Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [2]
Emerson’s temper has become the stuff of legend in Egypt; he is not called the Father of Curses for nothing. Sapphirine orbs blazing, heavy brows drawn together, he reached for his pipe.
Emerson seldom calls me Amelia. Peabody, my maiden name, is the one he employs as a term of approbation and affection. Pleased to have stirred him out of his melancholy mood, I waited until his stalwart form relaxed and his handsome face took on a sheepish smile.
“I beg your pardon, my love.”
“Granted,” I replied magnanimously.
The library door opened and Gargery, our butler, poked his head in. “Did you call, Professor?”
“I didn’t call you,” Emerson replied. “And you know it. Go away, Gargery.”
Gargery’s snub-nosed countenance took on a look of stubborn determination. “Would you and the madam care for coffee, sir?”
“We just now finished breakfast,” Emerson reminded him. “If I want something I will ask for it.”
“Shall I switch on the electric lights, sir? I believe we are due for a rainstorm. My rheumatism—”
“Curse your rheumatism!” Emerson shouted. “Get out of here, Gargery.”
The door closed with something of a slam. Emerson chuckled. “He’s as transparent as a child, isn’t he?”
“Has he been nagging you about taking him to Egypt this year?”
“Well, he does it every year, doesn’t he? Now he is claiming the damp winter climate gives him the rheumatics.”
“I wonder how old he is. He hasn’t changed a great deal since we first met him. Hair of that sandy shade does not show gray, and he is still thin and wiry.”
“He’s younger than we are,” said Emerson with a chuckle. “It is not his age that concerns me, Peabody, my dear. We made a bad mistake when we allowed our butler to take a hand in our criminal investigations. It has given him ideas below his station.”
“You must admit he was useful,” I said, recalling certain of those earlier investigations. “That year we left Nefret and Ramses here in England, one or both of them might have been abducted by Schlange’s henchmen if it hadn’t been for Gargery and his cudgel.”
“I don’t know about that. Nefret defended herself admirably, and Ramses as well.” Emerson puffed at his pipe. He claims tobacco calms his nerves. Certainly his voice was more affable when he went on. “However, I admit he was of considerable assistance the time we were locked in the dungeon under Mauldy Manor with the water rising and the house on fire and . . . What are you laughing about?”
“Fond memories, my dear, fond memories. We really have led interesting lives, have we not?”
“Too damned interesting. I would rather not go through another season like the last one.” His voice grew gruff with an emotion his reticent British nature would not allow him to express.
I knew what emotion it was, though, for I shared it. He was thinking of our son and how close we had come to losing him.
Ramses had been in trouble of one sort or another as soon as he could crawl. In his younger days he had been kidnapped by master criminals and antiquities thieves, fallen into tombs and off cliffs . . . but a complete catalog would fill too many pages of this narrative. He had reached his mid-twenties alive and relatively unscathed; but maturity had not tempered his reckless nature, and he had never faced greater dangers than the ones he had encountered the winter of 1914–15.
Everyone knew that the Turks were planning to attack the Suez Canal. What was not generally known was that they hoped to inspire a bloody uprising in Cairo to coincide with their attack, and divert troops from the Canal defenses. They found willing allies in a group of Egyptian nationalists, who were bitterly and justifiably resentful of Britain’s refusal to consider their demands for independence. Kamil el-Wardani, the charismatic young leader of this group, was the most dangerous of the nationalists, but there were others who were ready and willing to cooperate with the enemy; so when Wardani was taken into custody, the authorities determined to keep his arrest a secret and have someone else replace him—someone loyal to England who would report on the enemy