"Winthrop," he said," you know very well that this man's innocent. It's Henry. It's been Henry all along. Everything points to it. He broke into the Cairo Museum, stole the mummy, sold it for profit, went on a drunken rampage with the money. You found the wrappings in the belly dancer's house. Henry's name was found in the loan shark's book in London." "But the whole story is so ..." Elliott motioned for silence.
"Ramsey has been subjected to enough, and so have we. He's already made the crucial statement that Henry confessed to the murder of his uncle."
"He made this very plain to me," Ramsey said dryly." I want our passports returned immediately," Elliott said." But the British Museum ..." "Young man," Gerald began.
"Lawrence Stratford gave a fortune to the British Museum," Elliott declared. Finally he could take no more. He had reached his limit with this farce." Listen, Miles," he said, leaning forward." You clear this up, and now, unless you intend to become a social recluse. For I assure you that if my party, including Reginald Ramsey, is not on the noon train tomorrow for Port Said, you will never be received again by any family in Cairo or London which hopes to receive the seventeenth Earl of Rutherford. Do I make myself clear?"
Silence in the office. The young man blanched. This was excruciating.
"Yes, my lord," he answered under his breath. At once he opened the desk drawer and produced the passports one by one, laying them down on the blotter before him.
Elliott managed to scoop them up with a neat quick gesture before Gerald could do it.
"I find this as disagreeable as you do," he said." I've never said such words before to any human being in my life, but I want my son released so he can go back to England. Then I'll stay in this bloody place as long as you want me here. I'll answer any question you like."
"Yes, my lord, if I can tell the governor that you will stay-"
"I just told you that, didn't I? Do you want a blood oath?" Enough said. He felt Gerald's hand on his arm. He had what he wanted.
Samir helped him to his feet. They led the party out of the anteroom, through the hallway and onto the front veranda.
"Well done, Gerald," he said." I'll call you if I need you. I've appreciate your notifying Randolph about this. It's a little more than I can bear at the moment. But I'll write a long letter soon. ..."
"I'll soften everything. No need at all for him to know the details. When Henry's arrested, it's going to be dreadful enough."
"Let's worry about that when it happens."
Ramsey was clearly impatient. He started down the steps towards the waiting car. Elliott shook Gerald's hand and then followed.
"Are we quite finished with this little performance?" Ramsey said." I am wasting valuable time here!"
"Well, you have a lot of time, don't you?" Elliott said with a polite smile. He was a little light-headed suddenly. They had won. The children could get out." It's imperative that you come back to the hotel now," he said," that you be seen there."
"Foolishness! And the idea of the opera tonight is positively ludicrous."
"Expediency!" said Elliott, climbing into the backseat of the car first." Get in," he said.
Ramsey stood there, angry, dejected.
"Sue, what can we do until we have some further evidence of where she might be?" Samir asked." On our own, we cannot find her."
This time the little room that moved did not scare her. She knew what it was, and that it was to serve the people of these times, as the railroad served them and the motor cars, and all the strange devices that had seemed to her earlier as instruments of horror, things exquisitely capable of bringing suffering and death.
They didn't torture people by packing them into the little room and making them travel up and down. They didn't drive the big locomotives into advancing armies. How strange that she had interpreted things in terms of their most malicious uses.
And he was explaining things to her now, freely and easily - hi fact, he had been talking for hours. It wasn't important to ask him specific questions, except occasionally; he liked telling her all about the mummy of Ramses the Damned, and how Julie Stratford was a modern woman; and