Only one object had been moved—his small, steel, travelling dispatch-box, enclosed in its green canvas case. This, which had been upon a shelf, was now lying upon the bed. The green canvas cover had been unfastened, displaying the patent brass lock by the famous maker.
It had been examined and tampered with. An attempt had, no doubt, been made to open it, and the person who had made that attempt was none other than the tall, good-looking man who had so swiftly and silently descended to the saloon and now, unnoticed, retaken his place at dinner.
“Well,” gasped Waldron, taking out his keys and unlocking the steel box to reassure himself that his private papers were intact, “this is curious—distinctly curious, to say the least!”
Chapter Seven.
The Night of the Golden Pig.
It wanted thirty minutes to midnight.
The New Year’s Eve fun at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo was fast and furious.
Ministerial officers and their women-folk, British officers of the garrison, officials and their wives from all parts of Egypt, Society from the other hotels, and a sprinkling of grave, brown-faced Egyptian gentlemen in frock coats and fezes, all congregate here to dine, to dance, to throw “serpentines,” and to make merry by touching the golden pig—a real pig covered with gold paint—at the coming of the New Year.