The Golden One (58 page)

‘Curse it, Peabody,’ Emerson mumbled through a bite of cheese, ‘have you been digging illicitly?’

‘How could you suppose I would do such a thing, Emerson? Ali brought it to me. It has been properly recorded.’

‘Oh. All right, then.’

‘What does it say?’ Nefret asked, leaning over Ramses’s shoulder. A loosened lock of hair brushed his cheek. He twisted it around his finger and smiled at her. ‘It
appears to be a prayer – to Hathor, Divine Mother, Lady of Fragrance.’

‘You can translate it later,’ Emerson declared, wiping his fingers on his trousers. ‘I want to finish that section today.’

‘I trust you have not forgotten we are dining with Cyrus this evening,’ his wife reminded him.

Emerson groaned. Cyrus grinned. ‘I asked Selim too,’ he said significantly.

‘Hmmm,’ said Ramses’s mother.

‘Hmph,’ said Emerson. ‘Bertie, you haven’t told me how you are getting on. Not that I have any right to ask, I suppose.’

‘Don’t be a dog in the manger,’ his wife said.

‘You have every right to ask, sir,’ Bertie said earnestly. ‘It’s going well, I think. I’ve got most of the known tombs located now. This is a working copy, of
course; I keep the master copy at home and add to it every night.’

‘Well done.’ Emerson slapped him on the back. ‘Now – back to work, eh?’

Not until later that day was Ramses able to arrange a private conversation with his mother.

‘Do you really intend to tell Cyrus about Khan Yunus? You know, Mother, that the Official Secrets Act – ’

‘I do not consider myself bound by any document to which I did not agree in advance,’ said his mother. Her chin protruded even more than usual. ‘We must tell Cyrus something.
It isn’t fair to him to keep him wholly in the dark. Ramses . . . dear . . .’ She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘I know you would rather not talk or think of the affair again, but
if you will brace yourself, one more time . . . You have my word that Selim’s narrative will not get me in trouble with the War Office!’

‘All right, Mother. Dear,’ he added, with a smile that brought a faint flush to her cheeks.

It had taken Katherine Vandergelt a while to become comfortable with their Egyptian friends. She had had to come to terms with her prejudices, or at least conceal them – his mother
hadn’t left her any choice! No one but a boor could have treated Selim with less than the courtesy his fine manners and inherent dignity deserved; Katherine’s greeting was warm and
friendly. She displayed even more warmth towards Jumana, whose pallor and morose expression obviously shocked her, and kept pressing delicacies on her. Jumana, who had not wanted to come, but had
been made to, pushed the food around her plate and looked wistful. Cyrus’s majordomo had outdone himself – ‘to welcome them home’. The table glittered with crystal, and the
silverware shone.

After dinner they retired to the sitting room for coffee. Selim knew what was on the agenda. He had been perfectly at ease up till that time; now he began to fidget and tug at his beard. Stage
fright? Or fear that he would forget the lines in which he had been coached by the great Sitt Hakim?

‘All right now, Amelia, we’re ready,’ Cyrus said, settling himself comfortably in a deep armchair. ‘I’ve been looking forward to this all day.’

She smiled complacently and sipped her coffee. ‘Selim will tell it. Go ahead, Selim.’

All eyes turned towards Selim, completing his discomfiture. As he confessed later to Ramses, he would rather have faced a horde of assailants, armed to the teeth, than those focused stares. He
cleared his throat.

‘I am no storyteller,’ he began in a voice several tones higher than his usual baritone. ‘Not like Daoud.’

‘All the better,’ Cyrus said with a smile. ‘We know Daoud’s tendency to – er – embroider.’

‘Start with the motorcar,’ Emerson suggested, seeing that Selim needed encouragement. ‘It was a fine motorcar, and you drove magnificently.’

Once launched, Selim described the charms of the motorcar in loving detail and dwelled with excessive but pardonable enthusiasm on the perils of the long journey and his skill as a driver.
‘Khan Yunus is an ugly town, not like Luxor,’ he declared. ‘There were many soldiers. The house of the friend of the Father of Curses was where we stayed; it was very dirty. It
was there that the real adventure began!’

