The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [90]
“Unnecessary,” said Emerson. “We have the matter under control.”
“Ah, but have you? No one who knows you all as I do would doubt your ability to defend yourselves against ordinary enemies. The very fact that these enemies succeeded in abducting Ramses and his servant—”
“David is not my servant,” Ramses said.
“—and his friend,” Sir Edward corrected smoothly, “strong young men who were, I do not doubt, on the alert, suggests that they are dangerous and unscrupulous. As I told Mrs. Emerson the other evening, I am looking for something to occupy my mind. My archaeological services are not needed, it appears, so I beg you will accept my services as a guard.”
“For ‘the ladies,’ you mean?” Nefret inquired, lashes fluttering and lips trembling. “Oh, Sir Edward, how gallant! How noble! How can we ever thank you?”
It was such an outrageous parody I was tempted to laugh. Sir Edward was no more taken in than I. He planted his hand upon the approximate region of his heart, and gazed at Nefret with the sickening intensity of a provincial actor playing Sir Galahad. “The protection of helpless females is an Englishman’s sacred duty, Miss Forth.”
Emerson was not amused. “What nonsense,” he grumbled. “This is no laughing matter, Sir Edward.”
“I am well aware of that, sir. If I have been informed correctly, the woman who owned this house was the same one Mrs. Emerson and I encountered a few years ago. I was able to be of some small service to her then. Dare I flatter myself that I may be again?”
Emerson dismissed the offer with a frown and a peremptory gesture. “We are wasting time with these empty courtesies. We have not finished searching the place.”
Sir Edward was wise enough to refrain from further argument, but he followed at a discreet distance while we examined the remaining rooms and the flat roof. We found nothing of a personal nature except an empty tin that had contained opium, and a nargileh. The kitchen, a separate building near the main house, was a shambles. It reeked of vegetables that had begun to go bad, milk that had curdled, and the thin sour beer of Egypt. The only unusual item was a broken bottle of green glass. Ramses sorted through the fragments till he found one that had part of a label.
“Moët and Chandon,” he said.
“The lady has expensive tastes,” Sir Edward murmured.
“She has the means to indulge them,” I said. “She has buried two wealthy husbands.”
The only remaining place to be searched was the shed. It had been painful enough for me to see the room where Ramses had been imprisoned; the gag and the tightly knotted ropes were mute but powerful evidence of those long hours of discomfort and uncertainty. The filthy little shed was even worse. My sympathetic imagination—a quality with which I am amply endowed—pictured David lying helpless and wounded on the hard floor, despairing of rescue, fearing the worst, in ignorance of what had befallen the friend he loved like a brother. What would have been his fate, and that of Ramses, if Layla had not come to their aid? Not a clean, quick death, for their attackers could have dispatched them at any time. A number of alternatives came to mind. A shudder ran through my frame.
There was not room in the horrid little place for all of us, so I left the search to Emerson and Ramses. All they found was an overturned beer jar and a pile of cigarette ends, a rough clay lamp and a thin layer of musty straw.
We returned to Abdullah’s house, hoping that the inquiries he had set in motion had produced more information. Our people had been on the job since dawn, and I must say they had covered the village thoroughly. A crowd of witnesses awaited us, some grumbling and resentful, some curious and cheerful. Abdullah brought them in