The House in Lordship Lane by A.E.W. Mason

It was Mr. Ricardo's way when some high narrative of fact or fancy was acclaimed, to discover some detail or episode, which no one else had remarked, and to applaud it to the exclusion of all other details, and indeed, of the whole pattern. The detail or episode may have been quite insignificant. That did not matter. His concentration upon it made strangers wonder for a moment whether he were not a very deep fellow. And indeed, Mr. Ricardo enjoyed that pleasant sense of equality with his betters which comes from travelling first on a second-class ticket. Thus it was he who noticed what a vastly important part in the explication of the Horbury Affair was played by the one who had the smallest concern in it. "Mordaunt," Mr. Ricardo would say, standing on his hearthrug before the fire and nodding his head sagely like a mandarin in ivory, "Please don't forget Mordaunt." He should have added "verb. sap.,” and perhaps we might add it for him.

For on the morning when probate of Horbury's will was granted to his widow--that is a few weeks after Horbury's death--Philip Mordaunt was walking along the street of' Nubar Pasha, in Cairo. It was half-past eleven. The wide platform of Shepheard's Hotel was as yet sparsely occupied and he passed it with a distinct pleasure. He had the time but no longer the wish to explore it. He passed the Esbekiyeh Gardens and crossed the head of the road leading to the great Bazaar. Later, when the platform outside Shepheard's was filled and the alleys of the Mouski empty, he would walk that way, but for the moment he had a happier task. He continued along the straight broad avenue of Abdul Azziz. Upon his left hand the great sand cliffs of the Nile Valley were closing in. Just behind this street the houses were thinning out on the rising ground. Spaces of brown earth, broken walls, an Arab cemetery replaced them; and then it came into view--the village of Elaoui.