Seeing a Large Cat (5 page)

"So here you are," said a voice behind me. "I wondered where you had got to. And I see you have found friends!"

I knew the voice, and recognized the speaker. Donald Fraser's hair was as bright and his face as youthful as ever. Exclaiming with pleasure, he shook hands all round.

"It lacks but a quarter of an hour to the time we were to meet at Shepheard's," he went on. "How fortunate we should find you here instead! It gives me the opportunity to present a dear friend. She had declined to join us for tea, since she had not been included in the invitation, but I was determined to make her known to you sooner or later, for she too is a distinguished Egyptologist. Mrs. Whitney-Jones, Professor and Mrs. Emerson."

The lady had been standing modestly to one side. At Donald's beckoning gesture she came toward us.

I have been accused of being superficial when I judge people, especially females, by their attire. It is a laughably inaccurate appraisal. There is no single feature so important as costume; it indicates the artistic tastes and economic means of the wearer, among other significant characteristics.

This individual was obviously well-to-do. Her costume was brand-new and of the latest mode, with an umbrella skirt and short jacket over a chiffon blouse and (to judge by her rigid posture) a straight-fronted corset. Hats were a trifle smaller that year; hers was of fine tan straw trimmed with ostrich feathers. I had seen the exact same model at Harrods the past summer. She was approximately my height, though (despite the corset) somewhat stouter.

"Pleasure, I'm sure," said Emerson. "Egyptologist, are you? I have never heard of you. What sites have you excavated?"

I had long since given up apologizing for Emerson's manners. In this case it was not necessary. The lady laughed in the friendliest manner imaginable and shook her finger playfully at my husband.

"But I have heard of you, Professor, and of your forthright character. How I do appreciate honesty and candor! It is so rare in this sad world."

She had not answered his question, nor was he given the opportunity to repeat it. "Well, but why are we standing here?" Donald demanded. "Let us go on to the hotel."

"An excellent suggestion," I said. "You will join us, of course, Mrs. Whitney-Jones? Naturally I would have included you in the invitation had I known you were not only a friend of Enid and Donald's, but a fellow scholar."

In fact, I doubted that either designation was correct. As the others turned away, Donald offering the lady his arm, Enid's stiff social smile slipped for a moment. The expression that distorted her face was not simple dislike. Loathing would be more accurate-and mingled with it, something strangely like fear.

Yet no one could have appeared less likely to inspire either emotion than Mrs. Whitney-Jones. I had ample opportunity to learn more about her while we were taking tea; in fact, uncharitable persons might have said she rather monopolized the conversation.

Mr. Fraser had exaggerated her expertise, she explained with charming modesty. She had studied hieroglyphs and Egyptian history at University College in London, but she was only the humblest student, and this was her first trip to Egypt. How she had looked forward to it! How thrilled she was to meet in person the individuals for whose work she had such admiration! In fact, she seemed quite familiar with it-not the sensational stories that had too often filled the English newspapers, but our scholarly productions. She was particularly effusive in her praise of Emerson's monumental History of Egypt.

Emerson, who had anticipated "a tedious hour of idle chitchat with those boring young people," was delighted to lecture instead about Egyptology, and not at all inclined to let anyone else get a word in.

I wondered if Mrs. Whitney-Jones was going to fall in love with Emerson. Women did. Compared with some of the others she did not present much of a threat, I thought. It was difficult to estimate her age. Her face was smooth and unlined, but her abundant hair was streaked with gray in oddly regular stripes like the coat of a tabby cat. In fact, she reminded me of a cat, especially when she smiled; her lips turned up in exaggerated curves and her eyes were an unusual shade of greenish gold. Even more suggestive of the feline was her expression. Nothing looks as self-satisfied as a contented cat.

Now that I was able to get a closer look at Donald Fraser, I realized he had changed, and not for the better. He had gained some flesh and looked flabby and out of condition. He seemed in excellent spirits, however, and followed the conversation between Emerson and his admirer with considerable interest-another change, since Donald had never been intellectually inclined.

The young people had the blank, patient look of children who have been forced to attend a grown-up social function and are counting the seconds until it is over. Ramses kept glancing at Enid. His imperturbable countenance gave me no clue to his thoughts, but I wondered if he was struck, as I was, by her altered looks.

