremy went back to his corner, searched for the wallet, found it after pretty nearly, standing on his head to shake his clothes, examined it excitedly, and produced the fake envelope, flourishing it so violently that nobody, even with eyes like a hawk’s, could have identified it with certainty.

Then he dropped it in among the baggage on the floor, and went down on his knees to pick it up again.  There is no more finished expert at sleight of hand than he, so it vanished, and he swore he couldn’t find it.  In a well-simulated agony of nervousness he called on Yussuf Dakmar to get down and help him search, and the Syrian hadn’t enough self-command left to pretend to hesitate; his cold eyes were nearly popping from his head as he knelt and groped.  The chief subject of interest to me just then was how he proposed to retain the letter in the unlikely event of his finding it first.

It was a ridiculous search, because there wasn’t really anywhere to look.  After three bags had been lifted and their bottoms scrutinized the whole floor of the compartment lay naked to the eye, except where my feet rested.  Jeremy insisted on my raising them, to the accompaniment of what he considered suitable comment on their size, turning his “behind end” meanwhile toward Yussuf Dakmar.

Grim chuckled and caught my eye.  Yussuf Dakmar had walked straight into temptation, and was trying to search Jeremy’s pockets from the rear—­no easy matter, for he had to discover them first in the loose folds of the Arab costume.