I looked around for walls and cut stone. All I could see was a low mound up ahead. A sinking feeling came over me as I realized I had made a slight error. Anything that had been above ground in two thousand-plus B.C. would be under it now, buried by encroaching sand. I followed Larry up the slope of the mound, and cheered up when I saw below me, not a dark sinister hole in the ground, but a large pit open to the sky. It was paved with stone and there were a few stretches of wall, none of them over a metre high. In front of one such stretch squatted a tan bundle, which unfolded into a man.

‘Sorry, folks, nobody is allowed . . .’ he began. Then his narrow face relaxed. ‘Mr Blenkiron! I heard you were in Egypt, but I didn’t expect you’d honour us with a visit.’

‘Hope we’re not interrupting anything.’ Larry offered me his hand and we scrambled down into the excavation.

Having lots of money makes one welcome in all social circles. The excavator would have kicked Cleopatra out of his bed to welcome the rich patron of archaeological excavations. He greeted Feisal by name, invited the rest of us to call him Ralph, and apologized feverishly for the fact that nothing particularly interesting was going on.

‘The men are off today,’ he explained. ‘It’s Friday. Pat will be sorry to have missed you; he’s gone to Luxor to work at the library at Chicago House.’

He showed us some of the reliefs. They were fragmentary but very beautiful, delicate low reliefs like the ones at Sakkara. He and Larry went off into a spate of technical discussion, and before long Sweet said he thought he and Bright would go back. Larry looked at his watch. ‘Yes, go ahead. Tell them we’ll be along shortly. I’d like to have a quick look at the burial chamber.’

He produced a huge flashlight from his pocket. ‘No need for that, sir,’ Ralph said proudly. ‘We’ve run a wire and stuck up a few lightbulbs. I’ll turn them on, shall I?’

From the northwest corner of the pit, a gently sloping ramp led down. It was low-ceilinged but fairly well lit by a series of bare bulbs. I followed Larry and Ralph until we got to the dreaded, anticipated hole in the ground. The top of a rough wooden ladder showed at the edge of the shaft.

Somebody called from up above, and Ralph said, ‘Damn. I’d better go see – ’ He scrambled back up the ramp. Larry, already on the ladder, looked up at me and for once in my life I decided to be sensible instead of foolhardy.

‘Sorry. I can’t . . .’