The Deeds of the Disturber - Elizabeth Peters [81]
In the narrow passageway between the rows of beds, about ten feet from the entrance, was a brazier filled with charcoal, whose reek blended with the fragrant smoke of the drug. It was tended – oh horror! – by a woman. She was no more than a huddle of rags as she crouched by the foul little fire. A filthy cloth was thrown over her head, like a travesty of the tarhah of fine muslin worn by Egyptian ladies. From beneath it wisps of coarse grey hair straggled down to conceal the face that had sunk upon her breast.
Emerson’s notion of disguise runs heavily to beards. He was wearing the one he had worn at the Museum, but he had done nothing else to change his appearance, except to cover his head with a cap and wrinkle his oldest tweed coat by rolling it into a ball and stamping on it. The cap, borrowed from Gargery, was too small for him, and the breadth of his shoulders prohibited the acquisition of any other article of attire from one of the servants. In any case it would have been impossible for him to conceal that splendid physique or his mellow, resonant voice. His attempt to soften the last-mentioned characteristic resulted in a grotesque growl.
‘Two pipes!’
The woman’s head lifted sharply, and she drew a corner of the tarhah across the lower part of her face. The serpentine smoothness of her movements betrayed the falsity of her disguise, and the eyes that fixed themselves on Emerson were those of a woman in the prime of life – dark as a midnight sky, smouldering with suppressed fires. For she knew him – and he knew her. The shock of astonishment and of recognition that ran through his body was as palpable as a shudder.
A hiss of ironic laughter issued from the lips hidden by the tarhah. ‘Two pipes, effendi? For Emerson, Father of Curses, and his – his . . .’
Her head tilted on her long slender neck, as she leaned to one side in an effort to see me more clearly. Emerson pushed me behind him.
‘Your tastes have changed since last we met, Emerson,’ she went on in a jeering voice. ‘You did not care for boys then.’
‘They will hear you,’ Emerson muttered, indicating the lax forms on the nearby beds.
‘They are in Paradise; they hear only the murmurs of the houris. Tell me what you came for, and then go. This is no place for you or your . . .’
‘I would speak with you. If not here, tell me where.’
‘So you have not forgotten Ayesha? Your words come as balm to my wounded and forsaken heart . . .’ A burst of mocking laughter ended the sentence. Then she hissed, ‘Your face was not meant to conceal your thoughts, Emerson. I read them now as I used to do. You did not expect to find me here. What do you want? How dare you come here, flaunting your new lover and endangering me by your very presence?’
Needless to say, I was hanging on every word, and finding the conversation – to say the least – replete with provocative suggestions. Unfortunately at this most interesting point, Ayesha caught herself. What she heard or what she saw I never knew. With a supple, serpentine twist, she sprang to her feet and vanished into the smoky shadows at the back of the room.
‘The devil,’ Emerson exclaimed. ‘Quick, Peabody!’
But the door through which she had passed was known only to her. Emerson was still kicking the wall and swearing when a flood of men swept down the stairs and into the room. The silver badges on their helmets glistened and the blast of police whistles rent the air.
The befuddled occupants of the couches were dragged up and hustled out. Most were too bewildered to protest; the few that did were roughly subdued. There was nothing for it but to submit and wait until a more propitious moment to explain our identities and demand our release, and I certainly did not need Emerson’s reminder: ‘If you utter one word, Peabody, in English, Arabic, or any other language known to you, I will throttle you.’
I forgave him the peremptory tone, for there was no time for discussion. (There were other things I might