The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [78]
“You were the one who found the lady?” I asked in Arabic.
“Yes, Sitt!” His right hand quivered. “It was a terrible thing, I do not know whether I will be able to work again in this accursed place.”
“The curse will be lifted. My word on that. Now tell me how you found her.”
Nothing loath, the fellow launched into his tale. (I omit the expressions of woe and distress.)
He was the head gardener, in charge of the crew, so he made it a point to arrive early. The sun was barely up when he came to the gardens. As he strolled along the paths, smoking and enjoying the solitude and fresh morning scents (and so on, and so on) and appraising the places that needed attention, he saw an ugly intrusion among the pink-flowered vines. At first he thought it was a dead animal or bird. Closer examination disclosed the fact that it was a shoe, with a foot in it.
“I pushed the vines aside, Sitt, and saw her. I fell down in a faint and cried out. Then I ran away—to get help. When the police came they tore away the vines—my beautiful coral vine,” he added, with what appeared to be genuine emotion.
“So the vines were in place until the police came? You didn’t look to see whether she was dead?”
The slightest tightening of his lips betrayed his reaction to that naive question. “It was not for me to touch the lady, Sitt.”
“No,” I agreed. “Describe exactly what you saw—her expression, her clothing, everything you can remember.”
“I did not see her face, Sitt, it was too dark under the vines. She wore a gown of that color”—he indicated the crimson scarf knotted around my throat—“and shoes like the English ladies wear, with sharp heels and diamond buckles.”
“Evening dress,” I said to Sethos. “And not her usual black. Interesting.”
“The only part that showed was one foot,” Sethos said. He had not required me to translate; his Arabic was as good as mine. “So she must have crawled—”
“Or been pushed.”
“—or been pushed under the mass of vines, with enough care to avoid disturbing it unduly. In the hope of delaying the discovery of the body?”
“It couldn’t have been delayed for long,” I replied, reminded of an unpalatable but pertinent fact. “Nor can her burial be long delayed, not in this climate. I must speak with the Pethericks. But first…”
I asked the gardener whether he had looked for suspicious signs elsewhere in the gardens. He shook his head.
“I was too saddened, Sitt, and too afraid of the afrit.”
“It was not an afrit that killed her,” I said. “Come with me now.”
We walked slowly along the winding paths, looking from side to side. Several constables were making halfhearted attempts to search, but I did not credit them with keen powers of observation. In fact it was Sethos—I always endeavor to give credit where it is due—who saw sunlight wink off a scattering of crystal beads. There were only a few of them, almost hidden in the loam, but I felt certain they had come from Mrs. Petherick’s evening frock.
“She was killed here,” I said, retrieving the beads. “It is one of the most secluded spots in the gardens, far enough from the hotel so that an outcry would go unheard.”
Sethos looked skeptical. “You have an innocent mind, Amelia. Any lady might have lost a few beads off her frock if she were…Shall we say, clasped in a firm but nonlethal hold in a discreetly secluded spot?”
“I appreciate the delicacy of your description. That is of course a possibility; I expect that such encounters are not infrequent.”
“Quite,” said Sethos, in the tone of a man who speaks from personal experience.
“I consider my theory to be more likely,” I went on. “And it will be easy to confirm it, as soon as I compare these beads with the ones on her gown.”
The gardener was unable to identify the beads. They might be the same as those on the lady’s dress; they might not. He conceded, when I pressed him, that the earth appeared to have been disturbed and then hastily smoothed, not by the rakes employed by the gardeners, but by hand. I wrapped the beads in a handkerchief and tucked them into one of my pockets.
I rewarded the observant