The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters [122]
“You are overdoing it,” I said, out of the corner of my mouth. Emerson scowled at me, but took the hint.
“Are we all finished?” he inquired. “Good. Let us retire. I am sorry to rush you, but I want to get back to the Valley.”
“Then perhaps you wish to be excused now,” said Lady Baskerville, her raised eyebrows showing what she thought of this piece of rudeness.
“No, no. I want my coffee. It will help keep me awake.”
As we left the room, Mary came up to me. “I don’t understand, Mrs. Emerson. The story Karl told was so strange. How can it have any bearing on my mother’s death?”
“It may have no bearing at all,” I said soothingly. “We are still walking in a thick fog, Mary; we cannot even see what objects are hidden by the mist, much less know if they are landmarks to guide us on our quest.”
“How literary we all are tonight,” remarked the ubiquitous Mr. O’Connell, smiling. It was his professional, leprechaun’s smile; but it seemed to me his eyes held a glint of something more serious and more sinister.
With a defiant glance at me Lady Baskerville took her place behind the coffee tray. I smiled tolerantly. If the lady chose to make this trivial activity a show of strength between us, let her. In a few more days I would be in charge officially, as I already was in actuality.
We were all extremely polite that evening. As I listened to the genteel murmurs of “black or white?” and “two lumps, if you please,” I felt as if I were watching the commonplace, civilized scene through distorting glasses, like those in a fairy tale I had once read. Everyone in the room was acting a part. Everyone had something to conceal—emotions, actions, thoughts.
Lady Baskerville would have done better to let me serve the coffee. She was unusually clumsy; and after she had managed to spill half a cup onto the tray, she let out a little scream of exasperation and clapped her hands to her head.
“I am so nervous tonight I don’t know what I am doing! Radcliffe, I wish you would reconsider. Stay here tonight. Don’t risk yourself, I could not stand another…” Smiling, Emerson shook his head, and Lady Baskerville, summoning up a faint answering smile, said more calmly, “I ought to know better. At least you will take someone with you? You will not go alone?”
Stubborn creature that he is, Emerson was about to deny this reasonable request, but the others all joined in urging him to accept a companion. Vandergelt was the first to offer his services.
“No, no, you must stay and guard the ladies,” Emerson said.
“As ever, Herr Professor, I would be honored to be of service to the most distinguished—”
“Thank you, no.”
I said nothing. There was no need for me to speak; Emerson and I habitually communicate without words. It is a form of electrical vibration, I believe. He felt my unspoken message, for he avoided looking at me as he scanned the room in a maddeningly deliberate fashion.
“The chosen victim must be Mr. O’Connell, I believe,” he said at last. “I hope we will have a restful night; he can work on his next dispatch.”
“That suits me, Professor,” said the young Irishman, taking his cup from Lady Baskerville.
Suddenly Emerson rose to his feet with a cry. “Look there!”
Every eye went to the window, where he was pointing. O’Connell rushed across the room and pulled back the curtains.
“What did you see, Professor?”
“A flutter of white,” Emerson said. “I thought someone passed rapidly by the window.”
“There is nothing there now,” O’Connell said. He went back to his chair.
No one spoke for a time. I sat gripping the arms of my chair, trying to think; for a new and terrible idea had suddenly occurred to me. I had no idea what Emerson was up to, with his ridiculous suggestions of flutters of white and his dramatic cries; the matter that concerned me was of quite another nature. I might be wrong. But if I was not wrong, something had to