"Yes, but you see, we found several others, here at Shepheard's."
"I don't follow you."
"In Mr. Ramsey's room."
Silence. Samir cleared his throat." You searched his room?"
It was Miles who answered:
"Julie, I know this is a very dear friend of yours, and the whole situation is painful. But you see, these killings - they're extraordinarily vicious. And you must tell us anything that can help us to apprehend this man."
"He did not kill anyone in London!"
Miles went on as if he hadn't heard this outburst, with maddening civility.
"Now, the Earl, we must talk to the Earl also, and at the moment we can't find him." He looked to Alex.
"I don't know where my father is," Alex said helplessly.
"And Henry Stratford, where can we find him?"
The two Egyptians hurried through the narrow streets of old Cairo, with the blanket over their shoulders, the bulging body quite a weight in the noon heat.
But it was well worth the sweat and time taken, for the body would bring them plenty. As the winter months approached, tourists would descend in droves upon Egypt. They had found a good and handsome corpse just in time.
Finally they reached Zaki's house, or" the factory," as it was known to them in their own tongue. Through the courtyard gate they entered, hurrying with their trophy into the first of a series of dimly lighted rooms. They had taken no notice of the mummies propped against the stone wall as they passed, or of the numerous dark, leathery bodies on tables in the room.
Only the stench of the chemicals bothered them. And they waited impatiently for Zaki to come.
"Good body," said one of the men to the workman who stirred a giant pot of bitumen in the centre of the room. A great
bed of coals beneath it kept it bubbling, and it was from this pot that the foul smell came.
"Good bones?" asked the man.
"Ah, yes, beautiful English bones."
The disguise was a good one. Thousands of such Bedouins roamed Cairo. He might as well have been invisible, that is, when he took off the sunglasses which did occasionally bring
stares.
He pocketed them now beneath the striped robe as he entered the rear yard of Shepheard's Hotel. The brown-skinned Egyptian boys, lathering a motor car, did not even look up from their labor as he passed.
Moving along the wall, behind the fruit trees, he approached a small nondescript door. An uncarpeted rear stairs lay within. Mops, brooms, a wash pail in the alcove.
He took the broom and made his way slowly up the stairs. He dreaded the inevitable moment when Julie would ask what he had done.
She sat on the side of the bed, eating from the tray he'd put before her on the small wicker table from the yard. She wore a thin chemise now, the only undergarment he'd found in Malenka's closet. He had helped her put it on.
Malenka had prepared the food for him - fruit, bread, cheese and wine - but she would not come near the room.
The creature's appetite was fierce and she ate almost savagely. The bottles of wine she'd drunk as if they were water. And though she had remained in the sun steadily, no more healing had taken place, of that he was fairly sure.
As for Malenka, she remained shivering in the front room. How long he could control her, Elliott was unsure.
He slipped away now and went in search of her. He found her crouched, her arms folded, against the far wall.
"Don't be frightened, dear," he said to her.
"My poor English," she said in a whisper.
"I know, my dear, I know." But that's just it, he didn't know. He sat down in the peacock chair again, and took out a few more bills. He gestured to her to come and take them. But she merely stared at him, dull-eyed, shivering, and then turned her head to the wall.
"My poor English," she said," is in the boiling vat by now."
Had he heard her properly?
"What vat?" he asked her." What are you saying?"
"They make a great Pharaoh of my English. My beautiful English. They put him in the bitumen; they make a mummy of him for tourists to buy."
He was too shocked to answer her. He looked away, unable to form the simplest words.
"My beautiful English, they wrap him in linen; they make him a King."
He wanted to say, Stop, he could hear no more. But he only sat there