Lean had produced a skeptical wonder, and then a thoughtful wonder
if the British government had not better take the matter up and sift
it, for the benefit of all concerned.

Clearly the thing could not go on. Ryder could not accept such a
rumor against his reputation. Yes, he thought he would advise Ryder
to take the matter up.

And there he perceived that even the suave and politic Hamdi
squirmed. Doubtless to the Turk, McLean represented British prestige
and political power and all sorts of unknown influence.... And
native testimony, while voluable and unscrupulous, had a way of
offering confused discrepancies to the coldly questioning
investigators of the law.

And with no real evidence against Ryder--

The matter of the sheik's daughter, McLean perceived, would be
dropped. Unless the girl--whatever girl they sought--could be
discovered.

If Hamdi wished to pay off some score against the American he would
choose other weapons. McLean reflected upon the bey's capacity for
assassination or poisoning while he bade him farewell before the
dark wall of his palace entrance.

Between them had passed no reference to the bey's recent loss. Since
it would not have been etiquette for him to mention the bey's wife,
he judged it equally inadvisable to refer to her ashes.

The whole affair was so wrapped in darkness that he could not decide
upon any creditable explanation. It would have to wait until he saw
Ryder in the next day or two--for Ryder had told him he would try to
get in with his finds as soon as possible.

But no matter how he tried to dismiss the matter from his mind he
had found himself asking, through the courses of that important
dinner and now in the pauses of his conversation with Miss
Jeffries--Was there really some girl? Had he only dreamed that tense
anxiety of Jack's--had Jack led them on for his own young amusement?

But it was not long possible to maintain an inner communion with
Jinny Jeffries for a vis-a-vis.

A divided mind could not companion her swift flights and sudden
tangents. Deriding now her silly anxieties and deploring McLean's
unnecessary trip, she had branched into the consideration of how
busy McLean must be--and McLean found himself somehow embarked in
sketchy descriptions of the institution of which Miss Jeffries
seemed to think he was the backbone and of its very interesting work
throughout the country.

And as he had talked he found himself noticing things that he had
nev