The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [128]
“No messages as yet,” I reported, after sorting through the post basket. “I had rather hoped to hear something from them by now.”
“I would settle for hearing anything from anybody,” said my brother-in-law. “We seem to have drawn a blank everywhere. I went the rounds of the Luxor hotels again, between trains. Not a sign of him.”
“Something is sure to turn up,” I replied, repressing a yawn. “You can try again tomorrow, now that we have a photograph.”
“What a wonderful thought. I know every knothole and every splinter in that station platform, and every desk clerk in Luxor.”
However, troubles never come singly, as the saying goes. Bertie arrived next morning before breakfast, on a horse he had ridden hard. Jumana was gone.
NINE
FROM MANUSCRIPT H
* * *
The desk clerk at the Mena House remembered the lady very well. “Magda von Ormond, yes. She is a very—er—forceful lady. We had no rooms available but she—er—prevailed upon me to make an exception.”
Ramses wondered how much it had cost Harriet in baksheesh, and how much money she had, and where she had got it. Not from her father, if her description of him had been accurate.
“She and the gentleman have been here for several days,” the clerk went on. “Her—er—secretary, she said he was.”
He rolled his eyes and smirked.
Either he didn’t read the newspapers or he had not connected the murdered Mrs. Petherick with her nom de plume. “Are they in their rooms?” Ramses asked.
“They went out early this morning for a ride around the pyramids. It is a favorite ride, as you know, out into the desert to the point from which one can see all nine of the—”
“Yes, I know. Who went with them?”
The answer was reassuring. Ahmed Ali was one of the most reliable and persistent dragomen at Giza. They wouldn’t have been able to elude him even if they had wanted to.
“Shall we hire horses and go after them?” David asked as they turned away from the desk.
Ramses thought for a moment and then shook his head. “Nefret said we must avoid doing anything that might agitate him. If he spots us heading directly for them he may interpret it as a threat. They’ll be back for luncheon. We will casually encounter them in the dining salon.”
“Oh, we get to eat?” David inquired with a grin. “Things are looking up.”
It wasn’t difficult to pass the time at Giza, where they had once excavated. They spent the morning wandering round the cemeteries of private tombs and examining the six minor pyramids. The three large pyramids were the chief attraction for tourists, and the interior passageways were usually too crowded for comfort.
“Reisner’s crew isn’t working,” David said, as they approached the site where the Boston Museum–Harvard University crew were excavating.
Ramses consulted his watch. “Stopped for lunch, I expect. We’d best go back to the hotel. Perhaps Father’s prestige can get us a table.”
Fame had its penalties as well as its privileges. They were intercepted by the desk clerk, who proudly announced that he had told Madame von Ormond and her—er—secretary a member of the distinguished Emerson family was looking for them.
Ramses and David stared at each other in consternation. “I suppose they have gone out again,” the former said, trying to keep his voice down.
“But surely they will return soon. They have not lunched, nor even changed their clothing.” A well-manicured brown hand lifted. Ramses handed over the expected baksheesh. It wasn’t the clerk’s fault. He hadn’t been told to keep their arrival secret.
“God damn it,” said David, who seldom used bad language.
“The fat is well and truly in the fire,” Ramses agreed. “Let’s find Ahmed Ali. There’s no hope of a casual encounter now.”
For years the normal methods of travel around the pyramid plateau had been by camel, donkey, or the so-called desert carriage, a diabolical conveyance that jolted the occupants’ insides to a jelly. Camels were selected by many tourists—what would a trip to Egypt be without a photograph of the traveler on that picturesque