by Pamela Kent
"What are you doing here, in any case? Did you really want to come?"
"Well! ..." Romilly exclaimed. And then looking upwards into the dark, handsome' face, with the mysterious eyes and the beautifully shaped brow and gleaming hair
thrown into sudden prominence by the beams of the laterising moon, she heard her own voice falter. He really was astonishingly good-looking, and she had the feeling that he didn't like her any more.... Or at any rate, he was not putting up any more pretence. "I - I.... What do you mean? I received an invitation!"
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"Naturally. But you didn't have to accept it."
"Is there any reason that I don't know of why I should
not have accepted Mrs. Mortimer's invitation?" she asked
him more steadily, resentment banishing her feeling of con
fusion.
He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "There could be.... But that's not the point. I understood you were here to settle your aunt's affairs, not to get to know the district." "By which you mean enter into the district's sodal activi
ties?"
"Of course."
She began to feel bewildered again. There was no doubt
about his hostility, and she wondered whether it was be
cause he had not fully accepted the apology she sent him.
She started to apologise to him afresh, and for the first
time verbally.
"I'm so sorry I behaved rather badly and said some
rather crude things that last time we met. But you must real
ise I hadn't the least idea who you were -"
"As to that, forget it," he advised, and took her by the
arm and piloted her towards the head of the flight of steps
that led down from the roof. "And as that mask doesn't
really offer you any concealment I'd take it off if I were
you. I knew you the instant I set eyes on you.tOnight."
"Then, in that case, why didn't you do the polite thing
and come and speak to me?" she asked.
"Because I seldom if ever do the polite thing just for the
sake of being polite. And I preferred to watch you, if you
want the truth. That outfit becomes you very much indeed,
and in point of fact you're very eye-catching tonight. But
then you were very eye-catching in that kimono thing the
first night I saw you!"
The flush burning faintly in her cheeks deepened. She
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1: felt his arm, which he slid behind her on the stairs to make ^certain she didn't slip, pressing close to her, and for the I,, first time in her life she wanted to inhale deliberately the I attractive masculine scents of a man who was the most at- I tractive specimen of his kind she had met in her life, H "You know," she said a little shakily, when they reached
^ the foot of the stairs, "I always think of you as my burglar! |; Without having any real idea what it was you proposed to | burgle! Because I never believed that story of yours about | the little statuette called The Eye of Love." | "And you still don't believe such a statuette exists ? " I "Oh, yes.... As a matter of fact, I know it does. And ? that's why I've been rather anxious to see you."
I "What! "he exclaimed. ;' They had entered the supper room, which was on the ground floor of this magnificent house, and were met by ; a babel of voices and laughter as the hungry guests pounced on the delectable foodstuffs that had been provided for them. Two long tables glittered with damask, silver and. ^ flowers, and the giant buffet was loaded with everything from smoked salmon and caviare to wild duck and neats' tongues in aspic. There was also an extremely generous supply of every kind of alcoholic beverage, and the champagne flowed. Quite a few of the guests - particularly the men - looked as if they had already imbibed rather more than was good ; for them, and their female companions received constant ^ leers and occasional pinches that were hardly the sort of ;: thing to be indulged in in public. Romilly, who by this [: time had discarded her domino but retained her mask, was ^ the recipient of quite a few leers herself, and a very large I; number of interested glances, and impatiently the Bey | drew her aside into the concealment of an alcove, and t -pressed her for an explanation of her last statement.
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"What do you mean when you say that you know the statuette exists?"
She looked up at him thoughtfully, not entirely gratified by the pressure of his extremely hard fingers upon her arm, and wondered just how far she should commit herself.
"Well?" he insisted. Romilly, who was feeling thirsty, glanced towards the buffet.
"Do you think I could have a glass of lemonade or something?" she asked. "It's very warm in here, and I'm terribly thirsty."
"In one moment I will gel you a glass of champagne if you will kindly explain something you said just now."
There was an odd gleam in his eyes - something rather more than impatience. And then she recollected her aunt's letter. If the late Miss Romilly Styles had trusted him completely she supposed she might as well do so as well.
"All right," she said, leaning against the frame of the window behind her. "But if you'd kept in touch with me during the past three weeks instead of sending me to Coventry because of a mistake I made you could have been in possession of the facts long before this. The truth is that my aunt left me a letter, and Mr. Yusuf handed it to me when I saw him in his office. Apparently Aunt Romilly looked upon you with a considerable amount of favour, and she said I could trust you. So.... The statuette is hidden away in a trunk in the attics at the House of the Seven Stars, but although I've located the trunk I can't manage to open it. I didn't want to involve Kalim in this, so I waited until I could see you, but unfortunately you've been particularly elusive."
She felt his fingers tighten on her arm, winced as she felt certain they made a bruise, and then sighed with relief as h; released her.
