The Falcon at the Portal: An Amelia Peabody Mystery (4 page)

"There was a flat roof just under Percy's window and an easy drop to the ground," Ramses finished. "He could have got out it almost anytime if he hadn't been such a—er—cautious soul. I knew Zaal's men would be roaring drunk that night, so we waited
till the sounds of revelry died into snores, and proceeded on our way. The hardest part was trying not to trip over recumbent bodies."

"So it was you who took the beating."

Ramses shrugged. "I wanted to get away that same night, and I was afraid Percy would collapse completely if anyone touched him. It wasn't all that bad. Zaal was saving me for... Oh, the devil with it. You caught me fairly, but I hope you won't tell anyone else. Especially Percy."

"Why not? Humiliating him publicly would be a breach of form, I suppose, but what's wrong with making him feel thoroughly ashamed of himself?"

"Good God, David, are you really so naive about human nature? Percy has held a grudge against me since we were children. How do you suppose he'd feel if he learned I was the sole witness to his contemptible performance?" Ramses stood up and stretched stiffened muscles. "I'd better change my shirt before I go downstairs. I seem to have spilled quite a lot of beer on it."

David wasn't so easily put off. "What are you going to do about this?"

"About what? Oh—Percy's interesting fabrications. Nothing. And neither are you. If you breathe a word of this—"

"Not even to Nefret?"

"Especially to Nefret."

"There you go again," David exclaimed. "Why do you object to showing yourself in a favorable light to a girl you want to impress? You've been in love with her for years. Don't tell me you've stopped caring for her."

"Let's just say that I've decided to stop dashing my brains out against the stone wall of her indifference. If she hasn't learned to appreciate my sterling character and spectacular good looks by this time, it's not likely she will."

"But she is very—"

"Fond of me?" Ramses conquered a childish urge to throw his beer-stained shirt at David. "I know she is. That's precisely why you mustn't breathe a word of this to her. Even if you swore her to secrecy, one day that flaming temper of hers would get the better of her and she wouldn't be able to resist taunting Percy, or blurting out the truth to someone who had made a rude remark about me. Then the word would get back to Percy, and he'd resent me even more. I have enough enemies as it is."

"I can't argue with that." David picked up the despised volume and rose. "But what possible harm can your cousin do you? He's too much of a coward to attack you directly, and no English gentleman would knife an enemy in the back, would he?"

Ramses turned and began rummaging in the wardrobe. It was hard not to snap back when David jeered about proper form and noblesse oblige and conduct becoming an English gentleman. He despised that sort of snobbery as much as David did, and David knew it.

Conquering his irritation, he took out a clean shirt and faced his friend. "Tell Mother I'll be down shortly."

David gave Ramses a long, level look before going out. It was rather like seeing one's reflection in a mirror, Ramses thought. No close observer would have mistaken one for the other, but a superficial description would have fit either—height six feet, hair and eyes black, face long, skin olive, nose prominent, build... slight?

Smiling, he slipped into his shirt and began doing up the buttons. Percy was a joke—a bad joke, a braggart and coward and sneak. No, a knife between the ribs wasn't his style, but there were other ways of damaging an enemy—methods a decent man like David could never understand. Ramses's smile faded and a little shiver ran through him, as if someone had walked over the spot that would one day be his grave.

The rest of us were already at breakfast when Ramses entered the room. I had felt it necessary to give him a little lecture the previous night, about working too hard and not getting enough sleep, and I was pleased to observe that he had apparently taken it to heart—something I could not always count upon his doing— for the unmistakable (to a mother) signs of fatigue were not apparent. Like the Egyptians he so closely resembles, Ramses has black eyes and long thick lashes. When he is tired, drooping lids hood his orbs and dark circles underline them. He pretended not to notice my intent regard and began consuming eggs and bacon, toast and muffins.

The others had been arguing about who would go to meet our Egyptian friends, whose boat was due to dock in London that day.

It would have been unthinkable to have the wedding without those members of David's family who were closest to him and to us. Now that dear Abdullah was gone, there were only three of them. Selim, Abdullah's youngest son, had replaced his father as our reis; Daoud, one of David's innumerable cousins, was deeply attached to Lia, and she to him; Fatima, who looked after our house in Egypt, had become a trusted friend.

Everyone wanted to go to meet them, including Gargery. Voices were raised. Emerson's language became increasingly intemperate. Rose, our devoted housekeeper, kept buttering muffins for Ramses and urging him to stay at home and have a nice rest. Really, I thought, in mounting exasperation, there never was a household in which so many people felt free to offer their unsolicited opinions! I am bound to confess that our relationship with certain of our servants is somewhat unusual, owing in part to the criminal encounters that have so often disturbed the even tenor of domestic life. A butler who wields a cudgel as handily as he carves a roast is entitled to certain privileges, and Rose had been Ramses's loyal defender since he was three years of age, her affection unshaken by the mummified mice, the explosions of various chemicals, and the square acres of mud he had tracked through the house.

"Rose is right, Ramses," I said, nodding at her. "The weather looks unsettled, and you should not risk catching a cold."

Ramses raised his eyes from his plate. "As you like, Mother."

"Now what are you up to?" I demanded.

"I cannot imagine," said my son, "why you should suppose that my ready agreement with your thoughtful suggestion should be taken as an indication of—"

"Quite right," said Emerson, who knew that Ramses was capable of continuing the sentence until subject and verb were buried under an avalanche of subordinate clauses. "I will go in your place."

