“Nothing much.  I was at the Tomb of the Kings yesterday.”

Scharnhoff smiled scornfully.

“Now you must have some whiskey to take the taste of that untruth out of your mouth!  How can a man of your attainments call that obviously modern fraud by such a name?  The place is not nearly two thousand years old!  It is probably the tomb of a Syrian queen named Adiabene and her family.  Josephus mentions it.  This land is full—­every square metre of it—­of false antiquities with real names, and real antiquities that never have been discovered!  But why should a man like you, Major Grim, lend yourself to perpetuating falsity?”

He walked over to the cupboard to get whiskey, and from where we sat we could both of us see what he was doing.  The cupboard was in two parts, top and bottom, without any intervening strip of wood between the doors, which fitted tightly.  When he opened the top part the lower door opened with it.  He kicked it shut again at once, but I had seen inside—­not that it was interesting at the moment.

He set whiskey and tumblers on the desk, poured liberally, and went on talking.

“Tomb of the Kings?  Hah!  Tomb of the Kings of Judah?  Hah!  If any one can find that, he will have something more important than Ludendorff’s memoirs!  Something merkwurdig, believe me!”

He stiffened suddenly, and looked at Grim through the green goggles as if he were judging an antiquity.

“Perhaps this is not the time to make you a little suggestion, eh?”

Grim’s face wrinkled into smiles.

“This man knows enough to hang me anyhow!  Fire away!”

“Ah!  But I would not like him to hang me!”

“He’s as close as a clam.  What’s your notion?”

“Nothing serious, but—­between us three, then—­you and I are both foreigners in this place, Major Grim, although I have made it my home for fifteen years.  You have no more interest in this government and its ridiculous rules than I have.  What do you say—­shall we find the Tomb of the Kings together?”

Grim wrinkled into smiles again and glanced down at his uniform.

“Yes, exactly!” agreed Scharnhoff.  “That is the whole point.  They call me an enemy alien.  I am to all intents and purposes a prisoner.  You are a British officer—­can do what you like—­go where you like.  You wear red tabs; you are on the staff; nobody will dare to question you.  These English have stopped all exploration until they get their mandate.  After that they will take good care that only English societies have the exploration privilege.  But what if we—­you and I, that is to say—­between us extract the best plum from the pudding before those miscalled statesmen sign the mandate—­eh?  It can be done!  It can be done!”

Grim chuckled: 

“I suppose you already see a picture of you and me with an ancient tomb in our trunks—­say a few tons of the more artistic parts—­beating it for the frontier and hawking the stuff afterward to second-hand furniture dealers?  Pour me another whiskey, prof, and then we’ll go steal the Mosque of Omar!”