The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [30]
“We must find another guard,” Selim declared. “And rebuild the house.”
“I’ll leave it to you, then. There’s no use going to Deir el Medina today.”
He went back to his papyri. He felt slightly guilty, though he knew he wasn’t needed. From time to time he went to the window and looked out. Selim had a dozen men at work setting up a temporary structure of poles and canvas, and making new bricks. Their aggressive presence was enough to deter the few curiosity seekers whose carriages approached.
When they met for luncheon his mother was sorting through the messages that had arrived. “Nothing from the Pethericks?” Ramses asked.
“No. I am somewhat surprised. Mrs. Petherick must be getting bored.”
The communication came that afternoon, in the form of a hand-delivered message. David John, who had learned to read at an alarmingly early age, was poring over a book and Ramses was playing tag with Carla when his mother joined them in the garden. “Where is Nefret?” she asked.
“She has a patient.” Ramses took the note from her and eluded his daughter by pulling himself up into a tree. Ignoring Carla’s enraged, and justified, shrieks of “Not fair. Not fair!” he read the message.
“You’re right, Carla,” he said, dropping back to the ground. “I cheated, so I lose. You win. Now run along and clean up for tea. Papa has to go out for a little while.”
“Fatima has made a plum cake,” his mother added.
“Are you going out too?” Carla demanded.
Her grandmother smoothed the little girl’s ruffled black curls. “Yes.”
Carla weighed the advantages and disadvantages, her dark eyebrows drawn together in a thoughtful frown. David John had already reached the logical conclusion: With only the indulgent Fatima to supervise their tea, the entire plum cake would be theirs. He closed his book, gave his grandmother a quick hug, and trotted off toward the house, followed by Carla.
Ramses picked up the coat he had tossed on a bench, and his mother said, “I am glad you agree that we must go. Mrs. Petherick sounds on the verge of hysteria. If we don’t turn up before dark, heaven knows what she’ll do.”
Ramses looked again at the note. The ragged handwriting was certainly suggestive of shaken nerves and shaking hands. “‘He will come for me at nightfall. For the love of God, hurry!’”
“I agree that you have determined we must go,” he said. “It must have struck you, Mother, that this frantic appeal has the same calculated air as her earlier performances. I was under the impression that you considered the entire business a publicity stunt.”
“Life is seldom so simple as that,” said his mother sententiously. She took his arm and led him, gently but inexorably, along the path. “People are capable of incredible feats of self-delusion, as we see in cases of hypochondria. Mrs. Petherick may have convinced herself that the menace is real, in order to justify her actions in her own mind, and—”
“Yes, Mother.”
She was right, but her complacent smile and the briskness of her stride betrayed her real motive. It had been a forlorn hope that he could keep her from meddling in the Petherick affair.
They paused only long enough to collect Nefret, who had finished with her patients. By the time they reached the riverbank and had selected a boat to take them across, the sun was low in the west. Its slanting rays brightened the splendid columns of the Luxor Temple and, in incongruous juxtaposition, the modern facade of the Winter Palace Hotel. They hurried up the stairs from the quay to the street. As they waited to cross, Ramses referred again to the note.
“She asks us to come directly to her room. She’s afraid to open the door, she says!” He took his mother’s arm. With the skill of long practice they wound their way through the procession of camels, donkeys, and carriages that filled the street.
“Which room?” Nefret asked, looking up at the long facade of the hotel. The first floor, with the lobby and reception rooms, was reached by a pair of opposed curving