I had been afraid he would say that. Emerson's accompanying the welcoming committee was one thing; Emerson driving the motorcar, which he would insist upon doing, was quite another. The locals had become used to him, and promptly cleared off the road whenever he took the automobile out. One could not count on the inhabitants of London being so obliging.

After I had let everyone express his or her opinion, which is the inalienable right of every citizen of a democracy, I informed them of my decision.

"Nefret must go; Fatima will be more comfortable with another female present. David must go, they are his kin. There won't be room in the automobile for anyone else. Daoud, you know, is a very large person. So, that is settled. You had better get off at once. Telephone if the boat is late in docking, or if you are otherwise delayed. Drive carefully. Wrap up well. Good-bye."

It began to rain late in the afternoon, and the cloudy skies produced an early twilight. Nefret had telephoned shortly after midday to say that the boat was late and would not dock for several hours. All was in readiness; I had ordered cheerful fires to be lit in every room, and welcoming lights shone through the dusk. I was standing at the drawing room window looking out when a voice made me start.

"They won't be here for at least another hour, Mother. You aren't worried, are you? David is an excellent driver."

"He won't be driving, Ramses. Nefret will insist on showing off, and he hasn't the gumption to prevent her." I turned from the window. He was close by me, though I had not heard him approach. I greatly dislike that noiseless cat-footed walk he affects, and when I saw that the shoulders of his coat were dark with moisture and that his hair sparkled with raindrops, irritability prompted me to remark, "You've been out in the wet without a hat again. How many times must I tell you—"

"Your concern is appreciated but needless, Mother. Why don't you sit down by the fire and let me ring for tea? Nefret said not to wait."

I could not deny the sense of this, so I took the chair he held for me. After he had rung the bell he leaned against the mantel. "I want to ask you about this," he began, reaching into his pocket.

I stared in surprise at the object he took out. It lay curled in the palm of his hand, blinking round blue eyes and twitching minuscule whiskers. So complete was its state of relaxation that it would have rolled off onto the floor if Ramses's long fingers had not enclosed its body. He appeared as surprised as I.

"It is a cat, my dear," I said, laughing. "A kitten, rather. So that is where you went, to the stable to inspect Hathor's new litter."

"I forgot it was there," Ramses said self-consciously. ''It crawled in and went to sleep, so I—er—that's not what I wanted to show you, Mother."

The rattle of crockery presaged the arrival of Gargery and one of the maids with the tea trays. Close on their heels came Emerson, shirt wrinkled, hair becomingly disheveled, hands ink-stained, face beaming.

"Not here yet?" he inquired, inspecting the room as if he thought Fatima might be hiding behind a chair and Daoud concealed by the draperies. "Ramses, why are you standing there holding a cat? Put it down, my boy, and take a chair. Hallo, Pea-body, my dear. Hallo, Gargery. Hallo—er—who's this?"

"Sarah, sir," Gargery replied. "She came to us last week and is now, I believe, able to be trusted in the drawing room."

"Certainly. Hallo, Sarah." He advanced on the poor girl with the obvious intention of shaking hands.

Emerson has absolutely no notion of how to get on with servants. He treats them like social equals, which is extremely trying for them. Those who remain in our service eventually become accustomed to him, but the girl was young and rather pretty, and although Gargery must have warned her about Emerson, she let out a little squeak of alarm as he loomed over her with affable interest warming his handsome face.

Ramses came to the rescue, depositing the kitten onto Emerson's outstretched hand and relieving the housemaid of the heavy tray, which he placed on a nearby table. The girl's eyes followed him with doglike adoration. I let out an inaudible sigh. So it was to be Ramses with this one. All the new female servants fell in love with my husband or my son, or both. It was only a minor inconvenience, since Emerson never noticed and Ramses was too well-brought-up to misbehave—not in my house, at any rate!— but I did get tired of stumbling over misty-eyed females.

I told Gargery we would wait on ourselves, and he removed himself and Sarah. Emerson sat down with the kitten on his knee. Most of our current crop of cats were descendants of two Egyptian felines and they had bred true to type—brindled fawn-and-brown coats, large ears, and a high level of intelligence. How this small creature would turn out it was impossible to say, but her face bore a striking resemblance to that of her great—or possibly great-great-, I had lost count—grandmother Bastet, who had been
Ramses's special companion. Now wide awake and curious, she swarmed up Emerson's shirtfront and perched on his shoulder.

Emerson chuckled. "Has it a name?"

"She is only six weeks old," Ramses replied. "Nefret hasn't chosen names for this litter yet. Father, I was about to ask Mother—"

"It's a good thing the Egyptian pantheon is so extensive," Emerson remarked. "We've used the obvious names—Hathor, Horus, Anubis, Sekhmet—but there are plenty of obscure deities yet to be—catch her, Ramses, she's heading for the cream jug."

The creature had taken a flying leap from his shoulder onto the tea table. Ramses scooped her up and held her, despite her squeaks and scratches, while I poured cream into a saucer and put it on the floor. Emerson was vastly entertained by the kitten's attempts to drink and purr simultaneously. I was not so entertained at seeing the Persian rug spattered with cream.

"Mother," said Ramses, absently wiping his bleeding fingers on his shirtfront, "I was about to ask—"

"Don't do that," I exclaimed. "Use a serviette. Good gracious, you are as bad as your father; it is impossible to keep the two of you in clean shirts. What Rose will say—"