The Deeds of the Disturber - Elizabeth Peters [132]
But this was not the time for philosophical musing, fond as I am of that activity. I put my back against the fence enclosing the obelisk and stood waiting, every sense alert. The veil of curdled mist over the river had thickened and sent drifting tendrils ashore. A lamp some twenty yards away shone brightly on the pavement, but only its farthest fringes touched the side of the monument.
It had lacked thirty minutes to the designated hour when I left Emerson. Knowing how distorted one’s sense of time can be under such conditions, I had resigned myself to what would seem a long wait; but I had scarcely taken up my position when a soft hiss made me turn my head sharply to my left.
She was muffled in dark garments. Only the pale glimmer of one hand, holding the draperies tight across her face, betrayed her presence.
‘Good evening,’ I began.
Her hand darted out and covered my mouth. ‘Hush! Don’t speak, listen. There is no time. Go quickly, before he comes.’
I pulled the clinging feverish fingers from my lips. ‘You asked me –’
‘Fool! He made me write that note. I hoped you would come before the time, so I could warn you, for I have . . . But never mind that, you must get away. I thought he wanted you for the ceremony, tomorrow night, and that would . . . But he has the other now, she will serve his purpose, and yet when I said good, I will not go to meet the Sitt Hakim, he . . . He means to kill you, there can be no other reason.’
She thrust her face close to mine and hurled the incoherent phrases at me like missiles. Her hands pushed and plucked at me, reinforcing her urgent words. Her veil had fallen, and even in the gloom I could see what he had done to her after she tried to defy him.
‘Come with me,’ I urged, trying to capture one of her frantic hands. ‘Why do you shield a man who threatens you, beats you? Tell me his name. I promise he will never –’
‘You don’t know him. You don’t know what he can do. He has powers . . . Oh, you are a mad, cold Englishwoman, do you not fear death?’
‘Not as you fear it,’ I said. ‘And yet you took the risk of warning me. Why?’
The fluttering hands quieted; for a moment they lay still upon my breast. ‘He loves you,’ she whispered. ‘Of all the men I knew, he alone . . . And you spoke to me that day in such words . . . Oh, this is madness! Will you go?’
‘Not unless you come with me. I will not leave you to face him.’
She looked into my eyes. I thought, I truly believed, I had persuaded her. Then her hands released their hold and she glided away.
Impulsively I started to follow; but reason prevailed, and I resumed my place. She had passed out of sight, behind the obelisk; in the darkness and the thickening mist she could easily elude me. If I went after her I might miss my true quarry – the killer himself. Once I had the villain in my power I would have no need of Ayesha, or she of me. (Though I had every intention of pressing my suggestion that she retire to the rural peace and domestic harmony so necessary to a nature like hers.)
A shriek rent the night! It was abruptly cut off, as if a rough hand had compressed the straining vocal cords. It had to be Ayesha who had screamed, it could be no other. Parasol raised, I rushed impetuously in the direction from which the sound had come.
Conceive of my amazement when the first person I saw was Emerson. To be honest, I had almost forgotten about him. He stood in the circle of light cast by the nearest gas globe, and he was staring across the pavement towards the gardens beyond. They lay in deep shadow, but I made out a shape that was neither shrub nor tree – a huge, monstrous shape, hardly human in outline.
‘Wait, Peabody,’ Emerson shouted. ‘He has a pistol at her head!’
Now that he mentioned it, I saw that the dull gleam of metal was indeed that of a weapon, and deduced that the pale oval next to it must be Ayesha’s face. Her black garments blended