orange blossoms, luscious-sweet in this
region of gardens, connected itself in his mind with thoughts of the
beautiful woman who had married Cassim ben Halim, and disappeared from
the world she had known. He imagined her in an Arab garden where orange
blossoms fell like snow, eating her heart out for the far country and
friends she would never see again, rebelling against a monstrous tyranny
which imprisoned her in this place of perfumes and high white walls. Or
perhaps the scented petals were falling now upon her grave.

"Cassim ben Halim--Captain Cassim ben Halim," Nevill repeated. "Seems
familiar somehow, as if I'd heard the name; but most of these Arab names
have a kind of family likeness in our ears. Either he's a person of no
particular importance, or else he must have left Algiers before my Uncle
James Caird died--the man who willed me his house, you know--brother of
Aunt Caroline MacGregor who lives with me now. If I've ever heard
anything about Ben Halim, whatever it is has slipped my mind. But I'll
do my best to find out something."

"Miss Ray believes he was of importance," said Stephen. "She oughtn't to
have much trouble getting on to his trail, should you think?"

Nevill looked doubtful. "Well, if he'd wanted her on his trail, she'd
never have been off it. If he didn't, and doesn't, care to be got at,
finding him mayn't be as simple as it would be in Europe, where you can
always resort to detectives if worst comes to worst."

"Can't you here?" asked Stephen.

"Well, there's the French police, of course, and the military in the
south. But they don't care to interfere with the private affairs of
Arabs, if no crime's been committed--and they wouldn't do anything in
such a case, I should think, in the way of looking up Ben Halim, though
they'd tell anything they might happen to know already, I
suppose--unless they thought best to keep silence with foreigners."

"There must be people in Algiers who'd remember seeing such a beautiful
creature as Ben Halim's wife, even if her husband whisked her away nine
years ago," Stephen argued.

"I wonder?" murmured Caird, with an emphasis which struck his friend as
odd.

"What do you mean?" asked Stephen.

"I mean, I wonder if any one in Algiers ever saw her at all? Ben Halim
was in the French Army; but he was a Mussulman. Paris and Algiers are a
long cry, one from the other--if you're an Arab."

"Jove! You don't think----"

"You've spotted it. That's what I do