Night Train to Memphis vbm-5

by Elizabeth Peters

  ‘They aren’t scholars,’ I said. ‘Just tourists having fun. Why should they do any work when they have an expert like you to set them straight on every possible subject?’

  Larry raised a hand to conceal his smile, but Foggington-Smythe only nodded gravely. ‘I suppose that’s true.’ Then he turned to Larry, who, I suspected, was the real attraction. ‘Is it true that our schedule has been changed because the authorities learned that terrorists were planning an attack at Meydum tomorrow?’

  Larry’s jaw dropped. ‘Where did you hear that?’

  ‘That’s the rumour that is going around.’

  ‘To the best of my knowledge there’s no basis for it,’ Larry said firmly. He glanced at the door of the saloon. ‘At any rate, we’re under way now. Why don’t you take Vicky out on deck and show her some of the sights?’

  I didn’t blame him for wanting to escape from Perry, or even for using me as a decoy. ‘Sounds good to me,’ I said agreeably. ‘Sure you won’t join us?’

  ‘Duty calls, I’m afraid,’ Larry murmured. ‘This may necessitate an alteration in my plans for the reception and formal opening of the Tetisheri tomb. I’ll have to find out what’s going on.’

  His staff fell in behind him as he made for the door, and Perry led me out.

  The sun was sinking in a smoky haze. I couldn’t see any of the sights Perry pointed out; I don’t think he could either, but he indicated their location and went on to tell me all about them. I let the words wash over me; an occasional ‘Really?’ or ‘How fascinating!’ was all he wanted anyhow. The view was lovely. Sunset colours stained the rippling water and lights began to twinkle along the shore.

  ‘Damn,’ Perry said suddenly. ‘Here comes the bride.’ He chuckled at his own wit, and went on, ‘Pretty little thing, but without a brain in her head; I suppose she wants to ask some fool question . . . Ah, Mrs Tregarth. If you are in quest of information, perhaps you would be good enough to wait until this evening. I am lecturing on Egyptian literature but will take questions afterwards.’

  It was as rude a put-down as I had ever heard, but Mary met it head-on. Smiling, she drawled, ‘How frightfully kind of you. It was Vicky I wanted to talk with, actually.’

  ‘Oh? Oh. Well, then – uh . . . Excuse me.’

  Mary gave me a conspiratorial smile. The breeze whipped her full skirt around her calves and moulded her silk blouse to her body. ‘He’s the world’s most pompous ass, isn’t he? I hope I didn’t misinterpret your expression of glazed boredom, Vicky.’

  ‘You rushed to my rescue?’ I inquired.

  With a graceful gesture she invited me to walk with her, and we strolled on in silence for a while. Then she stopped, leaning against the rail, and turned to face me.

  ‘I really did want to speak with you. To thank you for being so kind to Mother Tregarth.’

  ‘I just happened to be there.’

  ‘You did what I ought to have done.’ Mary’s pretty mouth twisted. ‘I’m so squeamish; I can’t stand seeing someone I love in pain. I hope you don’t think badly of me. I’d like us to be friends.’

  It was not a relationship that held much appeal for me. A ghastly picture formed in my mind – the bride and the groom and the bride’s new friend, in a cosy trio. I couldn’t bring myself to slap her down, though. She had to tilt her head back to look into my eyes, and hers were big and wide and innocent. The irises were an unusual shade of golden brown; they glowed like amber in the sunset light.

  ‘I admire women like you so much,’ she went on. ‘You’re so intelligent and so capable – so in control of your life. Not like me.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘That’s very . . .’

  ‘Inaccurate’ was the word that came to mind. I substituted a feeble ‘kind.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be intruding,’ Mary went on eagerly. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think that. If we’d wanted to be alone together we wouldn’t have joined a cruise like this one.’

  ‘Or invited your mother-in-law to come along,’ I said, before I could stop myself. Instead of being offended at my candour, Mary laughed.

  ‘I needn’t tell you it was the other way round. Poor darling, she’s so devoted to John. She kept sighing and dropping hints about how lonely she’d be.’

  So her doting son had yielded and let her come along? That theory certainly cast a new light on John’s character. When he had spoken of his mother – which wasn’t often – it had been with detached, amused exasperation.

