Mizmûna raised her face and looked up at me, her long lashes wet with tears, but the slow, childish smile of the Eastern woman already curving her red lips.
“He is in his own room destroying papers,” she said.
“Who told you this?”
“Ali, the bowwab, who is faithful to me—and who hates Fatimah.”
“Is the trap rebolted?”
“I know not.”
“Remain here until I return,” I said, seating her upon one of the boxes. “Where are my keys?”
“I hid them upon the ledge of the window, beside the door yonder.”
Taking them from this simple “hiding-place,” I locked the door to give Mizmûna courage, and, taking the lamp with me, began to mount the stairs, first assuring myself of the presence in my pocket of my Colt automatic, which Abû Tabâh had restored to me.
The ray of my lamp shining out ahead, I came to the crazy ladder giving access to the trap. I climbed up, raising the trap, and gazed upon the jeweled dome of midnight Egypt. Dire necessity spurred me, and I walked across to the adjoining trap, carefully inserted two fingers in the iron ring and pulled.