The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [26]
“What is the matter with—” The voice, sharp with concern, broke off in a gasp as Jacqueline saw. There was a moment of absolute silence; Jacqueline’s store of expletives was evidently inadequate for the occasion.
“All right,” she said, after a moment. “Stop that bawling, Jean. Stop it right now, do you hear me?”
Without waiting for a response she pulled herself away from Jean and began fumbling in her purse. Her voice, deliberately harsh and unsympathetic, had quieted Jean somewhat, but she was still too distressed to see what Jacqueline was doing until an exquisite agony invaded her nostrils and turned the interior of her head to fire.
“Oh, God, that hurt!” she moaned, wiping streaming eyes. “Smelling salts! You sadistic, mean—”
“That’s better.” Jacqueline restored the bottle to her purse. “Someone has to go for help, Jean. I don’t think anyone else heard you.”
Pushing the tangled hair back from her eyes, Jean looked at her companion and saw another facet of Jacqueline’s complex personality. Her face was ashen and as hard as her voice. Its strength was reassuring, and a little frightening.
“I didn’t do it,” Jean said, gulping.
“For God’s sake, don’t say that to anyone else!” Jacqueline’s hard-won control broke momentarily. The green eyes turned glassy with a new fear. “Don’t volunteer anything. Oh, God—you aren’t in any state to be left alone, are you?”
“I think,” said Jean, swallowing strenuously, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Get it over with, then,” Jacqueline said brutally. She fumbled in the purse and eventually produced an object that made Jean’s eyes widen, even in her queasy state. It looked like—it was—a policeman’s whistle.
The succeeding interval was unpleasant enough to occupy Jean’s entire attention. She was vaguely aware of piercing blasts from the whistle, and of firm hands that held her shoulders while she suffered. When she had recovered sufficiently to notice what was going on, the room seemed to be filled with people. The first one she saw was Andy; his fiery mop of hair stood out in the dusty room, and it looked even brighter against the greenish pallor of his face. Someone was kneeling by the body, hiding all of it except the outstretched legs. No—there were two people kneeling, both wearing the long ecclesiastical robe. One white and one black; José, and one of the Dominican fathers. They rose, and as they stood side by side they resembled symbolic representations of good and evil, hieratic, in their medieval robes. The young Dominican was as unmistakably Irish as José was Latin; but the two faces had a peculiar identity of expression. They exchanged glances, and José nodded slightly.
“I’ll have to be calling the police, then,” said the soft, inflexible Irish voice.
II
As she gazed around the room, Jean thought that surely no criminal investigation had been carried on in more outré surroundings. The triclinium of the temple of Mithra had seen strange rites in its time, but nothing quite like this.
José had suggested the temple room, with its rows of built-in benches, as the least uncomfortable place in which the witnesses might wait. There was really no other suitable room in either of the two lower levels, and the upper church, with its crowd of local worshipers, was obviously unsuitable. So they were herded one by one into the ancient sacred place as the priests located them—the seven, and Jacqueline, and half a dozen miscellaneous and distracted tourists. Dana and Michael were the last to be found, in a remote corner of the fourth-century church. Nobody asked them what they had been doing there, but as they came into the room Andy laughed, suddenly and sardonically.
“Number six and number seven,” he said. “Fellow Sinners, it appears that the name