"Go ahead," Winston told the boys. "Farid and Kerama will come with me. I want to start talking over this interesting problem of theirs, and I imagine you want to rest."
Rick did not feel in the least like resting, but made no comment. He and Scotty got into a tiny, ornate elevator cage with walls of gilded-iron lattice. There wasn't room for the porters with their bags; they ran up the stairs while the boys rode with the smiling elevator operator. It wasn't a fast ride.
"Climbing rate, one hundred feet per minute," Scotty said. Rick grinned.
They were let off at the third floor, and weren't in the least surprised to find the porters waiting for them. They followed the men into a room that made them stop short with amazement.
The entrance to the hotel and the lobby had been big, but the room was enormous, spacious, and very tastefully furnished, European style.
"As big as Grand Central Station!" Scotty exclaimed.
Rick echoed, "We'll rattle around in here like a pair of pebbles in a fifty-gallon tank."
The bath was larger than most American hotel rooms, with a twenty-foot ceiling, and the closet would easily have accommodated a king's wardrobe. Rick thought that maybe it had, in times past.
He tipped the porters and closed the door behind them, then motioned to Scotty. "Go on down to the other end of the room and shout. I want to see if I can hear you."
Scotty started to oblige, grinning, then turned and called, "Come look at this view!" He had discovered that the French doors at the front of the room opened onto a tiny balcony that overlooked the Nile.