He lifted her carefully in his arms, stretched her on the sofa and rubbed her hands anxiously. After a moment or so her eyelids flickered and he noticed a touch of color returning to her cheeks. With her long, fine hair framing her white face she looked more like an angel than a human being.
She was breathing more normally now, Neal noticed. He poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the coffee table, tilted her head slightly and poured some of its contents down her throat.
She coughed weakly and opened her eyes. For an instant she stared blankly at him, and then, as recognition came to her, she smiled tremulously.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” she murmured. Her hands moved slowly to her throat, touched the abrasions on her skin.
“Don’t talk if it hurts,” Neal said, concerned. “What you need is rest.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” the girl assured him. “I’m still a little frightened, that’s all. Silly of me. I should be getting used to it by now.”
“You mean this has happened before?” Neal asked incredulously.
The girl was silent an instant, and then she turned her eyes full on Neal. In them was mirrored the tragic finality of despair.
“I was wrong to involve you in my troubles,” she said brokenly. “Please go now while there is still time. I — it may be dangerous for you to stay another minute.”
Neal grinned cheerfully and tossed his hat onto an empty chair. He lighted a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling expansively.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he chuckled.
“Oh please,” the girl said miserably. “You think it’s something of a lark, something amusing. Can’t you see I’m serious?
Neal’s face sobered.
“The cute little chap who was trying to strangle you was serious too,” he said drily. “That’s why I’m sticking around until I know what’s up. Funny streak in me. I dislike seeing young girls murdered. I don’t know why. But everybody has their peculiarities and that happens to be mine.”
“Would you like me to start at the beginning?” she asked abruptly.
“Now you’re talking,” Neal grinned. “I may not be of any help, but I’m in your corner from now on.”
The girl relaxed as if a heavy weight had been removed from her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said simply. She was silent for a few seconds before resuming.
“My name is Jane Manners,” she said quietly. “My father was a well-known archaeologist. When he died several years ago he left me a manuscript which contained a map and directions for reaching a city somewhere in the Egyptian desert. He had visited the city years before and it had been his consuming ambition to return there before he died. His last wish was that I would go there and complete the archaeological work he had begun. I didn’t have the necessary funds so I put the trip off. Then I received an offer of help. It came from an Austrian, Max Zaraf, who said that he had known my father in Egypt.”
“Was he the gent I met today?” Neal interrupted.
“Yes. He financed the expedition. At first I was delighted by the assistance, but things have happened which make me believe I made a very serious mistake.”
“What sort of things?” Neal asked. “In the first place,” Jane answered, “he insisted that I let him keep the map. I gave it to him without hesitation. That same night I was almost killed by a heavy piece of iron that dropped from the deck above me. The officers on the boat were unable to explain the accident. Again, three nights later, I was almost killed by a knife hurled through my porthole. It missed me by inches.”
Neal whistled silently.
“Why didn’t you ask Zaraf to return the map to you and call the whole deal off?”
Jane shook her head miserably.
“I wasn’t sure he had anything to do with it. I’m not yet, for that matter. And if I back out I may never get another opportunity to carry out Dad’s last wishes.”
Neal glanced down at his knuckles. “Did it occur to you that it was too late to back out? That is, if Zaraf is the little dark boy in the woodpile. If he made two attempts on your life he certainly wouldn’t give you back the map now and let you walk out on him at this late date. If you tried you’d just be sealing your own death warrant.”
“I thought of that,” Jane answered. “There wasn’t anything to do but go along with him and hope for the best.”
“Which won’t be any too good, if I’m any judge of character,” Neal said drily. “But what about the knife you got at the curio shop? How does that fit into the picture?”
“I don’t know,” Jane answered, frowning. “In Dad’s manuscript he made it very clear that before starting the trip I should stop here in Cairo and pick up that knife. He left it here on his last trip. It must be important or he wouldn’t have been so insistent about it. The shopkeeper knew him and had promised to keep the knife until he returned for it, or sent for it. The paper which I showed the shopkeeper was written by Dad and was a sort of a claim-check on the knife.”
“One more question,” Neal grinned. “How did you happen to pick me for a Boy Scout?”
The girl smiled slightly.
“Maybe,” she answered, “because you look like a Boy Scout. I scribbled my address on a piece of paper while you and Max were glaring at each other in the curio shop. Afterward I told myself that I had acted foolishly, that you’d never bother to investigate a silly, impulsive gesture like that.”
“That was a serious mistake in judgment,” Neal told her lightly.
As he finished speaking a hinge creaked faintly behind him. Then a suave icy voice said:
“A very serious mistake, indeed!”
Neal didn’t turn. Instead he watched Jane Manners. Her eyes looking over his shoulders were filled with a sudden, shocked fear.
“Max!” she whispered.
Neal stood up and turned slowly. Unconsciously his big hands tightened into hard, blocky fists. In the doorway, smiling without humor, stood Max Zaraf. The trailing smoke from the cigarette in his hand curled up past his lean, saturnine face, dimming slightly the cold, deadly glitter of his eyes. But Neal, watching the man closely, was sure there was disappointment in those eyes. Disappointment and a slight trace of uncertainty.
“Are you all right, my dear?” Zaraf asked softly, ignoring Neal.
Neal grinned, a tight mirthless grin. Zaraf acted as if he hadn’t been expecting to find things quite as they were.
“Why shouldn’t she be?” Neal asked, before Jane could answer.
Zaraf shrugged and stepped into the room. His eyes flicked meaningly to the shattered lock of the door.
“Logical question, isn’t it?” he asked silkily. “Door forced open. Room upset. A tempestuous young American violating the privacy of a young woman’s room. It all adds up, does it not?”
“Max!” Jane said sharply. “You’re being insulting.
“You’re also being very careless of your health,” Neal said pointedly.
Zaraf turned slightly and looked straight at Neal. The slight smile vanished from his features. Neal saw a new, wary look creep into Zaraf’s cold eyes, and he realized that the man had just recognized him as the American he had encountered at the curio shop.
“What is your game, my young friend?” he asked coolly. “This couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. If it is, let me assure you that it might be a most unlucky one — for you.”
“It is not a coincidence,” Jane said quietly. “I asked Mister—” she faltered, and Neal realized that he hadn’t told her his name.
“Kirby,” he said quickly. “Neal Kirby. You must have forgot.”
“Thank you,” Jane said gratefully. “I asked Mr. Kirby to come here,” she resumed, “because I thought I might need him.”