The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters [64]
“Very well, my dear. As always, I bow to your wishes.”
“Bah,” said Emerson. “Where do you suppose that dreadful female has stowed our poor child?”
It was not difficult to locate Ramses. One of the baroness’s servants stood on guard before the door. He salaamed deeply when he saw us and produced the key.
Darkness had fallen, but the room was well lighted by two hanging lamps. Their beams fell upon a table well supplied with food and drink, and upon another table that held a papyrus scroll, partially unrolled. There was no sign of Ramses.
“Curse it,” Emerson said furiously. “I’ll wager she neglected to nail the porthole shut.” He pulled aside the drapery that concealed the aforementioned orifice, and fell back with a cry. Hanging from the wall, like a stuffed hunting trophy, was a small headless body culminating in shabby brown buttoned boots. The legs were quite limp.
Accustomed as I was to finding Ramses in a variety of peculiar positions, this one was sufficiently unusual to induce a momentary constriction of the chest that kept me mute. Before I could recover myself, a far-off, strangely muffled but familiar voice remarked, “Good evening, Mama. Good evening, Papa. Will you be so good as to pull me in?”
He had stuck, in actuality, somewhere around the midsection, owing to the fact that the pockets of his little suit were filled with rocks. “It was a singular miscalculation on my part,” Ramses remarked somewhat breathlessly, as Emerson set him on his feet. “I counted on de fact, which I have often had occasion to establish t’rough experiment, dat where de head and shoulders can pass, de rest of de body can follow. I had forgotten about de rocks, which are interesting specimens of de geological history of—”
“Why did you not pull yourself back into the room?” I inquired curiously, as Emerson, still pale with alarm, ran agitated hands over the child’s frame.
“De problem lies in my unfortunate lack of inches,” Ramses explained. “My arms were not long enough to obtain sufficient purchase on de side of de vessel.”
He would have gone on at some length had I not interrupted him. “And the papyrus?” I asked.
Ramses gave it a disparaging glance. “An undistinguished example of a twentiet’-dynasty mortuary text. De lady has no demotic papyri, Mama.”
We found the rest of the party still on deck. The ladies crouched before the cage in which the lion cub prowled restlessly, growling and snapping. I kept firm hold of Ramses’ arm while we made our excuses and thanked our hostess. At least I thanked her; Emerson only snorted.
Brother David announced his intention of riding back with us. “I must arise at dawn,” he intoned. “This has been a delightful interlude, but my Master calls.”
The baroness extended her hand and the young man bent over it with graceful respect. “Humph,” said Emerson, as we left him to complete his farewells. “I presume the interval has been lucrative as well as delightful. He wouldn’t be ready to leave if he had not accomplished what he came for.”
“What was dat?” Ramses asked interestedly.
“Money, of course. Donations to the church. That is Brother David’s role, I fancy—seducing susceptible ladies.”
“Emerson, please,” I exclaimed.
“Not literally,” Emerson admitted. “At least I don’t suppose so.”
“What is de literal meaning of dat word?” Ramses inquired. “De dictionary is particularly obscure on dat point.”
Emerson changed the subject.
After we had mounted, Emerson set off at a great pace in an effort to avoid David’s company, but the young man was not to be got rid of so easily. Before the pair trotted beyond earshot I heard him say, “Pray explain to me, Professor, how a man of your superior intelligence can be so indifferent to that one great question which must supersede all other intellectual inquiries….”
Ramses and I followed at a gentler pace. He seemed deep in thought, and after a time I asked, “Where did the lion cub bite you?”
“He did not bite me. His toot’ scratched my hand when I pulled him from de cage.”
“That was not a sensible thing to do, Ramses.”
“Dat,