The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [92]
“I wouldn’t trust him to stay there, Aunt Amelia. We had better let him come along so we can keep our eyes on him.”
I had not intended to take her with us, but when I came to think of it, I did not trust her either. So we rode directly to the dock and two of our men took us across the river in the small boat we kept for that purpose.
From Manuscript H
“How are we going to get away from them?” Nefret demanded.
They were waiting outside the railway ticket office while the senior Emersons interrogated the stationmaster. The platform, the station house, and the path leading to it were teeming with people waiting to catch the train to Assuan. The sun was high overhead and the air was thick with dust. Nefret had taken off her hat and was fanning herself with it.
“This is a waste of time,” she went on. “How can the stationmaster possibly remember one veiled woman? They all look alike in those black robes. Anyhow, they knew she had betrayed them, and the railway station is one of the first places they would have looked. If she is as clever as all you men seem to think, she would go into hiding until things quiet down, and there is only one logical place where she would go.”
“Nefret, will you please be reasonable?” Ramses kept his voice low. “I agree that Layla might have sought refuge among her old—er—acquaintances. The only way we can manage a visit to the place is with Father’s cooperation. He means to go there himself, which would not be a good idea. David and I may be able to convince him we can be more effective than he, but there is no way on earth he would consent if he thought you were going with us.”
“I wouldn’t consent either,” David said. He stood slightly behind Ramses, his eyes moving suspiciously over the hurrying figures that passed.
Nefret slapped her hat onto her head and tied the ribbons under her chin. “We’ll see about that. Here they come. What luck, Professor?”
“Better than I had expected,” was the reply. “A woman purchased a ticket to Cairo early this morning. Her ornaments and clothing were those of a peasant, but the clerk remembered her because she was traveling alone and she paid for a second-class ticket. A woman of that sort would ordinarily travel third class, if she traveled at all. I am going to telegraph Cairo and ask the police to meet the train.”
It took a good deal of maneuvering and distraction, and several outright lies, to arrange the matter as Ramses wished. After the telegraph office they went to the Winter Palace. Sir Edward was not there, so they decided to have luncheon at the hotel; and it was while the ladies had retired to freshen up that Ramses had the opportunity to talk with his father. The initial reaction was what he had expected—a flat, profane refusal.
“You can’t mean to go yourself, Father,” Ramses said. “They wouldn’t talk to you.”
Emerson fixed him with an icy stare. “They would feel more at ease with you?”
“Yes, sir. I believe so.”
“Everyone in Luxor is in awe of you, Professor,” David added. “They might be afraid to speak freely.”
“Bah,” Emerson said. “No. No, it is impossible. I shudder to think what your mother would say if she found out I let you boys visit a bordello.”
“What will she say if she finds out you mean to visit one, Father?” Ramses asked.
“Er—hmph,” said Emerson, stroking his chin and glancing uneasily at the door of the Ladies’ Parlor.
“He’s got you there, Emerson,” said Vandergelt, grinning. “You’re not a good liar. She’d see through any excuse you gave her, and she’d insist on going along. We sure don’t want her traipsing around the—er—hmmm. Let the lads handle it.”
Ramses had been in an Egyptian brothel only once—in the course, it should be said, of a criminal investigation. The place had sickened him, though it had been one of the less offensive of its kind, catering as it did to Europeans and wealthy Egyptians. This one was worse. The main room opened directly onto the street and was separated from it by a kind of curtain made of strips of cloth. The shutters were closed and the only light came from a pair of hanging lamps.