Rick was satisfied. "By tomorrow they'll be hard," he said with a grin.

"Then we'll work out a cat distribution program. I may go back to El Mouski and hand one to the phony Ali Moustafa, just to see what happens."

"Not while I'm healthy enough to stop you," Scotty said positively. Then he grinned, too. "But there's nothing more fun than kittens, and we'll have plenty of laughs with these. You wait and see!"

CHAPTER VII

The Egyptian Museum

Rick hung up the room phone and joined Scotty at the breakfast table.

The ex-Marine was munching on a Lebanese tangerine and watching the Nile boats below.

"Farid says to take the morning off," Rick reported. "The scientists are about convinced that the signal isn't internal receiver noise, but that leaves them up a tree. If part of the circuit isn't causing the trouble, what is?"

Scotty waved his hand at the scene across the Nile where a great concrete tower rose into the sky. "It's this land. Look at it. There's a tower for television. A couple of miles away are the pyramids. Down the street is a new office building with aluminum walls, and it's right next to a stone mosque that's nearly as old as the city. If you ask me, Horus or Thoth or one of the old Egyptian G.o.ds is getting fed up and messing with the signal just for the fun of it."

Rick knew exactly how Scotty felt. The remarkable blend of the very old and the ultramodern was visible everywhere in Cairo. But somehow the two did not conflict, probably because the Egyptians had been wise in their choice of architecture.

"Maybe we'd better burn some incense and do a chant or two," Rick suggested. "How's this? Oh, Osiris, son of Isis, please get the bugs out of our antenna."

"That's no fit chant," Scotty objected. "A chant should rhyme, shouldn't it?"

Rick searched his memory for incantations to Egyptian G.o.ds, but there had been none in the books Bartouki had given them, although the G.o.ds had been described. He improvised quickly. "Then how's this?"

He took a pinch of sugar from the bowl and sprinkled it on Scotty's head as an offering to the G.o.ds, then bowed like a high priest and chanted:

"_Anubis, Horus, Amon-Re, Are you near or far away?

If you're tuned in close at hand, Clean up the H-emission band._"

The piece of hard Egyptian bread thrown by Scotty caught him just behind the ear. Rick picked it up and threw it back, grinning.

"The things I have to put up with," Scotty exclaimed hopelessly. "I'm sorry I brought the whole thing up."

"It didn't help," Rick admitted. "But it gave me an idea. How about going to the Egyptian Museum this morning?"

"With Ha.s.san?"

"It's right across the park. Ha.s.san can take the morning off and come back after lunch to drive us to the project."

"I'm your boy," Scotty agreed. "If you keep your chants to yourself, that is. Try one on those old statues at the museum and they'd fall on you."

"Oh, I don't know," Rick said loftily. "Maybe those old Egyptians had a better ear for poetry than you have."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Scotty returned. "If it sounds so terrible to me, think what it would sound like to a poetry lover. Go on and make your phone call."

Rick did. He asked the desk to relay a message to Ha.s.san, then asked about the weather. The clerk spent a minute apologizing profusely. It was chilly, he admitted reluctantly. Very unusual for Egypt. Hadn't happened since 1898. Most regrettable. And so on.

"He sounded like a Sunshine Tourist Service trouble shooter explaining that the downpour was only a heavy mist," Rick said as he hung up. "The weather is unusual, remarkable, etc. It's chilly."

Scotty finished his coffee. "Okay. Let's go. Got the kitty?"

Rick took the Egyptian cat from its nest under his mattress and put it into the inner pocket of his coat. "Couldn't leave our pal, could we?

Bad man might get 'im."

"We can't let that happen until we find out why the animal is so appealing," Scotty agreed.

"Spoken like a true Spindrifter. Do we walk, or take the elevator?

Walking's faster, but the elevator is more adventurous."

"Walk," Scotty said. "You need the exercise."

Outside, the air was pleasantly crisp, but the sun was shining. Rick wondered if it ever rained in Cairo and made a mental note to look it up. He had brought a guidebook with him, and the map showed them the location of the museum.

They started off at a brisk pace, past the Nile Hilton Hotel, then across the heavy traffic of the bridge circle to the open park before the museum. As Rick turned to look at a statue he caught a glimpse of a figure dodging behind some shrubbery. His pulse speeded.

"Could be that we have a buddy," he announced. "I saw someone dodge behind a bush."

Scotty took a quick look without seeming to. "Someone there all right. A pal of our little cat?"

"It's certainly no chum of ours, if it's anyone who's interested in us.

Let's hike and see how it goes."

They strolled idly past the museum, crossed the street, and walked up Kasr El Nil past the Modern Art Museum and the Automobile Club. Scotty took a pair of sungla.s.ses from his pocket. They were of the silvered one-way mirror type that cuts down light transmission much as a neutral-density filter does for a camera.

Rick watched as he put them on, took them off again, and polished them with a handkerchief, turning them from side to side as he watched for spots.

"I knew those things looked like headlights," Rick gibed. "I didn't know they could also serve as rearview mirrors."

"I may write an article on this for the Journal of the Optical Society,"

Scotty said. "Works fine. Our buddy is a Sudanese, from the looks of him. Also, he has a comrade. A big, sloppy type in a black coat and a tarboosh. I'd hate to tangle with either of them."

Rick thought of Scotty's comment that it wouldn't take much of a detective to realize he had the cat on him.

Scotty added, "Some distance behind are two other types, in tarbooshes.

They're striding along at the same pace we are, and keeping their distance. I'm flattered. Looks as if 'they' figured it would take four to handle us."

"Maybe they sent one for us and three for the cat," Rick said hopefully.

"Cats are good sc.r.a.ppers. Any bright ideas, ol' chum?"

"Yep. Let's go to the museum. They can't touch us in a public place. Got the map?"

They consulted it, letting the trailers see what was going on. The street they were on formed one side of a triangle, with its apex at the square in front of the museum. The next left turn, and another left a block farther on, would bring them to the front of the museum through Gami Sharkas and Shampelion streets.

Rick wondered if the latter was the Arab-English equivalent of the name of the man who had translated the hieroglyphics on the famous Rosetta stone and is considered the father of Egyptology. He knew from his study of cryptography that the first man to read the strange Egyptian written language was Jean Francois Champollion. Or maybe the map maker had made a mistake by misspelling the name. He looked for a street sign in English when they reached the street, but he saw none.