Not until we were about to take leave of one another did anything out of the way occur. It was Donald who introduced the subject.

"Will you be looking for tombs in the Valley of the Kings this season, Professor?"

"Not precisely," said Emerson.

"The Valley of the Queens, then?"

I found his persistence peculiar. Even odder was the way Enid watched him, like a cat at a mousehole.

"I don't know why you give a curse," Emerson said, amiably enough for him. "We will be working in the Royal Valley, but if you are hoping to be on the spot when a sensational discovery is made, Mr. Fraser, you will have to follow after some other Egyptologist. The tombs I mean to investigate are all known, and none is of interest except to scholars."

"Then why bother with them?" Donald demanded. "Surely you would be better employed looking for a new, unknown tomb-the tomb of a queen or princess."

"Now, Donald, you musn't lecture the Professor," Mrs. Whitney-Jones exclaimed. "He is an authority, you know."

"Yes, of course. But-"

"Gracious, how late it is," said Mrs. Whitney-Jones. "We mustn't keep you any longer. What a rare treat it has been!"

Enid had said very little. Now she murmured, "But this is not good-bye, is it? Surely we will meet again-in Luxor, if not here in Cairo?"

I said, not altogether truthfully, that I hoped that would be the case, and after a further exchange of courtesies Mrs. Whitney-Jones took Donald firmly by the arm and led him away.

Enid lingered, drawing on her gloves. "We leave for Luxor in a few days," she said in a low voice. "Will there be an opportunity for me to see you-speak with you alone- before-"

Emerson took me firmly by the arm. "We leave tomorrow," he declared.

It was the first I had heard of it, and since I took the statement to be not a declaration of fact, but one of Emerson's futile attempts to prevent me from "meddling in other people's affairs," as he is pleased to term it, I ignored the statement.

"Are you coming, Enid?" It was Donald's voice that called her, Donald who had stopped and looked back; but my intuitive intelligence, which seldom fails me, told me that the summons had come not from him, but from the pleasant, harmless-looking woman who clung demurely to his arm.

Again a look of revulsion and despair darkened Enid's face. "In Luxor, then," she whispered. "Please! Please, Amelia."

"Enid!" Donald called.

"Go," I said in the same low voice. "We will see you in Luxor."

"No, we won't," said Emerson, as Enid went with dragging steps to join her companions.

"She is in deep distress, Emerson. We owe it to an old friend-"

"No, we don't." He took his watch from his pocket. "What time is that confounded dinner party of yours? We are going to be late if you don't stop arguing and hurry."

We would not have been in such a rush if Emerson had agreed to my suggestion that we take rooms at a hotel for a few days. He hated fashionable hotels and had bought the dahabeeyah, as he often reminded me, in order to avoid the necessity of staying at Shepheard's or the Continental. I had selected the latter establishment for our dinner that evening. Though Shepheard's will always be my favorite hotel, for sentimental as well as practical reasons, the Continental was newer and had recently acquired a Swiss chef whose reputation was of the highest.

Nefret had cast her vote for the dahabeeyah too. "You always make me wear a hat and tight shoes when we are at the hotel," she had declared. "And the place is full of boring people who want to talk to me about boring things, and you won't let me be rude to them."

"Certainly not," I said, pretending to look shocked. fa fact, I was secretly pleased that Nefret found most of the young men she met boring. She was a very wealthy young woman as well as a very beautiful young woman, so it was no wonder she always had a string of admirers trailing after her. Most were well-bred idlers, interested only in sport and frivolity and attracted to Nefret for the wrong reasons-her fortune or her beauty. She had much more to offer than that, and I was determined she should not marry until she found a man worthy of her-a man who shared her interests and respected her character, who loved her for her intelligence and independence, her sensitive nature and quick wit; a man of honor and intellectual understanding, but one who was not devoid of the physical characteristics that attract a handsome young woman. A man, in short, like Emerson!

