‘I’m always right,’ John said firmly. ‘Anyhow, we can hardly be said to have missed him when we don’t know for certain where he is or what he’s up to. Pray that he’s gone on to Cairo. If he can convince someone in authority to search that boat we’ll be in the clear.’

‘The boat won’t he there yet, will it?’ I asked, mopping my sweating face with my sleeve.

‘I shouldn’t think so. But you can be sure Blenkiron has moved up his schedule. He’ll load and be under way as soon as he possibly can, and the Queen of the Nile is capable of a pretty fair turn of speed. If she travels night and day and Blenkiron uses his influence to get her through the locks without delay, she could reach Cairo in a few days. We – or Schmidt – must get there before the boat does.’

He reached casually into his pocket and took out the Tutankhamon pectoral. Glowing with soft shades of gold and turquoise and coral, it covered his entire palm. The giant blue beetle that dominated the design held a sun disk of carnelian in its raised pincers.

Feisal caught his breath. ‘From Blenkiron’s collection? Good thinking, Johnny. That should be enough – ’

John shook his dishevelled head. ‘It should be enough to capture the attention of the museum authorities, certainly; that’s why I – er – borrowed it. But once Blenkiron is out of the country with his collection, it will be my word against his as to where this came from. Eventually they may discover that the other objects are forgeries as well, but things move slowly in this part of the world and bureaucrats in any part of the world are reluctant to take action. And while they are discussing and debating and arguing and speculating, we will be wasting away in a dungeon cell. If we’re lucky.’

‘I like you better when you’re being frivolous,’ I said.

‘I don’t.’ Feisal hoisted himself to his feet. ‘We’d better get started.’

Even after seeing the terrain I wouldn’t have believed it would take six hours to cover less than thirty miles. I suppose it could have been worse. Nobody got bitten by a scorpion or a cobra and the jeep held together, except for one of the doors, which Feisal wired back on. We only had two flat tyres. Smaller canyons opened up along the way and sometimes it was impossible to tell the main wadi from a dead end. We went for almost a mile into one of the latter before Feisal realized his error. He had to back out. As the sun rose higher it beat straight down into the canyon and the temperature kept climbing. We were all sticky wet and itching with sweat when we reached the end of the first wadi and found the steep slope ahead completely blocked by fallen boulders.