by Joan Hess
Salima threw me a kiss. “You are so clever, Mrs. Malloy. I knew it when we first met. I have to admit I was disappointed when you didn’t think to go to the storeroom in the basement, but at least you were amenable to my suggestion—and then put it together so neatly.”
“You were disappointed?” I said, surprised.
“What in heaven’s name is everyone talking about?” demanded Mrs. McHaver. “None of it makes an iota of sense. Why would Buffy have to kill you, Mrs. Malloy?”
“Hush,” Miriam said curtly. “We seem to have stumbled into a colony of ants, although they all have wee cloaks and daggers.”
Lord Bledrock threw up his hands, apparently forgetting that he, like Mrs. McHaver earlier, had a drink. The gin splashed on Sittermann, who growled and sidled away. “Sorry, old boy, but you have to admit this is a horrendous muddle. If this is going to go on much longer, I’d much prefer to go downstairs to the restaurant and have dinner. I long for the simplicity of a broiled haddock.”
Mahmoud stared at him. “Not just yet, Lord Bledrock. Mrs. Malloy is nearing the end of her explanation. After that, it is possible that no one will be having haddock any time soon.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I said mendaciously. “Let’s return to Buffy and her group with no name. They decided to yank Samuel out of Luxor before anyone else was killed. Buffy did her best to lure him to the hotel in Kharga, where he would be forcibly detained and interrogated. However, he was deeply suspicious of Buffy by this time. His intention was to arrange for her to be killed in a dramatic rescue attempt, with me as his witness. After we arrived, he went off to polish his plan with his group. This is where I muddled up both their schemes by not waiting politely at the café. The people in the hotel—the desk clerk, the two men upstairs, probably even the old man by the entrance—were prepared for Samuel to show up. My arrival simply bewildered them. No one had any idea what to do, so they numbly cooperated. I suppose I should be flattered that no one considered me a likely terrorist. Buffy was equally startled by my appearance, and she did her best to give Samuel the chance to come thundering down the hall to rescue her. It’s rather amazing how a small call of nature can result in the destruction of the best-laid plans.”
“You were going to kill me?” Buffy squeaked at Samuel. “After all that crap I had to put up with? Filthy hotels, cockroaches, moldy fruit? You know something—you weren’t all that spectacular in bed. Guys like you play with guns and explosives in order to compensate for your sexual inadequacies. You should be dragging a cannon behind you.”
“Oooh,” Salima said. “Now that’s really hitting below the belt.”
Miss Portia elbowed Miss Cordelia. “‘Below the belt.’ What a quaint phrase.”
Samuel ignored them. “The drive through the desert has given you hallucinations, Mrs. Malloy. You need to see a doctor—or a shrink. Aren’t you going to accuse me of assassinating Julius Caesar and Attila?”
“I’d like to think not even you could arrange that,” I said. “Shannon’s another matter. You followed her when she left Lord Bledrock’s room, and persuaded her to take a taxi to the Valley of the Kings, probably promising to find a bottle of champagne and go with her. After the taxi driver pulled away from the curb in front of the Old Winter Palace, he picked you up in front of the New Winter Palace. While Shannon either bribed the guard or sweet-talked her way in, you slipped in as well. If she was as drunk as the hotel staff say she was, she couldn’t have made it to the site on her own. There was a problem with the taxi driver, however. He couldn’t be allowed to tell the police he’d taken two people to the Valley that night. The only solution was to kill him as well.”
“I can’t believe this,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “Next Mrs. Malloy will explain how the aliens in my spacecraft can beam me from one spot to another in a nanosecond.”
“I didn’t say you killed the taxi driver. You ordered it done. You must have a great power within El Asad. The leader, perhaps? Did you convert to Islam when you were in college?”
He pounded his fist on the armrest. “No one will dare speak against me.”
