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it,” he said. “Give me your opinion, Mr. Forester. As a physician you may recognize it.”
    Forester looked, and we all watched him in silence. I remember that I heard Ali Mahmoud coughing out in the wâdi and realized that he was keeping as close to human companionship that night as his sentry duties permitted.
    Shrugging, Forester passed the glass to me. I peered in turn, but almost immediately laid the glass down.
    Petrie looked at Forester; but:
    “Out of my depth!” the latter declared. “It’s vegetable; but if it’s something tropical I plead ignorance.”
    “It is something tropical,” said Petrie. “It’s betel nut .”
    Weymouth intruded quietly, and:
    “Someone who chewed betel nut,” he explained, “was hiding behind that sarcophagus lid when you brought Sir Lionel’s body into this hut. Now, I’m prepared to hear that before that the door was unlocked?”
    “You’re right,” I admitted; “it was. We locked it after his body had been placed here.”
    “As I thought.”
    Weymouth paused; then:
    “Someone who chewed betel nut,” he went on, “must have been listening outside Sir Lionel’s tent when you decided to move his body to this hut. He anticipated you, concealed himself, and, at some suitable time later, with the key which Sir Lionel carried on his chain, he unlocked the door and removed the body!”
    “I entirely agree,” said Forester, staring very hard. “And I compliment you heartily. But—betel nut?”
    “Perfectly simple,” Petrie replied. “Many Dacoits chew betel nut.”
    At which moment, unexpectedly:
    “Perhaps,” came Rima’s quiet voice, “I can show you the man!”
    “What!” I exclaimed.
    “I think I may have his photograph… and the photograph of someone else!”

CHAPTER THREE

TOMB OF THE BLACK APE
    I might have thought, during that strange conference in the hut, that life had nothing more unexpected to offer me. Little I knew what Fate held in store. This was only the beginning. Dawn was close upon us. Yet before the sun came blushing over the Nile Valley I was destined to face stranger experiences.
    I went with Rima from the hut to the tent. All our old sense of security was gone. No one knew what to expect now that the shadow of Fu-Manchu had fallen upon us.
    “Imagine a person tall, lean, and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan… long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green…”
    Petrie’s description stuck in my memory; especially “tall, lean, and feline… eyes of the true cat-green…”
    A lamp was lighted in Rima’s tent, and she hastily collected some of her photographic gear and rejoined me as Ali came up shouldering his rifle.
    “Anything to report, Ali Mahmoud?”
    “Nothing, Effendim.”
    When we got back to the hut I could see how eagerly we were awaited. A delicious shyness which I loved—for few girls are shy— descended upon Rima when she realized how we were all awaiting what she had to say. She was so charmingly petite, so vividly alive, that the deep note which came into her voice in moments of earnestness had seemed, when I heard it first, alien to her real personality. Her steady gray eyes, though, belonged to the real Rima—the shy Rima.
    “Please don’t expect too much of me,” she said, glancing round quickly. “But I think perhaps I may be able to help. I wasn’t really qualified for my job here, but… Uncle Lionel was awfully kind; and I wanted to come. Really all I’ve done is wild-life photography— before, I mean.”
    She bent and opened a paper folder which she had put on the table; then:
    “I used to lay traps,” she went on, “for all sorts of birds and animals.”
    “What do you mean by ‘traps,’ Miss Barton?” Weymouth asked.
    “Oh, perhaps you don’t know. Well, there’s a bait—and the bait is attached to the trigger of the camera.”
    “Perfectly clear. You need not explain further.”
    “For night things, it’s more complicated; because the