What, the ladies had engaged a dragoman! And they had trusted him—a stranger—with luggage? Then it was as good as gone! But no, mildly ventured Cleopatra's handmaiden. The dragoman came recommended. He had a letter from a friend of milord.
My thoughts jumped, of course, to Anthony. Yet how could he have known that I was travelling with ladies? And if by some Marconian miracle he had heard, why should he, who prided himself on "not bothering" with women, trouble to provide a dragoman at Alexandria?
I hurried to the dining car, and found Monny with her satellites seated at a table, three of them looking as calmly innocent as if they had not upset my well-laid scheme for their comfort. Biddy alone had a guilty air, because, perhaps, I was more important in her eyes than in the eyes of the others. "Oh, dear Duffer," she began to wheedle me: "We hope you don't mind our coming here? We thought it a good idea, for we're starving, although we're perfectly happy because we're in Egypt, and because it's such a quaint train, so different and Eastern. The dragoman who——"
"I think he came from your friend Anthony with an 'H,'" Cleopatra broke in. "He seemed providential. And he speaks English. The only objection is, he's not as good-looking as Monny and I wanted our dragoman to be. We did hope to get one who would be becoming to us, you see, and give the right sort of Eastern background. But I suppose one can't have everything! And it was I who said your friend Anthony's messenger must be engaged even if his face is—is—rather like an accident!"
"It's like a catastrophe," remarked Monny, looking as if she blamed me.
"Where is it?" I wanted to know.
"It's waiting in a vestibule outside where the cook's cooking," Biddy explained ungrammatically. "I told it you'd want to see it. And it's got a letter for you from some one." "Did the fellow say the letter was from Fenton?" I inquired.
"No. He only said, from a friend who'd expected to meet you; and Mrs. East was sure it must be from the one you were talking about."
Wasting no more words, I marched off to the fountainhead for information. Near the open door of the infinitesimal kitchen stood a fat little dark man with a broken nose, and one white eye. The other eye, as if to make up, was singularly, repellently intelligent. It fixed itself upon me, as I approached, with eager questioning which melted into ingratiating politeness. Instinct warned the fellow that I was the person he awaited. At the same moment, instinct was busily whispering to me that there was something fishy about him, despite the alleged letter. He did not look the type of man Fenton would recommend. And though his face was of an unwholesome olive tint, and he wore a tarbush, and a galabeah as long as a dressing-gown, under his short European coat, I was sure he was not of Arab or Egyptian blood.
"Milord Borrow?" he began, displaying large white teeth, of which he was evidently proud.