He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [95]
To be sure, there was no actual depiction of this precise procedure in any of the tomb reliefs. However, it was a thrilling sight, and one I will never forget, nor, I believe, will those who lined the road to watch and cheer as we passed. The tourists got their fill of photographs for once.
By the time we reached the house all the men except Daoud, who had taken his turn as carrier, were on the verge of collapse. Emerson led them through the courtyard to the closest room, which happened to be the parlor. I was too excited to object to this inconvenience, but as it turned out the platform would not go through the doorway, so Emerson directed the bearers to place it in the courtyard, between two pillars. Once the statue had come safely to rest, I had to deal with fifty male persons sprawled in various positions of exhaustion on the tiled floor. Forty-nine, I should say; Daoud, perspiring but undaunted, helped us minister to the fallen, splashing them with water and offering copious quantities of liquid. The sun was setting when we sent them home, with thanks and praise and promises of a fantasia of celebration in the near future.
“I think we should celebrate too,” I announced. “Let us dine in Cairo. I told Fatima not to prepare anything for dinner since I was not certain how long the job would take. The triumph is yours, my dear Emerson, therefore I will allow you to choose the restaurant.”
As a rule Emerson is pathetically easy to manipulate. He hated dining at the hotels. I knew what establishment he would suggest: a pleasantly unsanitary little place where the menu included his favorite Egyptian delicacies and the owner would have slaughtered an ostrich and cooked it up if Emerson had requested it. Suits and cravats, much less evening clothes, would have been out of place in that ambience—another strong point in its favor, as far as Emerson was concerned.
It was located on the edge of the Khan el Khalili.
Emerson hesitated for only a moment—that brief delay being occasioned by his reluctance to leave his precious statue—before responding precisely as I had planned. I glanced at Ramses, who was looking even blanker than usual. He opened his mouth and closed it without speaking.
Turning to Nefret, I brushed the hair back from her forehead. “Perhaps you ought to stay here and rest,” I said. “You have a nasty lump as well as a cut.”
“Nonsense, Aunt Amelia. I feel fine and I wouldn’t miss dining at Bassam’s for all the world.”
She tripped away before I could respond. Meeting Ramses’s dark gaze, which seemed to me to convey a certain degree of criticism, I gave a little shrug. “Hurry and bathe and change,” I ordered. “We must not be late.”
Ramses said, “Yes, Mother.” Clearly he would have liked to say more, but after a moment’s hesitation he started up the stairs.
“All right, Peabody,” said my husband. “What are you up to now?”
I had intended to tell him anyhow.
He took the news more quietly than I had expected, though it certainly had the effect of hurrying him up. He was in and out of the bath chamber in a remarkably short period of time.
“Well, well,” he remarked, throwing his towel onto the floor, where a puddle began to form around it. “So it occurred to you too that Farouk might have been sent to infiltrate Wardani’s organization?”
“Now, Emerson, if you are going to claim you thought of it first—”
“I would not claim to be the first. I did think of it, though.”
“You always say that!