Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [101]
“No one else will hear of it if you tell us,” Ramses persisted. “Do you doubt my word?”
“No.” The dealer’s eyes rolled from side to side. “But—but I know nothing, Brother of Demons. I have nothing for you. I must—I must close now. It is time for prayer.”
It lacked a good quarter of an hour until noon, but Ramses did not argue. Omar barely waited till they were outside before he slammed and bolted the door. The second shop was closed. So was the third. “We may as well give it up for today,” Ramses said. “Omar’s son warned the others. There is definitely something out of the ordinary going on. The dealers are accustomed to having me come round trying to winkle information out of them, they rather enjoy the game. They wouldn’t be so wary unless they had been warned not to talk with us.”
“Threatened, perhaps,” Nefret said. “He wasn’t just wary, he was frightened.”
“Yes. Our estimable kinsman is good at terrorizing people. In his heyday there wasn’t a dealer in Egypt who would dare cross him.” He added feelingly, “Damn him.”
“Yes, darling.” She took his arm. “It’s still early, but we might have lunch—sit on the terrace of the Winter Palace and watch the passing throngs. Sethos may be playing the part of a waiter.”
He was not amused. Walking slowly, with his head bent and his hands in his pockets, he said absently, “Whatever you like.”
“Or we could go by Abdul Hadi’s shop and pick up the portrait. You don’t really want a new frame for it, do you?”
“For what? Oh, the portrait. No, I . . .” He came to a dead halt. “Hell and damnation!”
“What’s wrong?”
“We left it there.” Ramses slammed his fist into his other palm. “How bloody stupid can I get? Come on!”
She had to trot to keep up with him. The midday call to prayer floated down from the mosque of el Guibri, and when Ramses burst into the shop, Abdul Hadi was about to lower his rheumaticky knees onto his prayer mat. For a moment Nefret feared her husband was too overwrought to remember his manners, but she need not have worried.
“I beg your pardon. I came for my mother’s picture. It can wait.”
The amiable old gentleman looked bewildered. “But—did you not take it? Last night? It was not on the easel this morning. I thought—”
“Never mind,” Nefret said quickly. “Malesh. Thank you. Good-bye.”
She pulled Ramses out of the shop and closed the door. He turned to look at her. His features were as impassive as granite; but his effort to keep his voice low was not entirely successful. “What are you laughing about?”
“But it is funny,” Nefret gurgled. “Instead of fleeing into the night, like a proper crook, he waited coolly outside that window until we . . . until . . . Oh, dear.”
“Finished the performance,” her husband said wildly. “He must have found it quite amusing. I seem to remember telling you . . . And then didn’t I . . . ?”
“The Savoy’s closer than the Winter Palace.” She took his arm. “I prescribe a stiff whiskey or a glass of wine.”
“I do not need a drink.” He stalked along beside her, scowling blackly. “What I need is revenge. Not only for last night, but for a long history of affronts.”
“You can’t—”
“I don’t want to torture him, sweetheart. I want to humiliate him and get the better of him. For once!”
Remembering some of the things they had said—and done—in the belief they were unobserved, Nefret felt a certain sympathy, but she tried to be fair. “He wasn’t deliberately playing Peeping Tom. He was only waiting to see whether we’d leave the portrait.”
“And now he’s got it. How are we going to explain that to Mother?”
They selected a table in the garden of the Savoy and ordered. Bougainvillea spread ruffled arms along the wall behind them, and a sparrow alighted on the table and cocked a bright eye at Nefret. She fed it crumbs from her hand until it suddenly took flight, and she looked up to see Margaret Minton standing beside her.
“May I join you?” she asked.
“How did you find us?” Nefret asked, watching Ramses’s face go blank. He rose and held a chair for the journalist.
“The usual methods,” Minton said blandly. “Bribery and baksheesh. I