O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King [104]
“Madam, we are interested in the tale of your baskets,” Holmes began. When the silence within was broken only by an exchange of harsh whispers between mother and son, he added, “Sitt, I assure you I am not a madman. I too have had a thing taken and replaced, and when I heard your tale in the souk today, my interest was great. I believe it is merely boys who have done this, but if a boy is creating mischief, it is best to know this early, while he is still young, do you not agree? These are hard times to raise boys in. The temptations are many, and they have no respect for their elders.”
How on earth Holmes, whose closest approximation to being a parent had been in hiring hungry street urchins to run his errands back in the Baker Street days, knew that this would lay down a firm common ground with an illiterate Arab woman, I do not know, but it did. She immediately launched into a mournful recitation of the difficulties in raising children today, using phrases I have heard in twentieth-century drawing rooms and read in the hieroglyphic epistles of ancient Egyptian parents. She had just used the phrase “He’s a good boy” for the fifth time when Holmes cut her off.
“Sitt, I wish to know also about your baskets. You lost them?”
“They were stolen,” she replied, her indignation fresh and showing no wear after what must, judging by the rolling of her son’s eyes, have been much telling. “Stolen from my wall, my front wall, over where the good gentleman is even now sitting.” A hand reached out from the burkah and pointed upwards. We looked up and saw a twisted nail driven between the stones of the wall above my head.
“Why did you leave them outside in the street?”
“They were very dirty, and I did not want them in the house. I like a clean house, effendi, though it is difficult, what with two children and being gone from the house all day.”
“What work do you do?”
“What I can find,” she said simply. “I wash clothes for Miriam the ghassaleh, I pick rags, I break stone.”
“Were these baskets for your work with Miriam the laundress?”
“No! Wallah! These were dirty baskets, old and worn and without any beauty, sufficient only to carry rock and soil. I did not imagine anyone would steal such ugly things.”
“So you carried stones and soil in them?”
“The son of Daoud the stonemason was a friend of my husband. Old man Daoud gives me work when I wish it. It is hard work, and my hands and shoulders ache when I have done a day’s work, but it pays well, and my children must eat.”
“But the baskets were returned. How long were they gone?”
“Oh, one month? Perhaps more.” She consulted with her son, but he was uncertain. “One month or six weeks perhaps.”
“And they were just returned.”
“Thrown down against the door,” she agreed.
“In the same condition as when they were taken?”
“Oh, no,” she said scornfully. “They were barely threads clinging to each other.”
“Did you throw them away, then, sitt?” Holmes’ voice remained as casual as before, but I could hear the tension coiling tighter in his questions.
“I was going to, but I did need a new nest for the chicken. The two baskets together were hardly as good as one, but better than twigs alone.”
“Sitt, I would like to buy one of these baskets.”
There was a long silence, then a suspicious, “Why?”
“To use it to accuse these prank-playing boys, if ever I find them,” he said promptly.
The next silence was shorter and punctuated by whispers.
“How much would you pay for the old basket beneath my chicken?”
“How much would a new basket cost you?” asked Holmes in return.
“One… two