Bim-bashi Baruk of Egypt

Prescott glanced at the dark, aquiline face, now faintly touched with melancholy.

"Care for a job?" he asked abruptly.

Baruk's eyes lighted up from within.

"Rather! Got one for me?"

"Let's go into the Bull. Better if we're not seen together."

* * *

MISS ANSTRUTHER, her simple lunch dispatched, sat in the cottage porch drinking a cup of coffee and enjoying one of the three cigarettes which she allowed herself per them. A spell of Riviera sunshine blessed the West Country, and daring buds peeped out among the thorns of a rambler rose which bowered her.

Suddenly she looked up.

A man had rested a bicycle against the gate and was coming along the paved path toward her. He was a dark man, undeniably good looking in a vaguely sinister way, and he wore breeches and riding boots and some unfamiliar sort of leather jerkin. He had a swinging stride which Miss Anstr