Nefret ignored my inane questions. “There is a door at the back of the house to give the occupants easier access to a primitive privy. I suppose he could have availed himself of the opportunity to deal with a natural imperative, but I am not confident. If he has returned to the site, the Professor will be livid.”

“Quite livid, indeed,” I muttered. Nefret and I located an open door at the back of the house, and approached the privy. I halted at a polite distance and called, “Herr Morgenstern! Are you there?”

We heard no reply. After several more attempts to elicit a response, I clenched my teeth, approached, and rapped forcefully on the door. “Please avert your eyes, Nefret; this may prove to be a scene that neither of us desires to have etched in our memory.”

I flung open the door to expose the interior. I will not describe it, out of regard for my more delicate Readers, but I immediately determined that it was uninhabited. My reaction was ambiguous. Pragmatically, I had hoped to find Herr Morgenstern and order him to return to the house. Then again, I had no desire to find him with his trousers around his ankles.

“Over here, Aunt Amelia,” Nefret said. “I am not a well-schooled Egyptologist, but I do not think these clothes date from the Eighteenth Dynasty, unless Akhenaton wore trousers, a tweed coat, boots, and unterhosen.”

I scanned the bleak terrain. “That blasted man! Not only has he fled, but he has done so with no thought of propriety. We must stop him before he tries to find a nubile dance partner in the village. Egyptian women are modest, and their male relatives are protective—and easily incensed. Should Herr Morgenstern appear in his current—er—lack of attire, he will be beaten senseless, if not killed. I will go there immediately, and then to the city site. Find Mahmoud and tell him to gather a search party. We must hope that Herr Morgenstern is nearby, happily building a sand castle.”

“Or a sand temple for Nefertiti.”

We parted ways. I took the path through the village, listening for shrieks of outrage, but all seemed peaceful. I continued to the city site. As anticipated, Emerson had taken control and was issuing orders to the crew. Mr. Buddle stood at the periphery, scribbling notes on a pad of paper; Mr. Dullard and Miss Smith were not to be seen. A vast sense of relief swept over me, but only for a moment. Herr Morgenstern had gone elsewhere, and was either hiding in the remains of crumbling structures or capering in the perilous desert. He would be relatively safe until darkness fell (unless he stepped on a scorpion or viper). After that, he might inadvertently tumble down an embankment and arouse the interest of jackals. It is always depressing to hear them snarling at night and then see vultures circling at dawn.