Mahmoud shook his head. “You may have intimidated Egyptian nationals, but these foreigners are not so predictable. After Lord Bledrock, Mrs. McHaver, and Miriam have been charged as coconspirators and accessories to four murders, they may discover they know more than they’ve said thus far concerning the source of this new batch of precious artifacts. The British Embassy can’t protect them. The prisons in their country are unpleasant, but the ones here are even more so.”
“And, Father, even if you buy your way out of this,” Alexander said, “you’ll be booted out of the House of Lords and your club. No one will invite you to their pavilions at Ascot. No more shooting weekends and foxhunts. Neville Bledrock, Baron of Rochland, will be smeared in the press. I may renounce the title. You really ought to cooperate. If you’re lucky, you’ll simply be sent home and forbidden to ever come back.”
“It might be time to take more of an interest in the Persians and the Medes,” Miriam said.
Mrs. McHaver gazed at the empty glass on the table. “I’ve always been fond of porcelain from the early Chinese dynasties.”
“Now, wait a minute!” Samuel said. “You’re in this up to your necks.”
“Hardly.” Miriam sniffed, then patted her aunt’s shoulder. “We have no illegal artifacts in our possession; nor, apparently, will we have in the future. I can see you’re tired, Aunt Rose. We should retire to our room. Chief Inspector el-Habachi, we will anticipate a visit at your convenience.”
“No,” Lord Bledrock said, “let’s go to my suite. I’ll have room service bring up some supper. What about you, Alexander? Will we have the pleasure of your company?”
“I don’t have anything to do with this,” he said emphatically. “I’ve warned you for years that you’d get nabbed one of these days. You might compile a list of treasures in your collection to donate to the Cairo Museum. I’m sure they’d be most grateful.”
“Not my mummy,” he blustered. “It’s like a dear old friend. Many a night I’ve sat with him and poured out my troubles. He never contradicts me, or decimates my wine cellar, or gallops across the vegetable garden. The sarcophagi, the scarabs, the necklace from the tomb of Nefertari—all of that can go. I shall never give up my mummy.”
“Neville!” Mrs. McHaver said, rising and clutching his arm, “I had no idea you have a necklace from that tomb. How on earth did you acquire it, you sly dog?”
They went out the door. Miriam sighed, then once again dutifully followed her aunt. Buffy and Sittermann moved out of the way as Mahmoud ushered Samuel to the hall. Magritta realized she was no longer in custody. She caught Wallace with one hand and a bottle of scotch with the other. Nodding, they left.
Salima flopped across the sofa and said, “Bravo, Mrs. Malloy. A devilishly good denouement, replete with wild accusations, betrayals, cringing and whinging. Surely we shall have a bottle of champagne to celebrate.”
“I want to talk to you, young lady!” Sittermann snapped at Buffy.
“I have a few words for you, too,” she retorted.
They both looked at Peter, who said, “I’m not talking to either of you. I’m fed up with all this childishness. Go away and bug each other’s rooms, or just bug each other. I am on my honeymoon. Good-bye!”
They hesitated, then obediently went away. I stroked Peter’s knee until he stopped quivering with rage. I would never have married a docile man without the courage to stand up for himself, or meekly stand aside unless he chose to do so; nor would he have married a woman with those traits. I was quite proud of his restraint, although I had been a tiny bit worried that Sittermann had pushed his luck too far. I rewarded my husband with a quick kiss, intending to express my admiration in greater detail when we had privacy.
“Get up, Salima,” Alexander said. “If you promise to stop begging for champagne, I’ll buy you a damn bottle of the stuff in the bar.”
“Just
one more thing,” I said to Alexander. “I’d like your solemn promise to stop following me and the girls. I won’t demand an apology for your unnecessary roughness in the shop yesterday. However, I am sorry I wasn’t able to scratch my initials on your face.”
“You’re the one who pursued Caron and Inez in Gurna?” Salima said. “How brutish.”
