The Falcon at the Portal: An Amelia Peabody Mystery (17 page)

From Manuscript H

It was almost midnight when Ramses left the dahabeeyah, wearing only a pair of cotton drawers. After he had lowered himself into the water he waited for a moment; hearing no challenge from the guard on the opposite side of the boat, next to the dock, he struck out toward the spot several hundred yards downstream where he had left his clothes. The abandoned hut, hardly more than a pile of tumbled mud-brick, was one he and David had used for a similar purpose when they prowled the suks and coffee shops in various disguises. Ramses still regretted having to abandon his persona as Ali the Rat; it had served him well for several years, until one of their more unpleasant adversaries had discovered Ali's true identity.

That night he would be himself. A disguise would negate the purpose for which he was going through this tedious performance. Since he had known he would have to swim ashore, he had left a change of clothing at the ruin. It was a confounded nuisance but he couldn't risk the possibility that the night watchman, who was one of Selim's innumerable cousins, might tell his father he had gone ashore when he was supposed to be sound asleep in bed. Achmed would as soon cut his own throat as lie to the Father of Curses.

Pulling the bundle of clothing from a crevice in the wall, he rubbed himself dry and dressed, wondering wearily why he had the misfortune to belong to a family of such boundless energy and amiable inquisitiveness. It was almost impossible for him to get away from them without interminable explanations. If he didn't show up at the dig his father would demand to know where the devil he had been; if he didn't turn up for meals his mother would subject him to one of her endless inquisitions; if he wasn't available whenever she wanted him, Nefret would assume he had gone off on some mysterious, possibly dangerous, mission without telling her. That would have been a violation of their First Law, which David had invented and insisted upon; it was a sensible precaution, considering the situations they often got into, and Ramses took pains to conform to it because if he didn't, Nefret wouldn't. She probably would not consider the note he had left for her a legitimate substitute for verbal notification, but there was some consolation in the knowledge that if he didn't get back in time to retrieve it before she found it, he would probably be dead.

In the note he had told her where he was going, but not why. He hated admitting his reasons even to himself; they were unfounded, disloyal and unfair, but they made an unpleasantly convincing syllogism. David was dedicated to the nationalist cause. Causes need money. David had indicated that he wouldn't touch the money Lia's parents had settled on her. Would he have fewer scruples about dealing in forged antiquities in order to lend financial support to the cause in which he ardently believed? He wouldn't have been the first man to be corrupted by a noble ideal.

An hour after he had left the boat, Ramses was in the same coffee shop he had visited twice before, asking the same question and getting the same answer. Nobody had seen the man he wanted. Nobody knew where he was.

Ramses paid the waiter and stared gloomily at the small cup of coffee. Damned if he'd drink the stuff; he'd been swilling coffee for three nights in a row, and caffeine jangled along his nerves. He rose to his feet, deliberately conspicuous in his European clothing. He hadn't hoped anyone would lead him to his quarry, but Wardani certainly knew by now that he was being asked after, and by whom. It would be Wardani's decision as to whether to make contact.

He chose the darker streets on his way back to the river, waving away the cabdrivers who accosted him hoping for a fare. Once he had left the boulevard he encountered only a few people, their faces muffled against the cool night air. He could have shouted with relief when one of them veered toward him and a hand closed over his arm.

"Do not move or cry out," said a quiet voice. "Do you feel the point of the knife?"

"Yes." It was scarcely more than a pinprick, below his left shoulder blade.

Another shadowy form closed in on his right, and he was blindfolded, quickly and efficiently.

"Children's games." He spoke Arabic, as they had done, and one of them let out a muffled laugh.

"Come, then, Brother of Demons, and we will play the game you have chosen."

He moved with them, letting his other senses compensate for the loss of sight. When they stopped he could have retraced the route without hesitation, and identified the establishment they entered. The smell was unmistakable. The British authorities were trying to stop the import of hashish, but so far all they had accomplished was to make it scarcer and more expensive. Ramses waited until the door had closed behind him and his escorts before he acted.

"So then," he said to his guide, whom he now held against the wall with the fellow's own knife at his throat. "Shall we find a more comfortable place in which to talk?"

As he had suspected, the guide was Wardani himself. He had grown a beard, which blurred the shape of that arrogant chin and strong jaw. Unperturbed and smiling, he glanced at the man who lay groaning on the floor. "More childish games, my friend. That was unnecessary and unkind. You knew you were in no danger with us."

"I dislike being dictated to in such matters."

"You were showing off," Wardani corrected. "Avec quel panache, mon brave! If you will be good enough to return my knife, I will escort you to my humble quarters."

He led the way up a flight of broken steps at the end of the corridor. The other man got painfully to his feet and followed, so close on Ramses's heels that his harsh, uneven breathing was audible even over the groaning of the loose boards. He sounded annoyed, but Ramses did not look back or move more quickly. To show uneasiness would have been a false move in the stupid little game they were playing.

The room Wardani entered was small and shabby, lit only by a smoking oil lamp. Wardani sat down on the divan and motioned Ramses to take a seat beside him.

