Night Train to Memphis - Elizabeth Peters [71]
When he finished there was some grumbling, most of it from our habitual complainers. Alice, who had replaced Hamid on the podium, added a few sentences of reassurance before beginning her lecture.
She was a much better speaker than Perry, enlivening the facts with personal reminiscences and funny stories. Cued by Schmidt’s rumbling chuckles, I laughed in all the right places, but I have to admit I didn’t pay proper attention. Just when I thought I had come to a sensible sane decision, something happened to make me question it. Could I have been mistaken about Sweet and Bright? The answer to that was depressingly obvious. The corollary was equally depressing. They were the only ones to whom I had spoken about John. Several little reels of tape were jostling around in my bag at this very moment. I hadn’t left them in the safe. I kept telling myself there was nothing incriminatory on those tapes, only a series of rude remarks from John and feeble rejoinders from me, but I knew I was kidding myself. And I knew why.
And I knew it was high time I stopped behaving like a fool. John claimed he was opposed to violence, but either he had changed his views or he was mixed up with people who didn’t share them. Ali had been murdered; I was as certain of that as if I had seen it done. I wasn’t at all happy about the failure of the refrigeration either. Machinery is always breaking down – at least my machines are always breaking down – and this damage seemed, on the surface, quite harmless. But our schedule had already been altered once and this might necessitate an even more drastic change, if the coolers couldn’t be repaired.
The lights went on, and I hastily rearranged my features into an expression of smiling interest. Alice started taking questions. As I might have expected, the first one was about the curse of Tutankhamon.
Pure coincidence, said Alice. Lord Carnarvon had cut himself shaving and blood poisoning had set in, followed by pneumonia. The others who had worked on the tomb with him had lived to ripe old ages. She reeled off names and dates with the assurance of someone who has been asked the question dozens of times before. Morbidly, I wondered whether tourists fifty years from now would be discussing the hideous doom that had fallen upon the passengers of the Queen of the Nile, and the sad fate of Victoria Bliss, cut off in her prime by an unfortunate coincidence.
Everybody went to bed early that night. We were supposed to disembark at six forty-five for our visit to the Valley of the Kings.
III
The group that gathered in the lobby next morning was greatly diminished – only a dozen passengers, plus Alice and Feisal. Oh, and Perry. Sweet and Bright were not among them. John and Mary were among them. So was Suzi, somewhat to my surprise; I’d have expected her to spend the whole day primping for the grand reception that evening. Subtle questioning on my part elicited the information that the missing persons were all alive and undamaged; some were suffering from the conventional complaints, others had decided not to take the long tiring trek.
I had been tempted to skip the tour too. A hasty glance at the itinerary had reminded me that several of the tombs we were to visit were described as ‘deep.’ I had acquired a violent aversion to tombs in general, never mind ‘deep’ tombs. But when I called Schmidt, hoping against hope he would be suffering from tummy trouble, he informed me he was on his way to breakfast and demanded I hurry up. So I hurried. Schmidt was determined to go ashore and I couldn’t let him go alone.
Before I left my room I collected the reels of tape and locked them in my safe.
The itinerary had reminded me of something else I had forgotten – the lay of the land. The modern city of Luxor is on the east bank of the Nile. The Valley of the Kings and the other ancient cemeteries are on the west bank. The boat had landed us on the west bank. It would then cross the river and moor, along with the other