ay be in the palace,
that we can't get to. He's perhaps hob-nobbing with some pal, having a
private confab, and maybe he'll turn up at supper."

"He doesn't look like a man to care about food, I will say that for
him," answered Stephen. "He's taken the alarm, and sneaked off without
giving me time to track him. I'll bet anything that's the fact. Hiding
the brooch is a proof he saw me, I'm afraid. Smart of him! He thought my
friend would be somewhere about, and he'd better get rid of damaging
evidence."

"You haven't explained the brooch, yet."

"I forgot. It's one _she_ wore on the boat--and that day at your
house--Miss Ray, I mean. She told me about it; said it had been a
present from Ben Halim to her sister, who gave it to her."

"Sure you couldn't mistake it? There's a strong family likeness in Arab
jewellery."

"I'm sure. And even if I hadn't been at first, I should be now, from
that chap's whisking it off the instant he set eyes on me. His having it
proves a lot. As she wore the thing at your house, he must have got it
somehow after we saw her. Jove, Nevill, I'd like to choke him!"

"If you did, he couldn't tell what he knows."

"I'm going to find out somehow. Come along, no use wasting time here
now, trying to get vague information out of Arab chiefs. We can learn
more by seeing where this brute lives, than by catechizing a hundred
caids."

"It's too late for him to get away from Algiers to-night by train,
anyhow," said Nevill. "Nothing goes anywhere in particular. And look
here, Legs, if he's really onto us, he won't have made himself scarce
without leaving some pal he can trust, to see what we're up to."

"There were two men close behind who might have been with him," Stephen
remembered aloud.

"Would you recognize them?"

"I--think so. One of the two, anyhow. Very dark, hook-nosed, middle-aged
chap, pitted with smallpox."

"Then you may be sure he's chosen the less noticeable one. No good our
trying to find Maieddine himself, if he's left the palace; though I
hope, by putting our heads and Roslin's together, that among the three
of us we shall pick him up later. But if he's left somebody here to keep
an eye on us, our best course is to keep an eye on that somebody.
They'll have to communicate."

"You're right," Stephen admitted. "I'm vague about the face, but I'll
force myself to recognize it. That's the sort of thing Miss Ray would
do. She's got some quaint theory about controlling your subcon