“What is it I hear about them?” he asked, with a worried face. “Are they in Cairo?”
“They were, up to a few minutes ago,” replied Don, and repeated the essential parts of his adventure. Phalos listened intently.
“I’m glad you came so well out of it,” he remarked, when Don had finished. “But it simply shows that my foreboding was correct when I told you they would not easily relinquish their purpose. It is possible that they meant to extort from you all that you knew about our proposed trip and then do away with you. The river was close at hand, and it has served as a cover for many tragedies.”
“Could you not set the police on their tracks and put the villains in jail?” queried the professor.
“I suppose I could,” replied Phalos. “But I hesitate to do that, because of the publicity that would attend to it. The reason for their attempts on me and this last attack on Don might come to light, and it would thus become known that I have this secret about the Tombs of Gold, or that Tezra and Nepahak suspect I have. And I want to keep that from the public at all hazards.”
“How did those fellows learn that you had such a secret?” asked Don, voicing a question that had been more than once in the mind of each member of the party.
“I lay it to a thievish servant I once had,” returned their host. “I made two copies of the inscription. One of these I kept always locked in the safe, of which I alone know the combination. The other was also usually deposited in the safe, but I took it out frequently to study it.
“One day, when I was looking it over, I was summoned suddenly out of the room on urgent business. Shortly after I returned I found that one of the sheets was missing. I searched for it everywhere, but could find no trace of it. I examined all the servants. All denied any knowledge of it. But one of them was so evasive and flustered that I felt sure he was the guilty one. I caught him later directly in the act of stealing household articles and discharged him.”
“And your theory about the missing sheet is what?” asked the professor.
“That the man, knowing the store I set by the manuscript, stole it with the idea of selling it,” replied Phalos. “He did not dare to take it all, but thought that one sheet would not be missed. Some time later I saw him on the street in close consultation with Tezra and Nepahak, who have an evil reputation in this city.”