Part 6 (1/2)

Luck was with him; the soft sounds of pursuit faded, and finally he emerged into a plaza so small it didn't even have a name. He'd been there before. The time-stained sabil in the center spouted a dribble of water. On one side was a disreputable coffeeshop that he and David had occasionally frequented. The coffeeshop was shuttered and dark. The place was deserted except for the motionless shape of a beggar huddled in a doorway.

Movement and the pa.s.sage of time had brushed most of the cobwebs out of his head. He knew where he was: not far from the Rue Neuve, less than a mile from the hotel. He paused long enough to wash the blood and odoriferous muck off his hands and arms in the fountain. Before he started off toward the hotel, he dropped a few coins onto the ground by the sleeping man. An offering to some G.o.d or other seemed appropriate. Some G.o.d-or G.o.ddess. The woman's costume had been that of Hathor, Lady of Turquoise, Golden One.

THE WINDOWS OF THE SITTING room began to pale with the approach of dawn. Nefret and I had been waiting for hours. We had expected Emerson back long before this; he had promised to let us know the results of his search before morning. Nefret bore the delay better than I. Since childhood she and Ramses had shared an odd rapport; she claimed-and a number of events confirmed it-that she could always tell when he was in imminent danger. No such terror afflicted her now, she a.s.sured me. Logic informed me that Ramses got into sc.r.a.pes like this all the time, and that he usually got himself out of them. But logic is poor comfort when the fate of a loved one is unknown.

Despite Nefret's composure, she was the first one on her feet when a knock sounded at the door. A sleepy-eyed suffragi handed her a note and stood waiting hopefully for baksheesh. I supplied it, while Nefret opened the paper and read it. A tremulous expletive burst from her lips.

”Language, my dear,” I said, taking the paper from her.

”No harm done,” it read, in Ramses's unmistakable scrawl. ”I'll be with you shortly.”

”Thank G.o.d,” I breathed. ”Sit down, Nefret.”

Nefret s.n.a.t.c.hed the note back. ”He might at least have said 'Love.' d.a.m.n him! Where is he?”

She pulled away from my affectionate grasp and started for the door. Before she reached it, Ramses opened it and stepped into the room.

Ramses's tentative smile faded as Nefret flew at him, her hands gripping his arms. ”Where have you been? What happened? How dare you send that stupid message instead of coming here straightaway?”

”The last time I appeared without advance warning, you collapsed in a dead faint,” said Ramses. ”Good evening, Mother. Or rather, good morning. Where is Father?”

”Looking for you, of course.” My voice was a trifle husky. I cleared my throat. ”Nefret, stop trying to shake him.”

”And don't come any closer,” Ramses said, holding her off. ”I'm absolutely filthy and I smell like a rubbish heap.”

She pushed his hands aside and clung tightly to him. ”It must be love,” he remarked. ”Darling, let me bathe and change. Then I'll tell you the whole preposterous story. Is there any way you can reach Father and tell him to call off the hunt?”

”We expect him momentarily,” I said. ”He should have been here before this. Proceed with your plan, my dear boy; you really do not smell very nice. I will order breakfast. If your father has not returned by that time, I will try and find him.”

”Thank you, Mother. Nefret, let go, will you? I won't be long.”

”I'm coming with you.” She took his hands and turned them over. ”You've torn those scratches open again, and cut yourself rather badly. What the devil-”

”Let him change first,” I cut in. ”And-er-freshen yourself as well. He seems to have rubbed off on you.”

After calling the suffragi and ordering a very large breakfast I splashed water on face and limbs and changed my dusty, crumpled garments for a comfortable tea gown. Invigorated and by now very curious, I returned to the sitting room to find Emerson there, shouting orders at the suffragi.

”Don't bully the poor man, Emerson,” I said. ”I have already ordered breakfast, and Ramses has come back.”

”I know.”

”How?”

”You were singing, Peabody. The door was closed, but your voice is particularly penetrating when you are in a cheerful frame of mind.”

”Sit down and rest. You look very tired.”

Emerson pa.s.sed his hand over his bristly chin and sank with a sigh into a chair. ”I did not feel fatigued until just now. When I heard your voice raised in song, and saw that Nefret was not in the sitting room, I hoped-but I was afraid to believe. I stood outside their door for several minutes, listening, until finally I heard his voice.”

”Oh, my dear Emerson,” I began.

”Bah,” said Emerson, after a great clearing of his throat. ”All's well that ends well, as you are fond of remarking. I do wish you could come up with more original aphorisms. Has he told you what happened?”

”Not yet.”

A procession of waiters filed through the door, carrying trays; while they were arranging the food on the table, Ramses and Nefret joined us. Emerson greeted his son as coolly as if he had not been frantic about him for hours, and Ramses replied with an equally nonchalant ”Good morning, sir.”

Emerson stared at his bandaged hands. ”I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect you to come back without some injury or other,” he grumbled. ”Er-can you hold knife and fork, my boy? If you like, I will just cut-”

”That won't be necessary, sir, thank you. I hope you weren't put to too much trouble on my account.”

