Publisher's Synopsis
THE duhr, or noonday call to prayer, had just sounded from the minarets of the Mosques of Kalaun and En-Nasir, and I was idly noting the negligible effect of the adan upon the occupants of the neighboring shops-coppersmiths for the most part-when suddenly my errant attention became arrested. A mendicant of unwholesome aspect crouched in the shadow of the narrow gateway at the entrance to the Suk es-Saigh, or gold and silver bazaar, having his one serviceable eye fixed in a malevolent stare upon something or someone immediately behind me. It is part and parcel of my difficult profession to subdue all impulses and to think before acting. I sipped my coffee and selected a fresh cigarette from the silver box upon the rug beside me. In this interval I had decided that the one-eyed mendicant cherished in his bosom an implacable and murderous hatred for my genial friend, Ali Mohammed, the dealer in antiques; that he was unaware of my having divined his bloody secret; and that if I would profit by my accidental discovery, I must continue to feign complete ignorance of it."