“I will admit I had been keeping an eye on them and on Mrs. Malloy. Rosen had been acting quite suspiciously since he arrived in Egypt, what with all his abrupt departures and clandestine meetings. It was obvious that he wasn’t involved in any development schemes. As for Gurna, I didn’t follow the girls there. I was following Samuel, for pity’s sake. When they took off running and he went after them, I thought I’d better keep an eye on things. They would have found themselves in serious trouble if they ran into those men with the cart, but luckily they were already hiding from Samuel. He merely observed them from the other side of the road, then left. I made sure they got to the pier. Their attempts to disguise themselves was highly amusing. I think they’ve learned a few tricks from Claire.”
“And yesterday?” I asked.
“I knew what my father and his cronies were up to. I don’t think they would have hurt you, but Dr. Guindi has no scruples. I didn’t want you to end up in the basement beneath the room at the back of his shop.”
Peter grimaced. “You seem well informed. MI6, isn’t it?”
“Oh, good god,” Salima said. “Bond, James Bond. Are you packing a loaded ballpoint pen and a gold cigarette lighter that doubles as a tear gas cannister? Are you going to take the elevator to the lobby, or scale down the side of the hotel?”
“Don’t get smarmy with me, Miss Interpol,” he countered.
“How utterly absurd.”
“I have your dossier in my briefcase. Care to see it?”
Salima’s eyes flickered with anger. “Then you know that I am merely a consultant. I pass along tidbits I overhear when escorting foreign dignitaries around Luxor.”
“Bully for you.”
“Okay!” I said. “That’s it. Go elsewhere and spit at each other.”
Salima looked at me. “Does that mean you really, truly want us to leave? I’ll be much more creative after another martini or two. I can’t promise you a fair fight, however. He’s inarticulate, which is sad when you consider the price of his education. Perhaps it’s adequate to charm brainless debutantes.”
“Or yours,” Alexander inserted, “to charm Cambridge tutors who can’t keep their pants zipped.”
Peter opened the door. “Have a lovely evening.”
We could hear them bickering all the way to the elevator. I wondered if we’d be invited to the wedding. We retreated to the balcony.
“I suppose Caron and Inez will be back any minute,” I said.
“Bakr has orders to drive them to the Hilton near Karnak for dinner. I thought we’d order room service and have a quiet meal.”
“No haddock, I hope.”
“Not a chance.” He stroked my back. “You’re not a member of any covert organizations, are you?”
“Just the ACLU and the independent booksellers outfit. Neither of them offered me a decoder ring. Just think how much easier this would have been if we’d had a nice, calm meeting two weeks ago, and everybody volunteered the name of his or her covert agency. Did I mention that Sittermann had my apartment searched? Luanne called to tell me, but I didn’t believe her. I do, now. If my bookstore was searched as well, I do hope they straightened the files. I could barely get the drawer closed.”
“You want me to do anything about it?”
“No,” I said. “I want to sit here and hold your hand and gaze at the mountains and listen to the parties on the ships across the corniche. That’s not entirely true. I have some other ideas in mind, but I’m afraid Abdullah will show up and stare disapprovingly at us. ‘One hears things, Sitt,’ he’ll intone, in his ominously soft way.”
“Mahmoud told him to take a vacation for a few days, so we don’t have to worry what he might hear. Mahmoud keeps him on the payroll, since guests have been known to speak indiscreetly in front of the staff. If we turn on the taps in the bathtub, we’ll have about twenty minutes to find some way to occupy ourselves before we go for a dip. We can have a leisurely soak, then order dinner and talk about Cairo.”
“No more American Embassy?”
“We won’t even drive by it in a taxi. I told Mahmoud we didn’t have hotel reservations, so I couldn’t leave a number. We both knew I was lying. All this murder and conspiracy and stolen antiquities business can wait for a few days.”
“Caron and Inez are eager to see the pyramids at Giza,” I said.
“We can take carriages and see them in style. Are you going to allow yourself to be photographed on a camel? It’s traditional.”
