Free The Ape Who Guards the Balance by Elizabeth Peters Page A

her into a convincing imitation of an Egyptian tough. Beard, boils, skin paint, a carefully constructed squint—the more he did, the more absurd she looked. David had finally collapsed onto the bed, whooping with laughter. As Ramses struggled to keep his own face straight, Nefret had turned back to the mirror, inspected herself closely, and burst into a fit of the giggles. They had all laughed then, so hard that Nefret had to sit down on the floor holding her stomach and Ramses had to pour water over his head—to keep himself from snatching her up into his arms, beard, boils and all.
    Seeing the corners of her mouth quiver in amused recollection he went on in the same brusque voice. “Mother will be back from that party at the Ministry before we return, and she may take a notion to look in on her dear children. If she finds us gone she’ll lecture me long and loud in the morning, but if you are missing too, Father will skin me alive in the morning.”
    Nefret acknowledged defeat with a rueful grin. “One of these days I will convince him he mustn’t hold you accountable for my actions, as if you were my nursemaid. You can’t control me.”
    “No,” Ramses said emphatically.
    “Where are you going?”
    “I’ll tell you if you promise not to follow us.”
    “Confound you, Ramses, have you forgot our first law?”
    David had proposed the rule: No one was to go off on his (or her) own without informing one of the others. Ramses had been in wholehearted agreement with the idea insofar as it pertained to Nefret, but she had made it clear that she would not conform unless they did too.
    “I don’t expect to run into any trouble tonight,” he said grudgingly. “We are only making the rounds of the coffee shops in the old city to learn what has been going on since last spring. If Sethos is back in business, someone will have heard rumors of it.”
    “Oh, all right. But you are to report to me the instant you get home, is that understood?”
    “You will be asleep by then,” Ramses said.
    “No, I won’t.”
    The coffee shop was not far from the ruined Mosque of Murustan Kalaun. Its shutters were raised, leaving the interior open to the night air. Inside, the flames of small lamps twinkled in the gloom, and coils of blue smoke drifted like lazy djinn. The patrons sat on hassocks or stools around low tables, or on the divan at the rear of the room. Since this was an establishment favored by prosperous merchants, most of those present were well-dressed, their long kaftans silk-striped and their silver seal rings large and ornate. There were no women present.
    A man at a table near the front looked up when Ramses and David entered. “Ah, so you have returned. The police have abandoned the search?”
    “Very amusing,” said Ramses, in the hoarse tones of Ali the Rat. “You know I always spend the summers at my palace in Alexandria.”
    A laugh acknowledged this witticism, and the speaker gestured them to join him. A waiter brought small cups of thick sweetened Turkish coffee and a narghileh. Ramses drew the smoke deep into his lungs and passed the mouthpiece to David. “So, how is business?” he inquired.
    After a brief conversation their acquaintance bade them good night, and they were left alone at the table.
    “Anything?” David asked. He spoke softly and without moving his lips—a trick Ramses had learned from one of his “less respectable acquaintances,” a stage magician at the Alhambra Music Hall, and passed on to David.
    Ramses shook his head. “Not yet. It will take time. But look over there.”
    The man he indicated was sitting alone on a bench at the back of the room. David narrowed his eyes. “I can’t see . . . Surely it is not Yussuf Mahmud?”
    “It is. Order two more coffees, I’ll be right back.”
    He sidled up to a dignified bearded man at another table, who acknowledged his obsequious greeting with a curl of the lip. The conversation was rather one-sided; Ramses did most of the