watched him go. Sorrier than she had ever felt for anyone in her life. She did not realize he was barefoot until he was halfway down the street.
The reporters were following him. As the Scotland Yard men drove away, a pair of the reporters doubled back, and she retreated quickly, slamming the door. She peered out through the glass at the distant figure of her uncle rushing up his own front steps.
Then slowly she turned and came back into the front room.
Silence. The faint singing of the fountain in the conservatory. A horse passing at a brisk trot in the street outside. Rita shivering in the corner, with her apron a little knot in her feverishly working hands.
And Ramses, motionless, in the middle of the room. He stood with his arms folded, looking at her, feet slightly apart as before. The sun was a warm golden haze behind him, leaving his face in shadow. And the deep radiance of his eyes was almost as distracting as the high sheen of his full hair.
For the first time she understood the simple meaning of the word regal. And another word came to her, quite unfamiliar yet perfectly appropriate. It was comely. And it struck her that no small part of his beauty was his expression. He appeared wonderfully clever, and wonderfully curious, though quite collected, all at the same time. Otherworldly, yet perfectly normal. Grander than human; but human nonetheless.
He merely looked at her. The deep folds of the long heavy satin robe moved ever so faintly in the soft current of warm air from the conservatory doors.
'Rita, leave us,' she whispered.
'But miss . . .'
'Go.'
Silence again. Then he came towards her. No trace of a smile; only a gentle seriousness, eyes widening a little as he appeared to study her face, her hair, her dress.
How must this flimsy lace peignoir look to him? she thought suddenly. Good Lord, does he think the women of these times wear such things about the house and on the street? But he was not looking at the lace. He was staring at the shape of her breasts beneath the loose silk, at the contour of her hips. He looked at her face again and there was no mistaking his expression. It was passionate suddenly. He drew closer and reached out for her shoulders and she felt his warm fingers tighten.
'No,' she said.
She shook her head emphatically and she stepped back. She straightened her shoulders, trying not to admit her fear, or the sudden delicious chill that ran up her back and down her arms. 'No,' she said again with a faint touch of disapproval.
And as she watched, on the edge of fear, the warmth in her breasts astonishing her, he nodded, backed away and smiled. He made a little open gesture with his hands. He spoke in a soft riff of Latin. She caught her name, the word regina, and the word she knew meant house. Julie is Queen in her house.
She nodded.
Her sigh of relief was impossible to disguise. She was shaking again, all over. Could he see it? Of course.
He made a gesture of asking:
'Panis, Julie,' he whispered. 'Vinum. Panis. ' He narrowed his eyes, as if searching for a proper word. 'Edere,' he whispered, and gestured gracefully to his lips.
'Oh! I know what you're saying. Food, you want food. You want wine and bread.' She hurried to the doorway. 'Rita,' she called out. 'He's hungry. Rita, we must get him something to eat at once.'
She turned around to see him smiling at her again, with that great warmth of affection she had seen upstairs. He found her pleasing to look at, did he? If only he knew that she found him almost irresistible, that a moment before she had almost locked her arms around him and- Best not to think of that. No, mustn't think of that at all.
4
ELLIOTT SAT back in the wing chair, staring forward at the coal fire. He was as close as possible to the grate, his slippered feet on the fender. The heat of it soothed the pain in his legs and in his hands. He was listening to Henry, veering between impatience and an unexpected fascination. God's vengeance upon Henry had been almost complete for his sins. Henry was a scandal.
'You must have imagined it!' Alex said.
'But I am telling you that damned thing got out of that mummy case and came at me. It strangled me. I felt its hand on me; I looked up into its filthy bandaged face.'
'Definitely imagined it,' Alex said.
'Imagined it, hell!'
Elliott glanced up at the two young men at the end of the mantel shelf to his right. Henry, unshaven, trembling, the glass of Scotch in his hand. And Alex, immaculate, his hands as clean as a nun's.
'And this Egyptologist fellow, you're saying that he and the mummy are one and the same? Henry, you've been out all night, haven't you? You've been drinking with that girl from the Music Hall. You've been-'
'Well, where the hell did the bastard come from if he's not the mummy!'
Elliott laughed softly. He gave the coals a poke with the tip of his silver cane.
Henry went on undaunted.
'He wasn't there last night! He came down the stairs in Uncle Lawrence's bathrobe! And you haven't seen this man! He's no ordinary man. Anybody who looks at him can tell he's not ordinary.'
'He's alone there now? With Julie?'
It took so long for Alex to put things together, trusting soul.
'That's what I Ve been trying to tell you. My God! Isn't there anyone in London who will listen to me?' Henry gulped the Scotch, went to the sideboard and filled his glass again. 'And Julie's protecting him. Julie knows what happened. She saw the thing come at me!''
'You're doing yourself a disservice with this story,' Alex said gently. 'No one's going to believe-'
'You realize those papyri, those scrolls,' Henry sputtered. 'They talk about some kind of immortal something. Lawrence was talking about it to that Samir fellow, something about Ramses the Second wandering for a thousand years-''
'I thought it was Ramses the Great,' Alex interrupted.
'They are one and the same, you numbskull. Ramses the Second, Ramses the Great, Ramses the Damned. It was all in those scrolls, I tell you-about Cleopatra and this Ramses. Didn't you read it in the papers? I thought Uncle Lawrence was going soft from the heat.'
'I think you need a rest, possibly in hospital. All this talk of a curse-'
'Damn it, don't you understand me! It's worse than a curse. The thing tried to kill me. It moved, I tell you. It's alive.'
Alex stared at Henry with a thinly veiled look of revulsion. Same look he reserves for newspapers, Elliott thought glumly.
'I'm going to see Julie. Father, if you'll excuse ...'
'Of course, that's exactly what you should do.' Elliott looked into the fire again. 'See about this Egyptologist person. Where he came from. She shouldn't be alone in that house with a stranger. It's absurd.'
'She's alone in that house with the damned mummy!'' Henry growled.
'Henry, why don't you go home and get some sleep?' Alex asked. 'I shall see you later, Father.'
'You bloody twit!'
Alex ignored the insult. It seemed an amazingly easy insult to ignore. Henry emptied the glass again and went back to the sideboard.
Elliott listened to the chink of the bottle against the glass. 'And this man, this mysterious Egyptologist, did you catch his name?' he asked.
'Reginald Ramsey, try that one on for size. And I could swear she made it up on the spot.' He came back to the mantel shelf, resting his elbow on it, with a full tumbler of Scotch, which he sipped slowly, his eyes darting anxiously away as Elliott looked up. 'I didn't hear him speak a word of English; and you should have seen the look in his eye. I 'm telling you-you've got to do something!'
