“And so would you,” I said.

Emerson had listened without attempting to interrupt; now he glanced at his son, and said, “Ramses is right. In all fairness I must point out that he acted as impulsively as Nefret, and he was lucky to get away with only a knock on the head.”

Ramses’s high cheekbones darkened. “All right, it was stupid of me! But if she had let me enter that room first, you can be damned sure Farouk would never have laid a hand on her. I’d probably do something equally stupid if he threatened her again, and so would you, Father. Supposing there is a scrap—wouldn’t she wade right in, trying to help us, and wouldn’t you fall over your own feet trying to get her out of it?”

“I have heard of such things happening,” said Emerson. He looked at me. “No doubt you will accuse us of being patronizing and overly protective—”

“I do. You are. You always have been. But…”

Emerson heard the note of hesitation in my voice, and for once he had the good sense to keep quiet. His blue eyes were steady, his lean brown face resolute. I looked from him to Ramses, whose unruly black hair curled over his temples and whose well-cut features were so like his father’s. They were very dear to me. Would I put them at even greater risk by insisting on playing my part in the night’s adventure?

I was forced to admit that I might. I was also forced to admit that Ramses’s analysis of Nefret’s character was not entirely inaccurate. Initially it had struck me as being unjust and prejudiced; but I had had time to think about it, and incident after confirmatory incident came back to me. Some of her early escapades might be excused as the result of youthful overconfidence, such as the time she had deliberately allowed herself to be captured by one of our most vindictive opponents, in the hope of rescuing her brother; but maturity had not changed her very much. She had been a full-grown woman when she entered a Luxor bordello and tried to persuade the girls to leave. Then there was the time she had blackmailed Ramses into letting her go with him and David into one of the vilest parts of Cairo in order to retrieve a stolen antiquity—and the time she had single-handedly attacked a thief armed with a knife… The list went on and on. Emerson’s description of Ramses might equally have been applied to Nefret; she was as brave as a lion and as cunning as a cat, and as stubborn as a camel, and when her passions were aroused she was as quick to strike as a snake. Even her hasty, ill-advised marriage…

“Very well,” I said. “I still think you are being a trifle unjust to Nefret; she’s got you and David out of a few nasty situations, you know.”

“I know what I owe her,” Ramses said quietly.

“However,” I continued, “I agree to your proposal—not because I believe she cannot be trusted to behave sensibly but because I know you and your father cannot.”

Ramses’s tight lips relaxed. “Fair enough.”

“Hmph,” said Emerson.

We scattered to our various tasks.

It was after midday when Nefret turned up. I had been sifting a particularly unproductive lot of rubble for several hours, and was not unwilling to be interrupted. I rose to my feet and stretched. She had changed to her working clothes and I could tell by her brisk stride that she was in a happier state of mind than she had been that morning. She was carrying a covered basket, which she lowered to the ground beside me.

“Not more food?” I exclaimed. “We brought a luncheon basket.”

“You know Fatima ,” Nefret said. “She thinks none of us eat enough. While I was bathing and changing she made kunafeh especially for Ramses; she says he is all bones and skin, and needs to be fattened. Where is he? If he balks, we will stuff it down his throat, the way they do with geese.”

“And did even in ancient times,” I said, smiling. “Go and call him and Emerson to luncheon, then. They are inside the chapel.”

Fatima had also sent a dish of stewed apricots and a sliced watermelon, which had been nicely cooled by evaporation during the trip. We all tucked in with good appetite, including Ramses. The kunafeh was one of his favorite dishes, wheat-flour vermicelli fried in clarified butter and sweetened with honey. Nefret teased him by repeating Fatima ’s criticism, and he responded with a rather vulgar Arabic quotation about female pulchritude, which clearly did not apply to her, and Emerson smiled fondly at both of them.

“Matters went well today?” he inquired.

Nefret nodded. “I thought last night I would lose her, but she’s much better this morning.” She spat a watermelon seed neatly into her hand and went on, “You’ll never guess who called on me today.”

“Since we won’t, you may as well tell us,” said Ramses.

The next seed just missed his ear. His black eyes narrowed, and he reached for a slice of melon.

“I strictly forbid you to do that, Ramses,” I exclaimed. “You and Nefret are too old for those games now.”

“Let them enjoy themselves, Peabody,” Emerson said indulgently. “So, Nefret, who was your visitor?”

Her answer wiped the amiable smile from Emerson’s face.

“That degenerate, slimy, contemptible, disgusting, perverted, loathsome—”

“He was very polite,” Nefret interrupted. “Or should I have said ‘she’?”

“The fact that el-Gharbi prefers to wear women’s clothing does not change his sex—uh—gender,” Ramses said. He looked as inscrutable as ever, but I had seen his involuntary start of surprise. “What was he doing at the hospital?”

“Inquiring after one of ‘his’ girls.” Nefret’s voice put quotation marks round the pronoun. “The same one I operated on last night. He said he had sent her to us, and that the man who hurt her had been… dealt with.”

Emerson had got his breath back. “That crawling, serpentine trafficker in human flesh, that filthy—”

“Yes, Professor darling, I know the words too. And his taste in jewelry and perfume is quite dreadful!” Observing, from Emerson’s apoplectic countenance, that he was in no mood for humor, she threw her arm round his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “I love your indignation, Professor dear. But I’ve seen worse and dealt with worse since I started the clinic. El-Gharbi’s goodwill can help me to help those women. That is the important thing.”

“Quite right,” I said approvingly.

“Bah,” said Emerson.

Ramses said, “Well done, Nefret.”

The watermelon seed hit him square on the chin.

My mind was not entirely on my rubbish that afternoon. I was racking my brain trying to think of a way of preventing Nefret from accompanying Emerson and Ramses. A number of schemes ran through my mind, only to be dismissed as impracticable. The inspiration that finally dawned was so remarkable I wondered why it had not occurred to me before.

We dined earlier than was our custom, since I wanted to make sure Ramses ate a proper meal before leaving. It would take him an hour to reach Maadi by the roundabout routes he had chosen in order to get into position unobserved and unsuspected. When the rest of us retired to the drawing room for after-dinner coffee, he slipped away, but of course Nefret noticed his absence almost immediately and demanded to know where he was.

“He has gone,” I replied, for I had determined to tell her the truth instead of inventing a story she would not have believed anyhow.

Nefret jumped up from her chair. “Gone? Already? Hell and damnation! You promised—”

“My dear, you will overturn the coffee tray. Sit down and pour, if you please. Thank you, Fatima, we need nothing more.”

Nefret did not sit down, but she waited until Fatima had left the room before she exploded. “How could you, Aunt Amelia? Professor, you let him go alone?”

The bravest of men—I refer, of course, to my spouse—quailed before that furious blue gaze. “Er…” he said. “Hmph. Tell her, Amelia.”

Nefret pronounced a word of whose meaning I was entirely ignorant, and bolted for the door. I do not know where she thought she was going; perhaps she believed she could intercept Ramses, or (which is more likely) perhaps she was not thinking at all. She did not get far. Emerson moved with the pantherlike speed that had given rise to one of Daoud’s more memorable sayings: “The Father of Curses roars like a lion and walks like a cat and strikes like a falcon.” He picked Nefret up as if she weighed nothing at all and carried her back to her chair.