He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [57]
“I know.”
“If we act too soon, the Turks will find other supply routes and other recipients. Ramses thinks that one of his own lieutenants is trying to supplant him, and Farouk is not the only ambitious revolutionary in Cairo. The first delivery—two hundred rifles and the ammunition to go with them—was supposed to take place last night.”
“And Ramses was there?”
“Yes, ma’am. At least I assume he was. You see, Ramses took Mrs. Fortescue to dinner at Shepheard’s last night. The idea was . . . I told him it wouldn’t work, but he . . .” David gave me a sidelong look from under his lashes. “I don’t think I had better tell you this part.”
“I think you had better.”
“Well, he had to leave at eleven in order to be at the rendezvous. Obviously I couldn’t take his place with Mrs. Fortescue. A substitution at such close quarters . . . er. So the idea was that he would offend the lady by making—er—rude advances, so she would storm out and leave him—me, that is—to sulk silently but visibly in the bar. Unfortunately she . . .”
“Was not offended? David, how can you laugh when the situation is so desperate? Confound it, I believe you and Ramses actually enjoy these machinations!”
David got himself under control. “I’m sorry, Aunt Amelia. I suppose in a way we do. The situation is so damned—excuse me—deuced desperate, we have to find what humor we can in it. Someday you must get him to tell you about the time he turned up at a meeting disguised as himself.”
“With that gang of cutthroats? He didn’t!”
“Oh, yes, he did. Gave them a lecture on the art of disguise while he was about it.”
“I do not know what is the matter with that boy! So how did he get away from her? You need not go into detail,” I added quickly.
“You’ll have to ask him. He was late meeting me and in a hurry, and in no mood to answer questions.” The glint in David’s dark eyes reminded me that, for all his admirable qualities, David was, after all, a man.
“Hmmm,” I said. “It is probable then, that he reached the rendezvous unscathed. Dear me, this is confusing! Did the individual who shot him believe he was shooting at Wardani or at Ramses?”
David pushed his hat back and wiped his perspiring forehead with the back of his hand—a good touch, that, I thought approvingly. Ramses never has a handkerchief.
“That’s the question, isn’t it? Apparently Ramses fears the latter may be the case, or rather, that the fellow suspected Wardani was . . . shall we say, not himself? The truth about Wardani’s present whereabouts is a closely guarded secret, but no secret is one hundred percent secure. If word got out that Wardani was interned in India, people wouldn’t wonder for long who had taken his place. Ramses’s talents are too well known. That’s why I have appeared in public as Ramses on several occasions when Wardani was conspicuously elsewhere.”
“And on at least one occasion you appeared as Wardani while Ramses was conspicuously elsewhere. Really,” I said, in considerable chagrin, “I cannot imagine how I could have been so easily fooled!”
“You had never met Wardani,” David said consolingly.
“That is true. I did sense something out of the way—something oddly familiar about him. My instincts were correct, as usual, but I was misled by—er—well, that is now irrelevant. One of these days I will give myself the pleasure of a little conversation with Thomas Russell. He has been laughing up his sleeve at me the whole time!”
“I assure you, Aunt Amelia, he’s not laughing now. I was supposed to have reported to him early this morning, after I had heard from Ramses. He must be badly worried.”
“You must have been worried too, when Ramses failed to meet you.”
“I was beginning to be when the Professor turned up—scaring me half out of my wits, I might add! Ramses and I always try to meet after these exchanges, if only to bring one another up-to-date; there was one time, I remember, when I had to pretend to be drunk and incoherent in order to avoid