‘About time,’ muttered Cyrus. ‘Khan Yunus, eh? What did you go there for?’

Selim glanced at Ramses’s mother, who gave him an encouraging nod. He had got over his self-consciousness and was enjoying himself – as well he might, Ramses thought. Never, not even
from his mother or Daoud, had he heard such a wild story.

They had been summoned to Khan Yunus to rescue a beautiful maiden – the daughter of a Bedouin sheikh, their friend and ally – from the evil old man who had carried her off, with
designs on her fortune and her virtue. It was Ramses who had gone after the maiden and succeeded, after many dangers, in rescuing her. Selim described some of the dangers, which included a duel
with scimitars. Ramses covered his face with his hand.

‘He does not like to have his courage praised,’ said Selim. ‘But it was not over. The evil old man sent men to take her back, and we had to fight them off and escape, in the
night, with enemies pursuing us and the town in flames. We stole horses from under the very noses of the Australians! But I have not told you about the ragged beggar, who was a policeman in
disguise – and a good disguise it was; he had fleas and smelled bad. The evil old man was a thief, you see, who had stolen jewels from many rich ladies and important antiquities from the
Cairo Museum. The beggar was trying to catch him and bring him to justice, but in the end it was not he who captured the villain, it was Ramses.’

‘It was not,’ Ramses exclaimed, driven beyond endurance. ‘It was Father, with – ’

‘Hmph,’ said Emerson loudly. ‘Very well told, Selim. You see, Vandergelt, it was just another of our attempts to assist the police. It is the duty of every citizen.’

‘How about the maiden?’ Cyrus inquired. ‘You didn’t bring her home with you?’

Selim sighed and looked soulful.

‘The – er – policeman took her away,’ Ramses said. He’d had as much as he could stand.

‘He was her lover, I think,’ Selim added.

‘Oh, I see. You mind if I ask a few questions, Selim?’

Selim had enjoyed himself, once he got well under way, but he knew better than to risk an interrogation by Cyrus Vandergelt. He got hastily to his feet. ‘I must go. It is late. Thank you
for your kind hospitality.’

‘Now see here, Amelia,’ Cyrus exclaimed.

‘We mustn’t detain him, Cyrus, he has other responsibilities. Jumana, you are excused as well. Selim will take you home.’

‘But I want – ’

‘You have been ill. You need your rest.’

‘I feel much better!’

She looked almost her old self, eyes bright, cheeks pink. The eyes were fixed on Ramses, with an expression that made him want to run for cover. His mother snapped, ‘Do as you are
told.’

Ramses went to the door with Selim while Jumana was collecting her wrap. ‘I owe you for that, Selim,’ he murmured.

‘I only said what the Sitt Hakim told me to. But why are you angry? I know what you did, and if I had done such things I would tell everyone. But,’ Selim said, struck by a new idea,
‘we do it to make the men fear us and the women admire us, yes? All men fear the Brother of Demons, and you have won the heart of the only woman you want. When Nur Misur looks at you, it is
as if the sun were shining in her eyes.’

‘I’m not angry, Selim.’ Ramses embraced him in the Egyptian manner. ‘You are a good friend – and a shameless romantic.’

‘And what is wrong with that?’

Selim’s grin faded into a scowl when Jumana came out of the house. He mounted his horse and hauled her up in front of him with no more ceremony than if she had been a sack of grain. Ramses
heard them exchanging insults as they rode off. Serves them both right, he thought.

When he returned to the drawing room, his mother had taken charge of the proceedings. ‘Unbelievable or not, that story is what Selim told Daoud. By the time Daoud finishes embellishing it,
it will bear little resemblance to fact.’

‘And I’ll sound like even more of a posturing ass,’ Ramses said sourly.

‘Stop complaining,’ his mother said. ‘Goodness gracious, I did the best I could! It was necessary to account for our absence in some way. Our friends at Atiyeh saw the motorcar
and realized we were preparing for a long desert trip. By the time we left Khan Yunus, everyone knew who we were; they will pass the story on, and sooner or later our activities will be gossipped
about throughout Egypt and Palestine.’

