The Camelot Caper by Elizabeth Peters Page A

Hmmmm.”
    They drove the rest of the way in silence except for Randall’s muttering, and Jess amused herself by studying his profile in the lightning flashes from oncoming headlights. Vindictively concentrating at first on the size of his outstanding facial adornment, she found herself growing to admire it. It was a well-shaped nose, for all its size, and only slightly curved: Roman in its narrowness and beaky arrogance. She tried to picture him in a helmet, with a row of bristles on top like a shoebrush, barking out orders in Latin to a troop of legionnaires. She failed. The rest of his face didn’t fit. His chin was firm, but hardly belligerent, and his mouth was shaped with a precision that verged on delicacy. If it had not been overshadowed by The Nose, it would have been a sensitive mouth.
    Then the fatigue that had been accumulating all day hit her like a hammer, and she did not awaken until the recurrent flash of street lights vexed her eyes.
    â€œAlmost there,” said her companion equably, as she hastily withdrew her head from his shoulder.
    If they had passed any of the famous landmarks of London, she had slept through them; when they turned into a quiet, almost empty street she had no idea where she was. Randall pulled over to the curb. Without waiting for her, he mounted a flight of stone steps and rang a doorbell.
    To Jess, blinking groggily out of the car window, the place did not look like a hotel. It was one of a long row of similar houses, tall and thin, separated from one another only by narrow passageways, and fronting directly on the sidewalk. This house was distinguished from its neighbors by a black-painted door and a big brass knocker, but it had the same air of smug, Dickensian respectability and in fact dated, as she was to learn, from that very era.
    Before long the door was opened by a stooped, elderly man who greeted David with a cordial handshake. They exchanged a few sentences, and then the other man came out to the car and reached for Jessica’s suitcase.
    â€œGood evening, Miss Tregarth. We’ve only one single left, and it’s on the fourth floor. No lift, I’m afraid…”
    â€œThat will be fine.”
    He went on into the house with her bag, and David opened the car door. Jess was sodden with fatigue; as she clumsily maneuvered herself out of the car, she dropped her purse. Half the contents slid out onto the sidewalk—wallet, pen, lipstick, and the pocket thriller she had been trying to read.
    Randall bent to pick them up. When he straightened he was smiling, but not pleasantly.
    â€œJolly good joke, Miss Tregarth. For a while I almost…We’ll have a laugh over it next time we meet.”
    He didn’t even wait for her to answer, but roared off with an indignant swish of his exhaust. Jess was left staring bemusedly at the purse and the book which he had thrust into her hands.
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    The knock on her door sounded like thunder. Jess sat up in bed, brushing tangled curls out of her eyes. She was startled, but not alarmed; at first she couldn’t even remember where she was, let alone what had happened the day before.
    â€œYour tea, Miss Tregarth,” called a voice from outside the door. “May I come in?”
    The knob turned before she had a chance to say anything, and she dived under the sheet. The elderly man who had met her the previous night entered, carrying a tray. He gave her a pleasant smile, and Jess smiled back, a little uncertainly; she felt like a hick from the back-woods. She hadn’t ordered tea. Was this a normal service of English hotels? A gracious gesture, certainly, but it struck her as somewhat arbitrary that the manager of the hotel should decide when his guests ought to get up.
    â€œI do hope you slept well,” said the manager, bellboy, and waiter calmly. “You looked frightfully tired last night.”
    â€œI did, and I was,” said Jessica over the top of the sheet. “And