Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [166]
And all this before dinner.
With that thought, perhaps forty minutes into my circumnavigation of the floor, a subtle shudder seemed to move through the mass, and it began to thin. At first it seemed the result of a distant earth-quake followed by the instinctive search for open space, but then I realised it was the rumour of food in the adjoining rooms. We were to dine buffet style, with a hundred tables set up for people to occupy with their filled plates, and there seemed little point in being among the first rush. I leant against a marble column that was dressed as a palm tree, and took a swallow of the warm liquid in my glass.
“Drinking heavily, are we, Russell?” said a voice in my ear. If I hadn’t been so fatigued, I might have thrown my arms around him; as it was, I gave him a tired smile.
“Hello, Holmes. Where have you been?”
“Here, for much of the time. I saw you a few times across the room, but by the time I reached your place, you were gone.”
“You look remarkably fresh. And terribly Bedouin.”
“Better than being dressed as a Caesar.”
“Or Rudolph Valentino, although you have applied the kohl, I see.”
“Marsh told you the plan?”
“I’m not certain if it was Marsh or Mahmoud, but yes. Did he tell you—”
“—about the papers?” he interrupted, speaking in a voice so low I could barely hear it myself. “He did. He’s got them squirrelled away now, and wrapped some newspaper inside the piece of oil-cloth to put back in the chest.”
“Any number of people could have hid those papers in the chest,” I noted.
“Anyone who knows Justice Hall,” he agreed.
“Ali will take up his position in the Armoury after Marsh has spoken?”
“Once he’s introduced Marsh, he’ll slip away. While Marsh is talking to the guests.”
“Ought we to keep an eye on the two men anyway?”
“You know my methods, Russell.”
By this time in my life, his methods were mine.
Dinner was an odd assortment of the familiar and the conscientiously foreign, crab puffs next to bits of bright yellow lamb on skewers, tiny marinated aubergines nestled amongst the iced oysters. This time, there was sufficient quantity to satisfy the mob, even though by the time I surveyed the table of offerings, the most popular items (those of recognisably English heritage) were rather sparsely represented. Holmes had gone off again, and I settled into a corner table. Halfway through my pomegranate-stuffed pigeon, I glanced up, and confronted a vision.
Mahmoud and Ali Hazr stood in the doorway. Mahmoud entered first, dressed in dramatic black and gold, on his face the customary all-seeing expression I had once known. Ali stood at his shoulder, glowering and clothed in all the colours of the rainbow. His hand was resting on a close facsimile of the knife he had used to such lethal purpose, and when he spoke briefly in Mahmoud’s ear, I could see that his front teeth were again missing. I choked on my mouthful and stood up; Mahmoud’s eyes caught the movement, and he gazed at me across the crowded dining room. His mouth quirked, briefly, at my reaction, and then something behind him called for his attention: I saw, as I pushed my way to them, that that something was five-year-old Gabe Hughenfort, his pale face slightly dubious and his hand clinging tightly to his mother’s, but his green eyes glowing with wonder at the sights and sounds of Justice Hall in its festivities. He was dressed—how else?—as the young son of a sheikh, with gold agahl holding his snowy abayya over those dark Hughenfort curls, his white robes gleaming against the pool of Mahmoud’s black. Yes, by God he