"Full and complete as long as he'll sign a sworn statement against Stratford. You know of course he struck again last night, robbed a shop-woman was in there with a full drawer of cash. He took everything.''
"Hmmmmm. Bastard," Elliott whispered. "Old man, it's very important you get up out of this chair, have a good bath and a good shave and be there. ..."
"Gerald, on my word. I shall. Ten-thirty, the governor's palace."
Blessed quiet. The ugly car had gone away. The boy came again. "Breakfast, my lord?"
"Bring a little something, and some orange juice with it. And ring my son's room again. And check the desk. Surely he's left a message!"
* * *
It was late morning before her young lord finally awoke.
Rome had fallen. And two thousand years had passed.
For hours she'd sat at the window, dressed in a "fine blue frock," watching the modern city. All the bits and pieces of what she'd seen and heard were now a complete tapestry. Yet there was so much to know, to understand.
She'd feasted, and had the servants take away the evidence; she did not want anyone to see the bestial manner in which she'd consumed so much food.
Now his small banquet waited for him. And when he came towards her out of the bedroom, "So beautiful," she said under her breath.
"What is it, Your Highness?" He bent to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed his naked chest.
"Take your breakfast, young lord," she said. "There are so many things I must discover. So many things I must see."
He seated himself at the small draped table. He lighted the candles with the "matches."
"Aren't you joining me?"
"I've already feasted, my love. Can you show me the modern city? Can you show me the palaces of the British who rule this land?"
"I'll show you everything, Your Highness," he said, with the same unguarded gentleness.
She sat across from him.
"You're very simply the strangest person I've ever met," he said, and again there was no mockery or meanness in it. "In fact, you remind me of someone I know, a very enigmatic man ... but that doesn't matter. Why are you smiling at me like that? What are you thinking?''
"So beautiful," she whispered again. "You and all of life, my young lord. It is everything and nothing. So beautiful."
He blushed like a girl and then laid down the silver tools and leaned across the table and once again kissed her.
"You're crying," he said.
"Yes. But I am happy. Stay with me, young lord. Do not leave me just now."
He appeared startled, then transfixed. She combed the past slowly; had she ever known anyone so gentle? Perhaps in childhood, when she'd been too stupid to know what it meant.
"I don't want to leave you for the world, Your Highness," he said. He appeared sad again for a second, half disbelieving. And then at a loss.
"And the opera tonight, my lord, shall we go together? Shall we dance at the opera ball?''
Lovely the light that came to his eyes. "That would be heaven," he whispered.
She gestured to the plates before him. "Your food, my lord."
He picked at it in mortal fashion. Then lifted a bundle from beside his plate, which she had taken no notice of before. He tore off the wrapping and opened what appeared to be a thick manuscript covered over with tiny writing.
"Tell me what this is."
"Why, a newspaper," he said, half laughing. He glanced at it. "And awful news, too."
"Read aloud."
"You wouldn't really want to hear it. Some poor woman in a dress shop, with her neck broken like all the rest. And they've got a picture of Rarasey with Julie. What a disaster!"
Ramses ?
"It's the talk of Cairo, Your Highness. You may as well know now. My friends have been involved in a fair bit of trouble, but that's just it, they've nothing to do with it. They've only been associated with it. There . . . you see this man?"
Ramses. They are friends of Lawrence Stratford, the archaeologist, the one who dug up the mummy of Ramses the Damned.
' 'He's a dear friend of my father and of me. They're searching for him. Some foolishness about stealing a mummy from the Cairo Museum. It's all hogwash. It will soon blow over." He broke off. "Your Highness? Don't let this story frighten you. There's nothing to it, really."
She stared at this "picture," not a drawing like the rest but a dense image, rather like a painting, yet it was all done in ink, undoubtedly. The ink even rubbed off on her fingers. And there he stood. Ramses, beside a camel and a camel driver, dressed in the curious heavy clothes of this age. The print beneath said "Valley of the Kings."
She almost laughed aloud; yet she did not move or say a word. It seemed the moment stretched into eternity. The young lord was talking, but she couldn't hear him. Was he saying that he must call his father, that his father must need him now?
In a trance, she watched him move away from her. He had laid the paper down. The picture. She looked at him. He was picking up a strange instrument from the table. He was talking into it. Asking for Lord Rutherford.
At once she was on her feet. Gently she took the thing away from him. She set it down.
"Don't leave me now, young lord," she said. "Your father can wait for you. I need you now."
Baffled, he looked at her; he made no move to stop her as she embraced him.
"Don't bring the world to us just yet," she whispered in his ear, kissing him. "Let us have this time together."
So completely he gave in. So quickly came the fire.
"Don't be timid," she whispered. "Caress me; let your hands do what they will as they did last night."
Once again he belonged to her, enslaving her with his kisses, stroking her breasts through the blue frock.
"Have you come to me by magic?" he whispered. "Just when I thought . . . when I thought ..." And then he was kissing her again, and she led him towards the bed.
She picked up the newspaper as they went into the bedroom. As they sank down on the sheets together, she showed it to him, just as he removed the robe.
"Tell me," she said, pointing to the little group of figures standing by the camel in the sun. "Who is that woman beside him?"
"Julie, Julie Stratford," he said.
Then there were no words, only their frantic, hurried and delicious embraces; his hips grinding against her; his sex pumping into her again.
When it was all over, and he lay still, she ran her fingers through his hair.
"This woman; does he care for her?"
"Yes," he said sleepily. "And she loves him. But that doesn't matter now.''
"Why do you say this?"
"Because I have you," he said.
* * *
Ramsey was at his best, evincing that easy charm mat had subdued everyone on the voyage out; he sat back, spotless and carelessly fashionable in the white linen suit, his hair tousled, blue eyes sparkling with a near boyish vigor,
"I tried to reason with him. When he broke the case and removed the mummy, I realized it was hopeless. I tried to get out on my own, but the guards, well, you know the story."
"But they said they shot you, they-"
"Sir, these men are not the soldiers of ancient Egypt. They're hirelings who barely know how to fire their guns. They would not have beaten the Hittites."
Winthrop laughed in spite of himself. Even Gerald was charmed. Elliott glanced at Samir, who dared not crack the smallest smile.
"Well, if only we could find Henry," Miles said.
"No doubt his creditors are looking for him, too," Ramsey said quickly.
"Well, let's get back to this question of the jail. It seems there was a doctor there when you-'' Gerald finally intervened:
"Winthrop," he said, "you know very well that this man's innocent. It's Henry. It's been Henry all along. Everything points to it. He broke into the Cairo Museum, stole the mummy, sold it for profit, went on a drunken rampage with the money. You found the wrappings in the belly dancer's house. Henry's name was found in the loan shark's book in London." "But the whole story is so . . ." Elliott motioned for silence.