Seeing a Large Cat (24 page)

After luncheon Emerson condescended to dismiss me and the children, since we were not doing anything useful anyhow. I made him put on his gloves, knowing full well he would take them off as soon as he was out of my sight. Then I asked Abdullah if he had brought his watch with him. Nodding, he pulled it from somewhere in the folds of his robe. It was a large gold watch with his name inscribed in both English and Arabic. We had presented him with it the previous year, and he was extremely proud of it.

"Good," I said. "Make certain Emerson stops work at three and bring him back to the house."

Abdullah looked doubtful. "I will try, Sitt Hakim." "I know you will." I patted him on the shoulder. In fact I was not at all certain Abdullah could tell time by his watch; I had never wished to offend his dignity by inquiring. He could read the passage of the sun almost as accurately, however.

When we reached the house David asked-he always asked instead of announcing his intentions, as Ramses would have done-if he might go for a ride. Nefret declared that if he would wait until she had paid Teti a visit, she would go with him. Since this suited my own plans quite nicely I agreed, warning them to be back in plenty of time to change for the soiree.

"You might go round by Deir el Bahri and bring Ramses back with you," I added. "Otherwise he will go on working till nightfall."

Nefret said that finding Ramses was precisely what she intended to do.

Once they had taken their departure I went to the boys' rooms to collect their soiled clothing. Monday was washday, and if I left the job to them, they never did it until the last minute.

I will admit in the pages of this private journal that my motives might not have been as innocent and aboveboard as that statement suggests. I had agreed to let Emerson deal with Ramses and David, even though I strongly suspected his notions of proper conduct for young men were not identical with mine. It was not a conscious violation of that agreement that led me to inspect the boys' quarters. I am a firm believer in the subconscious, however, and I do not doubt that an underlying uneasiness prompted my action-nothing so strong as suspicion, only a sense that someone was up to something.

The sight of David's room brought a smile to my lips. One would have expected him to be the neater of the two, but he had a happy masculine habit of leaving everything where he had dropped it-clothing, books, newspapers. His drawing materials covered every flat surface except the top of the bureau. On it, neatly displayed, were a number of photographs, some framed, some fastened with drawing pins to the frame of the mirror. The faces were those I knew and loved, and I gave myself up to a few minutes of fond contemplation.

The cabinet photograph of Evelyn was enclosed in a frame made by David himself. Flowers and vines, carved with infinite delicacy, twined round it. She looked very lovely but a little stiff, as one does in such posed photographs. The images taken by Nefret the previous summer with her little Kodak were more to my taste. Raddie, Evelyn's eldest and Emerson's namesake, was a fine-looking young fellow, with his father's mild features and Evelyn's sweet smile. He had gone up to Oxford this year. The twins, Johnny and Davie, were natural clowns and as close as twins often are. They always struck some comical pose when being photographed-in this case a living Hindu idol with one body, eight limbs, and two heads, both grinning.

There was an especially pretty photograph of Evelyn's oldest girl, who had been named after me. 'Melia was-I had to stop and calculate-fourteen. Fortunately for her, she did not resemble me in the slightest! (Of course there was no reason why she should; this was just one of my little jokes, which always made 'Melia laugh and protest that she would happily have exchanged her fair curls and blue eyes for my coarse black hair and rather too prominent chin. It was a falsehood, but a kindly one.)

The sight of those dear faces, so dear to David as well, made me feel-just a little-ashamed of my intrusion. Leaving the wrinkled garments lying on floor, bed, and table, I went out and gently closed the door.

Ramses's room was as bare as a monk's cell and almost as uninformative. He had left most of his personal possessions on board the boat. The single folder on his desk contained photographs of a hieratic manuscript, together with his transliteration and partial translation. It appeared to have something to do with dreams, and I remembered what Ramses had said about the significance of dreaming of a cat. I did not pause to read the translation, however, since I did not want to disturb the order of the pages.

The books he had brought with him were an interestingly eclectic collection, ranging from a ponderous study of Egyptian verb forms to a recently published thriller. I knew Ramses had a weakness for this form of fiction, but I was somewhat taken aback to discover several slim volumes of poetry hidden behind Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians.

