Since we had lost the important document. Before we started we had put
into a wallet the fake envelope that Grim had carried in his hand the
previous night, and had entrusted the wallet to Jeremy in order to have
an alibi ready for Mabel in case of need. Grim took up the cudgels now
and reminded me respectfully, as a servant should when speaking to his
master, that I had taken all proper precautions and could not be blamed
in any event. "But I think it will be found," he said hopefully.
"Inshallah, it is not lost, but in the wallet in the pocket of that
hare-brained friend of yours." So Jeremy went back to his corner,
searched for the wallet, found it after pretty nearly, standing on his
head to shake his clothes, examined it excitedly, and produced the fake
envelope, flourishing it so violently that nobody, even with eyes like a
hawk's, could have identified it with certainty. Then he dropped it in
among the baggage on the floor, and went down on his knees to pick it up
again. There is no more finished expert at sleight of hand than he, so
it vanished, and he swore he couldn't find it. In a well-simulated agony
of nervousness he called on Yussuf Dakmar to get down and help him
search, and the Syrian hadn't enough self-command left to pretend to
hesitate; his cold eyes were nearly popping from his head as he knelt
and groped. The chief subject of interest to me just then was how he
proposed to retain the letter in the unlikely event of his finding it
first. It was a ridiculous search, because there wasn't really anywhere
to look. After three bags had been lifted and their bottoms scrutinized
the whole floor of the compartment lay naked to the eye, except where my
feet rested. Jeremy insisted on my raising them, to the accompaniment
