The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [176]
Before I could reply, her face underwent a dreadful change and her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘How can you be so blindly complacent? Don’t you know how much I hate you – and why? Night after night I have lain awake picturing the ways in which I would kill you. Some of them were very ingenious, Mrs Emerson – oh, very ingenious! Unfortunately there is no time for them now, I will have to do it quickly and more painlessly than I would like. Matilda –’
I had not underestimated the woman’s strength; I had simply failed to anticipate this particular development. I was still pondering it, in some confusion of mind, when the nurse’s muscular arm lifted me out of my chair and her fingers closed round my throat. The pressure was quick and cruel and skillful; my senses swam, and my efforts to free myself were as feeble as those of an infant.
‘Don’t let her lose consciousness,’ Bertha murmured, gliding towards me. ‘I want her to know what is going to happen.’
From under her robe she took a jewelled dagger.
I tried to speak. Only a harsh gasp emerged from my lips, but the hard fingers tightened. Blackness covered my eyes and through the ringing in my ears I heard Bertha cursing. She was berating the other woman for squeezing too hard. I had planned to feign unconsciousness in the hope my captor would loosen her grip, but apparently I had waited a little too long.
My last thought, as I had always known it would be, was for Emerson. I imagined I could hear his agitated reproach: ‘Peabody, how could you be so bloody stupid!’
I did hear him! Or at least . . . My senses swam, but vision had returned to me, and sensation; I had fallen to the floor, and the voice was clearer now. Not Emerson’s – but it was a man’s voice, speaking English, and with considerable agitation.
‘Are you mad? Give me the knife!’
The sentence ended in a grunt or gasp. I decided I had better find out what was going on, so I lifted myself onto my elbows. At first all I could see was his boots, then a hand caught me under the arm and raised me to my feet.
‘Are you uninjured, Mrs Emerson?’
‘Yes, thank you, Sir Edward,’ I croaked, rubbing my throat. ‘But why the devil are you standing there? Go after them!’
The room was empty except for the two of us. He held a pistol – mine. His fair hair was unruffled, his face composed, his attire impeccable, except for the blood that saturated his left sleeve.
‘I don’t believe that is within my powers at this moment,’ he said politely, and slumped to the ground at my feet.
Well, of course, that was the end of that. By the time I had ascertained the extent of his injury and stopped the bleeding, there was no hope of catching them up. He came back to his senses while I was bandaging his arm and began apologizing.
‘I was unarmed, you see; I found that pistol on a table in the outer room, but I simply could not bring myself to fire, even after she came at me with her knife. Not at a woman.’
‘Hmph,’ I said. ‘No doubt your sentiments do you credit, Sir Edward, but they can be cursed inconvenient. I presume that it was the lady who seduced you, instead of the other way round?’
‘Seduced? Good heavens, Mrs Emerson, what are you saying?’
‘I saw you – heard you, rather – with her in the garden at the Luxor Hotel the night we dined with Mr Vandergelt.’
‘Heard,’ he repeated slowly.
‘I thought it was Gertrude with you,’ I admitted. ‘But it was not she, was it?’
‘No.’ The reply was prompt and emphatic. ‘I don’t know what you heard, Mrs