I have always considered poetry too sensational for young minds. These poems were worse, for they were in French, a language Ramses read as fluently as he did most other languages. After considering the matter, I returned them to their hiding place. There were, I supposed, more shocking writers than Baudelaire and Rostand.

Those volumes were probably under the mattress. I did not look for them, nor did I open the drawers of his dresser. There were no photographs on its top.

The children were gone quite a long time. Emerson was bathing and I was on the verandah, pacing impatiently, before I saw them coming.

"What took you so long?" I demanded.

"I apologize, Mother," said Ramses, helping Nefret to dismount. "The delay was my fault."

"I assumed as much. Well, hurry and change. We are dining with Cyrus, so he can tell us about his talk with Mrs. Jones before the others arrive."

Cyrus sent his barouche for us, so Nefret and I were able to dress for the occasion. Since I sympathized with her dislike of stiff, confining garments for females, I allowed most of her frocks to be made without stays and tight-fitting bodices, though I had had the devil of a time finding a dressmaker who had enough imagination to depart from the current patterns. Nefret's slim, athletic form did not require or appreciate the confinement of corsets, and after she had ripped the sleeve seams out of two blouses by gesturing too emphatically, it became apparent she needed more room in that area too. Her second-best evening dress was of pale yellow mousseline de soie with a modest decolletage. I wore crimson, as I prefer to do, since it is Emerson's favorite; and he unbent so far as to tell me it became me well. At his own insistence Ramses mounted the seat next to the coachman, and off we went in fine style behind Cyrus's pair of matched grays.

I was as familiar with the Castle as with the rooms of my own house, for we had stayed with Cyrus on innumerable occasions. It was a good deal grander than our humble establishment, walled like a fortress and supplied with all modern inconveniences, as Emerson called them. It is true that the electricity Cyrus had installed the year before was not very dependable, but there were oil lamps in each room and Cyrus preferred candlelight for dining anyhow.

When we were seated at the table, with the soft glow of the candles reflecting off crystal and silver, Cyrus began his account.

"Mr. Fraser wasn't well pleased at my kidnapping the lady. He wanted to know why we wouldn't dine with him and his missus; asked where we were going and when we would be back. I expected every minute to have him demand whether my intentions were honorable."

"I am sure you don't mean to give a false impression, Cyrus," I said, "but you surely are not implying that Mr. Fraser was-well--jealous."

"No, ma'am," Cyrus said just as quickly. "At least not- er-not that way. But he sure wants to keep her talents to himself. He believes nobody else can lead him to his princess."

"What the devil does he think he is going to do with her when he finds her?" demanded Emerson.

"Emerson, you have such a-a coarse way of putting things," I protested.

"The question was perfectly innocent, my dear. If you choose to interpret it-"

"Never mind, Emerson!" Grinning, Emerson returned to his soup, and I continued, "I doubt Donald has thought so far ahead."

"He has, though," Cyrus said soberly. "He's going to reanimate her."

"What?" I cried.

"Lord only knows where he got the notion, Mrs. Amelia. Katherine-uh-Mrs. Jones-swears she never suggested any such thing. Now, folks, just quit asking me questions and let me tell you what she said; it will save time in the long run.

"She talked openly and freely about her methods, and believe me, ladies and gents, they are carefully designed to keep her out of trouble with the law. She doesn't charge for her services; there's a pretty copper bowl on the table in her sitting room, and if people want to drop money into it, that's their affair. She isn't stupid enough to make promises she can't keep, neither. It's the usual vague twaddle about how happy Uncle Henry is on the Other Side, and how Granny hopes everybody loves everybody and treats 'em nice.

"The Egyptian connection is her stock in trade. Like I said, she took the trouble to study the subject, so her clients can't catch her making stupid mistakes like inventing names no Egyptian would have had, or getting her dynasties mixed up. The reincarnation stuff is very popular. Who wouldn't want to hear she was a pharaoh's favorite in another life? Or, in the case of the men, pharaoh himself? Once the victims have heard a few fancy stories about their fatal beauty or their prowess in war, they go home feeling more content with their present boring lives. She's got a great talent for fiction, has the lady. I told her she ought to write thrillers for a living."

