Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [140]
“Well done indeed,” Katherine agreed. “I sent messages this morning, postponing our soiree.”
“Right. How could we hold a soiree without Selim to waltz with the ladies?” Cyrus demanded. “We’ll have a real party once he’s fully recovered—and the villain who tried to kill him is dead or in prison.”
“Are you sure Selim was the intended victim?” Sethos asked.
Naturally the same question had occurred to me. “A number of people knew that Selim meant to drive the motorcar to the fantasia,” I replied. “However, the miscreant could not be certain Emerson would not take it into his head to operate the thing before Selim did.”
“Just as the miscreant who sank the boat could not be certain who would be harmed,” Ramses said thoughtfully. “There’s a nonchalance about all this that is extremely strange. If the fellow is trying to commit murder, he’s not very good at it.”
Fatima came in with another platter of her famous spiced lamb and rice. Sethos leaned back and folded his hands over his flat stomach. “Thank you, Fatima, but I have already eaten more than I ought. I will be getting stout if I stay much longer.”
“How long will that be?” I asked. Maryam, who had eaten in silence, head bent, looked up.
“However long it takes to find your antagonist” was the reply. “You lot are exhibiting less than your usual efficiency. What’s the difficulty? I’d have expected Amelia to come up with a suspect or two long before this.”
“The difficulty is that we don’t know which incidents are relevant and which are accident or coincidence,” I replied indignantly.
“It is like finding the original pattern in a jumble of loose beads,” David added. “Some of which belong to another piece of jewelry altogether.”
Sethos’s curiously colored eyes studied him. “An interesting analogy. You are something of an expert on restoration, David; how would you go about separating the disparate elements?”
“Lay them all out on a table, examine them, and try them in different arrangements” was the prompt reply. “After long experience, one acquires an instinct for such things.”
“Like Amelia’s instinct for crime,” said Walter eagerly. “And—er—that of—er—”
“Mine?” Sethos’s brows rose. “You forget, Walter, that I have investigated fewer crimes than I have committed. However, I have no intention of leaving you without my protection.”
Emerson growled.
SELIM CONTINUED TO IMPROVE. He was able to sit up for short periods and his appetite was good—though no one, not even Daoud, could have consumed all the food Fatima tried to force on him. He ought to have been a pathetic sight, encased in sticking plaster, with a miniature turban of bandages covering his shaven head; however, his cherished beard had been left intact, and that seemed to cheer him a great deal. At first his speech was a trifle slurred, but that did not prevent him from asking innumerable questions, most of them about the motorcar.
“It was not your fault,” said Emerson, who had been allowed to visit Selim for a few minutes. “Someone deliberately loosened the bolts on the front wheel. As soon as you are fit, we will repair it. By that time we will have found the man responsible.”
“Daoud is looking after your family,” I added, “and so are we all. You are not to worry about anything except getting well.”
“The excavations,” Selim said. “You must not allow—”
“Don’t worry about that either,” Emerson said. “We will carry on as best we can until you are back on the job.”
Knowing how trying it would be for a man of Selim’s energy to remain quiet, I arranged a schedule of entertainment. In my opinion Emerson was not a soothing companion for a sick man, but Ramses and Bertie came by every day to report on the excavations, and Sennia and Evelyn read to him. I knew he was on the road to recovery when he gravely asked Evelyn to read from a manual on the maintenance and repair of motorcars.
Never suppose, Reader, that my attentions to our friend had kept me from other duties. Unfortunately and infuriatingly, the most imperative of those duties took very little of