have made out a list, so if you will come with me to the
catalogue desk I will look out the numbers and ask you to write the
tickets."

The selection of a fresh batch of authorities occupied us for another
quarter of an hour, and then, having handed in the volumes that we had
squeezed dry, we took our way out of the reading-room.

"Which way shall we go?" she asked as we passed out of the gate, where
stood a massive policeman, like the guardian angel at the gate of
Paradise (only, thank Heaven! he bore no flaming sword forbidding
reentry).

"We are going," I replied, "to Museum Street, where is a milkshop in
which one can get an excellent cup of tea."

She looked as if she would have demurred, but eventually followed
obediently, and we were soon seated side by side at a little
marble-topped table, retracing the ground that we had covered in the
afternoon's work and discussing various points of interest over a joint
teapot.

"Have you been doing this sort of work long?" I asked as she handed me
my second cup of tea.

"Professionally," she answered, "only about two years; since we broke up
our home, in fact. But long before that I used to come to the Museum
with my Uncle John--the one who disappeared, you know, in that
dreadfully mysterious way--and help him to look up references. We were
quite good friends, he and I."

"I suppose he was a very learned man?" I suggested.

"Yes, in a certain way; in the way of the better-class collector he was
very learned indeed. He knew the contents of every museum in the world,
in so far as they were connected with Egyptian antiquities, and had
studied them specimen by specimen. Consequently, as Egyptology is
largely a museum science, he was a learned Egyptologist. But his real
interest was in things rather than events. Of course, he knew a great
deal--a very great deal--about Egyptian history, but still he was,
before all, a collector."

"And what will happen to his collection if he is really dead?"

"The greater part of it goes to the British Museum by his will, and the
remainder he has left to his solicitor, Mr. Jellicoe."

"To Mr. Jellicoe! Why, what will Mr. Jellicoe do with Egyptian
antiquities?"

"Oh, he is an Egyptologist, too, and quite an enthusiast. He has a
really fine collection of scarabs and other small objects such as it is
possible to keep in a private house. I have always thought that it was
his enthusiasm for everything Egyptian that brought him and m