  ‘John is a very private person in many ways,’ Mary went on. ‘And very reserved. He doesn’t make a public show of his feelings. When we’re alone . . .’ She broke off with an embarrassed laugh. ‘I don’t know why I’m saying these things. You have a way of inducing confidences, Vicky. I feel so comfortable with you.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ I didn’t trust myself to say more.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my unburdening myself.’

  I minded. The last thing I wanted was to be the recipient of her confidences about her relationship with John. Had he suggested she approach me? Surely not; it was to his advantage to keep us apart. More likely she had picked me as a confidante because I was unattached, and closer to her age than the other women on the boat. I had wondered – oh, yes, I admit I had – why he’d settled on a half-baked girl barely out of finishing school, but it was becoming clearer now. Adoration, that was what he wanted – unquestioning, doglike devotion. And money? It was one of his favourite things, and I had already noticed, as what woman wouldn’t, that Mary’s clothes had not been bought at Marks and Spencer.

  ‘Not a bit,’ I said, lying in my teeth. ‘Uh – I’ve been admiring your earrings. They’re excellent reproductions.’

  She accepted this as a tactful, if ungraceful, method of changing the subject. ‘Oh, they aren’t copies. Second century B.C., according to John. He gave them to me.’

  Before I could stop her she had unfastened one and handed it to me.

  I was almost afraid to touch it. The miniature head was only three-quarters of an inch high, but every feature had been moulded with delicate accuracy. It was a classically Greek face, with the long unbroken line from the forehead to the end of the nose, but on its brow it wore an ornament that was not Greek – the horns and full moon of the Egyptian goddess Isis. A modern jeweller had added new wires. One wouldn’t want to keep bending the ancient gold; it was almost pure, close to twenty-four carat.

  Silently I returned it to her. I had never seen anything I coveted more.

  ‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’ Casually she replaced the earring.

  ‘Gorgeous.’

  ‘He asked if I’d rather have diamonds,’ Mary said innocently. ‘But I prefer these. He has such wonderful taste.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said. The enamelled golden rose, invisible under my blouse, seemed to burn into my hide.

  ‘There he is.’ Mary looked past me. ‘I guess it’s time to dress for dinner. I’m so glad we had this talk, Vicky.’

  She didn’t ask me to join them. I watched her hurry towards him; he stood waiting, arms folded, like the Emperor preparing to receive a humble subject, and then I turned to go – the other way.

  There was no warning, not even a rush of running feet. He hit me hard and low, hurling me forward. I bounced off the rail with a force that knocked the breath out of me and crashed to the deck, derriere first, the back of my head a close second. Bright specks darted through the blackness like pretty little shooting stars.

  After a while I opened my eyes, and immediately closed them again when I saw a familiar face hovering over me. Then I opened them again. Not that familiar. It was Foggington-Smythe.

  ‘Good old Perry,’ I croaked.

  ‘Good,’ said good old Perry. ‘You know me. You’d better lie still, though; that was quite a crack on the head.’

  ‘She’s not got concussion.’ John was sitting on the deck next to me. He was rubbing his wrist and scowling like a gargoyle on a cathedral. ‘I think I broke my arm,’ he went on bitte
rly.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You were the one who knocked me down. I should have known.’

  ‘I think I broke my arm,’ John repeated.

  It was like old times, me bruised and prostrate, John whining. ‘God damn it, what’d you do that for?’ I demanded. I sat up and then grabbed the back of my head. ‘Ow.’

  Perry put a manly arm around my shoulders and squeezed. ‘Ow,’ I said again.

  ‘I’ll carry you to the infirmary,’ Perry aunounced.

  ‘No, you won’t. I don’t have a concussion.’ I indicated John, who was still nursing his arm. ‘Carry him. I’ll take his feet. We can drop him, heavily, several times along the way.’

  The corner of John’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing. I saw Mary, pressed up against the rail, her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide and horrified. I saw the spattered dirt and fragments of pottery and the broken remains of the jasmine that had been in the pot. It had hit the deck in the exact spot where I would have been standing if someone hadn’t knocked me out of the way.

