"May I come in?" boomed a big voice at the door. "I knocked and nobody answered, so I thought the room would be empty—"
Biddy dropped my hand like a hot potato. She had jumped up so quickly from our sofa that Sir Marcus Lark's observant eyes could hardly have seen us sitting there together.
"Of course, come in," she said. "Have you anything to tell? But I'll call Mrs. East. She won't like you to begin without her."
Biddy darted off to an adjoining room, leaving me alone with my employer.
"What do you think of this affair?" I wanted to know. "Well," said he, "I can only judge other men by myself. If I had such a chance to appear a hero in the eyes of a pretty woman as Fenton has, I'm afraid I'd be tempted to take advantage of it, even if I had to play some trick to make myself indispensable. Now you see in a nutshell what I think. Captain Fenton will certainly rescue those young ladies from a trap if he has to make the trap himself."
I was disgusted, and shrugged my shoulders. "You have a poor opinion of Fenton," I said.
"On the contrary, I think very highly of his intelligence. I'm not worrying about any one of the three, though don't mention it to Mrs. East or Mrs. Jones that I said so. I've come to tell them that my men have searched Cairo and found nothing. Not the police, you know; I haven't applied to the police after all. I thought Fenton would be furious. And anyhow it might make talk. But I've paid the best dragomans in town to look sharp; and they know as much about this old place as the police do, if not more. By the way, Lord Ernest, did Corkran say anything to you about an intention to throw over his job on the Candace?"
"No. He said he was going to call on you, that's all."
"He did call. I was out—on this business, as it happens. He waited, and I found him, making himself at home in my sitting-room—which I use as a kind of office. I wish I knew how many of my letters and papers he'd had time to read."
"Surely he wouldn't—"