"The House of the Crocodile," Jarvis Pasha said, when he had taken and
read the letter. "H'm! Do you know anything about that house?"

"I know the old stories connected with it," I answered. "If it's
reputation to-day is as sinister as ever----."

"Not at all. Figuratively speaking it has been whitewashed. It's become
a show place--_a monument historique_. This is interesting information
which Fenton sends, but if it came from any one else, I should say he
had dreamed it. He may be giving us the chance of an important _coup_.
Wait a few minutes, and I'll have this thing attended to, Lord Ernest.
But you look upset. Is it that you haven't had lunch, or are you
worrying about the ladies?" "Both," I answered with a sickly grin. "Not
that I mind about lunch. I couldn't have eaten if I'd had the time."

"You haven't as much belief as I have, in your friend," remarked Jarvis
Pasha, "if you think he'd let them come to harm." "They're all in the
same box, apparently," I excused my lack of faith.

"Trust Fenton!" said the Head of the Police. "He was sharp enough to
find the needles in the haystack, and he's smart enough and strong
enough to take care of them when they're found."

On this, Jarvis Pasha went out and left me to my reflections, which
rushed to the House of the Crocodile. Every one who has read or heard
stories of native Cairo, knows the House of the Crocodile, in the
Street of the Sisters, and how, in the later days of Mohammed Ali,
people scarcely dared to name it aloud. The "Tiger" Defterdar Ahmed
built it, for that beautiful Tigress, Princess Zohra, favourite
daughter of Mohammed Ali, who married her off to the fierce soldier