The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [33]
In my opinion he was now jumping to conclusions. Admittedly his was the most obvious interpretation, but clever criminals are capable of ingenious schemes. If the villain had been disguised as a servant and Mrs. Petherick as a rug or bag of laundry…I decided not to pursue the subject, since Ramses was in a rare state of exasperation.
“I wonder if we should notify your father of this latest development,” I said.
“Why bother? He’ll read about it in the Cairo newspapers tomorrow.”
“Oh, good Gad. I suppose he will, won’t he? He isn’t going to like this at all.”
“Particularly,” said Ramses, “when he reads the comments we made to the press.”
“But we didn’t say anything,” I protested. “Except that those who had information should give it to Mr. Salt.”
“That won’t prevent the journalists from quoting us,” said Ramses.
“I wonder what Abdullah would say about all this,” I mused.
“Have you dreamed about him lately?” Ramses’s voice was studiously noncommittal. The family was still skeptical about those strange dreams, but they were more than dreams to me, so realistic that they were like seeing my dear departed friend in the flesh. He had given his life for mine, acting as instinctively as a father who throws himself in front of a threatened child. He had loved me as I had learned to love him; but that act of supreme sacrifice had also been his way of taking his fate into his own hands, defying the god who threatened him with the failing strength of old age.
“Not lately,” I said.
Nefret smiled affectionately. “At least he won’t complain that we have a new corpse on our hands. Remember what he used to say? ‘Every year, another dead body!’”
Every year, another dead body!” said Abdullah. He came striding along his usual path, the one from the Valley of the Kings. My route had led me up the steep slope of the cliffs behind Deir el Bahri, and as the sun rose behind me, my shadow rushed forth as if to greet him.
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “We haven’t had any dead bodies this year. You might say ‘hello’ before you start complaining,” I added.
He never did, though. I suppose that to him, in this place where there was no time, it was as if we had spoken together only moments before. He smiled sardonically and stroked his beard. It had been pure white the day he died in my arms. In these dreams it was black, and his face was that of a young, hearty man.
“Not yet, Sitt,” he said.
“Who?” I demanded. “Not Emerson? Not Ramses? Not—”
“I cannot tell you the future. It is yet to be determined. But is there not always a dead body? Always you look for danger, Sitt.”
“If you are referring to Mrs. Petherick and her statue, she came to us, not we to her. And what danger can there be? She is a silly woman who invents foolish stories.”
“The statue is not invented.”
“Where did it come from, Abdullah?”
He rolled his eyes and smiled. “From the last place you would expect, Sitt.”
“I might have known you wouldn’t give me a direct answer! Not Amarna, not Tomb 55?”
His teasing smile vanished. He came a step closer and put out his hand, as if to touch my cheek. “Sitt, heed my words. Stop seeking trouble, rest in the shade and be at peace. As it was for me, so it is for you. Do not the days grow shorter, the paths longer, the loads heavier?”
The words fell like stones onto my heart and the sky seemed to darken; but I shook my head and spoke resolutely. “All the more reason to make the most of the shorter days and brace one’s strength to bear the heavier loads. I never expected to hear such talk from you, you whose strength and courage never failed.”
“Ah,” said Abdullah. “I knew you would say that.”
A ray of sunlight brightened his smiling face and I said in exasperation, “What I want from you is practical advice—not that I ever get it! If you won’t tell me where the statue was found,