Sethos put his hand on his chest. “Poppycock! I will not have some unknown man poking at me. Higginsnort, bring me—” He crumpled to the floor like a deflated balloon. As his eyes closed, he let out a piteous moan.

“Oh my God!” Ramses exclaimed as he kneeled next to Sethos. “Professor Doyle, can you hear me? What should I do?” He glanced up. “Herr Gunter, you must send for an ambulance! I fear this is a heart attack. He had one in the spring and it nearly killed him. I warned him that traveling was stressful, but he refused to listen to me. How far is the nearest hospital?”

Gunter went to the front door and barked an order at an unseen person. Ramses was relieved to hear the words “Rettungswagen” and “Krankenhaus,” which strongly suggested that Gunter had fallen for the melodramatic enactment (and failed to see the smudges of red makeup on Sethos’s collar). “The hospital is only blocks away, so the ambulance and its attendants should be here in a matter of minutes. Is there anything we can do in the meanwhile? You said the pill bottle is empty. Could some of the pills have spilled in the bottom of his briefcase?”

“I will search it, but I sorted through it only this morning, looking for some of his notes about an oasis in the Western Desert.” Ramses rose and went across the hall to the parlor, pausing to glance at the guard. He picked up the briefcase, left the room, and waited in the hallway until he heard voices from the porch. The butler opened the front door and stepped back as four burly men in hospital garb nearly ran him down with a gurney. They shouted in Arabic, demanding to know the whereabouts of the patient and his condition. The butler cringed as the gurney ran over his foot. Gunter came out of the dining room and attempted to seize control, adding to the vocal frenzy.

It was going quite well, Ramses thought gleefully. Sethos had coached (and paid) his players well to provide an adequate diversion, and they were as committed as the cast of a Shakespearean play. The butler, now furious, screeched when he was shoved into the wall. Gunter raised his voice as he continued to issue orders that were ignored. The ambulance crew raised their voices, too.

Ramses took a deep breath and grabbed the gurney. “Get this out of the way! Your patient is in that room. You need to examine him before you transport him to the hospital, and this contraption is blocking the doorway.” Grimacing at Gunter, he wheeled the gurney down the hallway and stopped when the guard stepped forward. “Do not just stand there and watch as if a cricket game is in progress. I fear for Herr Gunter’s safety.”

“I must to stay here. I have my orders.”