Synopsis

Philo Vance, as you may , took a solitary trip to Egypt immediately after the termination of the Garden murder case.* He did not return to New York until the middle of July. He was considerably tanned, and there was a tired look in his wide-set grey eyes. I suspected, the moment I greeted him on the dock, that during his absence he had thrown himself into Egyptological research, which was an old ion of his. "I'm fagged out, Van," he complained good-naturedly, as we settled ourselves in a taxicab and started uptown to his apartment. "I need a rest. We're not leavin' New York this summer--you won't mind, I hope. I've brought back a couple of boxes of archæological specimens. See about them tomorrow, will you?--there's a good fellow."