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"That was very foolish of you," he said, "to be so pa
tient that you might never have made contact with me. All
you had to do was to send a message to my house. How
ever, now that we are at last on the track of &e statuette
we will forget about the rest. What makes you so certain
the goddess is in the trunk?"
"Because my aunt plainly stated so in her letter."
"And Aere is no one else who could have seen the letter?
Yusuf is, of course, perfectly trustworthy. It would not be
him."
She looked up at him in some astonishment.
"Do you mean that you think the statuette might not be
in the trunk? That someone else has already found it? Be
cause if you do I can tell you that that is quite unlikely.
The trunk is stoutly corded and the padlock will not open
without the key.... It is simply that the key is missing."
"Then we must find the key."
"I've already looked for it everywhere, but it's not in
any of the drawers of the desk or my aunt's personal
bureau. Of course I suppose it could be hidden somewhere ... for extra safety." Crighton Bey looked down at her without actually seeing her, and nodded his head.
"Yes, we will just have to conduct a search. I will come to your house tomorrow morning, shortly after ten, and we will go up to the attics together."
He did not say, "If that is convenient for you", but she' understood the matter was of some urgency, and decided to overlook his brusqueness.
She did not remember very clearly how the rest of the evening passed, but she knew he supplied her with refreshments, and afterwards they returned to the roof for a short interval during which they danced one dance together, and
she was slightly regretful when it ended because he was a 69
particularly good dancer and she would have enjoyed it
very much if he had asked her to dance again.
But on
this occasion he was a man of few words, quite unlike the man who had broken into her house on her first night in Cairo: And he was plainly very preoccupied even when they were dancing. She had asked Kalim to pick her up at midnight, having no real idea how long parties of that sort went on for, and at what hour one was expected to leave without giving any offence because one was either taking one's departure too early or top late, but it was actually closer to one o'clock when she finally sought out her hostess and wished her good night.
By that time it was obvious to her the party was only really beginning, and. it would almost certainly be dawn before any mass emigration from it took place. Therefore she was not surprised when Leah Mortimer arched her eyebrows and inquired whether it was because she was .either bored or tired that she was leaving so soon.
"Neither," Romilly responded, smiling a little too
tightly, however, for she was well aware that Crighton Bey
was standing not very far away and watching her make her adieux with a quite unreadable expression on his face. Mrs. Mortimer smiled from one to the other of them, �� and made the suggestion that they should really get to know one another. "For you have a common interest," she said. "You share an interest in antiques."
"Particularly Egyptian antiquities," the Bey said with curious quietness. "Other people," he added, "have similar interests."' �
Mrs. Mortimer smiled quite brilliantly, her eyes gleaming with amusement. "Well, that is not so very strange, is it?" she said. "You and I, for instance.... Are we not a part of Egypt?" 70
He put Romilly into her car while the patient Kalim held open the door, and just before she was driven away he bent and put his sleek head in at the window and spoke to her in a low voice, but with strange, insistent urgency.
"Be careful in future," he advised, "when you receive
an invitation. You have plenty of time to make friends." . Romilly wondered what he meant by that for some time ' after he had uttered the warning.
The next morning he arrived punctually at ten o'clock to examine the trunk in the attic, after conducting a fruitless search for the key to the padlock. But although they searched through every drawer and cupboard in the house that would be likely to harbour it the key refused to turn
up. In the end he burst open the padlock and cut through the cord that bound the trunk, Romilly held her breath as he lifted the lid of the old-fashioned trunk and a strong odour of musk and mothballs began to fill the attic. He lifted out faded and crumpled dresses, yellowed satin slippers that had once been pale as ivory, feathered and sequinned headgear and several boxes of costume jewellery. But although they both searched diligently there was no sign of the little golden goddess of love; There were several ball gowns, in any one of which it might once have been wrapped.... But no little Eye of Love. Julius Crighton wore an expression that was almost grim as he turned to Romilly. "We are too late," he said. "Someone else has the statuette!"
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CHAPTER IV
THE more Romilly pondered on her missing statuette the
more perplexed she was. Why, she asked herself, had Mrs. Mortimer wanted to buy the house as it stood if it was not because the house contained something she badly .wanted,
and which she could afford to purchase at cost?
And why, in any case, hadn't the statuette been handed over to Mr. Yusuf's care, or even placed in the care of the bank?
What was it abOut the statuette that made it a thing to be hidden in a tr^nk, from which someone without auAority had quite obviously filched it.
But who?
Julius Crighton said he would very much like to know.
He left almost immediately after failing to find the statuette, and he said nothing to Romilly about meeting 'her again. She felt a little deflated after his departure, as if some secret hope she had entertained had been somewhat brutally squashed, and wondered what she could do to banish. the odd feeling of depression that weighed upon her.
