The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [156]
“I’m sure you will think of something, Emerson.”
“Quite right, my love.” He blew me a kiss from the other end of the table. Fatima beamed sentimentally, and Emerson looked embarrassed. “Well, er, as I was about to say, it is a pleasure to have you to myself. We’ve got a number of things to discuss, Peabody. I say, what’s this?” He stared suspiciously at the plate Fatima had put in front of him.
“Deviled beef,” I replied. “Rose gave Fatima some of her recipes, and she has been teaching Mahmud.”
“Hmph,” said Emerson.
Fatima lingered until he had expressed his approval, then trotted out to report success to Mahmud. “It’s not bad at all,” said Emerson, chewing. “A bit gamier than Rose’s.”
“A different variety of beef, I expect.”
“One would suppose so.” Emerson leaned back and fixed me with a solemn stare. “Things are in the deuce of a mess, Peabody.”
“They usually are, Emerson.”
“True. This time, however, there are too many unrelated things going on. I mean to settle one of them this evening.” He took out his watch. “They won’t be leaving for a while yet. Finish your dinner, my dear, and we will take coffee with them.”
The hideous foreboding that filled me was so familiar it felt almost comfortable. “Good Gad,” I exclaimed. “It is Ramses you mean, isn’t it? Ramses and David. Leaving for where? What are they up to now? I should have known! Why haven’t they told us?”
“I mean to learn the answers tonight,” Emerson said placidly. “You must have suspected something yourself, or you wouldn’t have leaped to the correct conclusion so quickly. Thank you, Fatima, that was excellent.”
Having observed how these matters were managed in England, Fatima was training one of her nephews in the fine art of butling, but he had not yet attained the degree of skill she considered minimal. I doubted he ever would satisfy her; she enjoyed waiting on us herself, and listening to our conversation. When she served the next course I had to force myself to eat, I was in such a state of worried exasperation.
“Of course I was suspicious,” I said. “Ramses has taken pains to avoid me, but I know the signs; he looks like an owl, or that falcon Nefret freed, with those dark lines under his eyes. David hasn’t been his usual self, either. They are prowling again! At night, in the old city, in their disgusting disguises! Have they found some clue to the forger, do you suppose?”
Fatima had missed my first reference to David. Hearing this one, she let out a little hiss of alarm. I reassured her (not an easy task, since I was in considerable need of reassurance myself) and warned her not to mention the subject to anyone else.
“You do put things in such a melodramatic way,” Emerson said critically. “I expect they are—it’s not a bad word, actually—prowling again. That is why Ramses has taken to spending his nights on the dahabeeyah.”
“Then Lia must know what they are doing.” “David probably swore her to secrecy. And someone else may have sworn him and Ramses to secrecy.”
I stared at him in consternation. “Wardani?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? I believe they would have told us if they were on the track of the forger.”
“But Emerson, that could be disastrous! Russell warned me that the police were after Wardani, and that David is already on a list of—” I stopped myself, for Fatima was standing in the doorway, her eyes wide and the bowl she held quivering violently.
“Put it down before you drop it, Fatima,” I said. “I told you there is nothing to worry about. We will see that David is safe. You trust us, don’t you?”
“Aywa. Yes, Sitt Hakim.”
She placed the bowl tenderly on the table. It appeared to be a somewhat exotic version of a trifle, wobbly with custard and cream and jelly. Bits of unidentified fruits stuck out from it.
“I don’t think I can eat that, Emerson,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.
“We’ll take it with us,” Emerson declared. “Parcel it up, Fatima.”
“Parcel it—”
“Put it in a bag or a box or something,” Emerson said. “The children will enjoy it.”
I rather