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘Vicky, don’t be angry with him.’ Mary knelt beside me and put her arm around me, from the other side. A pretty tableau we must have made. ‘It was my fault, I saw the flowerpot tottering on the edge and cried out. John acted instinctively, as any gentleman would.’

  I glowered at John. His eyelids fell, but not in time to hide the fury that had darkened his eyes to sapphire. I wasn’t moved to apologize; at that point I wouldn’t have given him credit for good intentions if the testimonial had come from the pope. ‘Oh, right,’ I snarled. ‘Thanks a lot. My head hurts worse than it would have done if that little bitty pot had landed on it and I’ve got a bruise on my bum the size of a soup tureen.’

  ‘It might have hurt you badly, Vicky,’ Mary insisted.

  I staggered to my feet, assisted by Perry. ‘Worse than this? Oh, well. I guess I’ll live. Excuse me. I’ve got to shower and change and find out who tried to brain me.’

  ‘You aren’t implying that it was deliberate, I hope,’ Perry exclaimed.

  ‘An unfortunate accident,’ said John. ‘Or a warning.’

  ‘Warning?’ Perry repeated, staring.

  ‘To enjoy life to the full while one can,’ John said sententiously. ‘“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” This is a world fraught with peril; one never knows when the axe will fall. Life is at best – ’

  ‘Darling, please.’ Mary abandoned me and hurried to take his arm. ‘Vicky will think you’re making fun of her.’

  ‘Oh, she’d never be mistaken about that,’ John said.

  ‘Never,’ I agreed, and let Perry lead me away.

  Chapter Four

  I

  TERRORISTS, LOW WATER, or whatever, the change in schedule couldn’t have been more welcome. It would give me a chance to collect my wits and nurse my bruises. I had exaggerated a trifle; the one on my butt was only the size of a salad plate. As I lowered myself very gently into a hot tub filled with bubbles I tried to look on the bright side.

  The flowerpot wasn’t a lethal weapon; even if it had landed square on the top of my head it wouldn’t have done lasting damage. As John had uunecessarily and condescendingly emphasized, it had been meant as a warning. Not that there were certain individuals on the ship who wanted me off the ship – I had already known that – or even that they were willing to use violence to achieve that end. It was a little more subtle: a reminder that I wasn’t safe anywhere on the boat, that ‘they’ had access even to my room. That was where I had been standing when the pot fell – under my own balcony.

  Too damn many people had access to my room. I let my toes float up to the surface of the water and studied them pensively, remembering the agitated faces of the staff members who had been interrogated. Perry had insisted I report the incident immediately, and Hamid, the purser, had hauled the obvious suspects into his office.

  Hamid was in charge of the domestic arrangements on the boat, the civilian equivalent of the captain. A slim, handsome man of indeterminate age, he radiated an air of calm competence. I had already wondered if he might be Burckhardt’s mysterious agent; he had keys to all the rooms and a perfect excuse to enter them. He could always claim he was checking up on his staff.

  If he was in disguise, the disguise was excellent. In his crisp, tailored uniform, his hair greying attractively at the temples, he was the perfect model of an efficient hotel manager. And, I reminded myself, he wasn’t the only one who had a key to my room. Until that moment I hadn’t realized how many stewards there were. One replenished the liquor cabinet (he was a Copt, since handling alcoholic beverages might have offended Muslim sensibilities); another picked up and delivered laundry; a third cleaned and changed the beds. Hamid lined them up in a cringing row and questioned them in vehement Arabic. They protested their innocence volubly and passionately. The most obvious suspect was a kid named Ali, who was responsible for the overall cleaning, including the care of the flowers. He looked no more than eighteen – a graceful, smiling boy with the thick dark lashes many Egyptians have. He denied everything. Yes, he had watered the flowers and clipped the dead blooms; everything had been in perfect order when he left the room, he had made certain to replace the pots securely in the stand. He wrung his hands. Then he started to cry.

  That was when I put an end to the proceedings. They were a waste of time, and I can’t stand masculine tears. Ali cried even harder when I said I didn’t blame him.

  Hamid and Perry went with me to my room. As I had begun to suspect, there was nothing wrong with the flowers on my balcony. Every pot was still in place and firmly anchored.

