d.
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--"

As brusquely he broke off. His tongue balked before the revelation
but he goaded it on.

"That there is a girl--the living image of that picture."

"I say!" McLean looked up at that, distinctly intrigued. "That's
getting on.... You mean you've seen her?"

Ryder nodded, suddenly busy with his cigarette.

"Where is she, now? In Cairo? That's luck, man!... And you say she's
like?"

"You'd think it her picture."

"It's an uncommon face." McLean bent over it again. "I fancied the
artist had just been making a bit of beauty, but if there's a girl
like that--! Fancy stumbling on that!... But where is she? And what
name does she go by?"

"Oh, her name--she doesn't know her own, of course." Ryder paused
uncertainly. "She's in Cairo," he began again vaguely. "She'd be
just about the right age--eighteen or so. She--she's had awf'ly
hard luck." Distressfully he hesitated.

The shrewd eyes of McLean dwelt upon him in sorrowful silence. "Eh,
Jock," he said at last, with mock scandal scarcely veiling rebuke.
"I did not know that you knew any of that sort--the poor, wee lost
thing.... Tell me, now--"

"Tell you you're off your chump," said Jack rudely. "She's no lost
lamb. Fact is, she's never spoken to a man--except myself." He
rather enjoyed the start this gave McLean after his insinuations. It
helped him on with his story.

"The girl doesn't know her own name at all, I gather. She thinks
she's the daughter of Tewfick Pasha. Her mother married the Turk and
died very soon afterwards and he brought up this girl as his own.
She says