He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [210]
“For the second time!” Emerson’s well-cut lips curled in a snarl. “It’s getting monotonous.”
“Why, Emerson,” I exclaimed. “It is not like you to play dog in the manger.”
“Yes, it is!” Emerson got a grip on himself. “Peabody, please don’t provoke me. I want to do him justice. I am trying my damnedest to do him justice. I discovered the truth only three days ago, and it hasn’t sunk in yet.”
“But you must have known earlier that Sethos was Major Hamilton,” Ramses said. I thought I detected a certain note of criticism in his voice. Emerson looked uncomfortable.
“I didn’t know for certain, but my suspicions of Hamilton were aroused by the letter he wrote us.”
“Curse it,” I exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you recognized the handwriting. After all these years?”
Emerson grinned. “If it makes you feel happier, Peabody, and I am sure it does, that was a clue you never possessed. I was the only one who saw Sethos’s farewell letter to you.”
“Yes, you ripped it to shreds after you had read it aloud. I told you at the time you shouldn’t have done that.”
“It was an extremely annoying epistle,” said Emerson. “You were right, though. I couldn’t be certain the handwriting was the same, since it had been a long time, but when I remembered how assiduously Hamilton had avoided us, my suspicions increased. Having better sense than some members of this family, I took those suspicions to Maxwell instead of acting on them as I might once have done.
“You can only faintly imagine my astonishment when I learned that Sethos has been, for several years, one of the War Office’s most trusted secret agents. He was sent to Cairo by Kitchener himself. He knew about your little side show, Ramses, but his primary mission was to stop the leaks of information and identify the man responsible for them. It was he who exposed Mrs. Fortescue, whom he had been cultivating in his characteristically flamboyant fashion.
“Maxwell told me all this—he had to, to keep me from going after Sethos myself—but he coolly informed me that Sethos was considerably more valuable than I, and that he would have me put up against a wall and shot if I breathed a word to a living soul. I knew the truth when we stopped by the barracks on our way into the desert. Maxwell had told me Sethos would be there, and ordered me to stay away from him, but—er—well, damn it, I was curious. He’s good,” Emerson admitted grudgingly. “I’d never have recognized him. Of course I had not the intimate knowledge of the scoundrel that some persons—”
“Nil nisi bonum, Emerson,” I murmured.
“Ha!” said Emerson.
“It is a pity,” said Ramses, who had been watching his father closely, “that there wan’t time for him to satisfy our curiosity about other things. How did he find out about Percy?”
“He didn’t.” Emerson’s face was transformed by a look of paternal pride. “That discovery was yours, my boy, and yours alone. Russell wasn’t entirely convinced by your reasoning initially, but after he had had time to think about it he concluded that you had made a strong case. He decided he had no right to take the full responsibility, so he went straight to Maxwell. I gather it was not a pleasant interview! Russell stuck to his guns, though, and after storming and swearing, Maxwell agreed to cooperate until the matter could be settled one way or the other. Maxwell informed Sethos, who volunteered to have a look round the place himself.”
“Lucky for me he did,” Ramses said.
“Yes,” Emerson agreed. “I—er—I owe him for that. And for other things.”
“If you’d rather not speak of it,” Nefret began.
“I would rather not, but I must. I had believed that that part of my life was over, forgotten, obliterated. I was wrong. One never knows when a ghost from the past will come back to haunt one.”
He was silent for a time, however, his head bowed and his countenance grave but calm. He had not been so unmoved when he told me part of the story early that morning, as we rode back to the house.
“My mother was the daughter of the Earl of Radcliffe. Why she married my father, who was