Thanks to the recalcitrance of that admirable but aggravating man, we had to return to the dahabeeyah to dress. When our party assembled on deck, Emerson was looking fairly affable, since I had relaxed my rule about wearing evening kit, which he detests. After Ramses had got himself as far into his last year's evening suit as was possible (muttering indignantly all the while), I had been forced to agree that it was indeed too small for him. A new wardrobe had been ordered and was in process of construction, but the only thing we had been able to find ready-made was a tweed suit similar to David's. Nefret's golden-tan skin was set off by her white chiffon gown lavishly trimmed with Cluny lace and crystal beads, and I believe my own frock of crimson satin did not detract from the generally impressive appearance of the group.

Certainly the admiring looks of our friends supported this assumption, and when I took my place at the foot of the table in the dining salon, I saw that Howard Carter, on my right, could hardly take his eyes off Nefret. I did hope he was not going to fall in love with her. No one, I believe, could ever accuse me of snobbishness, and I was genuinely fond of Howard; but his origins were humble, he had no independent means, and his lack of formal education would prevent him from rising much further in his profession than his present position of inspector over the antiquities of Upper Egypt My eyes moved speculatively over the faces of the men who were present. Mr. Reisner, the brilliant young American excavator; our old friend Percy Newberry; Mr. Quibell, Howard's counterpart as inspector in Lower Egypt; Mr. Lucas, the chemist; M. Lacau, who was copying the coffin texts in the Cairo Museum....No, none of them would do. If they were not already married, they were too old or too poor or too dull. Yet it would be a pity if she did not marry an archaeologist; all her interests and her tastes inclined her toward that profession.

Howard jogged my elbow. "Excuse me, Mrs. E., but you seem to be in quite a brown study. What is on your mind? Another villain pursuing you, another lost treasure to be found?"

"What a tease you are, Howard," I said with a little laugh. "I was thinking of something else altogether-a subject so frivolous I refuse to confess it. But now that you mention it..." I motioned him to lean closer and lowered my voice to a thrilling whisper. "What is in tomb Twenty-A? "

Howard stared "Not a bloody- Oh, good heavens, Mrs. Emerson, do forgive me! I cannot imagine why I so forgot myself."

Emerson had not failed to observe our whispers and exclamations. The dear fellow suffers from the (flattering, I confess) delusion that every man I meet has romantic designs upon me. He broke off his conversation with Mr. Quibell and demanded loudly, "What is it you and Carter find so absorbing, Peabody? Share it with us-unless it is of a private nature."

Poor Howard started convulsively. He had once been the victim of Emerson's suspicions-the innocent victim, I hardly need say-and was still nervous about it* "Not at all sir," he exclaimed. "I mean-er-Mrs. Emerson was asking about *This incident may be described in one of Mrs. Emerson's missing journals. Or it may not one of the tombs, and I was about to tell her there is not a bloo-not a blooming thing there worth the attention of an excavator of her-of your-skill. Er-that is-"

"Hmph," said Emerson. "So what are your plans for this season, Carter? Still plugging away at that elongated tomb of Hatshepsut's?"

Conversation became general, to Howard's obvious relief. When we parted at last it was with the expectation of seeing many of our friends, including Howard, at a later time. I was chatting with Mr. Reisner, who had very politely invited me to visit him at Gizeh- "The third pyramid is part of our concession, Mrs. Emerson, and it is always at your disposal"-when another gentleman joined us.

"Forgive the interruption," he said with a courtly bow. "May I beg the favor of a word with you, Mrs. Emerson, when you have finished your conversation with Mr. Reisner?"

It was Colonel Bellingham. Mr. Reisner excused himself and somehow I was not surprised to find Emerson suddenly at my side. For so very large a man he can move as quickly and silently as a cat when he chooses.

"Come, Amelia," he said brusquely. "The cab is waiting."

"If I may have a moment of your time-" the Colonel began.

"It is late. We are leaving Cairo early in the morning."

"Indeed? Then," said the Colonel with perfect aplomb, "it is all the more necessary that I speak with you this evening. Won't you take a chair, Mrs. Emerson? I promise I won't keep you long." He added with a smile, "It will give the young people a chance to improve their acquaintance."

One of them, at least, was already improving it. Dolly, in pink silk and lace embroidered with pearls, had Ramses firmly by the arm.