She wasn't really very much concerned about the failure f) find the statuette, however valuable it was; but she did wish she had been a little less suspicious, or shown rather less suspicion, of Julius Crighton at the very beginning of their acquaintanceship.
However, the harm appeared to have been done, and it was clear that he had no intention of pursuing anything in the nature of a friendship with her, despite the fact that she was Romilly Styles's great-niece.
In a mood of sudden restlessness combined with a deter
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ruination to see something of Egypt apart from the modern capital before she went home she went to a local tourist office and booked a cabin aboard a Nile steamer which was proceeding on a six-day trip to Luxor, calling at various points of archaeological interest on the way there. She felt that in this way she would at least see something of the beauties of the Nile, and acquire a little more knowledge of Egypt's splendid past, as well as have an opportunity to relax and wear a few of her clothes before returning to the humdrum round which constituted her life in her own country, and from which she saw few opportunities of es- caping once she did get home.
In a way, the visit to Egypt had been like a challenge something utterly new in her experience, and likely to lead to even more exciting things. But as far as she was able to judge in her present mood of curious dissatisfaction, as she emerged from the tourist office, apart from acquiring a little nest egg which would pave the way to a comfortable old age for her should she never marry or find anyone with the slightest desire to contribute to her support, the visit to Egypt would be rather like an anti-climax. A foretaste of something that never materialised.... Although, if anyone had asked her what she expected to result from meeting an elevated gentleman like Crighton Bey she simply couldn't have told them.
For not merely was he the son of a princess but he was at least ten years older than she was, and he just didn't belong to her world.
No doubt he despised her for being what she was, an ordinary little English secretary who was no better than an' ordinary English tourist in his eyes. And English tourists, until very recently tied down by travel allowances, were not the people they once had been.... Certainly not in Egypt.
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But feeling very much like a tourist, and determined to
enjoy herself in spite of the fact for a short while if she
could, she packed a suitcase and arrived on board the Nile
steamer for her vaguely promising trip up the Nile at an
hour of the evening when the Nile dusk was closing down.
It was that extraordinary green dusk which, she found ut
terly fascinating, and which lay like a green haze on the various meanderings of the river. At that point it flowed so calmly it was like a river of glass, broad and reflecting the utter tranquillity of the sky, with one or two stars
etched against it and the faintest flush of rose that had been left by the sunset. A very young moon, like a silver slice of melon, hung suspended above the flat-bottomed craft, and people were still boarding the vessel, moving like ghosts up the gangway and finding their way to their cabins with the assistance of the purser.
Romilly, having been shown to her own cabin and unpacked her things, lingered on one of the three decks to watch until all the passengers were aboard and they finally cast-off, and then went down to the lower deck to the diningsaloon, and found that she had been allotted a table to herself at the far end of the saloon. The meal that was served to her was quite enjoyable, and she lingered over her coffee and watched her fellow passengers, mostly American and northern European, settling down for a somewhat intimate six days together, while outside the cabin windows the palm-clad shores slipped past, the green haze vanished and stars glowed like lamps in the brilliantly clear sky.
Later that night they anchored well out in the middle of the river, well away from the flies that troubled the villages on shore, and with not even a ripple on the surface of the water and no chugging of the engines to disturb her rest Romilly
slept like a child until she was awakened by the sunrise to a golden and rose-coloured new day, and die
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knowledge that she was embarked on a most unusual voyage that would never have been possible but for her Great-Aunt RomHIy.
She took breakfast in the saloon at the same table at. which she dined the night before, and then went up on to the observation deck to take stock of her surroundings and find herself a comfortable chair in which she could recline while she was following this absorbing occupation.
At eleven o'clock they anchored again and were taken ashore, escorted by a guide, to visit some ancient monuments and a ruined temple, and were given a kind of potted history of Ancient Egypt'by the guide. The following day there were more trips ashore, but nothing very spectacular apart from mud-walled villages and labourers working in the fields was offered them in the way of diversion, and the guide had little opportunity to air his eloquence which Romilly had decided the previous day was quite remarkable, and she was actually looking forward to hearing him holding forth again on a subject he appeared to have mastered so thoroughly that it quite filled her with admiration. From him, however, she learned that the really interesting part of the voyage was not the early part; and it
was not until the third day that, together with the rest of the little crowd of tourists who were herded ashore complete with cameras, dark glasses and fly whisks, she had her first experience of visiting genuine Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasty tombs on the back of a donkey.
The donkey ride was quite an experience apart from the visit to the tombs, and it left her feeling slightly sore for several days afterwards. She was also slightly horrified by the assortment of Arabs screaming for baksheesh, cigarettes, and anything else the tourists liked to bestow upon them, who pursued them relentlessly for the whole of the journey, and were waiting to escort them back again when
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it was over.
Quite a few of her fellow passengers had had experience
of this sort of thing before, and knew how to deal with