Night Train to Memphis - Elizabeth Peters [118]
‘They did get here first.’
‘And found the discarded letter.’ John’s eyes were bright with amusement and, as he proceeded to make clear, admiration. ‘You see what the little elf’s done, don’t you? This letter is not only a red herring, it is an attempt to protect you, in the event that you had been recaptured. If he’s got the evidence that can convict them there’s no reason for them to harm you. In fact, there is every reason for them to keep you whole and healthy so they can try to strike a deal: silence, or at least delay, in exchange for you.’ He paused, and then delivered the highest accolade in his repertoire. ‘I couldn’t have done better myself.’
‘So you don’t think he’s gone back to the house?’
‘Not our Schmidt. Whether you are a fugitive or a prisoner, he can serve you best by remaining free.’ John returned to his study of the note. ‘I can’t see anything else here. But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he had . . . Wait a Sec. What’s this?’
‘The sticky stuff must have spattered,’ I said, as he held up a blank page spotted with stains.
‘The spots make a suspiciously regular pattern,’ John muttered.
‘Try joining the dots,’ I suggested sarcastically.
John emitted a crow of triumph. ‘That’s it! Look here.’
Picking up a pen, he began to draw – not lines connecting the spots, but a series of parallel lines. Five parallel lines. They made the nature of those odd splotches plain. They were musical notes.
‘No key signature,’ John muttered. ‘Let’s assume it’s the key of C and that there are no accidentals. Hard to indicate them, really . . .’ He began to whistle. ‘Strike a chord?’
‘Try to avoid puns if possible,’ I said critically. ‘No, it isn’t familiar.’
‘How about this?’ There was a slight difference. I assumed he’d thrown in a few miscellaneous sharps and/or flats.
‘This is a waste of time,’ I grumbled. ‘Schmidt probably was trying to be cute, but if that’s one of his beloved country music tunes you’ll never figure out which song because there are only three or four melodies in the whole damned repertoire.’
John dropped heavily into a chair. ‘My God. I should have known.’
‘What? What?’
He tried to give me the definitive version, but he was laughing so hard he couldn’t keep his lips puckered. ‘If the Egyptians don’t strike a medal for him I’ll do it myself. And kiss him on both cheeks. He’s taken the night train to Memphis.’
Chapter Twelve
THE ROOM HAD been stripped of all personal possessions, whether by Schmidt or by John’s hypothetical searchers I could not determine. ‘They’ became less hypothetical as we continued our own search; they had made quite a neat job of it, but I doubted Schmidt would have removed the mattress from the bed and then replaced it and the bedclothes. The searchers must have been men; they hadn’t bothered to tuck in the sheets.
‘Is there a night train to Memphis?’ I asked, investigating the drawers of the nightstand.
‘There’s one to Cairo. Close enough.’ John returned from the bathroom. ‘Nothing there. What about the chest of drawers?’
‘Only the souvenirs he bought today.’ The Nefertiti bag had been on top of the pile. I turned it upside down and shook it. ‘He’s even taken the few odds and ends I left – cosmetics, sunglasses – ’
‘Chocolates, apples, and gingerbread?’
I didn’t want to be reminded of the night in the abandoned church when we had ‘dined’ on the odds and ends I carried in my backpack. Sooner or later I would have to deal with those widening cracks in my defensive walls, but not now, not when we were still four hundred miles from safety and Schmidt was someplace or other doing God knows what, and Mary was looking forward to renewing old acquaintances. I said shortly, ‘He might have left us some money.’
‘He wouldn’t leave anything of value. The point of the message was to suggest that neither of you intended to return to this room.’
‘Obviously,’ I said.
‘That’s it, then. There’s nothing else except a few travel brochures. I’ll go first. Take the next elevator. I’ll meet you at the car.’
But when I got out of the elevator he was standing