Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (124 page)

Emerson had left a night light burning. It had become a habit of ours, since we were so frequently disturbed by burglars and assassins. He was in bed. The artificial evenness of his breathing indicated that he was awake, though pretending not to be. He did not move or speak even when I joined him in the connubial bed, so I concluded I was in disfavour. Just as well, I thought. Ramses would be on the alert for the slightest sound from our room.

If Miss Debenham did return to the hotel and read my letter, she would undoubtedly attempt to speak to me in the morning. I had informed her of the hour of our departure. The opportunity of reasoning with her was not lost, only postponed, and as sleep brushed me with her shadowy wings I promised myself the satisfaction of a useful interview the following morning.

Alas, it was not to be. We were awakened at dawn by the shrieks of the hotel servants. The safragi had discovered the body of Kalenischeff lying on Miss Debenham’s bed in a welter of bloody sheets. He had been stabbed to the heart; Miss Debenham had vanished from the room, and from the hotel.

T
HE
sun was approaching the zenith before we boarded the train that was to take us to Dahshoor. Emerson was muttering like a volcano in danger of eruption, but, as I had been careful to point out, he could hardly blame me for the tardiness of our departure. All the guests had been delayed by the uproar, and we were among many whom the police had interviewed.

‘You need not have volunteered to be interviewed,’ Emerson insisted. ‘To question the guests was a waste of time, since the murderer undoubtedly left the hotel long before the body was discovered.’

‘If you mean Miss Debenham, Emerson, she did not commit the crime. I felt it my duty to explain that to the police officer in charge.’

‘She has disappeared, Peabody. If she is innocent, why did she flee?’

‘Emerson, how can you be so dense? She did not flee, she was abducted by the same person or persons who murdered Kalenischeff.’

Emerson settled himself more comfortably on the cracked leather seat of the carriage. The pyramids were visible on the right, but for once Emerson was not distracted by archaeological objects. He pretends to resent the interruptions of a criminal nature that have so often marked our excavations, but wifely intuition assures me that he as keen on the scent as any sleuth. This was the first opportunity we had had to discuss the murder; I could tell by the gleam in his bright blue eyes that he was as interested as I.

‘If your theory is correct, Peabody, it means that Kalenischeff was slain in an attempt to defend his inamorata. The heroic role is not one I would have expected from him.’

‘It is a difficulty,’ I admitted. ‘Whatever else he may have been, Kalenischeff was no hero.’

‘But he may have been a member of a conspiracy directed against the lady,’ said Ramses, from his window seat next to Emerson. ‘Assuming for the sake of argument that the object of that conspiracy was the extraction of money by one means or another, Kalenischeff may have decided to betray his confederates by marrying the lady instead of assisting in the original scheme. He would gain sole control of her fortune by that means instead of–’

‘I was about to propose that theory, Ramses,’ I said severely. ‘Look out the window. There is the Step Pyramid of Sakkara.’

‘I am doing so,’ said Ramses. ‘The cat Bastet also appears to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of the view, but I assure you it does not interfere in the slightest with my ability to join you in–’

‘Miss Debenham must have been taken by force,’ I insisted. ‘No properly brought-up Englishwoman would run away–’

‘Her conduct makes it fairly evident that she was
not
properly brought up,’ said Emerson.

I ignored this remark. ‘She would have remained, chin up and shoulders squared, to face the music. And I feel I am safe in asserting, Emerson, that she would have come to me. She had received my letter; it was found, open, on her dressing table.’

‘That is a point against the lady,’ Emerson said stubbornly. ‘It proves that she did return to her room last night. It places her at the scene of the crime, Peabody, a scene from which she has disappeared. According to the police, she also changed her clothing.’

‘But they don’t know which garments are missing from her wardrobe. She may have been carried off in her night-clothes, Emerson. The horror of it!’

