AN OILED HAND

That is where my diary of the desert stopped; for the adventure that ended our trip was not of the sort that mixes well with tragedies of lambs.

Before dinner Monny had apologized for refusing my handkerchief, I really believe because she was sorry she had misunderstood, not because the rain had leaked through her tent, and she wanted me to give her mine. In fact, she and Biddy refused pointblank at first when Anthony and I suggested the change. They would not have told us that the water had come in on their beds if they had thought we would suggest such a thing. All they wished for was to have the tent-roof somehow mended before matters got worse. But we insisted, especially Fenton; and he is difficult to disobey. A look from him, and a drawing together of the black eyebrows has the same effect on the mind of a rebellious woman as an "Off with her head!" from an Arabian Nights Sultan, while I might vainly exert my ingenuity to achieve the result he gets by sheer mysterious magnetism.

It was bedtime when the leak showed itself, but the change of quarters was accomplished with military quickness and precision, as Fenton's undertakings generally are; and almost before they knew what had happened, Monny and Brigit, who had been tent-mates during the tour, found themselves transferred bag and baggage to our tent, with the last clean sheets in the bedroom-Arab's possession.

Transferred, we set ourselves to making repairs, and soon patched up the leaks. Rain at this season comes so rarely, it was not surprising that a stitch or two had been neglected.

Only the pillows and upper blankets had had time to get wet, and we had but to remove the coverings and turn the pillows. We both did this simultaneously, and simultaneously exclaimed "Hullo!"

"They've left their treasures" said Anthony, not with quite the masculine scorn of feminine weaknesses I was used to noticing in him. Indeed, he spoke almost tenderly, as a father might speak at finding the forgotten doll of an absent child.

Each of us stood with a wet pillow in his hand, gazing at his borrowed bunk. In the one I had selected, lay a small chamois-skin bag, attached to a narrow pink ribbon. In the bed chosen by Fenton, was a tiny white enamelled watch, on a platinum chain. Both these things had been covered by their respective owners' pillows, and forgotten in the hasty change of quarters. The watch was Monny's. She wore it round her neck every day—therefore the chamois-skin bag on the other bed must be Brigit's. I told myself that in it she probably kept her pathetic store of money, hidden under her bodice by day, her pillow by night; and beholding this intimate souvenir of my childhood's friend, my heart yearned over her.

"Too late to rouse them up now," said Anthony.

"Yes," said I. "We must have been twenty minutes or half an hour getting the roof to rights. They may be asleep, and if not, they won't worry anyhow. They'll know that their things are safe till to-morrow morning."

Fenton agreed with this verdict, and each keeping charge of his own treasure trove, we went to bed and to sleep.

I am a champion dreamer. So much so, that I often find the life of dreamland rivalling in interest the life this side of sleep. I look forward to my dreams, as some people look forward to an interesting dinner-party; but that night I was too tired to inspect the dream-menu, before lying down to it. The first thing I knew, a handsome Egyptian god with crystal eyes, like those which Bill Bailey means to make the fashion, stood by my bedside. I asked him politely whether he were RÃ or Osiris, deliberately picking the two best gods of the bunch in order to flatter him; but without answering, he pointed a bronze hand to the mat on which he stood. It was a white mat, and on it I read a word which evidently he meant me to take as his name: TAM HTAB. For an instant it seemed to me a fine name for an Egyptian god, though I hadn't met it before. Then I burst out laughing disrespectfully. "Why, you're only a Bath Mat wrong side out!" I heard myself sneering; and the god disappeared as a flash of lightning comes and is gone. In going, however, he stumbled slightly against the bed. It was a mere touch; but that, or my own voice, half waked me up.

"TAM HTAB," I mumbled dreamily; and was just reminding myself before dropping off to sleep again that I must tell Biddy about the new bath god, when I realized that he had not quite gone. No, not quite gone! It must be he who still lingered by the bed, for it could be nobody else. Anthony would not come and hover silently at my bedside in the middle of the night. Besides, I was almost awake now, and I could hear the gentle, regular breathing of a man asleep: Anthony's breathing.

"Go away, TAM HTAB," I tried to say, but I was not awake enough to speak. He was bending over the bed. His face was near to mine. I felt rather than saw it. "How could I see in the dark?" sleepily, even fretfully, I asked myself. And yet, was the tent dark?...It had been, I remembered that. I remembered that Anthony had got to bed first, and I had extinguished the two candles on the washhand-stand. Afterward, I had had to grope my way to the bed. Now, however, there was a light...a very faint, rather curious light. There seemed to be only a square of it, a square sloped off at the top. It was opposite my eyes, which really were open now, I felt sure. I couldn't be dreaming this. It was like a queer-shaped window in the blackness, a window full of starlight, but close to the floor. Then the rain must have stopped. The stars must be out. Yes, but how could I see that? There was no window in the tent.

