Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (85 page)

Mr Wilberforce loudly announced that it was time to go. Emerson continued to talk, expressing a series of opinions calculated to infuriate the Reverend Sayce. They ranged from his doubts as to the historicity of Christ to his poor opinion of Christian missionaries. ‘The effrontery of the villains,’ he exclaimed, referring to the latter. ‘What business have they forcing their narrow-minded prejudices on Muslims? In its pure form the faith of Islam is as good as any other religion – which is to say, not very good, but …’

Wilberforce finally drew his affronted friend away, but not before the reverend got off a final shot. ‘I wish you luck with your “pyramids,” Professor. And I am sure you will enjoy your neighbours at Mazghunah.’

‘What do you suppose he meant by that?’ Emerson demanded as the two walked off, Wilberforce’s tall form towering over that of his slighter friend.

‘We will find out in due course, I suppose.’

Those were my precise words. I recall them well. Had I but known under what hideous circumstances they would recur to me, like the slow tolling of a funeral bell, a premonitory shudder would have rippled through my limbs. But it did not.

After looking in on Ramses and finding him wrapped in innocent slumber, with the cat asleep at his feet, Emerson proposed that we seek our own couch.

‘Have you forgotten our assignation?’ I inquired.

‘I hoped that you had,’ Emerson replied. ‘Abd el Atti is not expecting us, Amelia. He only said that to get rid of you.’

‘Nonsense, Emerson. When the muezzin calls from the minaret at midnight –’

‘He will do no such thing. You ought to know better, Amelia. There is no midnight call to prayer. Daybreak, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset and nightfall – those are the prescribed times of
salah
for faithful Muslims.’

He was quite correct. I cannot imagine why the fact had slipped my mind. Rallying from my momentary chagrin, I said, ‘But surely I have sometimes heard a muezzin call in the night.’

‘Oh yes, sometimes. Religious fervour is apt to seize the devout at odd times. But one cannot predict such occasions. Depend on it, Amelia, the old scoundrel won’t be at his shop.’

‘We can’t be certain of that.’

Emerson stamped his foot. ‘Curse it, Amelia, you are the most stubborn woman of my acquaintance. Let us compromise – if that word is in your vocabulary.’

I folded my arms. ‘Propose your compromise.’

‘We’ll sit on the terrace for another hour or so. If we hear a call to prayer, from any mosque within earshot, we will go to the Khan el Khaleel. If by half past twelve we have heard nothing, we will go to bed.’

Emerson had come up with a sensible suggestion. The plan was precisely what I had been about to propose, for after all, we could not start out for the shop until we had heard the signal.

‘That is a very reasonable compromise,’ I said. ‘As always, Emerson, I submit to your judgment.’

There are worse ways of passing an hour than on Shepheard’s terrace. We sat at a table near the railing, sipping our coffee and watching the passers-by, for people keep late hours in the balmy clime of Egypt. The stars, thickly clustered, hung so low they appeared to be tangled in the branches of the trees, and they gave a light almost as bright as day. Flower sellers offered their wares – necklaces of jasmine, bouquets of rosebuds tied with bright ribbons. The scent of the flowers hung heavy and intoxicating in the warm night air. Emerson presented me with a nosegay and squeezed my hand. With the warm pressure of his fingers on mine, and his eyes speaking sentiments that required no words of ordinary speech; with the seductive breeze caressing my cheek and the scent of roses perfuming the night – I almost forgot my purpose.

But hark – what was that? High and clear above the moonlit cupolas, rising and falling in musical appeal – the cry of the muezzin!
‘Allâhu akbar, allâhu akbar–lâilâha illa’llâh!’
God is great, God is great; there is no God but God.

I sprang to my feet. ‘I knew it! Quickly, Emerson, let us be off.’

‘Curse it,’ said Emerson. ‘Very well, Amelia. But when I get my hands on that fat villain he will be sorry he suggested this.’

We had, of course, changed into our working attire before coming down to the terrace. Emerson changed because he hated evening dress; I changed because I had been certain all along we would be going to the Khan el Khaleel. And, as events proved, I was right. Emerson insists to this day that Abd el Atti never meant us to come, and that the spontaneous exclamation of the muezzin that night was pure coincidence. The absurdity of this should be readily apparent.

