The Quest of Julian Day by Dennis Wheatley Page A

larger than the Belvilles had imagined and, stretching as it does for thirteen miles in a series of bays right along the coast, it certainly is an impressive sight; but, as I explained to them, the whole city consists almost entirely of this maginficent long front. There is hardly any depth to the place at all; it tails off into masses of squalid hutments and ragged streets, in most places not more than a quarter of a mile inland.
    Alexandria is not, and never has been, a really Egyptian city; it was founded by Alexander the Great after his conquest of Egypt. When the Macedonian Empire disintegrated at his death, one of his great captains, Ptolemy, took Egypt as hisportion, and he and his successors ruled it from Alexandria for three hundred years. As the Ptolemys were Greeks, their capital became to Greece what New York has to the Anglo-Saxons in modern times; but long after the glory had departed from Greece herself, Alexandria radiated the light of Greek culture over all the ancient world. Romans, Arabs, Turks, French and English conquered it in turn through the centuries, so that to-day it is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, but its polyglot population still contains a large Greek element and has little in common with that of the rest of Egypt.
    The seven bays which make up its waterfront are not easy to identify from the sea, but I was able to point out to the Belvilles the peninsular upon which had stood the original city where Ptolemys had reigned in such splendour, as the last independent dynasty of Egyptian Kings, until their line ended with the beautiful Cleopatra.
    At the extremity of the mole jutting out from its northeastern end we could see the ruined Arab fort of Kait Bey which marks the site where the mighty Pharos, the great lighthouse counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, once towered to the skies; and as we drew nearer I could distinguish, among the big blocks that overlook the promenade running right round the sweep of the wide East bay, the Hotel Cecil, where we had all arranged to stay the night before going on to Cairo.
    The Belvilles would have been more interested in their first glimpse of Egypt and I in telling them what I knew of Alexandria, if we hadn’t all been so anxious that O’Kieff or Grünther, both of whom had been in the cabin behind us for the last half-hour, should not pop out of it with the tablet unnoticed by us.
    The ‘Hampshire’ hung about outside the harbour for some time but O’Kieff and his valet both remained secluded in the cabin. All three of us felt a growing sense of excitement as the ship at last drew in towards the dock. It seemed that O’Kieff must make some move soon unless he meant to try and run the tablet through himself, but in any case the dénouement of our day-long vigil could not now be long delayed. We were prepared to swear that nothing the size of the tablet had been brought out of the cabin since I had left it, and we intended tostick to O’Kieff like leeches once the move ashore began. I could hardly supress my impatience as I thought of the kick I’d get in watching the customs people undo that sacking-covered package in his trunk.
    When one goes south to the sunshine, but does not actually cross the equator, one is apt to forget that everywhere in the northern hemisphere sundown comes early in the winter months although, of course, the sun does not set quite as early in the Mediterranean as in England. It was barely six o’clock when the ship was made fast against the wharf, but all the same I wondered vaguely if the ship’s time and land time differed, as I noticed that dusk was already falling, and falling much faster than it does at home.
    There was a rush of passengers with their hand-luggage to the gangway immediately it was thrust aboard, although they might have known that there would be the usual tiresome delays, quite apart from the matter of the murder, and that even normally