Elizabeth Peters - Night Train to Memphis

I rather doubted that. Nor did I feel I was quite up to munching my way through six courses in the company of the lovebirds.

‘I’d like to, but – ’ I indicated Bright and Sweet, who had punctiliously risen to acknowledge her arrival.

‘Yes, I know Mr Bright and Mr Sweet. That will be splendid; four of us will complete the table.’ She gave me a conspiratorial wink. ‘I don’t want my dear children to feel they are obliged to entertain me all the time.’

Relieved of that anxiety, I was pleased to agree. Not that I had much choice; Jen had taken my arm, in a grip as firm as that of a prison guard. I had realized early on that she was one of those women who will get her own way by one means or another, and I wondered whose idea it had been to make the honeymoon a ménage à trois. Surely not John’s. Unless he was ruthless and unprincipled enough to use his own mother and his bride as a means of diverting suspicion?

We wended our way down the stairs to the lowest deck and the dining room. The decor reminded me that this wasn’t just any old cruise; there were fresh flowers on every table, and a row of wineglasses at every place. A waiter led us to a table for four and presented us with menus stiff with gilt print. The napkins had been folded into intricate shapes; I was reaching for mine when the waiter whipped it out of my grasp and spread it neatly across my knees. I tried to look as if I had expected it.

Sweet and Bright took forever deciding on an appetizer; I had already ordered so I had leisure to inspect the room. The murals covering the walls were copies of famous tomb reliefs – not scenes of death and judgement, but bright, cheerful depictions of birds and animals and scenes of daily life. The one on the wall next to our table showed two pretty Egyptian maidens with long black hair and diaphanous robes, playing musical instruments. The third pretty maiden wasn’t wearing anything except a few beads. Sweet goggled appreciatively at her.

Jen was speaking to me. I turned to her with an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, I was admiring the murals. They are excellent copies, aren’t they?’

‘Morbid,’ Jen said decidedly. ‘Pictures from tombs are not suitable for a dining room.’

Her lips had tightened and her brows had drawn together. It was a forbidding expression, and I remembered a comment John had made about his mother: ‘She looks like Judith Anderson playing a demented housekeeper.’ The wild surmise that entered my mind was equally demented. Ridiculous, I told myself. Chicanery isn’t hereditary.

Sweet had finished ordering. ‘But Mrs Tregarth, the paintings show the Egyptians’ enjoyment of the pleasures of life. What could be more appropriate for such an occasion as this?’ Jen turned The Look on him; he swallowed and said, ‘People are much more interesting though, aren’t they? Tell us about yourself, Dr Bliss.’

‘I will if you will,’ I said coyly. ‘What business are you in, Mr Sweet?’

He manufactured nuts and bolts. Very special nuts and bolts, for a specific kind of machine. Don’t ask me what kind. I was no more interested than Mr Sweet appeared to be. After rattling off a description of the process, he explained that he and Mr Bright were partners in business as well as in their passion for archaeology. ‘When we heard of this cruise we knew it was an opportunity not to be missed,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘To see so many sites that are normally closed to tourists, and of course the pièce de résistance – the tomb of Queen Tetisheri. We are the first visitors to behold the restoration of the paintings. The work has taken years – ’

‘And a great deal of money that might have been spent on more worthy causes,’ said Jen, with a loud sniff.

‘Mr Blenkiron has contributed munificently to a number of worthy causes,’ Sweet protested.

‘That is a matter of opinion,’ Jen said. An opinion, her expression made clear, that she did not share.

‘Is he here? Which one is he?’ I swivelled around.

‘Don’t stare,’ Jen said.

My head snapped back into position. It was pure reflex – shades of Aunt Ermintrude. Sweet gave me a wink and a knowing smile. ‘We are all staring,’ he said amiably. ‘It’s only natural, Mrs Tregarth, that we should take an interest in our fellow travellers. For long weeks we will be together in a little world all our own, separated from our friends and families, thrown together in an artificial intimacy. Which of these strangers is to be cultivated, which to be avoided? Will some of these passing encounters result in lasting friendships, or even in – er – more intense relationships?’

‘You have quite a gift for words, Mr Sweet,’ I said. ‘Are you sure you aren’t a famous writer in disguise?’

Sweet laughed. ‘Alas, no. We do have a well-known writer with us; she is travelling under her own name, but she has made no secret of her pseudonym. No doubt she means to make copy of us all! Mr Blenkiron is the tall, dark-haired gentleman at the table under the painting of the fellow spearing fish.’

Jen had given me up as a bad job and was devouring smoked salmon, so I proceeded to stare to my heart’s content.

The activities of most excessively wealthy individuals bore me to tears, but Blenkiron was an exception. Unlike some of his billionaire peers he shunned publicity; he didn’t attend fund-raisers or hoity-toity social functions, or hobnob with politicians and rock stars. He didn’t give interviews, or even get divorced. I knew his name because he had been a generous and unobtrusive supporter of many cultural enterprises – the rebuilding of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence after a bomb blast, the conservation of the water-rotted monuments of Venice, to name only a few. His chief interest, however, was ancient Egypt. I had read of the restoration of Tetisheri’s tomb, and I admit that the prospect of visiting it was one of the few plus entries in an otherwise negative agenda. To see the famous paintings restored to their original freshness, with the film of grease and grime removed and the damaged sections repainted, would be a unique experience.

I had expected Blenkiron to be older. There was grey in his hair but it was only a sprinkling of silver against dark brown, and the lines in his face, fanning out from the corners of his deep-set eyes and framing a long-lipped flexible mouth, were those of good nature and maturity. He too was inspecting his fellow passengers; catching my eye, he nodded and smiled.

‘The person on his right is his secretary,’ Sweet informed me in a conspiratorial whisper.

The person wasn’t a blond female but a bald male. I couldn’t see his face, since he had his back to me.

‘Who’s the other guy at the table?’ I had a pretty good idea. He resembled all the lean, lined heroes of western films and his dinner jacket didn’t fit quite right.

Sweet rolled his eyes. ‘Bright and I have dubbed him The Bodyguard.’

‘How clever of you,’ I said.

By the time we had finished (five courses, not six), Sweet had identified some of the other passengers for me, and supplied capsule biographies for many of them. The blonde in the tight corset was a Mrs Umphenour from Memphis (Tennessee, not Egypt), who had taken the cruise to console herself for the death of her third husband. The misanthropic reader alone at a nearby table was a German surgeon who specialized in urology. What he was doing on the cruise Sweet could not imagine; he was not a friendly person and he appeared to be only mildly interested in Egyptology.

I sincerely hoped he was not interested in medieval Islamic art.

Jen had eaten her way through all five courses and was looking a trifle bloated by the time we prepared to return to the lounge for coffee and after-dinner drinks. Sweet announced he and Bright would have to deny themselves that pleasure, since the group was to leave for a shore tour at seven the next morning. ‘You young ladies can do without sleep,’ he said, with a gallant bow, ‘but if Bright and I don’t get our eight hours we are good for nothing.’