“You had better lower your voice.”

Ramses took a long, steadying breath. “And you had better go. I meant what I said, David.”

“Of course.” David rose and moved noiselessly toward the doorway. Then he pulled back with a muffled exclamation.

Ramses joined him and looked out. There was no mistaking the massive form that occupied a seat of honor in the center of the audience. Emerson was smoking his pipe and listening attentively.

“What’s he doing here?” David whispered.

“Playing nursemaid,” Ramses muttered. “I wish he wouldn’t treat me like—”

“You did the same for him last night.”

“Oh.”

David let out a soundless breath of laughter. “He’s saved me the trouble of following you home. Till tomorrow.”

Bowing his head to conceal his height, he began working his way slowly through the men who stood nearby. Ramses moved forward a step and leaned against the wooden frame, as if he had been standing there all along.

He knew his father had seen him. Emerson had probably spotted David too, but he made no move to intercept him. He waited politely until the wail of the viol indicated the end of another chapter, and then rose and went to meet Ramses. They took their leave of the other patrons and started on the homeward path.

“Anything new?” Emerson inquired.

“No. There was no need for you to come after me.”

Emerson ignored this churlish remark, but he did change the subject. “I’m worried about your mother.”

“Mother? Why? Has something happened?”

“No, no. It’s just that I know her well, and I detected an all-too-familiar glint in her eyes this afternoon. She has not my gift of patience,” said Emerson regretfully. “What was that? Did you say something?”

“No, sir.” Ramses stifled his laughter. “About Mother—”

“Oh, yes. I think she is about to take the bit in her teeth and go on the warpath.”

“I had the same impression. Did she tell you what she’s got in mind? I hope to God she isn’t going to confront General Maxwell and tell him he must call the whole thing off.”

“No, I’m going to do that.”

“What? You can’t!”

“I could, as a matter of fact.” Emerson stopped to refill his pipe. “Calm yourself, my boy, you are becoming as hot-tempered as your sister. Sometimes I think I am the only cool-headed individual in this entire family.” He struck a match, and Ramses managed, with some difficulty, to refrain from pointing out that this might not be such a wise move. If anyone had been following them…

Apparently no one had. Emerson puffed happily, and then said, “But I shan’t. There is no meeting of the committee tomorrow; that was just my little excuse for calling on him. What the devil, there is too bloody much indirection in this affair. I want to know what Maxwell knows and tell him what I think he ought to hear. Don’t worry; I shall be very discreet.”

“Yes, sir.” Argument would have been a waste of time; one might as well stand in the path of an avalanche and tell the rocks to stop falling.

Emerson chuckled. “You don’t believe I can be discreet, do you? Trust me. As for your mother, I think I know what she has in mind. She thinks she has spotted Sethos. I intend to allow her to pursue her innocent investigations, because she is on the wrong track.”

“How do you know?”

“Because,” said Emerson, “I know… Er. Because I know the fellow she suspects is not he.”

“Who is it she suspects?”

“The Count.” Emerson chuckled.

“Oh. I agree with you. He’s too obvious.”

“Quite.”

They were near the house. “I’ve got to run into Cairo for a while,” Ramses said.

“I will accompany you.”

He had expected that and braced himself for another argument. “No. It’s not one of my usual trips, Father. There is someone I must see. I won’t be long. I’ll take one of the horses—not Risha, he’s too well known—and be back in an hour or so.”

Emerson stopped short, looming like a monolith. “At least tell me where you are going.”

Just in case. He didn’t have to say it. And he was right.

“El-Gharbi’s.”

Emerson’s breath went out in an outraged explosion, and Ramses hastened to explain. “I know, he’s a crawling serpentine trafficker in human flesh and all that; but he’s got connections throughout the Cairo underworld. I saw him once before, when I was trying to find out where that poor devil who was killed outside Shepheard’s got his grenades. He told me… several interesting things. I think he wants to see me again. He didn’t stop by the hospital because he was concerned about that girl.”

“Not him.” Emerson rubbed his chin. “Hmph. You could be right. It’s worth the time, I suppose. Are you sure you don’t want—”

“I’m sure. It’ll be all right.”

“You always say that.”

“Not always. Anyhow, what would Mother do if she found out you had gone to el Was’a?”

Ramses left the horse, a placid gelding Emerson had hired for the season, at Shepheard’s and went on foot from there, squelching through the noisome and nameless muck of the alley to the back entrance he’d been shown. His knock was promptly answered, but el-Gharbi kept him waiting for a good quarter of an hour before admitting him to his presence.

Swathed in his favorite snowy robes, squatting on a pile of brocaded cushions, el-Gharbi was shoving sugared dates into his mouth with one hand and holding out the other to be kissed by the stream of supplicants and admirers who crowded the audience chamber. He gave a theatrical start of surprise when he saw Ramses, who had not bothered to alter his appearance beyond adding a mustache and a pair of glasses. As he had learned, the most effective disguise was a change in one’s posture and mannerisms.

Clapping his hands, el-Gharbi dismissed his sycophants and offered Ramses a seat beside him.

“She is a pearl,” he announced. “A gem of rare beauty, a gazelle with dove’s eyes… Now, my dear, don’t glower at me. You don’t like me to praise your lady’s loveliness?”

“No.”

“I was curious. So much devotion, from so many admirers! Having seen her, I understand. She has strength and courage as well, that one. Such qualities in a woman—”

“What did you want to see me about?”

“I?” The kohl lining his eyes cracked as he opened them wide. “It is you who have come to me.”

When Ramses left the place a quarter of an hour later, he wasn’t sure what el-Gharbi had wanted him to know. Fishing for facts in the murky waters of the pimp’s innuendoes was a messy job. Once again, Percy had been the main subject—his affairs with various “respectable” women, the secret (except to the all-knowing el-Gharbi) hideaways where he took them, his brutal handling of the girls of the Red Blind District. Ramses thought he would probably never know for certain what Percy had done, or was doing, to annoy el-Gharbi—damaging the merchandise might be a sufficient cause—but one fact was clear. El-Gharbi wanted Percy dead or disgraced, and he wanted Ramses to do the job for him.