"Possibly," said Falconer without conviction.
"But where, then, is Miss Beecher?"
"We may hear from her to-morrow morning."
"We won't," said Billy.
Falconer was silent.
"Good Lord!" the American burst out, "there can't be two girls in Cairo with blue eyes and fair hair whom Kerissen could have lured there last Wednesday! There can't be two girls with chaperons departing up the Nile! Why—why—the whole thing's as clear to me—as—as a house afire!"
"I don't share your conviction."
"Very well, then, if you don't think it is Miss Beecher, you don't have to go into this thing. If you can feel satisfied to lay the matter before the ambassador and let that unknown girl wait for the arm of the law to reach her, you are at perfect liberty, of course, to do so." Billy was growing colder and colder in tone as he grew hotter and hotter in his anger.
Falconer said nothing. He was a very plucky young man, but he had no liking at all for strange and unlawful escapades. He didn't particularly mind risking his neck, but he liked to do it in accredited ways, in polo, for instance, or climbing Swiss peaks, or swimming dangerous currents.... But he was young—and he had red hair. And he remembered Arlee Beecher. These three days had not been happy ones for him, even sustained as he was by righteous indignation. And if there was any chance that this prisoned girl was Arlee, as this infatuated American was so furiously sure—He reflected that Billy was doing the sporting thing in giving him the chance of it.
"I'll join you," he said shortly. "I can't let it go, you know, if there's a chance of its being Miss Beecher."