The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [146]
“The black afrit has gone for good,” I said. “It will not return.”
“Inshallah,” said Daoud.
Fatima was preparing the tea tray when we got back to the house. “You are early,” she said accusingly.
“We are in no hurry,” I said. “Where is Ramses?”
“With his friend. They have been working.”
“I will tell them tea will be ready soon.”
When I approached the workroom I heard their voices. I stood still and listened, my heart pounding.
FROM MANUSCRIPT H
* * *
Katchenovsky had been slow to respond to Ramses’s message. Ramses had been working on the papyri for some time before he arrived, full of apologies and questions. Ramses answered the latter somewhat abstractedly. The suspicion that had entered his mind seemed absurd. The Russian looked and behaved as he always had, eager and humble. He took the text Ramses handed him and began transcribing it. Ramses watched him for a while. Then he selected another piece of papyrus.
“You translated this, didn’t you?”
Katchenovsky looked up. When he saw what Ramses was holding, he got quickly to his feet and backed off a few steps. Ramses’s heart sank. He had been almost certain, but he had hoped he was wrong.
“I know you did,” Ramses said. “It wasn’t in quite the same position where I put it originally.”
Katchenovsky raised both hands, as if in protest, and then shoved them into his pockets. “Why deny it? Your memory is faultless. I read it, yes.”
“A remarkable document,” Ramses said, scanning the crabbed lines. “It would make your reputation if it were published.”
“It’s worth more than that, and you know it,” the Russian said. “One might look at it as a treasure map. There are some people who would give a great deal to have the information it contains.”
Ramses straightened and turned to face the other man. Katchenovsky had taken a pistol from his pocket. Ramses recognized it as the one that had belonged to Adrian Petherick. He had hidden it at the back of a shelf in the workroom, high above the reach of small hands. He’d meant to dispose of it eventually and had never got round to doing so. Serves me right, he thought, noting that Katchenovsky held the gun like a man who had had experience with such weapons.
“Why, Mikhail?” he asked.
“I don’t want to.” Katchenovsky’s eyes were haunted. “But I must. If I take it you would know, you remember every wretched scrap. You are the only one who would know it came from here. I can say I bought it from a dealer.”
“That’s why you tried to kill me in Cairo?”
“And in Luxor, when you replied to my message that night.” Katchenovsky’s bowed shoulders straightened. His hands were steady. “I had to. If you were dead no one else would know.”
That takes care of the unexplained items on Mother’s list, Ramses thought. He was faintly surprised at his own coolness, at his relief that he had been right about Adrian Petherick. He simply couldn’t take this threat seriously, not from the mild, amiable Russian.
“You can’t kill me now,” he argued. “The house is full of people. They’ll hear the shot. You’ll be caught red-handed.”
Katchenovsky glanced at the open window. “I’ll tell them someone burst in. Two shots—one for you, one minor wound for me. He dropped the gun and fled.”
Sethos had been right. When Katchenovsky was standing straight, his head lifted, he was taller than anyone else had noticed, and his thin frame had a wiry strength. His will was as strong. Ramses didn’t doubt the man had struggled with his conscience, but now he had made up his mind and there wasn’t much chance he could be persuaded to change it. There was a slim chance, though, and he was prepared to go on talking as long as he could.
Then he heard a sound outside the door—a too-familiar sound—and knew the time for talk had passed. Katchenovsky turned toward the door and his finger tightened on the trigger.
She burst into the room and ran straight at the Russian, firing her little pistol. As usual, she missed. Katchenovsky didn’t.
Ramses didn’t feel the bullet that tore through his sleeve. He didn’t hear the cries