‘Along the corridors of the hotel, down the stairs and out into the street?’ Emerson laughed disagreeably. ‘No, Amelia; not even your favourite Master–’

He stopped himself, pressing his lips together and scowling at me.

‘Now it comes out,’ I exclaimed. ‘I did not want to accuse you unjustly, Emerson, but you force me to be blunt. You are determined to blame poor Miss Debenham for a crime she did not commit because of your unaccountable reluctance to face the truth. How you can be so stubborn, after your own encounters with the man–’

‘I warn you, Peabody,’ Emerson snarled.

‘Who attacked us and harassed us at Mazghunah last year? Who organized the inefficient amateur tomb robbers of Egypt into a great professional conspiracy? Who is a master of disguise, as was proved by his appearance in the role of Father Girgis, priest of the church at Mazghunah? Who, Emerson?’

Emerson, breathing furiously through his nose, did not reply. ‘The Master Criminal,’ piped Ramses.

Emerson turned an awful glare upon his son. Unperturbed, Ramses went on, ‘I share your dislike of that sensational and ambiguous appellation, Papa, but I am forced to agree with Mama that no more appropriate name comes readily to mind. We have good reason to suspect that Prince Kalenischeff had fallen out with his master; his decision to leave Egypt, suddenly and secretly, suggests as much. And I am inclined to agree with Mama’s belief that this mysterious personage was the one behind the attempt on me last night. The criminal mind is a fascinating study; it may well be that the person in question harbours some resentment toward me because I – with your assistance, of course – foiled his attempt to steal the Dahshoor treasure.’

Emerson acknowledged the reasonableness of this assessment with a muffled ‘Curse it’. He said no more, because I spoke first.

‘Ramses is correct, Emerson. The guides who were with him said they were dismissed by an American gentleman. There were a number of tourists atop the pyramid last night. In fact – in fact, I may have spoken to the man! Who else could he have been but a confederate of the Master Criminal?’

‘Why not the Master Criminal himself?’ Emerson tried to speak sarcastically, but he was half convinced by my irrefutable logic, and his doubt showed in his voice.

‘Because the Master Criminal was lying in wait at the foot of the pyramid! And I know who he is. We thought he might be an Englishman–’

‘Oh, come, Amelia, that is really going too far, even for you,’ Emerson shouted. ‘Not Ramses’ rescuer? Why would he arrange for the boy to be kidnapped, and then save him?’

‘Don’t forget that it was my intervention that saved Ramses. My first impression, that the man was carrying him off, was undoubtedly correct. Once captured by me, he talked his way out of the situation with the ingenuity one might expect from such a clever man. And the proof, Emerson – the proof is that he never turned up this morning, as he promised he would.’

Nemo’s failure to keep his appointment was an additional cause of Emerson’s ill humour. He is accustomed to having people do as he tells them.

‘He was alarmed by the presence of the police, I expect. A man of his antecedents–’

‘My dear Emerson,’ I said in a kindly manner, ‘such wild rationalization is unworthy of you. Every fact leads to the same conclusion – my conclusion.’

Emerson did not reply. It was Ramses who cleared his throat and remarked, ‘If you will excuse my mentioning it, Mama, that is not strictly accurate. Several facts contradict your assumption, and one, I fear, is insuperable.’

Emerson looked hopefully at his son. ‘And what is that, my boy? Something you observed while you were alone with the young man?’

‘No, Papa, you and Mama observed it too. I do not refer to Mr Nemo’s struggle with the men who carried me off, which might conceivably have been staged – though I must say it was done with a degree of verisimilitude few actors could have achieved – for I can think of several reasons why the Master Criminal might have arranged such a misleading performance, in order to–’

‘Ramses,’ I said.

‘Yes, Mama. The fact that demolishes your otherwise intriguing theory is that my rescuer’s physical attributes were not those of the man we knew as Father Girgis.’

