Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [180]
I was beginning to fear Sethos had found some way of getting past Miss Minton when the rope of twisted sheets (it had been under the mattress) tumbled out of the window with a suitcase tied to the end. Sethos came down hand over hand. He was wearing the turban and galabeeyah, but his face was too pale. I scooped up a handful of dirt.
“Amelia, don’t,” he said, fending me off. “Let me go out of your life. I’m no good to you or anyone else now.”
“Dear me, how tragic,” I remarked. “You left out the part about returning to your gutter.”
“I was saving that,” said Sethos. His smile lessened his resemblance to Emerson; it had a quality of mockery that was never to be found on the candid countenance of my spouse. “Very well, Amelia—”
Miss Minton came trotting round the corner of the building, her hat tipped over one eye. “Good, you’ve got him,” she gasped.
“As I was about to say,” remarked my brother-in-law, “I can deal with one domineering female, possibly with two, but not with three. Do me one small favor, if you will. Don’t dash about looking for our killer. I’ll take care of him myself.”
“Ah,” I said. “I thought so. You mean to make a target of yourself in the hope that he will attack you. That’s all well and good, and we may yet have to resort to some such expedient, but what, may I ask, is the point of going through the performance unless we are on hand to catch the fellow? Stop arguing and come along, before someone sees us.”
Nefret was waiting at the dock with the boat she had hired, and a pile of parcels. She shoved them into Sethos’s arms. The boatman gave him a critical look, wondering no doubt why we employed such a dirty fellow. I had accidentally got some of the dirt into his eyes; but that was all to the good, since they now had the red-rimmed look of the infection from which many unfortunate Egyptians suffer.
“What did you purchase?” I asked, once we were under way. Some of the boatmen understand a bit of English.
“The first large objects I could lay my hands on,” Nefret said. “Including a perfectly hideous model of the facade of Abu Simbel.”
“We’ll give it to Gargery for Christmas,” I said.
Our unkempt servant, squatting in the bows, let out a strangled cough.
He made one more attempt to dissuade me as he put our parcels into the carriage. “Aren’t you being rather cold-blooded about the risk to Selim and Daoud and the rest of the clan? My enemies will track us eventually.”
“But not immediately. It may take them a day or two. By then we will be prepared.”
We drove straight to the house. Had I not been preoccupied with more serious matters my heart would have swelled with nostalgia at the sight of our old home, which held so many memories. The climbing roses were dead, of course. Abdullah had never watered them either. But what did that matter? He had been right; this was where I was meant to be.
My spirits received a slight check when I learned that the only men in the house were Yusuf and his youngest son. They were both in the parlor smoking and drinking coffee, and before I could get down to business I had to refuse refreshments and apologize to Yusuf for not coming to call earlier. The house was in perfect order and the parlor looked much as we had left it, even to the ornaments on the whatnot.
“I thought you had gone to the Queens’ Valley,” I said to Jamil.
“The young Effendi was weary,” Jamil replied, staring curiously at Sethos. “We took him back to the Castle.”
“Selim and Daoud?”
“Are with the Father of Curses. But we are at your service, Sitt Hakim, my father and I.”
And about as much use as Sennia, I thought.
“Is Kadija here?” Nefret asked.
She had been waiting for a summons. Nefret’s question was enough; when she appeared in the doorway, black-robed but unveiled, I could have kissed her. Nefret did. Kadija folded her in arms almost as brawny as those of her husband Daoud and then looked inquiringly at me.
“Thank goodness,” I exclaimed. “Listen carefully, Kadija.