"Coffee? Mint tea?"

"No, nor hashish, thank you." The smell was fainter here, but still perceptible. Ramses wrinkled his nose. "This isn't the hideout I would have chosen. Raiding hashish dens has become a popular sport for the young bloods in the police force, and that beard does not alter your appearance very effectively."

"An acquaintance of mine lent me the room for this occasion only," Wardani said calmly. "I move frequently."

"Then you haven't taken up the drug trade in order to raise money?"

A spark of anger flared in the dark eyes. "Do you mean to insult me? Drugs are the curse of my people. I am as anxious to stop the trade as are your police, but they go about it the wrong way. Education..."

Ramses let him lecture. He had a deep-rooted distaste for men who spoke of "my people" in that proprietary tone, but he didn't question Wardani's sincerity. The fellow was a born demagogue, with a resonant, flexible voice, a fine command of resounding cliches, and a superb sense of theater. Wardani was not his real name; he had adopted it as a gesture of respect for one of the "martyrs" of the cause—a young student who had assassinated the moderate prime minister, Boutros Ghali Pasha, the previous year. Another of those futile, flamboyant gestures that did more harm than good for the cause it claimed to serve, Ramses thought in weary disgust. The youthful assassin had been executed, and the murder had brought on harsher treatment of the nationalists.

The other man had left the room. He came back with a tray holding two small cups of Turkish coffee. The very sight of the black liquid made Ramses's nerves twitch, but it would have been a grave error to refuse Wardani's gesture of hospitality. Finally he interrupted the speech. "I've heard all this before."

"Yes, of course you have. How is the bridegroom?" Wardani crossed his legs and smiled.

"Well and happy."

"As he should be, having plucked such a blossom." His smile broadened. "Now, my friend, don't glower at me, you know I meant no offense. I respect and revere all women. They are the future of Egypt, the mothers of the new race."

"Balderdash," Ramses said rudely. They had been switching languages, from French to German to Arabic, as if Wardani were testing Ramses's knowledge or displaying his own. Ramses continued in English. "I know the rhetoric. I sympathize with your aims but I deplore your methods. Leave David out of it, Wardani."

"Ah, now we come to it. I wondered why you had gone to such pains to seek me out."

"When they catch up with you—and they will, now that Kitchener is in the saddle—you'll be sent to prison or to the oases—and David with you. He can work for the cause in other ways."

"What ways?" Wardani asked softly.

The air was thick with smoke from the lamp and from the cigarettes Wardani had smoked incessantly, lighting one from the stub of another. Ramses shrugged and accepted a cigarette from the tin the other man offered.

"Writing articles and giving speeches," he suggested. "Continuing the work that has earned him respect in a profession few Egyptians have been allowed to enter. His success and the success of others like him will force the British to acknowledge your demands for equality."

"In another hundred years, perhaps," Wardani said. "But perhaps .. ."

For God's sake, get to the point, Ramses thought. He had a fierce headache but he wanted the other man to introduce the subject.

"Madame Todros is, I believe, the daughter of wealthy parents," Wardani murmured.

Finally, there it was. Ramses lit another cigarette and began talking.

By the time he left the place his headache had assumed mountainous proportions, but he had accomplished his purpose. If Wardani had not abandoned hope of acquiring Lia's money for "the cause," he was less perceptive than Ramses believed him to be. That subject had led more or less directly to the one that really concerned Ramses, and there, too, he hoped he had made his point.

He decided he could forgo the healthful exercise of swimming, so he took a cab directly to the dock. There was no keeping this business a secret any longer. He'd have to confess next day, not only to Nefret, but to his parents.

The night watchman roused instantly at Ramses's soft hail, and shoved a plank across the gap between dock and deck, displaying neither surprise nor curiosity. The men were accustomed to the peculiar habits of the Emerson family.

Ramses plodded along the corridor leading to his room. He was dead-tired, and his automatic defenses had dropped as soon as he was safely on board; when he opened his door and saw the slight form lying on his bed, the shock was so great he almost cried out.

She'd left a lamp burning. Apparently she remembered the incident some years ago when she had come on him without warning and he had half-throttled her before he saw who it was. Recovering himself, he moved silently to the side of the bed and stood looking down at her.

The shutters were closed and the room was warm. She lay on her side, facing the door, one hand under her cheek. The lamplight burnished the damp curls on her temple to copper, and brushed her quiet lashes with gold. As a concession to his mother's notions of propriety she had put on a dressing gown, if that term applied—it looked more like a bridal dress, translucent white silk and lace ruffles and bits of ribbon.

A sharp pain in his chest reminded him he hadn't breathed for a while. He let the air slowly out of his lungs, remembering a particularly asinine statement he had heard from one of the asinine young officers at the Turf Club. "One doesn't behave like a cad with a lady." The permutations had entertained him off and on for days. Was it permissible to behave like a cad with a woman who wasn't a lady? What was the precise definition of "lady," and, for that matter, "caddish" behavior? To behave like a cad with a sleeping lady must be even more reprehensible. However, considering he was in for an extremely unladylike tongue-lashing when she woke up, some small degree of caddishness might be allowable. He bent over her and laid his palm lightly on the curve of her cheek, brushing the coppery curls with gentle fingers.

