The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [106]
“There wasn’t any danger.”
“Of another attack, perhaps not, but it will be all over Luxor by morning that you had a romantic tête-à-tête with the Petherick woman. A photograph of you and the lady together would cook your goose with Nefret and destroy your credibility as an impartial witness.”
“There was no photographer either.” He started down the stairs. “She isn’t as calculating as you.”
“Defending the lady, are we? How chivalrous. She was calculating enough to swathe herself in filmy robes and make sure Abdul and the other suffragis saw her.” Sethos hurried to catch him up. “Did she try to seduce you?”
“None of your damned business.”
“Observe that I said ‘try.’ If I were married to a woman like Nefret I wouldn’t be susceptible either.”
Ramses swung round and caught his uncle by the collar. “Why do you keep provoking me?”
“I can’t help it,” Sethos said plaintively. Without apparent effort he detached Ramses’s grip. “Old habits are hard to break. Look here, Ramses, let’s declare a truce. Someone was lying in wait for you tonight—lurking, as the saying goes. When he saw me join you he left.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“I think it was your friend Katchenovsky.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Mikhail is totally harmless. If it was he, he probably only wanted to talk to me, or beg a ride back across the river. You scared him off. He’s a timid soul.”
“Better safe than sorry.”
“You sound like Mother.”
“I take it that isn’t meant as a compliment.”
Ramses didn’t reply. They went on down the steps. The area around the hotel and the corniche was brightly lighted, and so was the dock. There were no shadows in which an assassin could lurk. Sethos had probably invented the lurker.
“That could be the man I saw,” Sethos said suddenly. He pointed.
The man was Adrian Petherick. He gave the impression of having been out for an innocent evening stroll; there was no guilty start when he saw them, no change in his bright smile.
“Good evening,” he said. “A beautiful night, is it not?”
“Yes, it is,” Ramses said. “Does your sister know you are out?”
Adrian chuckled. “Dear Harriet. I can’t have her trailing me all the time, you know. She had an appointment this evening. Was it with you, by any chance?”
“As a matter of fact, it was.”
“What did she tell you?”
His smiling face was without guile, but there was something in his tone that set off alarm bells in Ramses’s mind.
“She’s concerned about you,” he said bluntly. “You oughtn’t to go off without telling her. There is still an unknown killer at large.”
“Unless it’s me,” Adrian said cheerfully. “Is there any new information?”
“No.”
Adrian shook his head. “The police aren’t very clever, are they? That fellow, for instance—” He turned. “He’s been following me for two days. Plainclothes, you could say—he’s dressed like all the other Egyptians, in that flapping robe and turban. But I spotted him right away.”
“Well done,” Ramses said. Ayyid’s plainclothes detachment needed training. The turbaned head peering out from behind a tree was as conspicuous as a camel.
“I’m going in now,” Adrian announced. “Do give my regards to your beautiful wife and the rest of the family.”
“He doesn’t look anything like Mikhail,” Ramses said, watching Adrian ascend the stairs two at a time.
“They are approximately the same height, when Katchenovsky isn’t being Uriah Heep, and both are slightly built. I didn’t see his face. Standard clothing, pith helmet, dark trousers and coat.”
When they reached the dock, Sabir was lying in wait. “You let another boatman bring you across,” he said accusingly.
“But you found out,” Ramses said.
“Aywa, of course. So I waited to take you back.”
“I cannot imagine how a criminal remains undiscovered for long here,” Sethos remarked, as they took their seats. “Or is it only your activities that merit such close attention?”
“The latter, I think.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Young Petherick. You feel sorry for him because of his wartime experiences, but he is either mad as a hatter or extremely