As Tiffany left with the Egyptian, Dr. Haddon turned to the others. “I’ll keep you from your beds for only a few minutes more,” he said, yawning. “Now, what was I saying-”

TJ escaped into the night with a sense of having made it just in time. Another thirty seconds of Clifford Haddon’s arch and simpering posturing, his petty meanness and insincerity, and she would have burst. Tell me, just what kind of authority do you lack!… Believe me, my dear, I’m more distressed about this than you are… Aaaargh.

She realized she was overbreathing-Haddon did that to her-and made herself take a deep breath and slacken her stride. “Slow down, Ragheb,” she said.

The Egyptian, who was leading the way over the dark, curving, hibiscus-scented paths with his powerful flashlight, obeyed.

Damn Haddon, he had gotten to her again. She was still fuming. It wasn’t simply because of the schedule change- although that would have been enough-but because of his uncanny ability to set her off just by being himself. She was not an emotional person. She hated emotional people, and she hated herself when she blew up, the way she had back there. What had been the point? How many times had they been over the same ground, and where was it ever going to get them? But Clifford Haddon, like no other person she had ever known, could turn her into a ranting screamer just byopening his mouth. It was amazing, really. Sometimes, especially when he’d been at his Scotch, he could set her teeth on edge just by walking into a room. Those smarmy, prissy speeches, that horrible little pharaoh’s tuft of beard, that narrow-minded, self-righteous…

And why was it only her? That was what was so frustrating, that nobody else ever blew their stack. Haddon hadn’t aced only her out of the picture, after all; he had cut the time that Jerry would have to show the library as well, and what had Jerry’s reaction been?