Be that as it may, we were on our way before the last testimonial of the religious person had faded into silence. We went on foot; it would have been inapropos to take a carriage to a secret rendezvous, and, in any case, no wheeled vehicle could have entered the narrow alleys of the Khan el Khaleel. Emerson set a rapid pace. He was eager to have the business over and done with. I was eager to reach the shop and learn what deadly secret threatened my old friend. For I had a certain fondness for Abd el Atti. He might be a scoundrel, but he was an engaging scoundrel.

After we had turned from the Muski into the narrower ways of the bazaar, the starlight was cut off by the houses looming high on either hand, and the farther we penetrated into the heart of the maze, the darker it became. The protruding balconies with their latticed wooden shutters jutted into the street, almost meeting overhead. Occasionally a lighted window spilled a golden glimmer onto the pathway, but most of the windows were dark. Parallel slits of light marked closed shutters. The darkness teemed with foul movement; rats glided behind heaps of refuse; lean, vicious stray dogs slunk into even narrower passageways as we approached. The rank stench of rotting fruit, human waste and infected air filled the tunnel-like street like a palpable liquid, clogging the nostrils and the lungs.

Emerson plunged on, splashing through puddles of unspeakable stuff and sometimes slipping on a melon rind or rotten orange. I stayed close behind him. This was the first time I had been in the old city at night without a servant carrying a torch. I am not easily daunted. Danger I can face unafraid, enemies I have confronted without losing my calm; but the stealthy, stinking silence began to overpower my mind. I was glad Emerson was with me, and even happier that he had not suggested I remain behind. In this, as in all our adventures, we were equal partners. Few men could have accepted that arrangement. Emerson is a remarkable man. But then, if he had not been a remarkable man, I would not have married him.

Except for the soft, sinister movements of the predators of the night, the silence was complete. In the modern streets, where the tourists and those who catered to their whims still sought pleasure, there were lights and laughter, music and loud voices. The dwellers of the Khan el Khaleel were asleep or engaged in occupations that demanded dim lights and barred doors. As we proceeded I caught a whiff of sickening sweetness and saw a pallid streak of light through a shuttered window. A voice, muted by the thick mud-plaster walls, rose in a thin shriek of pain or ecstasy. The house was a
ghurza,
an opium den, where the
hashshahiin
lay wrapped in stuporous dreams. I bit back a cry as a dark form rushed through an opening ahead and vanished into a doorway, blending with the blackness there. Emerson chuckled. ‘The
nadurgiyya
was dozing. He ought to have heard us approaching before this.’

He spoke softly; but oh, how wonderfully, blessedly comforting was that calm English voice!
‘Nadurgiyya?’
I repeated.

‘The lookout. He took us for police spies. The ghurza will close down until the supposed danger is past. Are you sorry you came, Peabody?’

The street was so narrow we could not walk side by side and so dark I could scarcely make out the vague outline of his form. I sensed, rather than saw, the hand stretched towards me. Clasping it, I replied truthfully, ‘Not at all, my dear Emerson. It is a most interesting and unusual experience. But I confess that if you were not with me I would be conscious of a certain trepidation.’

‘We are almost there,’ Emerson said. ‘If this is a wildgoose chase, Peabody, I will hold it over you for the rest of your life.’

Like all the others, Abd el Atti’s shop was dark and seemingly deserted. ‘What did I tell you?’ Emerson said.

‘We must go round to the back,’ I said.

‘The back, Peabody? Do you take this for an English village, with lanes and kitchen doors?’

‘Don’t play games, Emerson. I am quite confident you know where the back entrance is located. There must be another entrance; some of Abd el Atti’s clients would hardly choose to walk in the front door with their goods.’

Emerson grunted. Holding my hand, he proceeded along the street for a distance and then drew me towards what appeared to be a blank wall. There was an opening, however, so narrow and opaque that it looked like a line drawn with the blackest of ink. My shoulders brushed the walls on either side. Emerson had to sidle along sideways.

‘Here it is,’ he said, after a moment.

‘Where? I can’t see a thing.’

He directed my hand towards an invisible surface. I felt wood under my fingers. ‘There is no knocker,’ I said, groping.

‘Nor a doorbell,’ Emerson said sarcastically. He tapped lightly.

There was no response. Emerson, never the most patient of men, let out an oath and struck his fist against the door.

