because he locked it at once and pocketed the key, and it fitted into
the recess so neatly that a knife-blade would hardly have gone into the
crack.

Outside the bedroom door, in a lobby furnished with odds and ends, was a
wickerwork sofa that would do finely for Narayan Singh, and that old
soldier didn't need to have it pointed out to him. Without word or sign
from us he threw his kit on the floor, unrolled his blankets, removed
his boots, curled up on the sofa, and if he didn't go to sleep at once,
gave such a perfect imitation of it that somebody's fox terrier came and
sniffed him, and, recognizing a campaigner after his own wandering
heart, jumped on his chest and settled down to sleep too.

As soon as our host had left the room, all bows and toothy smiles,
Jeremy with his back to me drew from one pocket the letter he was
supposed to have stolen from me, flourished it in Yussuf Dakmar's face,
and concealed it carefully in another. Then a new humorous notion
occurred to him. He pulled it out again, folded it in the pocket wallet
in which he had carried it from the first, wrapped the whole in a
handkerchief, which he knotted carefully and then handed it to me.

"Effendi," he said, "you are a fierce master and a mighty drunkard, but
a man without guile. Keep that till the morning. Then, if Omar wants to
steal it he will have to murder you instead of me, and I would rather
sleep than die. But you must give it back at dawn, because the prayers
are in it that a very holy ma'lim wrote for me, and unless I read those
prayers properly tomorrow's train will come to grief before we reach
Damascus."

He acted the part perfectly of one of those half-witted, wholly shrewd