But it certainly did not.  It was a hasty scrawl to McLean, saying that Ryder was on his way with the museum finds and sending this ahead by runner, and that McLean must positively be at the Cairo Museum to meet him at five and would he please stop on the way and call at his hotel upon a Miss Jeffries and borrow a woman’s cloak and hat and veil, or if she wasn’t in, get them elsewhere.

“What is it—­another masquerade?” said Jinny blankly.

McLean looked mutely at her and shook his head, but within him horrific suspicion was raging like a forest fire.

He continued his converse with the Pendletons while Jinny went for the things; she returned with a small bag containing coat and hat and veil, and the announcement that she would go right over with him.

“If the things aren’t right I’ll know what he wants,” she declared, and then, smiling, “What do you suppose he is up to now?”

McLean felt that he didn’t want to know.  And most positively he didn’t want her to know.  But having lacked the instant inspiration to deny her, he could only acquiesce and wonder why he hadn’t thought up some brilliant excuse.

He looked helplessly at the Pendletons, but they merely murmured their adieux and their independent niece accompanied McLean to his waiting carriage as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

* * * * *

The caravan was before them.  A long line of camels was just turning in the gates and before the steps of a back entrance other camels, kneeling with that profound and squealing resentment with which even the camel’s most exhausted moments oppose commands, were being relieved of their huge loads by natives under the very minute and exact direction of Thatcher.

And within the entrance a young man with rumpled dark hair and a thin, bronzed face flushed with impatience was imperiously conveying the Arabs who were bearing the precious sarcophagi.

Over his shoulder he caught sight of the two arrivals.

“I asked for motors—­and they furnished these!” he cried disgustedly, gesturing at the enduring camels.  “It took us all day though we half killed the brutes....  Hello, Jinny, did you bring the things?”

With light casualness he accepted her appearance on the scene.  That glitter in his bright hazel eyes was not for that.  “Come in, both of you,” he called, plunging after his men.

At the foot of the stairs McLean waited with Miss Jeffries until the men had reached the top and deposited their burdens in the room and in the manner which Ryder was specifying so crisply, and then they came mechanically up.

McLean had the automatic feeling of a mere super in a well rehearsed scene.  He had no idea of plot or appearance but his role of dumb subservience was clearly defined.

“You understand,” Ryder was calling to the men, “nothing more goes in this room.  All else down stairs....  Come in,” he said hurriedly to his waiting friends, and shutting the door swiftly behind them, “of course—­this doesn’t lock!” he muttered.  “Jinny, you stand here, do, and if any one tries to come in tell them they can’t.”