Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [115]
“The change is for the better, isn’t it?”
He nodded without speaking, his face still averted. “Children change a great deal as they become adults,” I said. “One might say that they do become different people. Just look at Ramses!”
He looked up, his strangely colored eyes brightening from pale hazel to paler gray as the light caught them. “A most encouraging example, it is true. Oh, we got on quite well, avoiding by mutual consent such delicate subjects as her mother’s career as a murderess.”
“You will have to face that subject sooner or later.” I spoke rather sharply. Cynicism was his defense against emotion, but it was high time—in my opinion—he dropped those defenses against his daughter. “Get it out into the open and set her straight. I doubt she has heard the true story.”
“She did seem chastened. She spoke gratefully of you.”
“All the more reason to clear the air. I will do it if you shirk the task.”
“Better you than I. You are very good at setting people straight.”
“I will find a suitable opportunity,” I promised. “So you took her back to the Isis last night?”
“Yes. The old lady had retired, so I did not present myself. I am to fetch Maryam and her belongings, such as they are, later today, and bring her back to the dahabeeyah.”
“It would not be proper for her to stay there with you.”
“For God’s sake, Amelia, she’s my daughter!”
“Do you want everyone in Luxor to know that?”
Sethos scratched his chin. The scruffy beard and the healing cuts itched, I supposed. “I am becoming weary of inventing new identities and preposterous plots, Amelia. So far as her employer is concerned, I am an old friend of her father. Maryam says the old lady is a trifle vague, so she won’t ask awkward questions; the busy gossips of Luxor certainly will, however. I have decided to be Major Hamilton again. Retired, of course. There’s an outside chance that someone may remember Maryam as Molly, and that’s the easiest way of explaining my interest in her.”
“Hamilton was red-haired,” I said, with a critical look at his streaked hair.
“I’m going gray. Sad, isn’t it, how the years take their toll?”
“Hmph,” said Emerson, appearing in the doorway. “Er—everything all right with the girl?”
“Yes, quite,” I said, for I knew he did not want explanations, only assurance that he wouldn’t have to do anything. “Is breakfast ready?”
“Yes. I assume,” said Emerson morosely, “that it would be a waste of breath to ask you not to come to the zabtiyeh.”
“You are correct. It would be advisable for Sethos to join us, since he was well acquainted with the corpse.”
Sethos’s only response to the news of Martinelli’s death consisted of raised eyebrows and a silent whistle. I did not elaborate on the bare facts, nor was the subject discussed during breakfast. Evelyn asked after Maryam, Walter made several unsubtle attempts to find out Sethos’s real name, and Ramses, in an effort to divert us, described Selim’s fascination with the aeroplane. “He stroked the dirty canvas like a lover, and asked the lieutenant how hard it was to drive.”
Most foreigners had nothing to do with the native police. They were not subject to the laws that governed Egyptians, and preferred to deal with occasional cases of theft and extortion through their dragomen or tour agencies. In Cairo the police—like everything else in Egypt—was headed by a “British adviser,” but for the most part the provincial police were under the jurisdicion of the local mudir. I had visited the zabtiyeh (police station) in the past, and I was pleasantly surprised at its changed appearance. The broken stairs and windows had been repaired; two constables, in smart white uniforms and red tarbooshes, stood at attention at the door, instead of sleeping on the steps as they had been accustomed to do. It was a sign of the changing times, of the new wind that was blowing