The museum was a disaster in progress – dirty, crowded, and dangerously understaffed. Some of the cases looked as if they could be opened with one of my hairpins. There was no air-conditiomng or humidity control; the windows were open, admitting dust and the exhaust fumes from Cairo’s teeming traffic. When I left, reeling under a combination of horror and artistic overload, I had to pick my way through a group of chattering women scrubbing the floor on their hands and knees, and I found myself peering intently at their faces, looking for familiar features – the shape of a neatly curved ear, the outline of a high cheekbone. That was the sort of disguise that would appeal to John’s bizarre sense of humour.

What could he be after this time? His usual modus operandi involved substitution rather than outright theft; this must be something big, so big in size or importance that its absence couldn’t be concealed. God knows there were plenty of possibilities, starting with the golden coffins of Tutankhamon.

I had managed to convince myself there was no immediate danger. The tour group was leaving Cairo next day; it would return in three weeks for a longer stay. That must be when he intended to do the job, using the other passengers as camouflage.

That morning I had sent my luggage to the boat and taken a taxi to Giza; I would join the others when they got on the bus that was to take them back to the boat.

I had already spotted John on the passenger list. It had to be he; no one would have a name as ridiculous as Peregrine Foggington-Smythe. He had even had the gall to use a variation of his favourite nom de guerre. Typical of his arrogance and his sometimes dangerous sense of humour . . .

He wasn’t a passenger. The list included the names of the staff; Foggington-Smythe was one of the guest lecurers, a distinguished Egyptologist from Boston, author of books with titles like Caste and Gender in Ancient Egypt, whatever the hell that might mean. I wondered how John had Convinced Galactic Tours, Inc., that he was the man in question. For all I knew he might be an Egyptologist; he had claimed his specialty was classics, but once or twice he had displayed a fairly esoteric familiarity with matters Egyptological. But I was sure – well, almost sure – he couldn’t be the real Foggington-Smythe. Not that an Egyptologist couldn’t be a criminal; scholars are no more noble than the next man. But not even John would have time to lecture, write several ponderous tomes, and carry on a career as a master thief.

Would he?

I looked up from the list to see someone plodding towards me. One of the bright bags was slung over her shoulder. She must have spotted mine. She was the type that would notice things like that – a woman of a certain age, of medium height and stocky frame, with unblinking grey eyes under heavy brows. She had to be English; her fair skin was already pink, though it glistened with sun shield, and she was wearing a long-sleeved tan blouse and a shapeless khaki skirt that reached almost to her ankles. She looked familiar, and of course I knew why; I had seen her type in a number of British films: the housekeeper, the headmistress, the stocky spinster who is either the detective or a leading suspect.