And eyes and brows and lips and curves, it was the face of the girl who had gazed after him in the moonlight against the shadows of the pasha’s garden.

CHAPTER VII

TO McLEAN’S ASTONISHMENT

“It is no end of good of you, Jack, to take this trouble,” Andrew McLean remarked appreciatively, looking up from his scrutiny of the packet which his unexpected luncheon guest had pushed over to his plate.

“Uncommon thoughtful.  It’s undoubtedly a twin to that locket, the portrait of the man’s wife—­whatever his name was.”

“Delcasse,” said Jack Ryder promptly.

Gratefully he drained the second lemon squash which the silent-footed Mohammed had placed at his elbow.  It had been a hard morning’s trip, this coming in from camp in high haste, and he was hot and dusty.

“You might have sent the thing,” McLean mentioned.  “I daresay that special agent chap has left the country, for I recollect he said he was at the end of his search....  And, of course, this isn’t much of a clue—­eh, what?”

“It’s everything of a clue,” insisted Ryder.  “It shows where this Frenchman was working, for the first thing—­”

“Unless it had been stolen by some native who lost it in that tomb.”

“Natives don’t lose gold lockets.  Of course it might have been stolen and hidden—­but that’s far-fetched.  It’s much more likely that this was the very tomb where Delcasse was working at the time of his death.  For one thing, the place showed signs of previous excavation up to the inner corridor, and there I’ll swear no modern got ahead of me.  And for another thing, it’s a perfect specimen of the limestone carving of the Tomb of Thi which Delcasse wrote his book about—­looks very much as if it might be by the same artist.  There’s a flock of hippopotami in a marsh scene with the identical drawing, and there’s the same lovely boat in full sail—­but there, you bounder, you don’t know the Tomb of Thi from a thyroid gland.  You’re here to administer financial justice, the middle, the high, and the low; your soul is with piasters, not the past.  But take my word for it, it’s exactly the spot where an enthusiast of the Thi Tomb would be grubbing away....  Lord, they could choose their find in those days!”

“It’s uncommonly likely,” McLean conceded, abandoning his demolished cherry tart and pulling out his briar.  “And if the locket proves the duplicate of the other it indicates that it’s a portrait of Madame Delcasse, but it doesn’t indicate what has become of Madame Delcasse....  Though in a general way,” McLean deduced with Scotch judicialness, “it supports the theory of foul play.  The woman would hardly have lost her miniature, or have sold it, except under pressing conditions.  In fact—­”

Ryder was brusque with his facts.

“That doesn’t matter—­Madame Delcasse doesn’t matter.  The thing that matters is—­”