“I mean let her alone!” said Monty.

But it turned out she would not be let alone.  We dine in the public room, but she had her meals sent up to her and we flattered ourselves (or I did) that her net had been laid in vain.  Folk dine late in the tropics, and we dallied over coffee and cigars, so that it was going on for ten o’clock when Yerkes and I started upstairs again.  Monty and Fred went out to see the waterfront by moonlight.

We had reached our door (he and I shared one great room) when we heard terrific screams from the floor above—­a woman’s—­one after another, piercing, fearful, hair-raising, and so suggestive in that gloomy, grim building that a man’s very blood stood still.

Yerkes was the first upstairs.  He went like an arrow from a bow, and I after him.  The screams had stopped before we reached the stairhead, but there was no doubting which her room was; the door was partly open, permitting a view of armchairs and feminine garments in some disorder.  We heard a man talking loud quick Arabic, and a woman—­pleading, I thought.  Yerkes rapped on the door.

“Come in!” said a voice, and I followed Yerkes in.

We were met by her Syrian maid, a creature with gazelle eyes and timid manner, who came through the doorway leading to an inner room.

“What’s the trouble?” demanded Yerkes, and the woman signed to us to go on in.  Yerkes led the way again impulsively as any knight-errant rescuing beleaguered dames, but I looked back and saw that the Syrian woman had locked the outer door.  Before I could tell Will that, he was in the next room, so I followed, and, like him, stood rather bewildered.

Lady Saffren Waldon sat facing us, rather triumphant, in no apparent trouble, not alone.  There were four very well-dressed Arabs standing to one side.  She sat in a basket chair by a door that pretty obviously led into her bedroom; and kept one foot on a pillow, although I suspected there was not much the matter with it.

“We heard screams.  Thought you were being murdered!” said Yerkes, out of breath.

“Oh, indeed, no!  Nothing of the kind!  I fell and twisted my ankle—­very painful, but not serious.  Since you are here, sit down, won’t you?”

“No, thanks,” said he, turning to go.

“The maid locked the door on us!” said I, and before the words were out of my mouth three of the Arabs slipped into the outer room.  There was no hint or display of weapons of any kind, but they were big men, and the folds of their garments were sufficiently voluminous to have hidden a dozen guns apiece.

“She’ll open it!” said Will, with inflection that a fool could understand.

“One minute, please!” said Lady Saffren Waldon. (It was no poor imitation of Queen Elizabeth ordering courtiers about.)

“We didn’t come to talk,” said Will.  “Heard screams.  Made a mistake.  Sorry.  We’re off!”

“No mistake!” she said; and the sweetness Monty prophesied began to show itself.  The change in her voice was too swift and pronounced to be convincing.  “I did scream.  I was, in pain.  It was kind of you to come.  Since you are here I would like you to talk to this gentleman.”