Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [29]
“So do the dialects of Syria and Turkey,” Emerson muttered. “And Senussi. Ah, well, we mustn’t leap to conclusions. Was that all?”
Nefret nodded. “He was so upset it was almost impossible to get anything sensible out of him. He kept saying he was sorry, he was going away, he would never bother us again, but there were others, and we must be on our guard. So Ramses let him go.”
“Damnation,” said Emerson. “Why the devil did you do that?”
“What was the alternative?” Ramses demanded, with unusual heat. “Turn him over to the police or the military? I did that before. I couldn’t bring myself to do it again, not to him. He knows how to find me and I told him I would help him if I can.”
“Very sensible,” I said, anticipating another indignant comment from my impetuous husband, who prefers less subtle methods of extracting information from reluctant witnesses. “He is now indebted to you, and if he is a man of honor, as you believe, he will wish to repay that debt. You think he will seek you out again?”
“I hope so.”
“That’s all very well,” Emerson grumbled. “But what about the others? You might at least have asked him who they were.”
“I don’t believe he knew himself,” Ramses said. “The movement’s not dead, but it has been driven underground and I can’t believe anyone is going to bother about me.” He put his glass on the table and rose to his feet. “However—it’s agreed, isn’t it, that none of us is to mention this incident to the family in England?”
“Hmmm.” Emerson stroked his chin. “You are in the right, my boy. If David got wind of it—”
“He’d be on the next boat.” Ramses’s grave young countenance softened into a smile. “He thinks I haven’t enough sense to take care of myself. I can’t imagine what gave him that idea. The fact is, David would be in even greater danger from Wardani’s people. I was never a member of the organization. David was. Asad’s motives were personal and—er—emotional, but he and the others would regard David as a traitor.”
After they had taken their departure I waited for Emerson to comment. He said nothing for a while; deep in thought, he took up his pipe and went about the messy business of filling it. Having scattered bits of tobacco all over his knees and the floor, he struck a match and started puffing.
“Well?” I demanded. “What are we going to do about this?”
“You are of the opinion we should do something?”
“I suppose we could sit back and wait for one of those wild-eyed fanatics to assassinate Ramses.”
“I’m inclined to agree with his assessment of Asad, you know. However,” said Emerson, anticipating my indignant protest, “I don’t like the sound of this. Ramses’s role was known to Sahin Bey of Turkish intelligence and to Sidi Ahmed, the Sheikh of the Senussi. I had a little chat with General Maxwell the other day—”
“Why did you do that? I thought we had agreed we would have nothing to do with the military. Confound it, Emerson, if you suspected something like this was going to happen you ought to have told me.”
“I didn’t suspect anything like this, and one of the reasons why I went to the trouble of seeing Maxwell was to reemphasize the position we took with Salisbury and that bastard Smith. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Maxwell agreed with me that Ramses should stay out of the intelligence game, though his reasons were probably not the same as mine.”
“No. Military persons do not care about the safety of the men they send into battle. Mark my words, Emerson: if he thought of a way in which Ramses could be useful he would try to recruit him again. What do the Senussi have to do with this, anyhow?”
Emerson enjoys lecturing, so I let him, though much of what he told me was already known to me. The Senussi tariqa, or “way,” was a religious movement, a return to the purity of Islam, founded by a descendant of the Prophet and deriving its name from that of his family. Sidi Mohammed ben Ali ben Es Senussi (he had a number of other names, which I have forgotten) had been a man of high principles and moral worth, who preached tolerance and forswore violence.
It was