The panel yielded. A scant inch, no more, and in utter silence it moved; and through the slit came a pallid light, so dim it did not penetrate the darkness where we stood.

‘The devil,’ Emerson muttered.

I shared his sentiments. There was something strange and sinister about the movement of the door. From within came not the slightest whisper of sound. It was as if a pall of horror lay over the region, silencing even breath. More prosaically, the yielding of the portal held ominous implications. Either the person who had opened it was concealed behind it, or the door had not been latched in the first place. It was inconceivable that a merchant in that quarter would leave his shop unlocked at night, unless …

‘Stand back, Peabody,’ Emerson ordered. He reinforced the command with an outthrust arm that flung me back against the wall with rather more force than was necessary. Before I could protest, he raised his foot and kicked the door.

If he had intended to pin a would-be assassin between door and inner wall he failed. The portal was so heavy it responded sluggishly to his attack, opening only halfway. Emerson cursed and clutched his foot.

I went to his side and looked in. A single lamp, one of the crude clay bowls that have been used since ancient times, lit the room; the flickering, smoking flame created an eerie illusion of surreptitious movement in the shadows. The place was in the wildest disorder. Abd el Atti was not noted for neatness, but something more alarming than sloth was responsible for the confusion that prevailed. A rickety wooden table had been overturned. The bits of pottery and glass littering the floor must have fallen from its surface, or from the shelves on the righthand wall, which were empty. Mingled with the broken pieces were scarabs and ushabtis, scraps of papyrus and linen, stone vessels, carvings, and even a wrapped mummy, half-hidden by a wooden packing case.

Emerson repeated his adjuration to the Prince of Evil and stepped boldly forward. I caught his arm. ‘Emerson, take care. I hypothesize that a struggle has ensued here.’

‘Either that or Abd el Atti has suffered a seizure at long last.’

‘Were that the case, his prostrate body would be visible.’

‘True.’ Emerson fondled the cleft in his chin, his invariable habit when deep in thought. ‘Your hypothesis seems more likely.’

He tried to shake off my hold, but I persisted. ‘Presumably one of the combatants was our old friend. But the other – Emerson, he may be lying in wait, ready to attack.’

‘He would be a fool if he stayed,’ Emerson replied. ‘Even if he had been on the premises when we arrived, he had ample time to make good his escape through the front of the shop while we stood here debating. Besides, where would he hide? The only possible place …’ He peered behind the door. ‘No, there is no one here. Come in and close the door. I don’t like the look of this.’

I followed his instructions. I felt more secure with the heavy door closed against the dangers of the night. Yet a sinking feeling had seized me; I could not shake off the impression that something dreadful lurked in that quiet, shadowy place.

‘Perhaps Abd el Atti was not here after all,’ I said. ‘Two thieves fell out – or down – ’

Emerson continued to worry his chin. ‘Impossible to tell if anything is missing. What a clutter! Good Gad, Amelia – look there, on the shelf. That fragment of painted relief – I saw it only two years ago in one of the tombs at El Bersheh. Confound the old rascal, he has no more morals than a jackal, robbing his own ancestors!’

‘Emerson,’ I remonstrated, ‘this is not the time – ’

‘And there …’ Emerson pounced on an object half-concealed by pottery shards. ‘A portrait panel – torn from the mummy – encaustic on wood …’

Only one thing can distract Emerson from his passion for antiquities. It did not seem appropriate to apply this distraction. I left him muttering and scrabbling in the debris; slowly, with dread impeding my every step, I approached the curtained doorway that led to the front room of the shop. I knew what I would find and was prepared, as I thought, for the worst; yet the sight that met my eyes when I drew the curtain aside froze my limbs and my vocal apparatus.

At first it was only a dark, shapeless mass that almost filled the tiny room. The dark thing moved, gently swaying like a monster of the deep sluggishly responding to the slow movements of watery currents. A shimmer of gold, a flash of scarlet – my eyes, adjusting to the gloom, began to make out details – a hand, glittering with rings … A face. Unrecognizable as human, much less familiar. Black and bloated, the dark tongue protruding in ghastly mockery, the wide eyes suffused with blood …

A shriek of horror burst from my lips. Emerson was instantly at my side. His hands closed painfully over my shoulders. ‘Peabody, come away. Don’t look.’