This thought dragged the last film of sleep off my tired brain, like a veil snatched away by impatient fingers on an unseen hand.

Odd! Those very words said over themselves in my head: "Fingers on an unseen hand." And that was because a hand was being slipped cautiously, inch by inch, under my pillow. It was the Egyptian god's hand. But I knew suddenly that the dream-god had turned into a thief: that the silver-glimmering square of light was one of the tent flaps unbuttoned and turned back. That the man must stealthily have pulled up a peg or two while we slept our heavy sleep, must have crept into the tent, soft-footed over the thick rugs, and now here he was, trying to steal.

After that, I did not go on with the thought. My dull reasoning snapped off as short as a dry stick. I made a grab for the hand under my pillow, seized a wrist, held it for an instant in a grip which must have hurt, then had the shame and disappointment of feeling it slip out of my grasp, like a greased snake. There was a stifled exclamation of pain or surprise, scarcely louder than a sigh, and I was out of bed and after a shadow that ran for the low square of starlight. Something caught and tripped me as I reached the opening. What it was I did not know then and don't know now, but I had a vague impression that it was warm. If I had stumbled against a bare leg thrust out to stop me, it would have felt like that. Yet it could not have been the leg of the man running away. He was using both his, and must have used them well, for I was up and out from under the lifted tent flap which had fallen on top of me as I tumbled, before I could have counted five. Very wide awake now, I stood in the rough, sandy grass, under a sky encrusted with stars, and could see no one. Barefooted, I pattered this way and that, searching every shadow, but the whole camp seemed an abode of peace. There was not a sound or movement even in the black ring of sleeping camels. Rain had driven to shelter the roving dogs which had troubled us last night. The camp lanterns burned clear and strong, yellow and crude in the silver flood of starlight which dulled their radiance. The smell of earth and grass after the heavy shower was like the fragrance of tea roses. Could it be that an evil, stealthy presence had but just broken this sweet serenity with its vile intention, or had the whole incident been after all a singularly vivid dream? I should have believed so, if my hand which had clutched that other hand, had not been slippery with oil.

No, I had not dreamed. And suddenly a troubling thought leaped into my mind. "Biddy!" The name sprang to my lips and spoke itself aloud.

If this were for her! I had laughed at her forebodings. Sensational revenges such as she feared seemed so incongruous, so utterly unsuited to those laughing, long-lashed eyes of hers! Yet she had in her past life lived side by side with fear and tragedy for more years than I liked to count. And as she said, men such as those whom Richard O'Brien had betrayed had been known to reach out very far to take revenge. Biddy had done nothing. Surely they owed her no grudge. But she had known things. Perhaps they thought that she knew even more than she did know. Their organization was rich as well as powerful. It had many branches. Yet why should men use its power to hurt the widow of a dead enemy, now that they—or fate—had put him underground?

In a flash I remembered the chamois-skin bag, which she had forgotten under the pillow: and lifting the loosened canvas flap with its dangling pegs, I stooped to go back into the tent. Inside, I expected to find darkness, but instead I found light; Anthony up, setting a match to a candle wick, and looking a tall, dark silhouette in his pyjamas.

"What's the row?" he calmly wanted to know—too calmly to suit my ruffled mood.

"A thief, that's all," I answered, hastily searching under the pillow where the unseen hand had been. Sheet and pillow-case were slimy with oil, yet the chamois-skin bag was safe. "But he didn't get what he wanted!" I finished.

"Good," said Anthony, who had lighted both candles. "Let's go look for him."

"I've been, and couldn't see anything."

"I know. I heard a sound. I sang out, and you didn't answer, so I thought something must be up. Let's have another try. I've got Miss Gilder's watch."

I slipped Biddy's bag into the pocket of my pyjamas, and pulling on our boots we went out into the night.

"It's their tent I'm thinking of," I said, though I'd never talked of Brigit O'Brien's affairs to Fenton. "If some one had planned to rob them, not knowing of the change we made at the last minute—"

"All our Arabs did know—"

"I'm not talking of them. We've been here two days. Any one could have spied on us enough to find out which tent was Mrs. Jones' and Miss Gilder's."

"You're thinking of Bedr?"

"Well, yes, I suppose I am. Biddy never believed they were Germans."

"Who, those chaps in checked clothes he had in tow? By Jove! yes—I heard her speak of a scar on the forehead of one."

"She thought he might have been Burke, the fellow in the street row, that night at the House of the Crocodile."

"These things happen to heiresses in old-fashioned story books," said Anthony. "But there's nothing that happens in a story which can't happen in real life, I suppose—especially to such a girl. She—"

"Oh, but I wasn't thinking of her!" I began, then stopped, shocked because it was true, and also because I was unwilling to tell why my thoughts had turned to "Mrs. Jones."

"We must find out if they're safe," I went on. "The thieves seem to have got clear away and we're not likely to find them, unless they've gone to our old tent—"

"Come along," said Anthony. "We'll slip on something, and call the ladies as softly as we can, not to disturb the others and have the whole camp buzzing like a beehive. When we're sure they're all right, we can attend to such details as searching for tracks."

