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lip get moist. “I am Parisian,” she said, putting the glass down.
    Pete said that he could tell she was, which pleased her. It had not taken him long to figure out that being from Paris was about the grandest thing you could be in Cairo. That most of these people were from Alexandria, or maybe Algiers, made no difference; they all claimed Paris as home and talked nostalgically, if inaccurately, about it. Pete played their game with a straight face.
    They talked about Paris in the spring, their conversation a bit like the perfume ads Pete used to like to read in the magazines back home. In the middle of a long story about an evening on the Boule’ Miche, Pete, reminded by the name of the man he had come here to see, asked her if Le Mouche had been in that evening.
    She nodded. “Yes, he came in just before you did. Oh, but this night in Paris was like no other. Maurice Chevalier and I went driving through Montmartre and—”
    “Where is he?”
    “Monsieur Chevalier? In Paris. I no see him for many, many years, but he—”
    “Le Mouche. Where is he?”
    “Oh, him. He is probably in his room. Through there.” She pointed to the double door.
    “Excuse me,” said Pete.
    She looked alarmed. “He does not like people back there. You stay here. Or perhaps we have drink at this charming flat I have two streets from here.”
    “I’ll be back,” said Pete. He moved carefully through the mob of sailors. They were growing louder by degrees. The time of good fellowship was at hand, to be followed by wrangling and fighting at two o’clock, with the police giving a hand. Bars were the same everywhere.
    The civilians who sat at the table at the far end of the bar watched his every move. They looked startled when they saw him go through the double doors.
    In front of him was a hallway, lit by a single dim light bulb. There was one door on the left, one on the right, and, at the end of the hall, a half-open door through which Pete could see an alleyway.
    He paused between the shut doors, trying to guess which he should try first. He gave a start when a voice said, “The door on the left, Mr. Wells.”
    Pete opened the door, mystified. There had been no one in the hall.
    Le Mouche was seated in an armchair, an electric hot plate in front of him. On it a teakettle bubbled. The room was lit by a lamp with a red shade, which cast a ruddy glow over the chair and the one table, over the prayer rug that half concealed a window, and over Le Mouche himself, who waved Pete to a stool beside him.
    “I expected you yesterday, Mr. Wells, I was very disappointed when you did not come.” Pete stared fascinatedly, stupidly at the man. Le Mouche was a hunchback with a handsome, large, melancholy head and graying hair. He spoke English with great elegance and no accent.
    “I—I was busy,” he stammered.
    “I quite understand, Mr. Wells. After all, you are new to our city and there is so much to see and do.”
    “How did you know I was in the hall? I mean, the door was shut and—”
    Le Mouche chuckled. “Am I psychic? Yes, I think so. Many people have said I can foretell the future, and perhaps I can. But, alas, there is nothing mysterious about my knowing you were in the hall.” He waved a long graceful hand at the wall opposite him. Pete saw that two holes had been bored into it, about four feet above the floor, the eye level of the hunchback. “I keep myself informed of what is going on in the bar. This is not a simple city, Mr. Wells, nor, I fear, is everyone as good as he might be. There are even some rather wicked people who cause no end of trouble. One must be watchful.” As he talked, very simply, as though to a child, he poured the tea into two cups; then he handed one to Pete. “It is a mint tea, Mr. Wells. Good for the health. The Arabs are especially fond of it.”
    “Thank you.” Pete swallowed some of the hot mixture. It was good.
    “Now I have a special surprise for you. I recall I apologized to you Tuesday