The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [168]
“No,” I said. “Why should I have done? There are many women like that, unrecognized and unrewarded, laboring earnestly to light the lamps of learning—”
“Quite,” said Sir Edward. “I hope it will console you to learn, Mrs. Emerson, that my chief and I were also ignorant of Madame Bertha’s extracurricular activities. He trusted her, you see. She did not trust him. Oh, she loved him, in that tigerish fashion of hers—that is why she hated you, because she suspected he would never care for her as he does for you—but past experiences, I do not doubt, had convinced her no man was completely trustworthy. Several years ago, without his knowledge or mine, she began forming a criminal organization of her own. She found allies, witting or unwitting, in the growing movements for women’s rights in England and in Egypt. The school here in Luxor was one of the activities she began at that time.”
“I ought to have known,” I said angrily. “She used the suffragist movement in England in the same way, cynically and for her own purpose.”
“You don’t understand her, Mrs. Emerson. In her own twisted fashion she is genuinely dedicated to the cause of women’s rights. She hates men, and believes she is helping women to fight back against male oppression. My master, as you are pleased to call him, was the sole exception; but now she considers he has betrayed her, like all the others.”
The hairpins kept bending. I had used four now, with no perceptible result. My interest in his narrative distracted me, perhaps.
“Then the girl who was murdered was one of her students?”
“I believe that is the case. I don’t know whether it was Miss Nefret’s charm or your son’s offer of a reward that won her over, but she was prepared to betray her mistress. It may have been one of the other girls who betrayed her.” Sir Edward shifted position slightly, trying, as I supposed, to ease the strain on his aching shoulders. “How are you getting on?” he asked politely.
I tossed another bent hairpin away and flexed my cramped fingers. “I have plenty of hairpins.”
Sir Edward threw his head back, laughing heartily. It was a strange sound in that dismal room. “Mrs. Emerson, you are a woman in a million. You are wasting your time, though, and putting an unnecessary strain on your wrists. I feel certain Madame is still in Luxor. If she wants to maintain the useful persona of a teacher, she’ll have to convince your loving family that you left the school of your own free will and—if I know the Professor—let them search the place from cellars to roof. It began raining a while ago and she doesn’t like to get her dainty feet wet. I doubt she’ll turn up until—”
“What!” I cried. “What did you say? Still in Luxor? Teacher? Dainty feet? It is Bertha of whom you are speaking, not Matilda. But Bertha is dead. She . . . Oh, good heavens!”
“Forgive me for not being more explicit,” Sir Edward said with great politeness. “I thought you understood. But, there, Mrs. Emerson, your normally quick wits are under something of a strain at present. No, Madame is not dead; she is alive and well and impatient to see you. Not only have I spoken with her quite recently, but it was I who examined the body and realized it could not be hers.”
“How did you do that? Or should I ask?”
“I am surprised at you, Mrs. Emerson! You may remember that Bertha has very fair skin. Every square inch of the body was covered, except for the face, and there wasn’t much left of that, but if your husband had thought to remove one of her gloves . . .”
“Good Gad,” I exclaimed. “She deliberately murdered one of those poor women in order to mislead us. Of all the cold-blooded, vicious—”
“An accurate assessment, I fear. I never believed she had killed herself. If she had been cornered, she would