  The most logical explanation, proposed by a visibly relieved Hamid, was that one of the passengers in an adjoining room had been fooling around with the flowers. He would investigate, of course . . . I said fine, and got rid of him and Perry. He wouldn’t investigate very hard, not with this lot of passengers, and I knew perfectly well that the pot had fallen from my balcony even it it hadn’t originated there.

  I blew bubbles off my hand and decided I had better start looking for some more crooks. The sight of John had thrown me off balance and distracted me, but he obviously wasn’t the only malefactor on board. I had suspected that before; the flowerpot incident proved it. I had a perfect opportunity to investigate, since this was like one of those old-fashioned English country house murder mysteries: all the suspects gathered together, isolated from the outside world. I would interview all of them, including the ones I hadn’t had a chance to talk with; I would mingle and be charming and very, very clever. And very, very careful.

  II

  Aside from the other distractions, such as wondering who was going to hit me next and with what, my luxury cruise developed another hitch. Mary wanted John and me to ‘make up.’ She began her campaign that night, leaving her chair and running to greet me when I entered the dining room. ‘We saved a place for you, Vicky. You’ll join us, won’t you?’

  Short of knocking her down and walking over her, there was no way I could get away from the little hands that clung to my arm and towed me with remorseless goodwill towards a table. John was on his feet, waiting. No one had dressed for dinner that night, but even his casual clothes looked as if they had come from Savile Row – a white polo shirt with a discreet insignia on the breast pocket, the creases in his slacks so sharp they could cut you. He looked me over, from my cheap sandals to the imitation Hermès scarf tying my hair hack, and then focused pointedly on my throat, where the locket hung from its heavy chain.

  ‘How kind of you to honour us, Dr Bliss. You don’t appear to be limping; I hope that means the bruise you mentioned was not too extensive.’

  He gave my chair a shove as I lowered myself into it. I had expected something of the sort, so I was able to catch myself before the edge of the table rammed me in the stomach. ‘And your poor wrist,’ I said. ‘Not a thing wrong with it, I see.’

  It went on that way through five courses. John was as smoothly offe
nsive as only he could be, his voice the exaggerated drawl I particularly hated, his conversation studded with stinging barbs. I thought Mary missed most of the double entendres, but when John commented on my locket – ‘So large and so very gold’ – she flushed and said quickly,

  ‘Now, darling, not everyone shares your tastes. Antique jewelry is one of his specialities,’ she explained to me.

  ‘Oh, is it?’ I said.

  She was still wearing the Greek earrings. They glowed with a soft patina under the lights, and the tiny, exquisite faces had the same expression of aloof disdain that marked John’s features.

  ‘Isis,’ he said, following my gaze – reading my mind, which wasn’t hard to do under the circumstances. ‘Though she was an Egyptian goddess, her cult was quite popular in Greece during the Hellenistic period. Three hundred to thirty B.C.’

  ‘Thank you so much for telling me.’ I propped my chin on my hand and smiled sweetly at him. ‘They’re lovely. Where on earth do you pick up such things?’

  ‘Here and there,’ John said, smiling not so sweetly back. ‘I found that pair at an antiquarian jeweller’s in New York. You may know of the shop; it’s on Madison in the seventies.’

  Straight to the liver, that one. I did know of the shop. My golden rose had come from the same place.

  I made one feeble attempt at criminal investigation during the meal, questioning them in guileless girlish curiosity about the other passengers. It wasn’t very successful. John knew perfectly well what I was up to; smiling and suave, he gushed useless information. Mary was more helpful. She had already struck up acquaintances with most of the passengers. ‘The Johnsons are from San Francisco,’ she said, nodding towards the elderly couple I had seen with Jen the first night on board. ‘He has something to do with the stock market.’

  ‘He is the dullest individual on board,’ John said. ‘With the possible exception of his wife. His hobby, if you can believe it, is miniature railroads.’

  And so it went, with Mary identifying people and John making rude remarks about each and every one. When we retired to the lounge for coffee I excused myself and went out on deck for a cigarette. John didn’t join me. However, I had a nice chat with Mr Johnson, who smoked cigars. He was even more boring than John had claimed. Luckily Alice joined us before he could tell me more about HO or HQ or whatever; she had heard about my ‘accident’ and was full of questions.