He seemed as eager as I was, to know that the two women were safe; but there was no sign to tell me about which one he chiefly concerned himself.

A minute transformed him from a pyjamaed Englishman into a robed Egyptian of that old-fashioned order which despises things European. Only, he forgot to put on his turban. I didn't think of the omission myself at the time, but I recalled it later.

Going to the tent which had been ours, I scratched on the tight drawn canvas near the spot where I knew one of the folding iron bedsteads was placed. "Biddy—Biddy!" I called gently, and after a few repetitions I heard her voice, rather sleepy, a little anxious, cry, "Is that you, Duffer?"

"Yes," I whispered, seeing the tent quiver in the region of some big cushiony buttons. "'Antoun' and I are both here. But don't be scared. Could you come and peep out from under the door flap a minute?"

"Yes," said she. "Go round there, and I'll come."

There was not much delay, for Biddy's crinkled black hair needs no night disfigurements by way of patent curlers. In a few seconds the door flap waved, and Biddy looked out into the starlight, the yellow glimmer of a candle flame within the tent silhouetting the Japanesey little figure wrapped in a kimono. Behind her dark head and above it, floated a mist of bronzy gold, which I took to be Miss Gilder's hair. There seemed to be quantities of it, and I should have been feverishly interested in wondering how long it was, if I had had time to think of anything but my thankfulness that Biddy and Monny were both safe.

"Are either of you ill?" asked the creamy Irish voice which had never sounded half so sweet as now, in the starlight and fragrance of this strange night. "Because if you are, I've some lovely medicine—"

"I wouldn't frighten them any more than I could help, if I were you," I heard Fenton mumbling advice in muffled tones at my back.

For obvious reasons I made no audible answer; but I had just been resolving not to tell Biddy my suspicions unless it were necessary to do so.

"No, we're not ill," I assured her. "But there's been a silly sort of scare about a sneak thief: may have been a false alarm, and we won't say anything about it to-morrow, if others don't. We're horribly sorry to disturb you and Miss Gilder, but we couldn't rest without making sure you hadn't been worried."

"You heard nothing, did you, Monny?" Brigit threw a question over her shoulder to the floating mist of gold.

"No, and I wasn't asleep either," Miss Gilder's voice answered. "I was lying awake thinking about its being our last night—and lots of things."

"I was lying half awake, too, thinking of 'lots of things,'" Biddy mimicked her friend, "or I shouldn't have heard you so easily when you scratched on the canvas. Oh, by the way, Duffer, did you or Antoun Effendi find a little chamois-skin bag under the pillow?"

"I found it," said I, and this gave me a chance I had been wanting but hadn't quite known how to snatch. "I was rather worried over the responsibility. Of course you knew that we'd take care of your treasures."

"It's all my money, and—and just one other thing!" Biddy answered, with an odd little hesitation in her manner and a catch in her voice. "I should hate to have anybody open that bag. I'm thankful it's safe. With you, I know it's sacred. All the same, I'd like to have it, if you don't mind the bother."

"You oughtn't to carry the thing about with you, if it's so important," I scolded her. "Why not leave your secret treasure, whatever it is, and most of your money, in Cairo, when you come off on an expedition like this?"

"I don't know," she mumbled evasively. "I'm used to having this thing with me. I can't think how I forgot it under my pillow. I never have before. It isn't the sort of—of valuable one keeps in a bank. Monny embroidered the bag when she was a little girl. It was her first work. I taught her how to do it, and she gave it to me for a birthday present. I wouldn't lose it for the world."

"You shan't," I said soothingly. I had heard what I had been afraid to hear; but why should Biddy's trip be spoiled by another worry if I could shield her? We could not know that the oiled hand had been groping for that bag; and I resolved not to distress Brigit by putting the idea into her head at present. "Go to sleep again in peace, both of you," I went on. "All's well, since you are well. Probably some prowler has been sneaking round the kitchen-tent."

"Yes. The news of the lamb has gone forth!" said Biddy. "Good night!"

"Good night!" I answered.

Down went the tent flap, and hid the sparkle of eyes in starsheen, and mist of gold in wavering candle-light. We trusted that the two had crept back into their beds; but we did not return to ours. We took one of the camp lanterns and searched for footprints—those which were freshest after the rain. The rough grass growing sparsely out of the sandy earth was not favourable to such attempts, however; and even at dawn, when we looked again before the camp was stirring, we made no notable discoveries such as amateur detectives make, in books.

Our next expedition, as soon as light came, was to the town, where we inquired at the few hotels, and put questions to the police. Nobody answering the description of Bedr and his two companions had been seen in Medinet, and we had to go back to camp baffled.

There was our adventure; and when we reached Cairo by train, the mystery of the oiled hand was still unsolved.