mirror. She began almost idly to take the pins from her hair, and her vision blurred as she looked at her own reflection. She saw the room as if through a veil; she saw the flowers; she saw the white lace curtains of her bed; she saw her world, remote, and no longer important.
She drifted slowly through the motions of brushing her hair, of rising, undressing, putting on her gown, and climbing under the covers. The candles still burned. The room had a soft lovely glow. The flowers gave a faint perfume.
Tomorrow she would take him to the museums, if he wanted. They would take a train perhaps out in the country. To the Tower of London they might go. Oh, so many things ... so many, many things...
And there came that great lovely cessation of all thought; she saw him; she saw herself and him together.
Samir had been sitting at his desk for the better part of an hour. He had drunk half a bottle of Pernod, a liqueur he had always loved, which he had discovered in a French cafe" in Cairo. He wasn't drunk, however; he had merely blunted the palm-tingling agitation that had taken possession of him shortly after he left the Stratford house. But when he tried to really think about what was going on, the agitation would return again.
He was suddenly startled by a tap at his window. His office was at the back of the museum. And the only light shining in the entire building was his light, and perhaps another somewhere deep inside where the night guards took their cigarettes and coffee.
He could not see the figure outside. But he knew who h was. And he was on his feet before the tap came again. He went into the back corridor, and to a rear door and opened it on the back alleyway.
In a rain-spattered coat, his shirt open and unbuttoned halfway down the front, Ramses the Great stood waiting for him. Samir stepped out into the darkness. The rain had left a sheen on the stone walls, and on the pavement. But nothing seemed to shimmer quite like this tall, commanding figure before him.
"What can I do for you, sire?" Samir asked." What service can I render?"
"I want to come in, honest one," Ramses said." If you will permit, I would like to see the relics of my ancestors and of my children."
A lovely tremor passed through Samir at these words. He felt tears springing to his eyes. He could not have explained this bittersweet happiness to anyone.
"Gladly, sire," he said." Let me be your guide. It is a great privilege."
Elliott saw the books in Randolph's library. He parked his car at the kerb, right beside the old mews, climbed out and somehow managed to get up the steps and ring the bell. Randolph himself, in shirt-sleeves and with the stale smell of wine on his breath, came to answer.
"Good Lord, do you know what time it is?" he asked. He turned and allowed Elliott to follow him back into the library. What a grand affair it was, chock full of all the accoutrements money could buy for such a room, including prints of dogs and horses, and maps which no one ever looked at.
"I'll tell you the truth right off. I'm too tired for anything else," Randolph said." You've come at a very good time to answer a very important question.' *
"And what is that?' * Elliott said. He watched Randolph settle at his desk, a great monstrous thing of mahogany with heavy carving. There were papers and account books all over the top of it. There were bills in heaps. And a great huge ugly telephone, and leather containers for clips, pens, paper.
"The ancient Romans," Randolph said, sitting back and drinking his wine without a thought to offering Elliott any." What did they do when they were dishonoured, Elliott? They slit their wrists, did they not? And bled to death gracefully."
Elliott eyed the man, his red eyes, the slight palsy of his hand. Then he put his walking stick to use as he climbed to his feet again. He went to the desk and poured himself a glass of wine from the decanter. He refilled Randolph's glass, and then retreated to his chair again.
Randolph watched all this but appeared to attach no significance to it whatsoever. He rested his elbows on the desk before him, and ran his heavy wrinkled fingers through