The worse for Jack.  For now there seemed no ministering angel to mend his troubled future.

It was not only Ryder’s troubled future that troubled McLean—­it was also Ryder’s troubled present.  He was very far from easy in his mind about him.  After that mystifying performance in the tomb he had not wanted to leave without a frank explanation, but there had been no moment for revelation; Thatcher had hung about them and Hamdi Bey, of all men, had requested a place in McLean’s motor for the return to Cairo.

And that dinner engagement had pressed.  He could have abandoned it for any real reason, but Jack had assured him that there was none.

“Get the old devil out of here,” had been Jack’s furious appeal, referring to Hamdi.  “Deny everything to him.  Only get him out.”

And McLean had got him out.

The sheik and his followers after a murmurous conference with the bey had galloped off; the police had turned towards their post and Hamdi had accompanied McLean to the nearest village and his waiting motor.

Clearly he had wanted to talk to McLean and McLean was not sorry for the opportunity to exchange implications.  The bey had unfolded his sympathetic friendship for the sheik; McLean had unfolded a cold surprise that anything so disgraceful should be attributed to such a prominent archaeologist.  The bey had produced the evidence and McLean had produced a skeptical wonder, and then a thoughtful wonder if the British government had not better take the matter up and sift it, for the benefit of all concerned.

Clearly the thing could not go on.  Ryder could not accept such a rumor against his reputation.  Yes, he thought he would advise Ryder to take the matter up.

And there he perceived that even the suave and politic Hamdi squirmed.  Doubtless to the Turk, McLean represented British prestige and political power and all sorts of unknown influence....  And native testimony, while voluable and unscrupulous, had a way of offering confused discrepancies to the coldly questioning investigators of the law.

And with no real evidence against Ryder—­

The matter of the sheik’s daughter, McLean perceived, would be dropped.  Unless the girl—­whatever girl they sought—­could be discovered.

If Hamdi wished to pay off some score against the American he would choose other weapons.  McLean reflected upon the bey’s capacity for assassination or poisoning while he bade him farewell before the dark wall of his palace entrance.

Between them had passed no reference to the bey’s recent loss.  Since it would not have been etiquette for him to mention the bey’s wife, he judged it equally inadvisable to refer to her ashes.

The whole affair was so wrapped in darkness that he could not decide upon any creditable explanation.  It would have to wait until he saw Ryder in the next day or two—­for Ryder had told him he would try to get in with his finds as soon as possible.