‘I beg your pardon?’ said Sweet.

‘Ssssh,’ I said.

His name wasn’t Ahmed it was Feisal. His accent suggested he had been educated in England. The underlying traces of his native tongue gave his velvety baritone a fascinating touch of the exotic.

‘I am your leader and your devoted servant, ladies and gentlemen. I will be with you on the boat and on shore, wherever you go. You will come to me with all your troubles, questions, and complaints, and I will pass them on to your crew, which I now have the honour to introduce.’

He presented the captain, the purser, the doctor, the chef, and a few others; I lost track of what he was saying as I studied the blonde at the next table. Her eyes were fixed in a glassy stare and she seemed to be having trouble breathing. It might have been her corset. She had to be wearing something formidable under the white, draped silk jersey; it moulded, not moving flesh, but a substance as rigid as concrete.

I caught a name and returned my attention to Feisal. ‘Dr Peregrine Foggington-Smythe, our expert on Pharaonic Egypt,’ he announced.

So there were parents cruel enough to saddle a kid with a name like Peregrine. If I had seen him from a distance I might have taken him for John – briefly. He was a stretched-out, washed-out version of the Great John Smythe – taller and skinnier, with ash-blond hair and pale blue eyes. He informed us with magnificent condescension that he would be lecturing on Sakkara, the site we would visit the following day, as soon as Feisal finished his introductions.

He stepped back and Feisal, whose face had frozen into a look of barely contained dislike, turned on the charm again as he presented Dr Alice Gordon, who would be delivering the lectures on Hellenistic Egypt. Dr Gordon rose and raised her hand but remained modestly in her place at a table near the back of the room. She was a plump little woman with a mop of unkempt greying brown hair and thick glasses

The boat was certainly overloaded with experts, or at least with Ph.D.s. When my name was announced I followed Dr Gordon’s example, rising and subsiding without comment but with a modest smile.

I was the last of the staff to be introduced. A babble of conversation broke out as several of the crewmen started setting up a slide projector and screen, and Sweet exclaimed, ‘So it’s Dr Bliss? We are honoured! I have always been fascinated by Islamic art. Tell me – ’

I got quickly to my feet ‘If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’m going to sneak out for a smoke before the lecture starts. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.’

Several other sinners followed me. Smoking wasn’t allowed in the lounge during lectures, and it was only permitted in a small walled-off area at other times. I was rather proud of myself for having realized that this habit, which is approximately as socially acceptable as spitting in public, might come in handy if I needed to extricate myself from a sticky situation. Avoiding the other lepers, who were clustered defensively at the rail, I walked on till I found myself alone.