When he finished fixing it, I was a dirty blonde with a long lank ponytail and a distinct four o’clock shadow. The dirt and the beard came from the garden, the single gold earring from Granny, and the collarless long-sleeved shirt from Feisal. Entering into the spirit of the thing, I demanded a crystal and a pair of cutoffs.
‘We’ll pick up some mystic insignia at one of the bazaars,’ John said. ‘These types go in for scarabs and ankh signs and such. The shorts are out. Your knees aren’t knobby enough.’
‘You might have expressed it in more flattering terms,’ I said.
‘Your legs, my darling, are masterpieces of sculptural elegance,’ John said agreeably. ‘Those appendages would grace an Aphrodite or a young Diana. Never could such marvels of slender rounded beauty be taken for those of a man. Your form, in short, is rare and divine.’
‘“Philadelphia Lawyer,”’ I said.
John raised one finger and made an invisible mark on the air. ‘One point for you.’
Feisal’s friend was a shy, retiring chap. As soon as we left the house in response to his signal on the horn, he slid out of the driver’s seat of the car and walked away without looking back. If he wanted to make certain neither John or I could identify him, he succeeded.
As for the car, I had seen its likes before – in junkyards or abandoned in vacant lots. If it had been in good condition it would have ranked as a vintage vehicle; those tailfins had to be thirty years out of date.
‘Good God,’ John said, staring. ‘Is this the best he could do? We won’t get twenty miles in this wreck.’
‘I hope you won’t think me rude,’ said Feisal, ‘if I remind you that you are in no position to be fastidious, and that you sound like a typical supercilious twit of a tourist. We underprivileged Third World types can’t afford a new car every year, so we learn how to keep them on the road.’
‘Touche,’ John admitted. ‘After you, Vicky.’
He handed me the basket Granny had pressed upon us. It was our only luggage except for Feisal’s suitcase.
Feisal got in behind the wheel. ‘Where to?’ he asked.
‘The ETAP.’
‘Oh, wonderful. The big tourist hotels are the first places they’ll look.’
‘Just drive,’ John said shortly.
Schmidt had given me one of his keys, ‘just in case.’ I hadn’t asked, ‘Just in case of what?’ I had had other things on my mind. As I crossed the lobby, trying to look as if I were focusing on auras instead of potential kidnappers, I wished I had asked. There was no need for him to leave the room except to cash his traveller’s cheques, which wouldn’t take long, and every reason for him to stay put. Even if they located him they couldn’t get at him unless he opened the door, and surely Schmidt wouldn’t be foolish enough to admit anyone except . . . Except the room service? Someone imitating my voice?
John had gone ahead. He was waiting by the elevator when I got out of it. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
I didn’t ask how he could tell. He could always tell. ‘I’m having premonitions,’ I admitted.
‘It’s always best to assume the worst.’ He took the key from me. ‘Stand out of the way.’
He gave the door a sharp kick and dropped to a crouching position. ‘That’s what they do in the films,’ he remarked, straightening. ‘Futile, really, when you consider that most criminals use automatic weapons these days, but I suppose they believe it looks – ’
‘He’s not here. Damn the crazy old idiot, where the hell has he got to now?’
The doors to the bathroom and closet stood open. The import of that didn’t dawn on me until after we had investigated all possible hiding places; my morbid imagination was convinced we’d find Schmidt’s crumpled body in the bathtub or under the bed.
‘He must have left under his own steam; there’s no sign of a struggle,’ I said. ‘If he’s gone back to Larry’s, looking for me, I’ll kill him.’
‘He’s not gone there,’ John said.
‘What?’ I spun around. He was bending over the desk. ‘How do you know?’
‘He’s left you a note.’
The paper had been crumpled and then smoothed out. It was so badly stained by something brown and sticky that the words were barely legible.
‘My dear Vicky,’ it began. (I translate; he had written in German.) ‘I have the proof we need. I will drop this off at your hotel and then proceed to the rendezvous we . . .’
‘What is this?’ I demanded. ‘What proof? He never mentioned it to me. What hotel? What rendezvous?’
‘Calm down.’ John seated himself at the desk ‘Let’s see if we can figure out what he’s up to.’
‘Maybe we’d better get out of here.’
‘No need for haste. They’ve already been.’
‘How . . .’ I stopped myself. He was dying to show off; his half-smile and cool stare invited me to make a babbling fool of myself so he could patiently explain things to me. ‘Where was the note?’ I asked.
John nodded graciously, like a teacher to a dull student who is finally getting the hang of it. ‘On the desk. Someone had smoothed it out.’
‘But Schmidt must have thrown it away. In the waste-basket or onto the floor, after he spilled food all over it . . .’
‘Deliberately spilled food all over it,’ John said encouragingly.
‘The implication being that he’d discarded the note because it was sticky and wet and illegible, and written another one.’ I began pacing the floor. ‘He expected they’d locate him sooner or later. I’ve been gone . . .’ I looked at my watch. ‘Over five hours, and they had been looking for us since early afternoon. Time enough to inquire at every hotel in Luxor. He registered under his own name . . .’
‘If he had the intelligence for which I am belatedly beginning to give him credit, he left this room shortly after you did,’ John said. ‘In disguise, if I know my Schmidt. Let’s see. What would I do next? Stake myself out in the lobby. Hope you’d make it back before they located him. Be ready to move on in case they got here first. He’d already have cashed his traveller’s checks and retrieved his passport.’
‘They did get here first.’
‘And found the discarded letter.’ John’s eyes were bright with amusement and, as he proceeded to make clear, admiration. ‘You see what the little elf’s done, don’t you? This letter is not only a red herring, it is an attempt to protect you, in the event that you had been recaptured. If he’s got the evidence that can convict them there’s no reason for them to harm you. In fact, there is every reason for them to keep you whole and healthy so they can try to strike a deal: silence, or at least delay, in exchange for you.’ He paused, and then delivered the highest accolade in his repertoire. ‘I couldn’t have done better myself.’
‘So you don’t think he’s gone back to the house?’
‘Not our Schmidt. Whether you are a fugitive or a prisoner, he can serve you best by remaining free.’ John returned to his study of the note. ‘I can’t see anything else here. But I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he had . . . Wait a Sec. What’s this?’
‘The sticky stuff must have spattered,’ I said, as he held up a blank page spotted with stains.
‘The spots make a suspiciously regular pattern,’ John muttered.
‘Try joining the dots,’ I suggested sarcastically.
John emitted a crow of triumph. ‘That’s it! Look here.’
Picking up a pen, he began to draw – not lines connecting the spots, but a series of parallel lines. Five parallel lines. They made the nature of those odd splotches plain. They were musical notes.
‘No key signature,’ John muttered. ‘Let’s assume it’s the key of C and that there are no accidentals. Hard to indicate them, really . . .’ He began to whistle. ‘Strike a chord?’
‘Try to avoid puns if possible,’ I said critically. ‘No, it isn’t familiar.’
‘How about this?’ There was a slight difference. I assumed he’d thrown in a few miscellaneous sharps and/or flats.
‘This is a waste of time,’ I grumbled. ‘Schmidt probably was trying to be cute, but if that’s one of his beloved country music tunes you’ll never figure out which song because there are only three or four melodies in the whole damned repertoire.’
John dropped heavily into a chair. ‘My God. I should have known.’
‘What? What?’
He tried to give me the definitive version, but he was laughing so hard he couldn’t keep his lips puckered. ‘If
