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. I haven t heard from him.Presumably he has de-cided that I can be of no further help to him.I wishyou d decide the same. Oh, you poor fool, said Mr.Smith feelingly. Youdeserve what s coming to you.If I weren t such atender-hearted slob, I d simply sit back and let youtake it. More veiled threats.Your style doesn t improvewith acquaintance.For heaven s sake, said Dinahdesperately, let me enjoy this place, will you? Lookat those gorgeous tiles in the dome.Look at thosestained-glass windows.Look at just let me look atthem. She tugged at his hand. Your father sends his regards, said Mr.Smith.Dinah stopped tugging. When did you talk to my father? Yesterday.There are such things as transatlanticphone calls, you know. I don t I don t believe you. I wanted to make sure you were who you said youwere, Mr.Smith explained calmly.Taking advantageof her distraction, he flexed his arm and pulled Dinahback to his side. He agreed that his daughter was in-deed touring 198 / ELIZABETH PETERSthe Holy Land, and said she was short, skinny, andhad dishwater-blond hair and brown eyes and a sharpnose and That sounds like my father, Dinah admitted. I stilldon t believe it. He said he s gotten six postcards already, and foryou to cut it out. Dinah felt as if he had thrown a pan of cold waterat her.Her unwilling conviction showed clearly on herface, and Mr.Smith permitted himself a smug smile. We had a nice talk about the Wisdom of Amenemo-pet.He agrees I m right. That phone call must have cost a fortune, Dinahsaid.The smile faded from Mr.Smith s face, leaving itslightly pale. God.I guess it probably did. Didn t you pay for it? What did you do, call col-lect? I ve been staying with a friend, Mr.Smith saiduneasily.Some private knowledge, presumably of thefriend s temper and financial status, produced a painedspasm in the muscles of his face. You really did call! What did you tell him? Didyou tell him what s been going on? Now see here, ifyou scared him and got him all worried about me,I ll THE DEAD SEA CIPHER / 199 What kind of skunk do you take me for? demandedMr.Smith angrily.Dinah had to laugh, and after a moment Smithjoined her, not quite so heartily. That was a purely rhetorical question.Don t answerit.If you must know, I implied, with my usual sub-tlety by God, woman, don t roll your eyes at me likethat I left your father with the impression that I hadhappened to meet you and had been so taken with youthat I wanted to procure his parental blessing.Youneedn t worry, Mr.Smith added coldly. Nothingcould be farther from the truth. This isn t funny any longer, Dinah said. It never was very funny. They regarded one another warily. That pamphlet, Mr.Smith said. How did you gethold of it? Tony had it. Dinah was tired of lies and evasions;the thought of her father had brought him to her mindas clearly as if she could see him, and she was suddenlylonely and homesick. He showed me the writing onthe back.I couldn t make any sense of it. You couldn t? You couldn t? So it was a clue, Dinah said feebly. What am I, amind reader? Hank wrote that.The folder was one of the thingshe was fooling around with that night 200 / ELIZABETH PETERSwe talked in the bar.He scribbled those notes rightunder my eye and shoved the folder in my pocket whenhe put his arm around me. So that s why you turned pink when you describedthat tender moment! You horrible man! I thought youwere embarrassed; and you just didn t want to tell meabout the folder.You didn t trust me! Just do one thing, Mr.Smith said desperately. Gohome. I can t go home.I ve got a job.In Germany. Well, don t cry about it; if you re that much of ababy, why did you ever take the job? Oh, for I msorry, I didn t mean I mean, leave.Get out of here;I don t care where you go. Nobody cares. Cartwright cares.Not having my nice, trustful mind,he still thinks you re a liar.And he s getting tired ofwaiting for you to make a move.He ll make one him-self, pretty soon, and you won t like it.So go away. All right, I will, said Dinah, and left, so suddenlythat Mr.Smith had no chance to detain her.The ambi-guity of her response had left him doubtful as to herintentions.He was also, she thought, a little uncertainas to what, if anything, he could do about it if shechose not to leave.Naturally, she had no intention ofleaving Jerusalem. THE DEAD SEA CIPHER / 201Dinah bought a cross that afternoon, in a little shopin the bazaar.It was necessary to buy a cross in Jerus-alem.This one was silver (so the shopkeeper swore,by the bones of his mother), with a little chased design,and it had (he assured her by the same oath) belongedto an old Christian lady of Jerusalem who had lost herfortune and was forced to sell the family antiques.Thechief charm of the ornament, which was hung on asilver chain, was the fact that it was hollow.The claspwas simply a small bit of wire twisted through twoholes, one on each side; and in the hollow interior wasa gruesome little scrap of dark hardness that mighthave been almost anything, but which Dinah wasconvinced must be a Relic.She loved the cross, andhung it around her neck at once.She and Martine and Mrs.Marks were shopping.The men were somewhere about, but they had unan-imously declined the invitation to join the shoppers.It was a surprisingly pleasant afternoon.Mrs
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