The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [27]
“What was that one doing?” Emerson inquired interestedly, indicating the fallen burglar.
“Trying to interfere,” said his son.
“He had a pistol, too, I see,” said Emerson. “You may as well pick it up, Peabody, my dear; I doubt if he is in any condition to use it, but it is always wise to take precautions. Ramses, apologize to your sister.”
“I apologize,” Ramses muttered.
“Now that I come to think about it, I’m rather flattered,” Nefret said, with one of those abrupt changes of mood some people found so charming (and some other people found so exasperating). She started toward Ramses and let out a little scream; she had trod on some of the broken glass.
Emerson picked her up in the arm that was not holding the burglar and transferred her to a chair. “Be careful where you step, Ramses, you aren’t wearing shoes either. It’s too late to go after the one that got away. I’ll wager this gentleman will be glad to tell us everything we want to know.”
He smiled affably at the burglar, a burly fellow whom he continued to hold with one hand, as easily as if he had been a child. The entire household had been aroused, and a good number of them had joined us, shouting questions and brandishing various deadly instruments. The burglar glared wildly at Emerson, bare to the waist and bulging with muscle—at Gargery and his cudgel—at Selim, fingering a knife even longer than Nefret’s—at assorted footmen armed with pokers, spits, and cleavers—and at the giant form of Daoud advancing purposefully toward him. “It’s a bleedin’ army!” he gurgled. “The lyin’ barstard said you was some kind of professor!”
By the time we got things sorted out, the gray dawn was breaking. It had taken me a good twenty minutes to get all the broken glass out of Ramses’s back and Nefret’s feet, and I doubted I would ever get the bloodstains out of the carpet. The burglars had been removed by our local constabulary. The one on the floor had regained consciousness but insisted, between groans, that he could not walk and must be carried on a litter. He did appear to be rather crippled.
The other burglar had been anxious to cooperate but he could offer no means of tracing the man who had hired him and his associates, as he had approached them in one of the foul grog shops in London where such petty criminals (I am informed) are to be found. Disguised as before in turban and brown skin, the villain had paid a small amount down, with the promise of a larger sum upon delivery. He had described the object he wanted in precise detail, and showed them a picture postcard of a scarab in order to make identification easier. He had even given them a rough plan of the house, indicating Emerson’s study as the most likely place where the object would be hidden.
After digging in his pockets, Bert (the burglar) produced this paper, and I was not surprised to see that there was no writing at all on it, only an emphatic X marking the room in question. The scoundrel had taken no chances of any kind. Instead of arranging a rendezvous in London, he had indicated he would be waiting outside the gates of the park, where he would hand over the rest of the money in exchange for the scarab.
The futility of pursuit was obvious. The villain must have heard the shot and seen lights go on all over the house; he had known immediately that the plan had gone awry. Had he dared wait long enough to receive the scarab from the third burglar? We might never know. No trace of burglar, scarab, or villain was found, though as soon as it was light enough we conducted a thorough search of the grounds. The rain had washed away footprints and the tracks of motorcar, cart, carriage, or cycle.
I made all the searchers change into dry clothes and then we gathered in the small dining room for a belated and hearty breakfast. Gargery was still annoyed because he had not arrived on the scene in time to hit someone with his cudgel.
“You ought to have told me and Bob and Jerry you had got yourselves into mischief,” he said reproachfully.