minded him--

And it was remarkably alike. The same thick oval, the same ponderous
effect of the coat of arms--if it should prove the same coat of arms
that would be a clue!

With his mind still piecing the recollection and surmise together
his fingers pressed the spring. There was a miniature within, but it
was not the picture of Monsieur Delcasse. Ryder was looking down
upon the face of a girl, a beautiful, spirited face, with merry eyes
and wistful lips--dark eyes, with a lovely arch of brow, and
rose-red lips with haunting curves.

And eyes and brows and lips and curves, it was the face of the girl
who had gazed after him in the moonlight against the shadows of the
pasha's garden.

CHAPTER VII

TO McLEAN'S ASTONISHMENT

"It is no end of good of you, Jack, to take this trouble," Andrew
McLean remarked appreciatively, looking up from his scrutiny of the
packet which his unexpected luncheon guest had pushed over to his
plate.

"Uncommon thoughtful. It's undoubtedly a twin to that locket, the
portrait of the man's wife--whatever his name was."

"Delcasse," said Jack Ryder promptly.

Gratefully he drained the second lemon squash which the
silent-footed Mohammed had placed at his elbow. It had been a hard
morning's trip, this coming in from camp in high haste, and he was
hot and dusty.

"You might have sent the thing," McLean mentioned. "I daresay that
special agent chap has left the country, for I recollect he said he
was at the end of his search.... And, of course, this isn't much of
a clue--eh, what?"

"It's everything of a clue," insisted Ryder. "It shows where this
Frenchman was working, for the first thing--"

"Unless it had been stolen by some native who lost it in that
tomb."

"Natives don't lose gold lockets. Of course it might have been
stolen and hidden--but that's far-fetched. It's much more likely
that this was the very tomb where Delcasse was working at the time
of his death. For one thing, the place showed signs of previous
excavation up to the inner corridor, and there I'll swear no modern
got ahead of me. And for another thing, it's a perfect specimen of
the limestone carving of the Tomb of Thi which Delcasse wrote his
book about--looks very much as if it might be by the same artist.
There's a flock of hippopotami in a marsh scene with the identical
drawing, and there's the same lovely boat in full sail--but there,
you bounder, you don't know the Tomb of Thi from a thyroid glan