I shook my head. “Not in a million years. The last thing I’m going to do is be bullied into sitting atop one of those nasty, flea-ridden, smelly beasts that would spit in my eye given half a chance. I will never be photographed sitting on a camel. Trust me on that.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In Feburary 2005, Dr. Barbara Mertz (aka Elizabeth Peters, author of the Amelia Peabody Egyptology mysteries set in Victorian times) graciously allowed me to trail after her to Egypt. Rumor had it that KV63, possibly the greatest discovery in the Valley of the Kings since Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, was about to be opened. Although we missed the high drama by two weeks (excavations move exceedingly slowly), I still managed to have many Very Cool experiences.
Because Barbara is so esteemed within Egyptology circles, we were invited inside the yellow tape at the KV63 site to sit under a canvas awning, drink tea, and watch the workmen bring up rubble to be sifted and examined. I was introduced to the key players, who no doubt felt required to be nice to me. No one, by the way, was murdered.
We shopped at cramped, dusty shops, where we were invariably offered tea while various bits of jewelry were presented for our approval. Dr. Ray Johnson of Chicago House gave me a private tour of Luxor Temple and invited us to dinner with the group in residence there (including a Canadian mason). Dr. Marjorie Fisher invited us on a three-day cruise on the Nubian Sea. Bill and Nancy Petty served us a lovely dinner on their dahabiyya. Dennis Forbes and I debated the propriety of allowing artifacts to be displayed in museums outside of Egypt. Dear Joel Cole offered a much-needed arm as we walked on rough, rocky surfaces at the sites, saving me from several potentially embarrassing tumbles. Salima Ikram, who has the energy of a well-shaken bottle of champagne, brightened every experience with her wit and knowledge.
On most evenings, we sat on the balcony of our suite at the Old Winter Palace, watching the feluccas drift on the Nile as the sun set behind the mountains. Muezzins wailed from the numerous mosques. Drummers performed on the pier across the corniche. We did not drink tea. We spent a few days at the end of our trip in Cairo, where we attended a reception at the American Embassy. Charles Roberts, an old friend of Barbara’s from Maryland, joined us, and he and I rode in a carriage to view the pyramids. I would speak more kindly of him had he not suggested I stand next to the camel for a photograph.
All in all, I had innumerable Very Cool experiences, all due to the graciousness of Barbara Mertz. She introduced me to fascinating people, led the way through the temples and the Valley of the Kings, translated hieroglyphs, made the arrangements to minimalize wear and tear on my bad back, and answered my idiotic questions with patience. She was a perfect traveling companion and will always be a perfect friend.
Joan Hess
October 2007
P.S. I depicted the Old Winter Palace with fairly reasonable accuracy, but there were certain elements that I changed because of the plot. Get over it. Also, there are several ways to spell words taken from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and contemporary Arabic words. I relied on my travel guides and several Web sites. Please don’t send me letters telling me I got it wrong.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at Joan Hess�
��s next mystery
Busy Bodies
Available May 2009 from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
CHAPTER 1
I am not an adept liar, which I think speaks well for my character. However, this deficiency has propelled me into sticky situations in the past, and I had a foreboding feeling it was about to do so again.
“Tea, Miss Parchester?” I said into the telephone receiver. “I’d love to, but I—I simply don’t see when I could—well, I was planning on organizing my files, and I promised Caron that I’d drive her and Inez to the mall, and—”
Miss Emily Parchester had taught high-school students for forty years before her retirement and therefore was unimpressed with my sputtery excuses. “Oh, do bring the girls with you. I so enjoy their youthful enthusiasm. I’ll see all of you at five o’clock.”
Groaning, I replaced the receiver. In that my bookstore was bereft of customers, I received no sympathetic, curious, or even incurious glances. The die was cast: Miss Parchester, a mistress of manipulation, was expecting us for tea. In the past, I’d masqueraded as a substitute teacher in order to come to her rescue when she’d been accused of embezzling money from the journalism accounts and poisoning the principal. I’d done extraordinary things (among them being charged with three felonies—a personal best) when her basset hounds were kidnapped by an unscrupulous lout. Although the concept of a cup of tea should have sounded innocuous, it didn’t.