"Glad of that. Afraid the canal bath wouldn't do it any good.
Beastly old place, that." Then the Englishman gave a sudden chuckle.
"It's a regular old lark when you come to think of it!"

"Our lack of luck wasn't any great lark." Savagely Bill speared his
bacon.

"Luck? Why we--Oh, come now, my dear fellow, you can't pretend to
maintain those suspicions now! Of course the letter is authentic!"
Falconer spoke between irritation and raillery. "That Turkish
fellow could hardly fake that letter to them, could he? No, and we
will have to acknowledge ourselves actuated by a too-hasty
suspicion--inevitable under the circumstance--and be grateful that
the uncertainty is over. That's the only way to look at it."

"We don't know that the Evershams have received a 'letter.' It might
be another fraudulent telegram that was sent them from Alexandria."

"That is a bit too thick. You're a Holmes for suspicion!" Falconer
laughed. "I believe if Miss Beecher herself walked into this dining
room you would question if she were not a deceiving effigy!"

"I might question that anyway." Billy's tone was dry. "And I daresay
I am a fool. But that dancer's story is pretty straight if she
didn't know the names, and it fits in disasterously well with my
limousine story."

"You're not the first man to be staggered by a coincidence,"
Falconer told him. "And that woman's yarn was convincing enough,
though all the time I was dubious, you remember. But now that the
Evershams have heard," and the young Englishman's deep note of
relief showed how tormenting had been his uncertainty, "why now we
have no further right to put Miss Beecher's name into the affair.
There is evidently some other girl concerned who may or may not be
as guileless as she represented to the Baroff girl, and I shall lay
that story before the ambassador and leave her rescue to authentic
ways."

He laughed a little shamefacedly at the unauthentic ways of last
night, and added, looking off across the room, "My sister and Lady
Claire are going to Luxor to-night, and I expect to accompany them.
If you should have any word about Miss Beecher's return here I
should be glad if you would let me know."

"If she is safe in Alexandria she'd never think of writing me," said
Billy bluntly. "Our acquaintance is distinctly one-sided."

"I quite understand. She was your countrywoman in a strange land and
all that."

"And all that," Billy echoed. "What time is your train?"

"Six-thi