Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [192]
“Oh,” I said. “Including Justin’s masquerade as Hathor? The second incident was designed to clear Maryam of suspicion, and it was rather cleverly arranged. Justin was wearing her boy’s clothing under that clumsy robe; all she had to do was slip out of it while Maryam and the others distracted you four. The scrap of fabric Emerson found—”
“Was planted,” Ramses interrupted. “Excuse me, Mother, but we’ve worked that out too.”
“Oh. Hmmm. The plot began to take shape when Matilda learned of the princesses’ treasure. She was at that time running a house of—er—in Cairo, and engaging in various other illicit activities. It was Matilda who had, several years earlier, told Maryam a pack of lies about her mother and induced her to run away. Maryam was young and rebellious—the two are practically synonymous—and she was thrilled to discover that she had a sister and a motherly protector. Matilda arranged Maryam’s marriage to a wealthy man—and, I suspect, disposed of poor Mr. Throgmorton once he had made a will leaving everything to Maryam. I am sure Maryam had no hand in his demise.”
“He was good to her,” Sethos said. “She was fond of him. Not until sometime after his death, when she had returned to Matilda, did she begin to suspect foul play.”
“What I don’t understand,” Cyrus said, “is how they intended to get the artifacts unloaded. They couldn’t have gone on to Cairo with them.”
All eyes—even those of Emerson—turned to none other than Walter. A modest but pleased smile illumined his scholarly countenance. “I have been thinking about that, Cyrus,” he said. “I believe—and this can easily be confirmed—that they planned to tie up somewhere between Qena and Hammadi—they might have had to wait at Hammadi for the bridge to be raised, which would have placed them under close scrutiny—and unload under cover of darkness. The heavier objects could be temporarily concealed in an empty tomb or cave, to be retrieved later, when the—I believe the expression is, ‘when the heat was off.’ A few of them would have taken the steamer on downstream next day and abandoned or destroyed her.”
“I am sure you have the right of it, Walter,” I said. “But if you will forgive me, we are getting off the track here.”
“My fault,” said Cyrus, grinning. “Sorry, Amelia. Go on.”
The story of our visit to el-Gharbi was new to some of them, and if I may say so, I told it well. (I saw Daoud, lips moving and eyes abstracted, and knew he was memorizing everything I said, to be repeated, with embellishments.) “It came as a complete shock to me,” I admitted handsomely. “I went to el-Gharbi because I had deduced that Maryam’s misadventures were, so to speak, the pieces that did not fit into the puzzle, but all I expected to learn was more about her past history. She overheard me talking to Ramses; she had got in the habit of walking in the garden at night. Her reasons do not concern us,” I added, with a little cough.
Nefret glanced at Ramses, who was studiously not looking at anyone, and moved closer to him. She looked weary but very beautiful, her face shining with a new contentment. She had learned one important lesson: that the marriage of true hearts does not alter when it alteration finds, and that love is not time’s fool—as Shakespeare so nicely puts it. I nodded affectionately at her and went on.
“Maryam realized when she heard me mention el-Gharbi’s village that he would tell me about Justin—and that that information would put the entire party on the dahabeeyah under suspicion. I believe I may confidently assert that my explanation of the true facts surrounding her mother’s death, as well as the kindly reception she received, had altered her feelings for us. At first light she went to Luxor and attempted to dissuade Justin and Matilda from carrying out their plans—at least the part of those plans that depended on the abduction of Nefret. She swore she would not betray them, but apparently her agitation was so great that they decided they could not trust her, so they locked her in her room and sent Khattab to the railroad