can’t blame them for thinking the emotional collapse they expected had finally occurred. It took two of them to hold my arm rigid so the needle could go in. The last thing I heard was Larry’s voice. ‘My poor darling. God bless you, all of you; I’ll take care of her now.’
I
RIGHT BACK WHERE I’d started.
So I thought, when I woke up to find myself in a large room furnished with antiques. I felt quite calm and relaxed. That’s one thing to be said for tranquillizers. They leave the recipient very tranquil.
Deep down under the layers of fuzzy pharmaceutical comfort a small section of my brain was trying frantically to get my attention. Think, it was screaming. Do something! Don’t just lie there, get me out of this!
There had been time for him to take me back to Luxor. Night had fallen; the windows of the room were dark. But this wasn’t one of the rooms in Larry’s Luxor house. The furniture was old but it was not as well-cared-for as Larry’s antiques; the gilt was chipped and the mattress of the bed on which I lay smelled slightly musty. Either Larry had a pied-a-terre in Cairo, or he was staying with a friend. (He had so many of them.) This wasn’t a hotel room. There was no television set, no room service menu – and no telephone.
And no bolt and chain on the inside of the door. The door was locked from the outside. Was I surprised? No. But I was sorry that frantic little voice had shaken me out of my stupor.
The windows were not lockcd. They led onto a small balcony, and I stood there for a few minutes, letting the night breeze cool my face. A few lights showed through the branches of the trees that were, I was sorry to see, on the same level as the balcony and too far from it to offer a means of egress. The ground was a long way down. There was no familiar landmark in sight – no towers, no high-rise hotels, not even a pyramid. The house must be in one of the suburbs.
The adjoining bath had once been palatial. Now the tile was chipped and the marble discoloured. The water ran rusty.
After it had cleared a little I splashed water on my face and hands. Then I went back and sat down. There weren’t that many alternatives.
By that time the fuzz was gone, and I was in a state of abject, disgusting panic. The past hours hadn’t been comfortable; I had been scared most of the time, scared to death and out of my wits some of the time, but this was worse – like having a chair pulled out from under you just when you think you can finally sit down and relax. To do myself justice it wasn’t the thought of Mary’s plans for me that made my mouth go dry and my hands shake. John and Schmidt could be tucked away in neighbouring rooms, with Mary busy at work on one or both. Feisal could be dead.
It wasn’t courage that got me to my feet, it was desperation. I had to find out. The truth might be less painful than the things I was imagining. It couldn’t be worse.
I banged on the door. After a moment I heard the sound of a key in the lock, and the door opened. He didn’t point a gun at me. He didn’t have to. The guard was Hans, my old acquaintance, the one with the face like a giant sheep and the physique of a giant, period. Hans even had muscles on his ears, and he was almost seven feet tall.
The Egyptian sun had been hard on his fair complexion. His cheeks were red and peeling. ‘Guten Abend, Fraulein Doktor,’ he said politely. ‘Also, Sie sind aufgewacht. I will tell them.’
Ten interminable, dragging minutes passed before there was a response. My aching muscles relaxed when I saw Larry. I didn’t like him a lot, but I definitely preferred his company to that of the lady. Ed followed him, carrying a tray. He didn’t make a very convincing waiter.
‘Shorthanded?’ I inquired, as Ed put the tray on the table and retreated to the door, where he stood with his arms folded, looking bored. This sort of thing was all in a day’s work for him, I supposed.
‘You have disrupted my plans rather badly,’ Larry admitted. ‘But only temporarily. Would you care for something to drink?’
The bottle of mineral water hadn’t been opened; the seal was intact. Larry watched with unconcealed amusement while I inspected it.
‘You really haven’t much choice,’ he pointed out pleasantly. ‘You might go on a hunger strike, but you can’t do without water long in this climate.’
Courteous as ever, he forbore to add that there were other, less comfortable means of controlling me. ‘So what are your plans?’ I inquired.
Larry settled back in his chair and studied me with an approving smile. ‘You are quite a remarkable woman, Vicky. Would it surprise you to learn that when I informed the Embassy we were engaged to be married, I found the idea not entirely displeasing?’
‘Let’s just be friends,’ I suggested.
Larry laughed. ‘Your heart belongs to another? Think about it Vicky. It would be one way out of our present difliculty.’
‘Where is he?’
He didn’t ask whom I meant. ‘You don’t know?’
‘We separated this morning.’ There was no harm in telling him that much; he must know Feisal and I had travelled together. It was a reasonable assumption that John and Schmidt would have done the same.
‘I thought you might have. You had, of course, arranged a meeting place in Cairo? Never mind, we don’t need that information. We’ve taken the necessary steps to inform him that you are my guest. He should be arriving anytime.’
They hadn’t caught him. My face must have registered relief. Larry shook his head. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, Vicky. There’s a guard under your balcony and every door is being watched.’
So it was to be an exchange – or an offer of one. They couldn’t afford to let me go. John must know that.
‘How did you get in touch with him?’
‘My dear, your lovely face has been on every television programme in the country this evening. I gave out the press release myself. I’m sure he’s seen it, he’ll have been following the news closely. You are suffering from shock and physical and nervous exhaustion at the villa of the chairman of the Egypto-American Trading Company. He spends most of his time in the States, but he was happy to offer a refuge to you and your solicitous fiance.’
And when I fell off the balcony or slashed my wrists my solicitous fiance would say I’d committed suicide in a fit of clinical depression. They’d add that to Feisal’s account too.
‘What about Feisal?’ I had to force myself to ask; I dreaded the answer.
Larry dismissed the minor question of a man’s life with a wave of his hand. ‘Forget about him, he’s no longer a factor. Schmidt and Tregarth are the ones who concern me, and they ought to concern you as well; you’re in no danger unless they refuse to cooperate. No, don’t interrupt, let me finish. Why should I want to harm you? Once I’m out of the country there’s no way you can prove anything, and without that pectoral you haven’t a leg to stand on.’
He took my appalled silence as a sign that his arguments were beginning to have their effect. Leaning forward, his eyes intent, he went on, ‘You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble and endured a great deal of danger and distress to stop me. Admirable, no doubt, but very foolish. Why risk your life to prevent me from doing something so harmless? The antiquities I have acquired will be cared for and preserved more carefully than they would have been in their original locations. What I’ve done is an act of rescue, not desecration.’
I knew the arguments. They have been used by every looter, archaeologist, or thief, from the beginning of time, and unfortunately they have some merit. There wouldn’t be much left of the Elgin marbles if they had stayed in the Parthenon. I don’t buy those arguments, but I didn’t feel like arguing with Larry.
I had seen eyes like his once before – in the face of a shabby, shy little man who had tried to smash a statue of Diana in our museum. The guards had got to him before he did much damage, and I had had a chance to talk to him later, when he was in police custody. He had been very polite and soft-spoken when he explained that God had