Her eyes popped open.

"Caught in the act," she said.

"Dead to rights," Ramses admitted.

He removed his hand and watched her pull herself to a sitting position.

"I had to come here to find your message," she said accusingly. "The conventional method would have been to slip it under my door."

No use asking why she had gone to his room. She did that sort of thing all the time, whenever an inspiration or an idea or a worry struck her.

"This wasn't your first expedition, was it?" she demanded.

"No."

"Did you find him?"

"Yes."

"Thank goodness. You look exhausted. Lie down, why don't you?"

She moved over, in a flurry of filmy white, to make room for him.

"No," Ramses said. "Kind of you, but... What are you doing, softening me for the slaughter? Get it over, Nefret, so I can lick my wounds and go to bed."

"I'm not going to scold you. I understand why you couldn't take me with you."

"You do?"

"Don't sound so surprised. I have sensible moments, you know. You can save the detailed report until morning; just tell me whether Wardani admitted ... said it was David who ..."

Her wide, imploring blue eyes met his as if she expected him to know how the sentence should end. Physical fatigue and other distractions muddled his thinking. It took him a few seconds to comprehend.

"You wondered? Then I wasn't the only one who . .."

"What fools we sound," Nefret said ruefully. "My poor dear, I knew you'd feel guilty, you always do, and you mustn't. I love David, too, and I had my doubts as well. It didn't really dawn on me until the other evening, when Aunt Amelia was coolly discussing her suspects, and you pointed out that they were all friends, people we would ordinarily trust and admire, and then I realized that David was the most obvious suspect of all, and that although he would never be dishonest on his own account, he might consider his cause more important than his principles, and ...I hated myself, but I couldn't get the idea out of my head."

"Neither could I. I think we can now, though."

"Really? Truly?"

He laughed a little at the childish questions. "I said I think. But Wardani insisted he knew nothing about the forgeries, and if he was lying he did a damned convincing job of it."

"You asked him point-blank?"

"I had to be fairly direct, there was no other way. He seemed to be completely thunderstruck. I only hope I didn't put ideas into his head. However, he was quick to agree when I pointed out that if David were accused of dealing in forgeries it would damage not only David's reputation but that of all Egyptians, and of the movement and its leader. He's frightfully self-conscious about honor and that sort of thing. So I decided I might as well tell him everything. He said, in that grandiloquent style of his, that in this at least we were allies, and that he would see what he could find out. I believed him. Naive of me, no doubt."

"No, you did the right thing. Are you going to tell the Professor and Aunt Amelia?"

"I expect I had better, don't you? Mother may have had doubts as well. She can be awfully cold-blooded at times."

"She's cold-blooded about some things and hopelessly sentimental about others. I think David is one of the others—along with you and me and the Professor."

"Me?" Ramses repeated, in surprise. "Good Lord, over the years she's suspected me of every crime in the calendar. With good and sufficient reason, I admit."

She moved with her habitual decisiveness, swinging her feet onto the floor and rising.

"Get some sleep," she ordered. "And, Ramses ..."

"Yes?"

She put both hands on his shoulders and looked up at him. "I know how much you miss David. You can't confide in me as you do in him—men have their little secrets, just as women do!— but I wish you'd share some of your worries with me."

"I shared this one."

"After I caught you red-handed." But her smile was very sweet and her face was very gentle. "I can always tell when you're bothered about something, you know. Don't be so hard on yourself. Admit you feel better now that you've told me."

"Yes, I do." He smiled at her. "Thank you, my girl."

A rather odd look passed over her face.

"You're tired, too," Ramses said. "We'll break the news at breakfast, then. After Father has had his coffee."

When she had gone, he undressed, swearing when he saw the small hole and spot of blood on the back of his shirt. Perhaps Fatima could mend it before his mother noticed. That was unlikely, though, she noticed everything, and she would have something to say about ruining another shirt.

Tired as he was, he lay awake for a while thinking, not about David's difficulties, but about Nefret. He wanted her as he had never wanted another woman, but he had resisted the temptation to demonstrate his feelings because he didn't want to risk losing what she had given him that night—sympathy and affection and an understanding so complete it was like communicating with part of himself. Anyhow, there was no way of forcing that kind of love, especially with someone like Nefret. It came or it didn't, sudden as a bolt of lightning, unpredictable as English weather.

Eventually he fell asleep.

Surrounded by a circle of swords, I fought on. Had it not been for the girl...

M
y decision to find larger quarters had been taken none too soon. Tempers were becoming strained. Various persons were getting on other persons' nerves. Horus always got on everyone else's nerves, and confinement—for Nefret would not allow him to roam the noisome streets of Cairo—got on
his
nerves. Emerson grumbled and procrastinated when I asked him to pack his books and complained bitterly when I got Mahmud to do it; Ramses went about looking like a ghost, with dark circles under his eyes; Nefret brooded. When I asked if she was worried about something, she said she missed Lia and David.