‘He is a master of disguise, Ramses,’ I said. ‘The black beard and wig he wore were false–’

‘But the black eyes were not,’ said Ramses. ‘We had ample opportunity to observe their colour, did we not? The eyes of the Englishman – or, as Papa observed, the Scot – are blue.’

It was a cruel blow. I tried to rally. ‘The scientific achievements of master criminals often exceed those of scholars. A method of changing the colour of the eyes–’

‘Exists, I fear, only in fiction,’ said Ramses. ‘I have made some study of the matter, Mama, and I know of no method of dying one’s irises.’

Emerson began to laugh. ‘A hit, Peabody – a palpable hit! Talk your way out of that one.’

I did not deign to reply. Though admitting I may have been in error on one small point, I could not see that Ramses’ statement had affected the essential issue. The poor young English lady was innocent; and if the renegade Englishman was not the Master Criminal himself, he was surely one of the latter’s lieutenants. I felt certain he had been involved in the abduction of Ramses, and that we would never see him again.

There is no railroad station at Dahshoor, which is almost equidistant between Medrashein and Mazghunah. Rather than have our extensive baggage transported by donkeyback from either of those locations, Emerson had requested that the train stop briefly at the point nearest the site. I daresay that this favour would not have been accorded anyone else; but Emerson’s reputation is so well known and his powers of persuasion, particularly of a vocal variety, are so emphatic, that the engineer of the train did as he was asked, and the complaints of the other passengers were ignored by the porters.

A party of our loyal men awaited us. They had been there for five hours, since we had been unable to notify them that we had missed the early train. They were not put out by, or worried about, the delay; when we first caught sight of them they were sprawled in a patch of shade, smoking and
fahddling
(gossiping). The Egyptian temperament accepts delay with a shrug and a murmured reference to the will of Allah. This attitude exasperates Europeans and Americans (especially the latter), who complain that the most frequently used word in the Arabic vocabulary is
bokra
(tomorrow). Emerson says the Egyptian approach is much more intelligent than our own constant bustle and fuss, but although he may be correct in his judgment, he is the first to fly into a rage when his plans are thwarted.

Be that as it may, as soon as the train slowed, the brave fellows got to their feet, and when one of them saw Emerson descend from the carriage, the whole group erupted into wild gesticulations of welcome. Outstanding among the men in physical stature as in dignity was the reis, Abdullah, who had served as our able foreman for many seasons. He immediately enfolded Emerson in a fraternal embrace, the voluminous folds of his robe billowing around my husband like a sudden snowstorm. Emerson suffered this gesture stoically, and sent the rest of the men scampering off to assist with the removal of our baggage.

I received Abdullah’s respectful and affectionate salutation somewhat distractedly, for, to my utter astonishment, there before me was the man who had called himself Nemo.

He made no attempt to conceal his presence. He stood aloof from the other men, his arms folded across the breast of his ragged robe. He was bareheaded, and the noonday sun turned his red-gold hair to flame.

Abdullah’s eyes followed the direction of my gaze. ‘I hope I did not err in allowing him to remain here, sitt. He is dressed like the lowest beggar, but he said Emerson had hired him, and when we saw he was an Inglizi …’

‘Yes, quite right, Abdullah.’ So that was why the fellow had abandoned his disguise. Our loyal men would have driven him away otherwise.

Nemo strolled toward me. ‘Good morning, Mrs Emerson. Or should it be good afternoon? I am a trifle out of practice with expressions of polite usage.’

The fellow had the effrontery to be sarcastic. His drawling voice and educated accent, the courteous inclination of his head (in lieu of removing his hat, of which he had none) were in the best manner. He had even shaved. I must confess that the countenance thus displayed would have prejudiced me in his favour had I not had reason to suspect him of the most appalling duplicity. It was no wonder I had taken him for a Berber. His high cheekbones and hawklike nose, his broad brow and thin lips were characteristic of that race.

‘How is your arm?’ I inquired.

‘I beg you will not mention it.’ The scowl that accompanied this courteous disclaimer turned the statement into a demand.