Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [161]
The small room had been stripped of all furnishings except a piece of matting, six feet long and several feet wide, the water jar, and another, larger vessel. The windows were covered with heavy boards. The nailheads, fresh and unrusted, shone in the light.
“They might have left an airhole,” said Emerson, running his hands over the boards. “Have you anything we could use to prize up these nails?”
Nefret shook her head. Emerson unfastened his belt. “Not strong enough,” he said, examining the buckle. “But we may as well give it a try. Tell me what happened. Did you see the boy or the old lady?”
“No.” She knew what he was doing—keeping her mind active and her hopes up, and, at the same time, searching for some clue that would help them. “The damned doctor met me and brought me straight here. Justin and Mrs. Fitzroyce may not know what is going on, but Maryam must. The attacks on her are the extraneous parts of the pattern. They were staged. She stabbed poor Melusine herself, with a heavy needle or a nail.”
“Hmmm.” The metal rasped like a file as he dug away the wood around one of the nailheads. “But what about the second appearance of Hathor?”
“Perhaps she hired some local girl to play the part. That incident was designed to provide her with an unbreakable alibi.” Nefret sat down cross-legged on the mat. There was nothing she could do but watch, and as her eyes moved over the impressive form of her father-in-law her spirits lifted. It did take more than a knock on the head to kill Emerson, or discompose him for long. He began to hum under his breath. She recognized the melody, though it was horribly off-key. “ ‘She never saw the streets of Cairo; she never saw the kutchy-kutchy . . . ‘ Curse it,” said Emerson. He tossed the broken buckle aside and sat down beside her.
Nefret wrapped both hands around his upper arm and laid her cheek against his shoulder. “I’m not glad you’re here, Father, but there’s only one other man on earth I’d rather have with me.”
“Well, now,” said Emerson self-consciously. “Not my ingenious brother?”
“He’s good,” Nefret conceded. “But he’s not you. Or Ramses.”
“He’s charming, though,” Emerson said gloomily. “I’m not.”
“I think you are.”
“Your mother doesn’t.”
“Father, that’s not true.” She squeezed his arm, comforted by the feel of the hard muscles under her hands and by his monumental calm.
“I’ve been behaving like a boor,” Emerson muttered. “Ever since he arrived. He brings out the worst in me. And rouses the direst of suspicions.”
At first she thought he was referring to his long-held jealousy of his brother. Then she let out a gasp. “He can’t be a party to this.”
“I wish I could be sure. Nefret, that little girl cannot have planned this business, it’s too devilish and too complex. There’s someone else behind it, and some motive stronger than revenge for a long-past death.”
“What?”
“It is a fatal error,” said Emerson, obviously quoting, “to speculate without sufficient data. We’ve quite a bit of data, though. Speculation helps pass the time.”
“Is that what you and Mother do when you’re shut up in a place like this?”
“Generally we argue about whose fault it was.” Emerson chuckled as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Come, my dear girl, think. What motive leaps to mind where Sethos is concerned? What was he doing in Jerusalem? Not working for the War Office, Smith made that clear. Someone gave him a beating, which I do not doubt he well deserved—because he had tried to interfere with their business arrangements? Since the war, Palestine and Syria have become a paradise for looters and tomb robbers. What is in that room at the Castle, neatly packed and ready to be transported?”
It hit her like a blow in the stomach. “The treasure. Good Lord! No, I don’t believe it.”
“Lacau will arrive tomorrow and load the cases onto the steamer,” Emerson said, inexorably logical. “It won’t take him long. He’ll go straight back to Cairo. The Isis is a modern vessel with a