Mutely he shook his head.  And that agitated whisper died away with the last vestige of belief in Ryder’s innocence.  Apprehensively McLean glanced about that inner chamber he was entering, dreading to encounter instant and damning evidence of a girl.

He found himself in the presence of the dead.  The chamber was a small, square, walled-up affair, and at one side stood the three sarcophagi.  The other halls had been in total darkness, but the blackness of this place appeared something palpable and weighty.  And the air had the dry, acrid tang of dust which has lain waiting for centuries.

It was hot, whereas the other chambers had been cool—­or else McLean’s disturbed blood was pumping too furiously through his pulses.  Instinctively he drew close to Jack, as the party stood flashing their lights over the bare walls and empty corners, and then concentrated the pale illumination upon those caskets of the dead.

“I told you that the place was empty,” Ryder said with distinct impatience in his voice.  “And now, if you have satisfied yourselves—­”

“You are in haste, monsieur,” said Hamdi Bey’s smooth voice.  “If you will permit us to see what is within—­”

He approached the first sarcophagus.

The sheik, who appeared to have committed the restoration of his daughter into the other’s hands, remained imperturbably beside the entrance while the head of the police came forward to assist Hamdi in raising the painted lid.

“I protest,” said Ryder very sharply.  He stood upon the other side of the case, eying them combatively.  “It is useless to disturb this lid—­I tell you that the Persians have been considerably before you.”

And indeed the case was empty.  Hamdi moved to the next and again Ryder took up his post opposite.

“Again I protest,” he insisted.  “The least jar or injury—­”

But the men raised the lid, and after the briefest look, moved on.

“And now,” Ryder spoke very clearly and authoritatively, addressing the head of the police, “I must ask you to stop.  Even the dust that you are disturbing is precious.  This thing has gone beyond all reason.”

The police official looked as if he agreed with him, but Hamdi Bey had moved determinedly to the third sarcophagus.  The official hesitated, evidenced discomfort, but moved finally after the bey.

“If there is nothing here,” he murmured, “surely you cannot object—­”

“There is precious dust here,” Ryder repeated.  “You must understand—­”

“We see for ourselves,” said Hamdi Bey, and now his voice had a ring of triumphant steel through its soft smoothness.  “Stand aside.  This is in the name of the law.”

It seemed to McLean that for one mad moment Ryder was tempted to resist.  In the flickering light of the torches he stood defiantly above the painted mummy case, his eyes steadily upon the bey, his hands pressing down upon the vivid bloom of the dead woman’s pictured face.