Lion in the Valley - Elizabeth Peters [24]
“Oh, come, Amelia, that is really going too far, even for you,” Emerson shouted. “Not Ramses’ rescuer? Why would he arrange for the boy to be kidnapped, and then save him?”
“Don’t forget that it was my intervention that saved Ramses. My first impression, that the man was carrying him off, was undoubtedly correct. Once captured by me, he talked his way out of the situation with the ingenuity one might expect from such a clever man. And the proof, Emerson—the proof is that he never turned up this morning, as he promised he would.”
Nemo’s failure to keep his appointment was an additional cause of Emerson’s ill humor. He is accustomed to having people do as he tells them.
“He was alarmed by the presence of the police, I expect. A man of his antecedents—”
“My dear Emerson,” I said in a kindly manner, “such wild rationalization is unworthy of you. Every fact leads to the same conclusion—my conclusion.”
Emerson did not reply. It was Ramses who cleared his throat and remarked, “If you will excuse my mentioning it, Mama, that is not strictly accurate. Several facts contradict your assumption, and one, I fear, is insuperable.”
Emerson looked hopefully at his son. “And what is that, my boy? Something you observed while you were alone with the young man?”
“No, Papa, you and Mama observed it too. I do not refer to Mr. Nemo’s struggle with the men who carried me off, which might conceivably have been staged—though I must say it was done with a degree of verisimilitude few actors could have achieved—for I can think of several reasons why the Master Criminal might have arranged such a misleading performance, in order to—”
“Ramses,” I said.
“Yes, Mama. The fact that demolishes your otherwise intriguing theory is that my rescuer’s physical attributes were not those of the man we knew as Father Girgis.”
“He is a master of disguise, Ramses,” I said. “The black beard and wig he wore were false—”
“But the black eyes were not,” said Ramses. “We had ample opportunity to observe their color, did we not? The eyes of the Englishman—or, as Papa observed, the Scot—are blue.”
It was a cruel blow. I tried to rally. “The scientific achievements of master criminals often exceed those of scholars. A method of changing the color of the eyes—”
“Exists, I fear, only in fiction,” said Ramses. “I have made some study of the matter, Mama, and I know of no method of dying one’s irises.”
Emerson began to laugh. “A hit, Peabody—a palpable hit! Talk your way out of that one.”
I did not deign to reply. Though admitting I may have been in error on one small point, I could not see that Ramses’ statement had affected the essential issue. The poor young English lady was innocent; and if the renegade Englishman was not the Master Criminal himself, he was surely one of the latter’s lieutenants. I felt certain he had been involved in the abduction of Ramses, and that we would never see him again.
There is no railroad station at Dahshoor, which is almost equidistant between Medrashein and Mazghunah. Rather than have our extensive baggage transported by donkeyback from either of those locations, Emerson had requested that the train stop briefly at the point nearest the site. I daresay that this favor would not have been accorded anyone else; but Emerson’s reputation is so well known and his powers of persuasion, particularly of a vocal variety, are so emphatic, that the engineer of the train did as he was asked, and the complaints of the other passengers were ignored by the porters.
A party of our loyal men awaited us. They had been there for five hours, since we had been unable to notify them that we had missed the early train. They were not put out by, or worried about, the delay; when we first caught sight of them they were sprawled in a patch of shade, smoking and fahddling (gossiping). The Egyptian temperament accepts delay with a shrug and a murmured reference to the will of Allah. This attitude exasperates Europeans and Americans (especially the latter), who complain that the most frequently