The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [139]
“I agree. The least we can do is tell Geoffrey what does lie behind this. Or have you already informed him about the forgeries, Nefret?”
“No. I thought … There hasn’t been time.”
Ramses, seated cross-legged on the rug, shifted position slightly. Nefret glanced at him and then looked away.
“You thought to spare me embarrassment,” David said, with an affectionate smile. “That was good of you, dear, but it was not necessary.”
I had told him most of the story that morning. He now repeated it to Geoffrey, who listened with astonishment writ large across his ingenuous countenance.
“But then,” he stuttered. “Then—that explains the attacks on you. This person fears exposure. He will kill to prevent it!”
“It doesn’t explain a damned thing,” said Emerson. “Or, to be more accurate, it doesn’t solve our problem. We’ve made no progress finding the swine. He could be anyone; he could be anywhere.”
“Anywhere around Cairo,” I corrected. “Unless the actual violence has been perpetrated by hired thugs, in which case, I agree, he might be elsewhere. If we can capture one of the villains next time he attacks us—”
David raised his hand. “Excuse me, Aunt Amelia. I know that waiting to be attacked is your preferred method of catching criminals, but I would rather try something less dangerous. You have been so tender of my feelings and my reputation that you’ve overlooked the step we must take next. Indeed, it is the only one a man of honor could consider.”
“What do you mean?” I asked apprehensively. When men start talking about honor, there is sure to be trouble.
“I intend to write to every dealer who handled the forgeries, informing them that my grandfather had no collection of antiquities and that the individual who sold them the objects was an impostor. You can supply me with a list, I presume?”
For a time the only sounds that broke the silence were the hiss of windblown sand and the droning of flies. Ramses was—of course—the first to speak. “I have a list. It is not complete.”
“It’s a start,” David said. “The word will spread. This may or may not lead to information that will help us identify the man we want, but that is not the important thing.”
Emerson’s pipe had gone out. Slowly and deliberately he removed it from his mouth, tapped out the ashes, and put it in his pocket. Then he rose and offered David his hand.
“I am,” he remarked, “a damned idiot. It just goes to show that one should never allow sentiment to interfere with common sense. Shake hands, my boy, and accept my apologies.”
“Not at all, sir. It was my fault, for getting married and distracting everyone.”
He was laughing as he looked up at the impressive form towering over him. What a handsome, upstanding lad he was! Marriage had given him additional confidence and maturity; I fancied (for I have my moments of sentiment) that his grandfather must have looked like David when he had been the same age, long before I met him. Abdullah had been a fine-looking man till the day of his death. He had been so proud of David. He would have been even prouder if he had heard him that day.
In the villages the separation of the sexes which rouses the indignation of foreign visitors is not so strictly enforced. Separate harems or women’s quarters are only found in the villas of the well-to-do, and only a wealthy man can afford to keep a woman who contributes nothing to the maintenance of the household. Such a woman is purely ornamental, a sign of his success. (I should not have to point out certain uncomfortable parallels with our own society; but in case the Reader be too obtuse or blinded by prejudice to see them, I will remind him or her of the upper-class ladies of England, who do little but dress richly and drive out in their carriages to pay calls on other richly dressed ladies.)
Egyptian women of the fellahin class work hard, and are, in my opinion, all the better for it. In many ways their position is invidious, but they have some rights Englishwomen still lack. Their