‘It was a pretty good yarn,’ Cyrus admitted. He lit one of his cheroots and leaned back. ‘And no wilder than a lot of your adventures. I’m sorry, though, I can’t
believe in the beautiful maiden. Khan Yunus is only ten miles from Gaza. Need I say more?’

His knowing smile brought a responsive twinkle to her eyes. ‘Oddly enough, Cyrus, the beautiful maiden is one of the true facts. However, there is no use denying that our mission involved
more serious matters. You’ve known for some time that we have had dealings with the secret service, haven’t you?’

‘A fellow would have to be pretty durned stupid not to have strong suspicions, Amelia. With a war on, and the way you keep appearing and disappearing without explanation, and your
expertise in certain areas . . .’ His eyes moved to Ramses. ‘Well, I’m not asking for details. I just hope to God the filthy business is over soon. You can’t keep on taking
chances without something bad happening, and we couldn’t spare you. Any of you.’

‘Amen,’ Katherine said.

‘Er – quite,’ Bertie added.

‘It is over,’ declared Emerson, squirming a little in the warm flood of friendship. ‘A bloo– excuse me, Katherine – a blooming nuisance too. Now we can –
’

‘Just one more question,’ Cyrus interrupted. ‘You don’t have to answer it, but I’m real curious. Was that so-called beggar anybody I know?’

Caught off-guard and at a loss as to how to answer, Emerson turned for help to his wife. ‘You have met the gentleman,’ she said smoothly.

‘And he’s on our side now?’

‘Oh, yes. Cyrus, would you think me rude if I asked for a whiskey and soda?’

She looked so smug, her son had to fight to keep from laughing. Trust his mother – she never lied ‘unless it was absolutely necessary’, and this time she had spoken the literal
truth. Cyrus had been well acquainted with Sir Edward Washington, but it had not been that gentleman he meant.

Naturally, Emerson felt obliged to criticize me for encouraging Selim to tell a pack of lies and, with typical inconsistency, for telling Cyrus more than he deemed advisable. We
had quite a refreshing little argument about it on the drive home. I had always felt somewhat guilty about keeping Cyrus in the dark – if he was in the dark. He was too intelligent and he
knew us too well to overlook certain happenings. I had told him no more than he already suspected, and it pleased him to be taken into our confidence.

He was even happier next day, when he found a new tomb. It wasn’t much of a tomb; the offering chapel had been completely destroyed and the burial chamber was empty of all but scraps, but
there were several well-preserved paintings.

‘That will keep him out of mischief for a while,’ remarked Emerson to me. ‘It will take several days to carry out a meticulous excavation and make plans. He can have Jumana to
help him.’

‘Kind of you,’ I said. ‘She gets on your nerves, doesn’t she?’

‘She talks too much. I almost preferred her moping. What did you do to get her out of it?’

‘Nothing – unless it was that nasty medicine. I hope there is not a sinister – ’

‘Sinister, bah! There you go again, borrowing trouble.’

‘You are right, Emerson,’ I admitted. ‘I am so accustomed to having some worry on my mind that it is difficult to realize our enemies have been vanquished and our problems
solved.’

‘Except for one,’ Emerson muttered. ‘ “The hand of the god.” What god? Where?’

Sennia joined us for tea that afternoon, so full of exciting news, she neglected the biscuits. ‘The Great Cat of Re has caught a snake!’

We all looked at the cat, who had assumed one of those Yoga-like positions necessary for the proper cleaning of feline underparts. It looked so silly, with one leg in the air and the other
behind its ear, we all burst out laughing.

‘A very large snake?’ Emerson inquired.

‘No larger than this,’ said Fatima, measuring approximately five inches with finger and thumb. ‘But it was still alive, Father of Curses, and I do not know whether there will
be any dinner tonight, because it is still somewhere in the kitchen and Maaman says – ’

‘It has probably escaped long ago,’ Emerson said comfortably.

‘Then
you
tell Maaman,’ said Fatima, thumping the teapot down on the table. ‘He says he will not cook.’

‘Oh, curse it,’ said Emerson. ‘I suppose I’ll have to do something or we won’t get any dinner.’

‘Take the Great Cat of Re,’ Sennia suggested.

‘Not a bad idea,’ said Emerson, scooping the cat up. Sennia crammed two biscuits into her mouth and went with them.