He picked it up and leafed through it, stopping at a full engraving of the great pyramid at Giza which contained also the Mena Hotel. What in the world was he thinking? He closed it.
"RRRRR ... kay ... ology," he said. With the utter guile-lessness of a child, he smiled.
His eyes positively glittered as he looked at her. There was a scant bit of hair on his massive chest. She must get out of here now.
"You dress, Ramses. Like the pictures. I'll help you later if you make any mistakes."
"Very well, Julie Stratford," he said in that paralyzingly perfect British accent." I dress alone. I have done this before."
Of course. Slaves. He had always had them, hadn't he? Probably by the dozens. Well, there was nothing to be done about it. She could not start removing that robe with her own hands. Her cheeks were burning. She could feel it. She hurried out, and quietly shut the door.
HENRY WAS now as drunk as he had ever been in his life. He had finished the bottle of Scotch which he had taken without permission from Elliott, and the r'" ' brandy was going down like water. But it did not help.
He was smoking one Egyptian cheroot after another, filling Daisy's flat with the pungent fragrance he had grown accustomed to in Cairo, And all it did was make him think of Malenka, and how he wished he was with Malenka, though he also wished he had never set foot in Egypt, that he had never entered that chamber in the side of the mountain where his uncle Lawrence had been poring over a stack of ancient scrolls.
That thing had been alive! That thing had seen him slip the poison into Lawrence's cup. No mistaking now the memory of those eyes open under the bandages; no mistaking that the thing had come out of its coffin in Julie's house and clamped its filthy hand on his neck.
No one understood the danger he was in. No one understood because no one knew the thing's motive! Never mind the reason for its filthy existence! The thing knew what he had done. And that Reginald Ramsey - though he could not entirely associate the man with the filthy creature that had tried to strangle him - he knew intellectually they were one and the same. Would the man disappear into the rotted linen bandages again when it came to get him?
God! He shuddered all over. He heard Daisy say something,
and when he looked up he saw her standing by the mantel shelf, posing, as it were, in her corset and silk stockings, her breasts pouring over the lace cups of the corset, her blond ringlets tumbling onto her shoulders. Ought to be quite something to look at, to touch. It meant nothing.
"And you're telling me a bloomin' mummy came right out of the mummy case and put its bloomin' hands around your throat! And you're telling me it's got on a bloomin' robe and slippers and is walking around the bloomin1 house!"
Go away, Daisy. In his mind's eye, he saw himself taking the knife out of his pocket, the knife with which he'd killed Sharpies, and he saw himself stabbing Daisy with it, in the throat.
The bell sounded. She wasn't going to the door in that getup, was she? Perfect idiot. What the devil did he care! The door. He shrank back in the chair, fumbling in his pocket for the knife.
Flowers. She came back with a big bouquet of flowers, babbling about an admirer. He slumped back in the chair. What was she doing? Staring at him like that?
"I need a pistol," he said without looking at her." Surely one of your guttersnipe friends can get me a pistol?"
"I'll have nothing to do with it!"
"You'll do as I tell you!" he said. If only she knew; he had killed two men. He had almost killed a woman. Almost. And the thing was, he would have liked to hurt Daisy, he would have liked to see the expression on her face when the knife went into her throat." Now get on the telephone," he said to her." Call that worthless brother of yours. I need a pistol small enough to keep under my coat."
Was she going to cry?
"Do as I tell you," he said." Now, I'm going to my club to get some of my clothing. If anyone calls here for me, you're to say I'm staying there,