Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters [9]
“Have you broached this scheme to Father?” Ramses’s thoughts were in a whirl. He had a pretty fair idea of how Nefret would react. She missed the hospital and the chance to practice surgery, and although she adored his parents, their constant presence was bound to be a burden at times. As for himself…
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “It would be such a change. I have to get used to the idea.”
“Talk it over with Nefret. You needn’t decide immediately. It is early in the year and there are always houses to let.” She smoothed out the scrap of embroidery and frowned at it. “And it may take a while to convince your father.”
“We can at least start out the season as usual,” Ramses said.
“In Luxor, you mean?” She smiled with perfect understanding. “Of course. You will want to revisit your old haunts and see old friends.”
“The children won’t like living in Cairo.”
“I don’t suppose they will, not at first. They have become accustomed to being the centers of their little universe—not so little a universe at that,” she amended. “For it includes most of Luxor. They are becoming spoiled. The change will be good for their characters.”
Emerson might have lingered in Cairo had not two untoward events changed his mind. The first occurred when the entire family had gone to Giza for the day. The tourist season had barely begun, and the site was relatively uncrowded, but it offered innumerable opportunities for an adventurous child to get in trouble, with its open tomb pits and temptingly climbable pyramids. David John, who was developing a taste for Egyptology, stuck close to his grandfather, peppering him with questions, while the rest of them tried to keep close on Charla’s heels. It took all three of them.
“We ought to have brought Fatima,” Ramses said to his mother, after he had plucked Charla from the first step of the Great Pyramid. How she had got up there he couldn’t imagine; he had only turned his back for a minute, and the steplike blocks were almost three feet high.
“Fatima is no longer a young woman,” said his mother. “She cannot keep up with Charla. Charla, do not climb the pyramid. It is dangerous.”
“Then you take me up,” Charla pleaded, wrapping her arms round her father’s waist. Her big black eyes, fringed with long lashes, were hard to resist, but Ramses shook his head. The idea of being responsible for his peripatetic daughter on that steep four-hundred-foot climb made his hair stand on end.
“When you are older, perhaps.”
They returned in time for tea and handed the children over to Fatima for intensive washing. Ramses and Nefret were about to follow their example when his mother burst into the room without so much as a knock.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, seeing him shirtless and Nefret unlacing her boots. “But this is important. Our rooms have been searched. What about yours?”
Ramses gazed helplessly round the room. Nefret stepped out of her boots and went to the bureau.
“He wouldn’t notice unless his precious papers had been disturbed,” she said. “I think…Yes, Mother, someone has been looking through this drawer. The paper lining is askew and my underwear isn’t folded as neatly.”
“Perhaps it was the maid,” Ramses suggested. His mother was prone to melodramatic fantasies.
“The maids don’t go into drawers,” his mother said. “Is anything missing, Nefret?”
“I don’t think so.” She opened her jewelry case. “It’s all here. What about you?”
His mother sat down and folded her hands. “Emerson of course claims he is missing several important papers, but he is always losing things.”
Ramses had gone through the documents piled on his desk. “Nothing is missing. But you’re right, someone has looked through them. Looking for what, do you suppose?”
“Something small enough to be concealed under the drawer lining or in among one’s—er—personal garments. That suggests a letter or paper.”
“I can’t imagine what it could be,” Nefret said. “You haven’t received any strange messages