The Illusion of Murder Read Online Free Page B

guest should. The boys in the newsroom have an expression for her ladyship’s type, one that I willingly embrace: rich bitch .
    Lady Warton had obviously been born with a silver spoon—one filled with vinegar. She and her pompous husband no doubt believe that their position in the world is due to nothing less than the divine rights of kings, rather than an accident of birth.
    Surrounded by strange sights and smells brings to mind a book I’d read, the adventures of Allan Quatermain, the hero of H. Rider Haggard’s tale King Solomon’s Mines .
    “Isn’t this place exotic?” I offer.
    “Exotic? My dear, you are surrounded by half-naked, unwashed natives who eat and drink things that poison the stomachs of civilized people. The Côte d’Azur is exotic. This is a wasteland.”
    “I find it captivating. Egypt is a place to come in search of adventure. If I had been born in a different time and place, perhaps I could have been an adventurer searching for lost treasures.”
    Lady Warton stares at me as if I have something dribbling down my chin.
    “Are you feeling ill, your ladyship?” I ask.
    “Frankly, my dear, I am deeply disturbed and puzzled by the concept of a young woman tromping around wild animals and savage natives in search of treasure. That is certainly not a proper ambition for any woman .” She surveys me with a look of contempt that sweeps from head to toe. “One has to wonder how a young woman who possesses ideas that are the proper attributes only of men was raised.”
    I turn away and bite my lip. I’ve learned to rein my temper because being a reporter carries with it the necessary evil of having to deal with all kinds of people, but I draw the line at remarks about my upbringing. If she says another word about my mother, I will knock her on her noble fanny.
    My reaction to her is aggravated by my resentment of people who have licked the cream off the top all of their lives. Not having to earn their bread, they don’t understand that there is more to life for women than just being the helpmates and sex slaves of men.
    I soon wonder if we aren’t going in circles, for the alleys seem to be a confusing intricate network of passages that all seem to repeat themselves.
    “Does your husband know where he’s going?” I ask Lady Warton. “I’m lost in this maze.”
    “His precious sister in England specifically requested that he get her a trinket from a particular dealer she heard about here, so we must humor him.”
    We enter the jewelry section, where tiny merchant shacks offer jewelry boxes and trinkets of every kind, from copper bracelets to gold chains, anklets, and nose-rings of leaden-looking silver and brassy gold.
    Lord Warton says, “We’re getting close, I’m sure of it.”
    His wife leaves me to join him and Von Reich drops back to walk with me. He takes my arm as we stroll along, watching beggars and the purveyors of “ancient” artifacts competing to relieve people of their money.
    “How do they talk?” I ask him.
    “Who?”
    “Trees. Do they speak to people passing by, that sort of thing?”
    “Only with the written word. You see all around you the elaborate artful swirls and waves of the Arabic language, none of it decipherable to us of the West. Those flowing lines are sometimes repeated in nature, on tree leaves, carved in the sand by the wind—”
    “So the pattern on a leaf is interpreted as words, and fanatics start shouting it’s a message from God.”
    “Exactly.”
    I confess, “I’m afraid I’m not doing too well with Lady Warton. I don’t want to be a bad guest, but anything I say seems to offend her.”
    “You’re at a disadvantage, trying to hold a conversation with a woman who has never used her brain. As you pointed out with the Bible story, that trees talk here should not come as a surprise. Egypt is part of the Holy Land, a place of mystery and magic, where an angry God sent plagues of pestilence to punish a stubborn pharaoh, where staffs turn to