The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [31]
“Three fifty-two and -three,” Ramses said. “A suite. It’s the one at that end.”
“The one with the balcony? I’m surprised she didn’t…Oh, good Lord! What’s that?”
There was no mistaking what it was, despite its distance from the ground. Sunset shone with theatrical intensity on the stone balustrade of the balcony and the form leaning over it. Man-high, shrouded, dead black, it seemed to drink the sun’s rays. As they stared in disbelief, the shape slowly bent forward and fell, forty feet, toward the terrace below.
Ramses shook off his wife’s hand and went up the stairs three at a time. People in the lobby turned to stare as he ran past. He didn’t wait for the lift, which was uncertain at best, but headed straight up the staircase. He reached the third floor and ran full tilt along the long corridor, damning the architect of the Winter Palace for wasting so much space on staircases and passageways. Most of the guests were at tea, on the terraces or in the tearoom; only a few soft-footed servants stared as he passed.
Mrs. Petherick’s suite was at the end of a right-angle turn in the corridor. As Ramses knew from visits to other friends, her two rooms were reached through a small antechamber which gave greater privacy to the occupant of the suite. In front of the closed door of the antechamber stood Abdul, one of the hotel servants, tricked out in a red fez, a gold-braided jacket, and inauthentic but picturesque baggy trousers. Ramses cut short his cheerful “Salaam aleikhum” and pounded on the door, calling out her name and his own. No answer, no sound at all from within. He turned to the servant. “Is the lady not here?”
“She has not come out, Brother of Demons.” Abdul thought for a few seconds and then proudly came up with a conclusion. “So—she must still be there, yes? She gave me much baksheesh and told me to let no one in. No one at all except you or the Sitt Hakim or—”
The door wasn’t locked. Thinking she might be cowering in the closet or bathroom, Ramses hammered even harder on one of the inner doors, the one that led to the sitting room. Still no answer.
“What’s she playing at?” he demanded. There was no answer from Abdul, who knew the question hadn’t been addressed to him. Ramses realized he had no choice but to play along, but he would have a few words to say to the confounded woman when he located her.
The inner door wasn’t locked either. The tall French doors to the balcony stood open, the filmy curtains blew in the breeze. A blazing, bloody sunset reddened the sky. The room was in perfect order, and so were the adjoining bedchamber and bath. Mrs. Petherick’s garments filled the wardrobe, her toilet articles were laid out on the dressing table, but the lady herself was nowhere to be found.
THREE
“It was an empty robe,” I said. “There was nothing inside. I realized that at once, naturally, from the way it fluttered down.”
“Yes.” Ramses was pacing up and down Mrs. Petherick’s sitting room, picking up objects at random as if hoping to find something he had overlooked. “How many of the damned things does the damned woman own?”
“Several, I expect. She favors black, and it is a popular color for evening cloaks and wraps.”
Nefret and I had hastened upstairs as soon as we had made certain we did not have to deal with a mangled body. I spread the garment out across the back of the sofa. It was similar to the one the intruder had abandoned at our house, though not identical; the first had been of corded silk, while this was of a heavier velvet, trimmed across the shoulders with jet beads. In the inconsequential way it does sometimes, my mind wandered off into speculation about what this garment was supposed to suggest. Undefined powers of evil? The notorious Prince of Darkness? It was not Egyptian, ancient or modern. However, those who believe in evil spirits are not prone to logical ratiocination.
We searched the suite again, finding no more than Ramses had. Nothing was missing, so far