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Samir's eyes became unreadable. It was as if a door closed firmly in his soul.
"You give him this message for me."
Samir started to walk away.
"Tell him I have her."
Samir hesitated. "But who?" he whispered. "What do you mean?"
Elliott took his arm roughly again.
"He knows. And she knows who she is as well! Tell him I took her from the museum. And I have her in a safe place. I've been with her all day."
"I don't understand you."
"Ah, but he will. Now listen carefully. Tell him that the sun helped her. It healed her, and so did the ... the medicine in the vial."
The Earl drew out the empty vial now and put it in Samir's hand. Samir stared down at it as if he were afraid of it; as if he did not want it to touch him and did not know what in the world he would do now that it had.
"She needs more of it!" Elliott said. "She's damaged, inside and outside. She's mad." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex moving towards him, but he gestured for patience, drawing even closer to Samir. "Tell him he's to contact me at seven this evening. At the French cafe called the Babylon in the Arab quarter. I shall talk to no one but him."
"But wait, you must explain--"
"I told you. He will understand. And under no circumstances is he to contact me here. It's too dangerous. I won't have my son mixed up in this. The Babylon at seven. And tell him this also. She has killed three times. And she will kill again."
He left Samir abruptly, turning to his son and reaching out for Alex's helping hand.
"Come, take me upstairs," he said. "I have to rest. I'm near fainting."
"Good Lord, Father, what is going on!"
"Ah, that you have to tell me now. What's happened since I left? Oh, and the desk. Tell the desk I will speak to no one. They are not to ring the room. No one is to be allowed up."
Only a few steps more, he thought as the elevator doors opened. If he could only make it to a clean bed. He was dizzy now; and close to nausea. He was grateful for his son, who held him firmly around the shoulders, and would not let him fall.
As soon as he reached his room, he lost his balance altogether. But Walter was there, and Walter and Alex together helped him onto the bed.
"I want to sit up," he said crankily like an old invalid.
"I'll run you a bath, my lord, a good hot restful bath."
"Do that, Walter, but you'll bring me a drink first. Scotch, and
set the bottle beside the glass."
"Father, I've never seen you like this. I'm going to ring the house doctor."
"You are not!" Elliott said. His tone startled Alex, which was all well and good. "Would Lady Macbeth have benefited from a doctor? I don't think a doctor would have helped her."
"Father, what is all this about?" Alex's voice had dropped to a whisper, as it always did when he was truly upset. He watched as Walter put the glass in Elliott's hand.
Elliott drank a swallow of the whisky. "Ah, that's good," he sighed. In that horrid little house, that house of death and madness, there had been a dozen bottles of Henry's liquor, yet he could not bring himself to touch them; could not bring himself to drink from a glass that had been Henry's, or to eat a morsel of Henry's food. He had given it to her, but he could not himself touch it. And now he luxuriated in the sweet warmth of the Scotch, so utterly different from the burning in his chest.
"Now, Alex, you must listen," he said, taking another swallow. "You are to leave Cairo immediately. You're to pack your bags now and be on the five o'clock train to Port Said. I'm taking you to the train myself."
How utterly defenseless his son looked suddenly. Just a boy, a sweet young boy. And this is my dream of immortality, he thought; and it has always been there. My Alex, who must go home now to England where he will be safe.
"That's out of the question, Father," Alex said with the same gentleness. "I can't leave Julie here."