”It was Russell who was put to the trouble,” said Emerson with satisfaction. He held a grudge against the gentleman because of a trick he had once played on us. ”I suppose I had better tell him to call off the search before he comes round annoying us.” He went to the escritoire and scribbled a few words on a piece of the hotel stationery. ”Take this to the concierge and have it sent at once,” he ordered, handing the paper to one of the waiters. ”The rest of you chaps clear out of here. Now, Ramses, let's have your story.”

I have heard a number of bizarre stories in my time. A number of the events that have befallen me personally might be described as bizarre, even preposterous, by those of limited imagination (for in my opinion life itself is often more extraordinary than any invention of fiction). Ramses's tale unquestionably ranked high on the list. He told it without being interrupted by us and without pausing to eat. He had said he wasn't hungry.

Nefret was the first to break the silence. ”No wonder you aren't hungry. What was in the brazier-opium?”

”Opium and somthing else I couldn't identify.”

”Another hallucinatory drug?”

”No doubt.” Ramses had picked up his fork. Now he put it gently down. The effect was the same as if he had slammed it onto the table. ”You don't believe me, do you? Any of you? You think the whole thing was a hallucination.”

”What other explanation is there?” Nefret demanded. Her color had risen. ”A room furnished like a bordello and the immortal Hathor, in all her youthful beauty, promising you-”

”Now, now,” I said. Ramses's face was as flushed as hers, and he was on the verge of an angry protest. ”We are all tired and excited. Obviously Ramses did not see the G.o.ddess, he saw a woman costumed like Hathor. As for rooms furnished in that fas.h.i.+on, there are many of them in Cairo. Curse it,” I added, in sudden vexation. ”I ought to have thought of it before. Could you find the house again, Ramses?”

”I doubt it. I've no recollection whatever of how I got there. The last thing I remember is a pair of hands closing round my neck.”

”There are no bruises on your throat,” Nefret said. Her tone was studiously neutral.

”Need I remind you,” said Ramses, in the same tone, ”that it doesn't take much pressure or much time to put someone out, if you know how to do it. On the other hand, I might have imagined that, too.”

”Still, perhaps we ought to make an attempt to find the place,” I said quickly. ”When you left the house-”

”I was in too much of a hurry to pay attention to where I was going, and still in something of a fog. Anyhow, they've had time to clear out. Whoever they were.”

”There were at least two of them,” I mused. ”a.s.suming that the beggar and your a.s.sailant-and perhaps the shadowy acolyte-were one and the same. Which need not be the case.”

Nefret was watching Ramses, who was concentrating on his breakfast. ”I did not mean to give the impression that I doubted Ramses's word,” she said stubbornly. ”I'm only trying to understand what happened, and why.”

I am not in the habit of disparaging my own gender, but there are times when even the best of us ”behaves like a woman,” as men put it. ”Goodness gracious,” I said in exasperation. ”That is what we are all trying to ascertain, is it not? Let us face facts, no matter how unpalatable they may be to you, Nefret. Your husband, like mine, is irresistibly attractive to women. I must say, though, that this one has gone to extraordinary lengths to capture his attention. The costume, you say, was authentic?” Ramses nodded. He was now annoyed with me, for pointing out a fact he also found unpalatable. Unperturbed, for I am accustomed to the vagaries of the masculine mind, I went on. ”The seemingly supernatural touches would have been easy to arrange. Electricity has been a great boon to charlatans. An electric torch fastened to her person, a quick press of the switch, and voila! She appears, out of nothingness. She must have used the torch again to blind you before she left the room, hoping you would take it for a bolt of divine lightning. Rather childish, that.”

”Not to a man whose senses are befuddled with opium,” Emerson said. He pushed his plate away and took out his pipe. ”It is remarkable that Ramses managed to keep his wits about him as well as he did.”

Ramses's tight lips relaxed. He glanced at his hands. ”Pain helps. So do . . . other things. Unfortunately, I observed nothing that would enable me to recognize her, not even her height, which is, as you know, difficult to determine without something with which to compare it. She was young and slim, but not an immature girl. A woman. She disguised her voice by whispering and by using an artificial accent. That's all I know, and without wis.h.i.+ng to be rude, Mother, your theory as to the woman's motives is pure imaginative fiction! I don't want to talk about it. What were you about all night, Father? I suppose you went after poor old Rashad?”

”It was the only clue we had,” Emerson replied. He grinned round the stem of his pipe. ”I persuaded your mother and Nefret to stay here, in case you came back, and went off to see Thomas Russell. I had the satisfaction of rousting him out of bed, at any rate. I was somewhat surprised to learn that all the revolutionaries have been freed, even your friend Wardani, though n.o.body knows his present whereabouts. Russell already had a few of his lads looking for Rashad, who had sensibly refrained from returning to his rooms after trying to foment a riot earlier. We located one of his a.s.sociates-Bas.h.i.+r-sleeping the sleep of the just and weary; he denied any knowledge of a plot against you or David. I was forced to believe him, since I couldn't prove he was lying.”

”I don't believe he was lying,” Ramses said. ”Rashad had nothing to do with tonight's event. He hasn't the imagination to invent such a scenario. This could be connected in some fas.h.i.+on with our missing thief.”