I saw a reason, but I did not speak of it. Perhaps one day, when Emerson was in a softer mood, I could persuade him to bring his courageous and unfortunate brother back to the home of their ancestors, to lie with them in the family plot. In what unknown spot would he now be laid to rest? What would be his monument and what his epitaph? I had already thought of a suitable inscription for the monument I felt certain Emerson would wish to erect someday. It was a quotation from an Egyptian text: “Then Re-Harakhte said, Let Set be given unto me, to dwell with me and be my son. He shall thunder in the sky and be feared.” Like his ancient namesake, Sethos had redeemed himself and become one with the Divine Ruler of the cosmos.

This did not seem a propitious time for such a suggestion.

“You could not have prevented it, Emerson,” I said.

“Prevented what? Oh!” Emerson gave up the attempt to light his pipe. “No. Russell had his men ready, but I had the devil of a time convincing him we must act without delay. I could hardly tell him, could I, that my urgency was based on—er—”

“Woman’s intuition,” said Nefret, turning her head to smile at him. “I can imagine how Mr. Russell would have responded to that! Especially when I was the woman in question. How did you persuade him, then?”

“I rang through to the house as I had promised,” Emerson explained. “When Fatima told me about David, that settled the matter. I was, to put it mildly, somewhat distressed to hear that you two had gone haring off by yourselves, but there was nothing I could do but wait for Russell to get his caravan together and notify Maxwell of our plans. When we got there, the place was dead quiet, not a sign of life except a lighted window. We found Risha and the other horses, and I didn’t know where the devil you were or what you were doing, and I was afraid to risk an open attack. When we heard gunfire we had no choice but to move in, and I fully expected to find you—both of you—all of you—dead or hideously wounded, or—”

“Calm yourself, Emerson,” I said soothingly. “It has all come out right in the end.”

“No thanks to you,” snarled Emerson.

“I beg to differ, Father,” Ramses said. “Events got a bit out of hand, but then they always do, don’t they, when we’re all involved? We may not go about it in the most efficient manner, but we get the job done.”

Nefret turned to look at him. “You will keep that in mind, I hope? If you ever do this to me again—”

“Or you to me. What in God’s name were you thinking of, letting him take you to that place, letting him—”

“I didn’t let him do very much.”

“How much?”

Nefret’s cheeks were crimson. “Stop talking like some damned ancient Roman! Are you suggesting that my so-called virtue is worth more than your life? I’d have done anything—anything!—to trap him.”

“Did you?”

“What would you do if I said yes?”

“Ah.” Ramses let his breath out. “You didn’t. I don’t know that I could have accepted that. I’d have had to spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. Groveling gets to be hard on the knees after a year or two.”

How good it was to hear them arguing again! However, there was a good deal more I wanted to know.

“How did you know it was Percy?”

“It?” Nefret gave me a quizzical look and laughed. “I didn’t know what he was or what he was trying to do; but when he began praising Ramses to all and sundry I knew he was up to no good, and when he had the infernal gall to come round smirking and fawning at me—as if I would be naive enough ever to trust him again!—I got really angry. And frightened. I was aware that Ramses was playing Wardani and that David was backing him up, that Mr. Russell was party to the scheme and that it was horribly dangerous; but I didn’t realize how dangerous until that night after the opera…” She broke off, biting her lip. She was still holding Ramses’s hand. He raised the other hand and brushed her cheek lightly with his fingertips. That was all; but it was enough to assure me that they had come to terms with that misunderstanding and others.

“I had to pretend I didn’t know how badly he was hurt,” she went on unsteadily. “I did, though. I always do. You arranged it very cleverly, all of you, but when the Professor came up with that ingenuous lie about sending Ramses to Zawaiet, I understood what you were doing, and of course I recognized David that evening, even with Aunt Amelia doing her damnedest to distract me by wriggling and squirming. I tried to keep out of the way to make it easier for you.”

“My dear girl,” I said, much moved as I recalled several small incidents that had meant nothing to me at the time. “Your deliberate and, if I may say so, uncharacteristic obtuseness did make it easier for us, but it must have been horribly difficult for you.”

“Yes,” Nefret said simply. She gave her lover—for so I must call him—a tender look, and he smiled at her. Even the distortion of his classic features could not spoil the sweetness of that smile. “I didn’t understand fully why it was so important that no one else should know,” Nefret continued. “But what else could I do but play along, since that was what you wanted?”

“I am filled with admiration for your forbearance and fortitude,” I exclaimed.

“It was high time, don’t you think? I had to prove to you, and to myself, that I had learned my lesson. Underneath I was wild with worry. I encouraged Percy, since that was the only thing I could think of to do, but it wasn’t until after our encounter with Farouk that it dawned on me that Percy might be the traitor Farouk had proposed to betray. From whom else could Farouk have learned about the house in Maadi? I had no proof, though.”

“So you set out to get it,” I said. “Good gracious, my dear, it was very courageous of you, if somewhat foolhardly.”

“Not as foolhardy as you might think,” Nefret insisted. “I knew he was completely unscrupulous and vicious, but so long as he believed I was attracted to him, I was in no danger. It didn’t take much to make him believe it! My money was the chief attraction, of course, and the only way he could get at that was through marriage, so I didn’t think he would—”

“Think,” Ramses repeated. His voice was glacial. Nefret looked from him to Emerson, and got no help there; his chin was jutting out and his face was turning red. “You understand, Aunt Amelia,” she cried. “You would have done the same.”

Emerson could contain himself no longer. “Would? She did do the same! Straight into the lion’s den, armed with a parasol and that damnable self-assurance of hers—I suppose you thought he wouldn’t take advantage, Peabody ?”

“It wasn’t the same at all,” I exclaimed.

“No,” said Ramses, in an oddly muffled voice. “He didn’t want to marry you.”

“Are you laughing at your mother, Ramses?” I demanded.

“I’m trying not to. It hurts when I laugh.”

He did, though. I gave Emerson an approving nod. His little outburst had cleared the air wonderfully.

“So,” I said, after Ramses had stopped laughing, and Nefret had tenderly wiped the blood from his cut lip. “How did you find out about the old palace?”

She sat back on her heels. “From Sylvia Gorst. That, Aunt Amelia, dear, was another of my penances—making it up with Sylvia! You’d have been proud of me if you had seen how I apologized and fawned on her. She’s the worst gossip in Cairo , and I felt certain that if she knew anything to Percy’s discredit, I could get it out of her.

“He’d never taken her to his little love nest. He only took married women. He assumed they wouldn’t talk about it for fear of blemishing their reputations, but of course they did—in strictest confidence to their closest friends. Sylvia pretended to be shocked, but it was such a juicy bit of scandal she couldn’t keep it to herself.

“So I confronted Percy with the information. First he denied the whole thing. I’d expected that and was prepared for it; eventually I convinced him that I understood about men having special needs and… Ramses, stop gritting your teeth, your lip is bleeding again!”