The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [136]
My eyelids felt as if they were made of lead. Sleep crept upon me; I was going, going.…
“Peabody!”
“Curse it, Emerson, I was almost asleep. What is it?”
“You didn’t know the Friend of the Rekkit was Tarek until he took off his mask. Confess, you only claimed you knew beforehand in order to annoy me.”
“Oh, for… Do you think me capable of such duplicity, Emerson?”
“Yes.”
“I did know, however. Through the ratiocinative process.”
“Indeed. Would you care to explain it to your slow-witted spouse?”
I moved closer to him, but he stayed stiff as a stick and did not respond in the slightest. “Oh, very well,” I said, turning over in my turn and clasping my hands. We must have looked ridiculous, lying side by side like a pair of mummies, with our arms folded across our breasts.
I began, “I have always believed it was Tarek who carried Mr. Forth’s message to London. He was Mr. Forth’s favorite pupil, with a good command of English. Who would be a more likely candidate? And only a man high in favor with the king could have risked breaking the law of the Holy Mountain with relative impunity. He risked more than he knew, however, for his father died while he was gone (’The Horus flied in the season of harvest,’ if you remember) and when he returned he found his position seriously undermined.”
“Likely, if unproven,” said Emerson, forgetting his pique in the interest of my exposition. “But you still haven’t connected Tarek with the Friend of the Rekkit.”
“It is proven,” I replied calmly. “Tarek admitted tonight that it was he who journeyed to England. We did not meet him until we arrived in Nubia, so he must have followed us from England, or, what is more likely, preceded us once he had ascertained that we intended to work at Gebel Barkal. He must have been the old magician who hypnotized Ramses—”
“Hmph,” said Emerson. “His aim being, I suppose, to carry Ramses off. We would follow him, of course—all the way to the Holy Mountain. We had refused to seize the bait of the message, so Tarek must have concluded that was the only way to get us here. And now we know why he wanted us—to help get Nefret away.”
“It is a pleasure to deal with a mind as quick and responsive as yours, my dear,” I said demurely.
Emerson chuckled. “Touché, Peabody. But you still haven’t explained how—”
“Have you ever read The Moonstone, Emerson?”
“You know I don’t share your trashy taste in literature, Peabody. What does that book have to do with it?”
When he refers, as he often does, to what he is pleased to call my reprehensible literary tastes, Emerson is only making one of his little jokes. I knew perfectly well that he read thrillers on the sly and had done so even before he met me. However, I had learned that husbands do not care to be contradicted (indeed, I do not know anyone who does), so I only do it when it is absolutely necessary. It was not necessary on this occasion.
“In The Moonstone,” I said, “there is a scene describing the performance of three mysterious Indian priests who are seeking the gem stolen from the sacred statue of their god. They pour liquid into the hand of their acolyte, a young child—”
“Curse it,” Emerson muttered.
“As soon as I saw that interesting work of fiction I knew it must have been given, not to Amenit—whose English is extremely poor and whose intellectual capacity, I fear, is limited—but to Tarek. How Amenit came into possession of it I don’t know; but she must have given it to Reggie to convince him of his uncle’s death. Now—follow me closely, Emerson—”
“Oh, I will try, Peabody. It strains my inferior intellect, but I will make the attempt.”
“It is a simple equation, my dear. Tarek had read The Moonstone. The talisman sent by the Friend of the Rekkit was another English book and his messenger was Mentarit, who, as we had learned, is Tarek’s sister. I was not absolutely certain,” I admitted handsomely, “but all the evidence pointed in the same direction.”
In fact, I had known my visitor was Tarek as soon as he… Well, let me put it this way. I had known the young man whose frame was in such intimate