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inquired, employing Ramses’s Arabic soubriquet.
         Ramses put him off with an explanation that was extremely improper and obviously false, and got into the cab. He was still thinking about Percy.
         They had despised one another since their childhood days, but Ramses hadn’t realized how dangerous Percy could be until he’d tried to do his cousin a favor.
         It only went to prove the truth of his father’s cynical statement: no good deed ever goes unpunished. Wandering aimlessly through Palestine, Percy had been taken prisoner and held for ransom by one of the bandits who infested the area. When Ramses went into the camp to get him out, he found his cousin comfortably ensconced in Zaal’s best guest room, well supplied with brandy and other comforts and waiting complacently to be ransomed.
         He hadn’t recognized Ramses in his Bedouin disguise, and after watching Percy snivel and grovel and resist escape with the hysteria of a virgin fighting for her virtue, Ramses had realized it would be wiser not to enlighten him as to the identity of his rescuer. Percy had found out, though. Ramses had not underestimated his resentment, but he had not anticipated the malevolent fertility of Percy’s imagination. Accusing Ramses of fathering his carelessly begotten and callously abandoned child had been a masterstroke.
         Yet tonight Percy had defended him, physically and verbally. Spouting high-minded sentiments in front of Lord Edward Cecil was designed to raise that influential official’s opinion of Captain Percival Peabody, but there must be something more to it than that — something underhanded and unpleasant, if he knew Percy. What the devil was he planning now?

    :

    I looked forward with considerable curiosity to our meeting with Mr. Russell. I had known him for some years and esteemed him highly, in spite of his underhanded attempts to make Ramses into a policeman. Not that I have anything against policemen, but I did not consider it a suitable career for my son. Emerson had nothing against policemen either, but he was not fond of social encounters, and, like Nefret, I suspected he had an ulterior motive in proposing we dine with Russell.
         Russell was waiting for us in the Moorish Hall when we arrived. His sandy eyebrows went up at the sight of Nefret, and when Emerson said breezily, “Hope you don’t mind our bringing Miss Forth,” I realized that the invitation had been Russell’s, not Emerson’s.
         Nefret realized it at the same time, and gave me a conspiratorial smile as she offered Russell her gloved hand. Emerson never paid the least attention to social conventions, and Russell had no choice but to appear pleased.
         “Why, uh, yes, Professor — that is, I am delighted, of course, to see — uh — Miss — uh — Forth.”
         His confusion was understandable. Nefret had resumed her maiden name after the death of her husband, and Cairo society had found this hard to accept. They found a good many of Nefret’s acts hard to accept.
         We went at once to the dining salon and the table Mr. Russell had reserved. I thought he appeared a trifle uncomfortable, and my suspicions as to his reason for asking us to dine were confirmed. He wanted something from us. Assistance, perhaps, in rounding up some of the more dangerous foreign agents in Cairo? Glancing round the room, I began to wonder if I too was beginning to succumb to war nerves. Officers and officials, matrons and maidens — all people I had known for years — suddenly looked sly and duplicitous. Were any of them in the pay of the enemy?
         At any rate, I told myself firmly, none of them was Sethos.
         Emerson has never been one to beat around the bush. He waited only until after we had ordered before he remarked, “Well, Russell, what’s on your mind, eh? If you want me to persuade Ramses to join the CID, you are wasting your time. His mother won’t