The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [65]
FIVE
FROM MANUSCRIPT H (CONT.)
* * *
They found Amira lying beside the path. No one’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the motionless bulk, since they had located her by the volume of her snores. Poking her and yelling in her ear had no effect; presumably she had been given a drug of some sort, and letting her sleep it off seemed the wisest course. Nefret prescribed the same treatment for Lidman, who was trembling and even paler than usual. She led him to his room, and the others went back to the main house.
“Doesn’t this family ever get a full night’s sleep?” Sethos asked, concealing a yawn behind his hand. Ramses had noticed he was fully dressed.
Emerson, who considered pajamas a newfangled fad, had pulled on a pair of trousers over his nightshirt. Waving this rhetorical question aside, he said, “His story doesn’t ring true. Someone tried to get into the house. That was what woke me.” He glanced at his wife, whose silence fairly rang with the words she wasn’t saying. “Er—well, to be precise, it woke Peabody. For once she had sense enough to rouse me before she dashed out.”
“To be precise,” she corrected, “it was Sethos who woke first.”
All eyes turned to Sethos, who was draped elegantly across the settee. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said.
“What alerted you?” Ramses asked.
“I was sitting in the courtyard enjoying a quiet smoke and listening to Ali Yussuf snore,” Sethos explained. “I wouldn’t count on him to warn you, he’s a growing lad and needs his sleep. Unfortunately the intruder—I hate the phrase ‘man in black,’ if you don’t mind—came round the front, by way of the veranda. He heard me coming and beat a quick retreat. He’d bolted the door on the outside. I had to go back through the house, and I took the liberty of waking Amelia as I did so.”
“How long did that take?” Ramses asked.
“Not long enough for the purported afrit to return to your house, stare in the window, wake Lidman, and dash back in this direction,” Sethos said.
“If it was Lidman, why didn’t he simply return to his room? He had time for that, didn’t he?” Ramses asked.
“He ran the risk of encountering you before he got there, that’s why,” Emerson said. “It was safer to lie down and make up a wild story.”
“And the scrap of black cloth in his hand?”
“Prepared in advance,” Emerson said. “In case he was caught.”
“What about the dog?” Ramses persisted.
“Lidman had access to Nefret’s dispensary for several hours this afternoon, and a hearty dinner,” Sethos said. “Roast lamb, wasn’t it? I told you the dog wouldn’t bark at anyone she had met before. He didn’t want her following him, so he slipped her a treat.”
“It fits, but it isn’t conclusive,” Ramses said. “We can’t accuse him.”
“You are too trusting,” Sethos jeered. “Who is the fellow, anyhow? Did anyone take the trouble of investigating his story? Amelia, I am surprised at you.”
“Ramses recognized his name. But you are right, we ought to make further inquiries. You will see to it, won’t you, Emerson? Yes.”
Mr. Lidman came to breakfast with Ramses and Nefret, right on time, and looking no guiltier than anyone else. He assured us he felt quite himself again, and the way he engulfed Fatima’s excellent breakfast was testimony to his restored digestion. He couldn’t stop talking about his horrible experience with the afrit.
“I assure you, when I caught hold of it I felt nothing except the cloth itself,” he said, round-eyed. “It was as if there were nothing inside. I regret I could not apprehend it. I feared, you see, that it meant some harm to the children and—”
“Why should you suppose that?” Emerson asked.
“They are so young, so helpless, so trusting. You watch over them closely, do you not?”
“We do,” I assured him, not entirely pleased at his concern for the children. “You will be glad to hear that the dog is fully recovered this morning.”
“The dog? Yes, yes, I wondered why it did not bark. What was wrong with it?”
Either he is innocent as a babe in arms or he believes he’s got away with it,