Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [154]
The second “he” obviously did not refer to Smith. Margaret’s dismissal of him suggested that she had no suspicion of his real role; she’d have been quick to exploit their earlier acquaintance if she had known he was involved with intelligence. Ramses didn’t believe in the Public Works Department any more than he believed Smith was on holiday.
The expected letter from Nefret arrived the day of our departure. Emerson was in a fairly lively mood that morning since Gargery had refused to give up his turn to serve breakfast and went staggering round the room groaning, softly but persistently, until my afflicted spouse ushered him, gently but firmly, out of the room. I had been about to do so myself. I did not begrudge Gargery his groans or limps, but the hands smeared with green ointment did put one off a bit.
Refreshed and alert, Emerson resumed his seat and asked if there was anything of interest in the post. I handed him the letter, which I had already perused, and awaited his comments.
“Hmph,” said Emerson.
“What do you make of it?” I asked, after a long pause.
“You refer, I presume, to the precipitation of sundry objects on Ramses,” said Emerson, buttering another piece of toast. “I don’t know what to make of it and neither do you.”
“Nefret is still concealing something from me,” I mused. “I sense that, very strongly. You are quite right, Emerson; conjecture is futile until we have all the facts. How glad I am that I had already made up our minds to go to Luxor!”
Everything was in order; the only matter yet to be resolved was the disposition of Mohammed, who was still languishing in the garden shed. It would not have been expedient or humane to leave him there during our absence, which might extend to several weeks. (I could not suppose it would take longer than that to put an end to the tomb robberies, identify the individual who had taken Sethos’s place, and tidy up a few other little details.) Since he had been left alone to commune with his conscience (such as it was) and his fear of punishment, I expected to find him in a receptive mood when we visited him on Tuesday morning. His first words indicated that like all persons of low intelligence and little imagination, he had only room in his head for a single idea.
“You will let me go, Father of Curses?”
“If I were in your shoes,” said Emerson, “I would prefer to remain in custody. Saleh is dead—murdered by the man you know as the Master.”
Neither by word nor look did the wretched man indicate regret for his associate’s demise, or fear for himself. “Is it true?”
“The Father of Curses does not lie,” said Emerson grandly.
“No. Let me go, then. I swear I will never—”
Emerson cut him short with a blistering Arabic oath. “Repeat, word for word, every conversation you had with Saleh regarding the—er—Master.”
“Word for word” would have been beyond the fellow, of course. Even after insistent interrogation Emerson succeeded in getting little more out of him than he had admitted earlier. He had never been in the presence of “the Master,” never seen him or heard him speak. Saleh had not described him. Why should he? He was the Master. “He has a thousand faces and ten thousand names!”
When we left, we were still undecided as to what to do with him. “I think he was telling the truth,” Emerson remarked. “Saleh would not have shared his favored position with an underling like Mohammed. Shall we let him go?”
“We could ask Mr. Russell to take charge of him while we are in Luxor.”
“What would be the purpose of that? All Russell has done so far is complain. We present him with a perfectly good murder, and leave him to investigate it, and what has he discovered? Nothing. I see no sense at all in telling him about Sennia.”
“I would not be surprised to discover that he has already heard of it.”
And so it proved. Shortly thereafter we were in receipt of an extremely stiff note from Mr. Russell, demanding our presence in his office that afternoon concerning a matter of importance.
“No time,