Unless he wore McLean’s.

She had always regarded the unknown McLean as a most unnecessary absorbent of Jack Ryder’s time and attention and now that view was deeply reinforced.

By noon she decided to do something.  She would telephone that Andrew McLean and see if Jack had been there.  The Agricultural Bank, that was the place.  An obliging hotel clerk—­clerks were always obliging to Miss Jeffries—­gave her the number and she slipped into the booth feeling a ridiculous amount of excitement and suspense.

She had never telephoned in Cairo—­only been telephoned to—­and she was not prepared for the fact that the telephone company was French.  At the phone girl’s “Numero?—­Quel numero, s’il vous plait?” Jinny hastily choked back the English response and clutched violently at French numerals.

“Huit cent—­no, quatre vingt—­un moment!” she demanded desperately and hanging up the receiver, sat down to write out her number in French correctly.

And then she got the Bank, and, still clinging to her French, she requested to speak to Monsieur McLean and was informed that it was Monsieur McLean himself.

“Je suis—­oh, how absurd!  Of course you speak English,” she exclaimed.  “This French telephone upset me....  I wanted to speak to Mr. Ryder if he is there—­or else leave a message for him, if you know when he will come in.”

“Ryder?” There was a faint intonation of surprise in the voice.  “I’ve no idea really when he’ll be in,” said McLean, “but you may leave the message if you like.”

“Hasn’t he—­haven’t you seen him for some time?” stammered Jinny, feeling that McLean must be taking her for a pursuing adventuress.

“Well—­not for some time.”

Her heart sank.

“Not—­not for two days?”

“It might be that,” said the Scotchman cautiously.

Two days.  Forty-eight hours, almost, since she had left him in that harem!  And McLean had not seen him.  Of course there might be other friends who had and McLean might know of them.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to see you,” she said desperately.  “It’s rather important about Jack Ryder—­and if I could just talk with you a minute—­this afternoon—?”

“I have no appointment for three fifteen,” McLean told her concisely.

Evidently he expected her to call at the Bank....  He was used to being called on....  “Shall I come—?” she began.

“I can see you at three fifteen,” McLean reassured her, and she repeated “Three fifteen,” with an odd vibration in her voice.

“I wonder,” she murmured, “if I came at three ten—­or three twenty—?”

* * * * *

But she didn’t.  She was humorously careful to make it exactly a quarter past the hour when she left her cab before McLean’s official looking residence and stepped into the tiled entrance.

She had no very clear notion of Andrew McLean except that he was, as Jack had said, Scotch, single, and skeptical, that he was Jack’s intimate friend and an official sort of banker—­and the word banker had unconsciously prepared her for stout dignity and middle age.