VII It was in the windless days of a perfect December that Moleson, the Egyptologist, found us out and paid a flying visit to Helouan. His duties took him up and down the land, but his time seemed largely at his own disposal. He lingered on. His coming introduced a new element I was not quite able to estimate; though, speaking generally, the effect of his presence upon my companion was to emphasise the latter’s alteration. It underlined the change, and drew attention to it. The new arrival, I gathered, was not altogether welcome. ‘I should never have expected to find you _here_,’ laughed Moleson when they met, and whether he referred to Helouan or to the hotel was not quite clear. I got the impression he meant both; I remembered my fancy that it was a good hotel to hide in. George Isley had betrayed a slight involuntary start when the visiting card was brought to him at tea-time. I think he had wished to escape from his former co-worker. Moleson had found him out. ‘I heard you had a friend with you and were contemplating further exper--work,’ he added. He changed the word ‘experiment’ quickly to the other. ‘The former, as you see, is true, but not the latter,’ replied my companion dryly, and in his manner was a touch of opposition that might have been hostility. Their intimacy, I saw, was close and of old standing. In all they said and did and looked, there was an undercurrent of other meaning that just escaped me. They were up to something--they _had_ been up to something; but Isley would have withdrawn if he could!