The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters [101]
Snatching my hands, toast and all, in hers, she bowed her head.
Either the woman was a consummate actress or she was genuinely distressed. Only a heart as hard as granite could be unmoved.
“Now, Lady Baskerville, you must not act this way,” I said. “You are getting marmalade all over your sleeve.”
“I will not rise until you say you understand and condone my decision,” was the murmured response from my lap, where the lady’s head had sunk.
“I do, I do. Please rise. I will be your matron of honor, or your flower girl, or I will give you away, whatever you wish; only stand up.”
Vandergelt added his appeals, and Lady Baskerville consented to restore my hands and my crumbling toast. As she rose I caught the eye of Karl von Bork, who was watching in openmouthed astonishment. Shaking his head, he murmured low, “Die Englânder! Niemals werde ich sie verstehen!”
“Thank you,” Lady Baskerville sighed. “You are a true woman, Mrs. Emerson.”
“That’s right,” Vandergelt added. “You’re a brick, Mrs. Amelia. I’d never have proposed this if matters weren’t so doggoned desperate.”
The door burst open and Madame Berengeria billowed in. Today she was enveloped in a tattered cotton wrapper and her wig was not in evidence. Her wispy hair, which I saw for the first time, was almost pure white. Swaying, she scanned the room with bloodshot eyes.
“A person could starve to death,” she muttered. “Insolent servants—wretched household—where is the food? I require…. Ah, there you are!” Her eyes focused on my husband, who pushed his chair back from the table and sat poised, ready for retreat. “There you are, Tut—Thutmosis, my lover!”
She rushed at him. Emerson slid neatly out of his chair. Berengeria tripped and fell face- or rather, stomach-down across the seat. Even I, hardened as I am, felt constrained to avert my eyes from the appalling spectacle thus presented.
“Good Gad,” said Emerson.
Berengeria slid to the floor, rolled over, and sat up. “Where is he?” she demanded, squinting at the table leg. “Where has he gone? Thutmosis, my lover and my husband—”
“I suppose her attendant has run away with the other servants,” I said resignedly. “We had better get her back to her room. Where on earth did she get brandy at this hour of the morning?”
It was a rhetorical question, and no one tried to answer it. With some difficulty Karl and Vandergelt, assisted by me, lifted the lady to an upright position and steered her out of the room. I sent Karl to seek out Madame’s missing attendant, or any reasonable facsimile thereof, and returned to the dining room. Lady Baskerville had left, and Emerson was coolly drinking tea and making notes on a pad of paper.
“Sit down, Peabody,” he said. “It is time we had a council of war.”
“Did you, then, succeed in convincing the men to return to work? You seem much more cheerful than you were earlier, and I am sure the admiration of Madame Berengeria is not the cause of your good humor.”
Emerson ignored this quip. “I did not succeed,” he replied, “but I have worked out a plan that may have the desired effect. I am going across to Luxor. I wish I could ask you to go with me, but I dare not leave the house unguarded by at least one of us. I can trust no one else. Too many matters hang on a sword’s edge. Amelia, you must not leave young Baskerville unattended.”
I told him what I had done, and he looked pleased. “Excellent. Daoud is dependable; but I hope you will keep a watchful eye out as well. Your description of the young man’s worsening condition was designed to mislead, I hope?”
“Precisely. In actual fact he seems stronger.”
“Excellent,” Emerson repeated. “You must be on the qui vive, Peabody. Trust no one. I think I know the identity of the murderer, but—”
“What?” I cried. “You know—”
Emerson clapped a large hard hand over my mouth.