Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters [182]
“This will have to stop, you know.”
“I do know. In fact, when I set out this time I anticipated that it would be my last visit. I meant to get in and out before you arrived, even though it meant traveling at a deuced uncomfortable time of year. Don’t you want to know how I learned of your plans?”
“You were spying on me, I suppose, disguised as one of the maids,” I said with a sniff.
“No, no. I get around quite a lot, but even I am not omnipresent. I heard of it, and of the mysterious Merasen, through Wallis Budge. You had better not mention that to Emerson,” he added with an infuriating grin.
“Curse it,” I muttered. “Then MacFerguson—”
“Quick as ever, my dear. Yes, Hamish MacFerguson is a legitimate scholar, though, to be honest, he hasn’t contributed a great deal to the field. He has been very useful. I’ve taken his place on a number of occasions. He was working at the museum when Budge happened to mention Emerson’s visit, and of course he notified me immediately. So, as I was saying, I realized that my lucrative arrangement with Tarek was about to end. He was bound to tell you about your generous friend, and you would of course deny all knowledge of such a person. I didn’t know he had been supplanted. When I found out, it was too late to head you off. Incidentally,” he added, with a sidelong look at me, “I was not responsible for the accidents that befell your men. Newbold committed the first of them, in order to deprive you of a loyal aide, and Merasen cut the other fellow’s throat. I’m not certain why; he enjoyed violence for its own sake. Ali may have got wind of his plans to leave that night.”
“How do you know about those incidents?” I asked suspiciously.
Sethos grinned. “You have a mind like an awl, my dear. Sharp and straight to the point. I heard of them from one of my gang, who accompanied you from Shellal.”
“Daria. How could you—even you—hand that girl over to a creature like Newbold?”
“Amelia, Amelia!” Sethos threw his head back, laughing. “You are incomparable. She was a criminal, my dear, and a prostitute—though a very select and expensive one. What do you care for a woman like that?”
“I do care.”
“I know.” Sethos sobered. “Take comfort in the fact that she did not have to submit to Newbold’s—er—attentions. I am telling you this partly in the hope of getting back into your good graces…” He was quick to catch my change of expression and revised his statement. “Getting a little further out of your bad graces, then. This will give you a hold over the fellow. He’s impotent.”
“What?” I cried.
“An elephant got—er—got him,” said Sethos, with an evil grin. “Ramses will enjoy hearing that. Newbold will do anything you ask to keep that information under wraps. He keeps a woman on hand solely to maintain his reputation.”
“What will happen to her now?”
“That’s up to her. I promised to set her up in her own establishment in return for her help in this little venture. She may have something else in mind.”
“Daria’s future plans interest me less than her past history. What precisely was she supposed to do to earn her reward?”
“Watch over you, of course. Newbold was my principal concern. I passed through Cairo a few weeks before you, and learned, from one of my many illicit sources, that he’d been asking questions of all and sundry about your plans. He’d heard about Merasen from a military gossip. If he got on your trail he could be dangerous; the man is obsessed with gold. Daria was supposed to keep his temper under control—she’s good at insinuating ideas into male heads—and warn you if he