“I did not ask you here, Professor Emerson,” he said stiffly.
The office was comfortably, almost luxuriously, furnished, with deep leather chairs and Oriental rugs. The wide windows behind the desk offered a view of palm trees and gardens. The fog had cleared; it was going to be a fine day.
“No?” Emerson sat down and took out his pipe. “Well, if it wasn’t you, it was one of your flunkies, and you ought to know about it. What sort of administrator are you?”
Murray began fumbling through the papers on his desk. Emerson’s tactics were brutal but effective; the general’s hands were shaking with rage. He couldn’t bully a civilian, especially one of Emerson’s eminence, as he would have done a military subordinate – but how he wanted to! After a moment of hard breathing, he selected one paper from among the rest, stared at it, and rang for an aide. A whispered conversation took place. Ramses, whose hearing was excellent, caught only a few words: “… devil he thinks he’s doing…”
“Didn’t your mother teach you that it is rude to whisper when other persons are present?” Emerson inquired, tossing a burned match onto the floor.
Murray ’s complexion was that of a man who spends most of his time indoors. His pale cheeks reddened. “Professor Emerson, I did not ask to speak with you, but so long as you are here I can spare you a few minutes, in order to emphasize the seriousness of the situation. From now on you will be taking orders from someone else.”
Oh, Lord, Ramses thought, is the man a natural idiot, or hasn’t he heard about Father? The last sentence had the effect he had known it would. Emerson’s eyes narrowed, and when he spoke it was in the quiet purring voice his acquaintances had learned to dread.
“The only person from whom my son takes orders is me, General. I don’t take them from anyone – except him.”
Ramses’s jaw dropped. His father had deferred to him on a few occasions – to his utter astonishment – but this was the first time he had paid him such a compliment.
“When the situation demands it,” Emerson added. “We may as well leave, Ramses.”
The door opened. Murray transferred his bulging stare to the newcomer. Not Smith. Cartright. “Why didn’t you tell me they were coming?” the general demanded.
“I didn’t know, sir. The last I heard from them was a curt telegram denying my request for their assistance. I had planned to go to Luxor in person within the next few days.”
Ramses caught his father’s questioning eye. Evidently the same doubt had entered Emerson’s mind. If this lot didn’t know of Smith’s visit, he wasn’t going to bring it up. He shook his head slightly, and Emerson settled back into his chair. “So,” he purred, “is this the person from whom my son is to take orders?”
“You misunderstood, Professor,” Cartright said quickly. “We are asking for his help, not demanding it.”
“He did say ‘please,’ ” Ramses reminded his father. “Perhaps we ought to listen to what he has to say.”
Emerson stamped into the room, flung himself into a chair, and took out his pipe. Nefret had left his thumb and fingers free of the cast, and by now he was using both hands, against her advice and my orders. The weight of the cast did not seem to bother him in the slightest. He proceeded to tamp tobacco into the pipe, making an even greater mess than usual. Ramses followed, his face unreadable. That withdrawn, “stone pharaoh” look was his reaction to bad news, just as poorly repressed fury was his father’s.
“Well?” I demanded. “What happened?”
Ramses’s features relaxed into a smile. “Father threatened to punch General Murray on the jaw.”
“Ah,” I said. “Well, that was only to be expected if the general accused your – er – Sethos of treachery.”
“Bastard,” said Emerson, round the stem of his pipe. I knew he was not referring to his brother.
“Stop swearing and tell me what transpired.”
“I will swear if I like,” Emerson said sullenly. “ Murray would drive a nun to profanity.”
Nefret held out her hand to Ramses. He went at once to her and took her hand in his.
“You had better let me tell it, Father. It appears there was a problem of miscommunication. Murray wasn’t expecting us, and he was not at all pleased to have us turn up. He knew about the matter, but if we had asked for an appointment, in the usual way, the request would have been passed on to his chief of staff, who would have passed it on to the head of military intelligence in Cairo, who is -”
“Boisdragon-Bracegirdle,” I exclaimed.
“No, Mother. My old acquaintance, Captain, now Major, Cartright.”
“How extraordinary. It was on this business he telegraphed you in that brusque fashion? Then what does Brace – curse it, Smith – have to do with this?”
“I don’t know, and I didn’t ask,” Ramses said. “There is something odd about this business, and until we can make sense of it, the less we say the better. It may be only a question of interservice jealousy. That has caused more trouble than the enemy.”
“How much does Murray know?” I asked.
Emerson was still muttering curses, so Ramses answered the question. “He made no reference to our relationship with Sethos. Smith may have been telling the truth there. They know I’ve met him, though, and that I have had ample opportunity to observe him. It was Cartright who convinced Murray that I was the best man to track Sethos down. They’ve had trouble getting agents into and out of Turkish territory. None of their own people can pass as an Arab, and the locals they’ve recruited are unreliable and untrained.”
Emerson had got himself under control. “They’re a bunch of bumbling incompetents,” he declared. “Sometimes it takes weeks for information about Turkish movements to reach them, via the indirect channels they employ. They got the news about Sethos fast enough, though. I suggested to Murray that he might be a prisoner instead of a traitor, and that swine Murray -”
“That was when Father tried to hit him,” said Ramses, with a grin. “Cartright got us out of Murray ’s office in a hurry.”
“I cannot believe Sethos passed on vital information willingly,” I exclaimed.
From behind a cloud of vile-smelling smoke, Emerson said, “The alternatives are almost as unpleasant, my dear.”
“Alternatives? I can only think of one.” I got up and moved to the window, where the air was not so thick. “Emerson, that pipe -”
“It calms my nerves, Peabody. However, anything to please you.” He knocked the thing out into a receptacle, sending sparks flying. “Torture is one possibility, certainly, though I don’t see how they could make a public spectacle of him if he was injured and under duress. There are other ways of forcing an individual to speak. Are you certain Margaret Minton is in France?”
“What a horrible idea!” I cried. “That the villains would use the threat of harm to the woman he loves!”
“It is a well-established technique, not only in the service but in popular fiction,” said Ramses.
“I beg, Ramses, that you will refrain from inappropriate attempts to be humorous. I will set about ascertaining Margaret’s present whereabouts as soon as is possible.”
“I beg your pardon, Mother,” Ramses said. He was still holding Nefret’s hand, running his fingers lightly over her wrist. “Such inquiries would take too long and would probably be inconclusive. There is one sure way of learning the truth. Ismail Pasha is now in Gaza. I’m going there to try and find him.”