Cyrus's soft-footed, well-trained staff had removed the soup plates and served the main course. He paused to take a sip of wine, and I said, "So that is how it began with Donald? Who did she tell him he had been?"

"Ramses the Great, naturally." Cyrus shook his head. "They all want to be Ramses the Great. She gave him the usual yarn, about what a mighty warrior he was and how many wives he had, and then-she can't remember exactly how the subject came up-he was talking about the princess he had loved and lost. You wouldn't think so to look at him, but the poor devil is a romantic. He took it into his head that her control is his lost love, and that she wants him to find her. The reanimation thing just came up recently. She says she never would have agreed to this trip if he had given any indication of being that far gone."

"The tip to Egypt was Donald's idea?" I asked skeptically.

"Yep. She says we can ask Mrs. Fraser if we don't believe her. She gave in because she figured she could string him along and keep him out of harm's way until he lost interest.

She always wanted to see Egypt anyhow.

"Well, instead of losing interest, he got worse. She's at her wits' end now as to what to do with him, and she's plumb wore out from being dragged all over the cliffs of the West Bank looking for Tasherit's tomb. She showed me her-"

Cyrus broke off, looking a trifle flustered, and reached for his wineglass.

"Buy her a steamship ticket and send her back to England," Emerson growled.

"She's got her ticket," Cyrus said. "You think a lady as shrewd as that is going to take the chance of finding herself marooned a thousand miles from home? She says she won't abandon Fraser while he's in this state."

"Cyrus, I think you are losing your detachment," I declared. "You speak of that-that woman almost with admiration."

"Well, I do admire her, kind of. She's smart and she's made her own way in the world, with no help from anybody. Got quite a sense of humor, too." Cyrus's thin lips relaxed in a reminiscent smile. "Some of the stories she told me about her clients would have made a cat laugh. She can laugh at herself, too, which is pretty rare. When she showed me-"

"I am removing you from the case, Cyrus," I said, only half in jest.

"Too late for that, Mrs. Amelia, my dear. I am sticking. I think maybe Katherine-she said I could call her that-I think she's come up with a good idea. What we've got to do is convince Fraser his ancient lady friend doesn't want to come back to life. She needs his blessing so she can move on to Amenti and wait for him there."

"What bloody nonsense," Emerson grunted.

"No, Professor darling, I think it is a brilliant idea," Nefret exclaimed. "I can be Princess Tasherit. A black wig and the proper makeup, and a great deal of cheesecloth to waft round me-"

"You are getting a bit ahead of yourself, Nefret," said Ramses. Elbows on the table, chin in his hands, he was watching Nefret closely, and the candle flames reflected in his black eyes flickered like lighted laughter. "No one mentioned an actual appearance by the princess. It is not a bad idea, though. You would have to remind him that suicide is a deadly sin and that he must wait out the course of his natural life, doing good deeds and behaving like an English gentleman, before he can hope to join her."

"Good Gad," I exclaimed. "What are you thinking of, Ramses? Nefret will do no such thing. It is too dangerous. What if Donald, overcome with passion, attempted to seize her in his arms?"

"He would not succeed in the attempt," said Ramses. David, who had not spoken, nodded vigorously.

"You're right, though, Mrs. Amelia," Cyrus declared. "We couldn't let a nice young lady like Miss Nefret take part in such an underhanded scheme. We could easily find some pretty little Egyptian girl to play the part. You think it would work?"

"It might," I admitted. "We will have to give it some thought. I must consult Enid first."

That ended the discussion; the first guests would be arriving soon, and since Cyrus had neither wife nor sister nor daughter, I was pleased to act as his hostess. However, I could tell by Nefret's expressive face that she had no intention of giving up the star role to a "pretty little Egyptian girl." Not without a struggle.

Cyrus's evening parties were always the height of elegance and good taste. The electric lights burned bright that evening, reflecting off the surfaces of polished brass vessels and silver vases. Through the open French doors of the principal reception rooms wafted the scent of roses and jasmine. Lanterns illumined Cyrus's famous gardens.