Dead Men's Hearts

“In a word,” said Haddon, “yes.”

Julie leaned toward Gideon. “The plot thickens.”

“Thickens?” he said. “It’s practically coagulated.”

“But—but who?” a frowning Arlo asked Haddon. “To what end?”

Haddon smiled brilliantly at him. “And there, my dear Arlo, with your usual ready acumen—”

Arlo’s vague mustache twitched. His expression turned opaque. He looked at the floor.

“—you have put your metaphorical finger on those resgestae of the case that are so extraordinarily intriguing.” He swirled his glass absently and drank down melted ice. “In fact, I do have some thoughts on the matter, some rather obvious thoughts, really, but I suspect it would be a bit premature to discuss them.”

At which convenient point one of the staff entered, smilingly raised a miniature xylophone to shoulder height, and beat a tattoo that made up in enthusiasm for what it lacked in musicality.

Dinner was served.

Bruno and Bea caught up with them on the way to the dining room. “Are things getting interesting or what?” Bruno asked. “What do you think is going on? I know the way I figure it—” He glanced around. Behind them, TJ and Jerry were deep in their own conversation, but he lowered his voice anyway.

“The way I figure it, only four people besides Haddon could have known that head was sitting there, right? Arlo, Jerry, TJ, and the Arab guy. So one of them must have snuck back and put it in the drawer. It has to be. The question is, why?”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessarily right,” Julie said. “Any of them could have told other people about it. So could Dr. Haddon, for that matter.”

Bruno considered this briefly. “True. But the question still remains: why? I mean, I could see if somebody came back and stole it, but what’s the point of putting it back in the drawer? That’s where it would have wound up the next morning anyway, right?”

“Actually—” said Gideon.

“Wrong,” Bea said. “Bruno, I will never in my life figure out how a meathead like you ever managed to make three separate fortunes.”

The way he beamed at her, it might have been a compliment. “Don’t forget, I managed to blow two of ‘em too.”

The small, tidy Nefertiti Restaurant had been set with places for four at each table: three glasses, multitudinous silverware, thick, spotless linen. They went to a table near a window. Outside, here and there in the growing dusk, the neon signs atop minarets began to flicker on in red and green.

“Now,” Bea said to Bruno once they’d sat down, “how many years have we been coming to Horizon House? Don’t you know Clifford Haddon yet? He thinks all we’ve been doing for the last three days is wondering if he’s cuckoo or not, and it’s been driving him bonkers.”

Julie smiled. “You don’t like him very much.”

Bea seemed surprised. “I don’t dislike him. I admire him very much. But I also know the way the man’s mind works. He can’t stand to look foolish, and the fact that he saw something that wasn’t there, and that everybody knows it— or so he thought—has been preying on his mind. So, being Clifford, he has to make up this fairy story that’s supposed to prove it was really there, only some tricky devil came skulking back in the dead of night and put it back where it belongs. It’s ridiculous, but how can anyone prove it didn’t happen?”

Bruno looked doubtful. “I don’t know, hon…”

“Gideon agrees with me. I can tell from that pensive, furrowed brow. That’s what I like about Gideon. The man’s an open book.”

“Well, I’m not sure about it.” Gideon looked up from the water goblet he’d been turning in slow circles. “What doesn’t quite ring true to me is his recognizing the head when he saw it in the drawer. As I understand it, he only got a glimpse of it the night before, in the dark, with all that commotion over the bones. And he said himself it wasn’t that distinctive—”

“So how can he be so positive it was the very same one he saw the night before in the enclosure?” Bea finished for him. “You’re absolutely right.”

Gideon himself was less sure. “Maybe.”

The waiter approached to pour glasses of red wine for them, then set the bottle on the table: Omar Khayyam Grand Vin Rouge. “Most good wine of Egypt,” he told them. “Very tasty.”

Julie pointed out that they now had a chance to fulfill the promise they’d made to themselves to share a bottle of wine while watching the sun set over the Nile, and wouldn’t it be nice to find a more pleasant subject?

This idea was endorsed by all parties, and they spent a congenial hour and a half over several more glasses of Egypt’s finest and a praiseworthy meal of chiche kabab a la broche and riz au sauce de tomates.

While Bruno related to them the startling experience of G. Patrick Flanagan of California, whose dog converted permanently to vegetarianism after exposure to the healthful rays of pyramid power.

It was, said Bruno, a known fact.

Chapter Twelve

“Gideon!”‘

He started, deep in some queer, muddled dream about working on an assembly line, trying to nail something together to the beat of tom-toms. The tom-toms were keeping time, like drums on a slave galley, but he couldn’t quite find the beat and his hammer kept going soft on him. And somewhere in the distance someone was calling his name—