The Curved Blades

With paling face, Pauline listened. “Who?” she whispered. “Who? Do you suspect anybody?”

“You don’t know of your aunt ever having consulted any beauty doctor or any such person?”

“Oh, no! I’m sure she never did. Never!”

“And you don’t know of any one who would give her poison, under pretense of its being a charm or beautifier?”

“Oh, don’t! Don’t ask me!” and, with a face white as ashes, Pauline rose from her chair. “You must excuse me, Mr. Stone. I am ill, – I don’t feel well – . Really I must beg to be excused.”

Almost before he realized what she was doing, Pauline had left him, glided to the elevator, and he heard the door of the cage clang to, even as he followed her.

“Poor child!” he said to himself, “poor dear little girl!” and going in quest of Mrs. MacDonald, he asked her to go to Pauline.

“You will perhaps find her greatly disturbed,” he said, “but I assure you it is nothing that can be avoided or remedied. Please, Mrs. MacDonald, just try to comfort and cheer her, without asking the cause of her sadness.”

After a straightforward look into Stone’s eyes, which was as frankly returned, Mrs. MacDonald nodded her head and hastened away.

As Stone had predicted she found Pauline sobbing hysterically.

“What is it, dear?” she queried, “tell Mrs. Mac. Or, if you’d rather not, at least tell me what I can do for you. Don’t, don’t cry so!”

But no words could she get from the sobbing girl, except an insistent demand for a telegraph blank. This was provided, and Pauline wrote a message to Carr Loria telling him that Fleming Stone had come to Cairo. This she ordered despatched at once. Then she begged Mrs. MacDonald to leave her, as she wished to go to bed and try to forget her troubles in sleep.

Meantime, Fleming Stone left the hotel and proceeded straight to Carr Loria’s rooms. He expressed surprise when the janitor informed him of Mr. Loria’s absence.

“Well, never mind,” he said: “he’ll be back in a few days. But I’ll just go in and write a note and leave it on his desk for him.”

The janitor hesitated, but after a transference of some coin of the realm was effected, he cheerfully unlocked the door and Stone found himself in Loria’s apartment. It was a comfortable place, even luxurious, in a mannish way, and the Detective looked about with interest. As he had proposed, he went to the writing table and taking a sheet of paper from the rack, wrote a short note. But instead of leaving it, he put it in his pocket, saying to the watchful janitor that perhaps it would be better to mail it. Then, he stepped into Loria’s bedroom, but so quickly did he step out again, that the janitor hadn’t time to reprove or forbid him.

“All right,” he said, as he started to leave. “When Mr. Loria returns you can tell him I called.”

This permission went far to allay the janitor’s fears that he had been indiscreet; for Carr Loria was not a man who brooked interference with his affairs or belongings.

XXIV

CONFESSION

Carr Loria was at Heluan when he received Pauline’s telegram. For a few moments he studied it, and then going to a hotel office, he possessed himself of a telegram blank which he proceeded to write on, by the use of a type-writer near-by.

With a preoccupied look on his face, as if thinking deeply, he called Ahri and gave him a long and careful list of directions.

And it was in pursuance of these directions that the Arab presented himself at Shepheard’s at ten o’clock in the morning and asked for Miss Stuart.

“What is it, Ahri?” asked Pauline, as she received the dragoman in her sitting room.

“Miss Stoort,” and the Arab was deeply respectful, “Mr. Loria begs that you go with me to Sakkara to visit the Pyramids and Necropolis.”

“Now?” said Pauline, in surprise.

“Yes, my lady. Mr. Loria will himself meet you at the station. Will you start at once, please?”

“But I am expecting a caller – Mr. Stone, – ”

“Pardon, but Mr. Loria said if you hesitated for any reason, to implore you to go with me quickly, and he will explain all.”

Pauline paled a little, but she said, simply, “Very well, Ahri, I will go at once.”

Escorted by the silent, majestic-mannered Arab, Pauline was taken through the crowded streets to the station, and they boarded a train just as it was leaving.

“We did get the train, Miss Stoort,” said Ahri, with his sad smile, “Mr. Loria would be greatly mad if we had missed it. Yes.”

Pauline nodded at him, her thoughts full of the spoiled day, which she had hoped to spend with Stone.

Yet she longed to see Carr, she wanted to tell him what Mr. Stone had said about the beauty charm and —

“You said Mr. Loria would meet us at the station, Ahri; you put me on the train so quickly I had no chance to speak. Where is he?”

“Not the Cairo station, my lady. The station at Bedrashein.”

“Where is that?”

“Where we are going. We alight there to see the ruins of Memphis and the Pyramids of Sakkara.”

Pauline looked puzzled, but said no more and sat silently wrapped in her own thoughts, now of Stone, now of Carr, and again of herself.

At Bedrashein, they left the train. Pauline looked anxiously around but saw nothing of her cousin.

“I do not see him,” said Ahri, gravely, meeting her inquiring glance; “but I obey his orders. He said, if he be not here, we go to the desert to meet him.”

“To the desert? How? Where?”

“This way. Here are our carts.” Ahri led the way to where two sand-carts stood waiting, evidently for them. They were a little like English dog-carts and drawn by desert horses.

“You take that one, Miss Stoort, and I this,” directed Ahri, standing with outstretched hand, like a commanding officer.

Bewildered but knowing the responsibility of Carr’s servant, Pauline got into the cart he indicated. She did not at all like the looks of the gaunt black Moor who drove her, but thought best to say nothing. She had learned never to show fear of the native servants, and she held her head high, and gave the driver only a haughty stare. Ahri, after she was arranged for, sprang into the other cart, and they set off.

The road was through the village, through palm groves, past large expanses of water, and at last through desert wastes, among foot-hills that quickly cut off the view of the road just traversed.

Pauline’s cart was ahead of the other, and looking back she could not see the other one, in which Ahri rode.

A strange feeling began to creep into her heart. Covertly she glanced at her driver. The hard bony face was not turned her way, but she had an uncanny sense that the man was grinning at her. Sternly she bade him stop and wait for the other cart.

“No Ingleese,” he rejoined, with a dogged expression on his ugly countenance.

“I command you,” and Pauline laid hold of his arm, “I insist that you stop!”

“No Ingleese,” he repeated, and now he gave her a distinctly impudent look and spurred the horse to faster pace.