The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog - Elizabeth Peters [70]
As we approached the Castle I saw that it was lit from cellar to attics. I ran on ahead, in order to lose as little time as possible in making Emerson comfortable. When I reached the gate Cyrus was waiting.
I will not endeavor to reproduce his remarks. American profanity is apparently unrelated to the mother tongue or to any other language known to me. Determined as I was to make myself heard, I could not stop the flow of his eloquence. Not until the litter bearers came in sight with their precious burden did Cyrus break off, with a sound that must have hurt his throat.
Taking advantage of his momentary paralysis of speech, I said, “No questions now, Cyrus. Help me get him to bed. And make sure the doctor is admitted at once. I sent Daoud to fetch him when we passed through Luxor.”
After I had put my stricken spouse to bed (for I would permit no other than myself to perform that tender duty), Cyrus joined me. Arms folded, he stood looking down at Emerson. Then he leaned forward and lifted one sunken eyelid.
“Drugged.”
“Yes.”
“What else is wrong with him?”
I had done all I could. Tucking in the last end of the bandages I had wrapped around his lacerated wrists, I sat back and nerved myself to admit the painful truth.
“Apparently they realized, as anyone who knows Emerson must realize, that torture would only stiffen his resistance. He is not seriously injured, except… We agreed, you remember, after we had read the message, that he must be pretending to have amnesia. He was not pretending, Cyrus. He—he did not know me.”
Cyrus sucked in his breath. Then he said, “Opium produces strange delusions.”
“He was perfectly rational. His replies were sensible— sensible for Emerson, that is. Hurling insults and sarcastic remarks at a man who holds one a chained prisoner is not, perhaps, very wise.”
Cyrus let out a brief bark of laughter. “Sounds like Emerson, all right. Still—”
“There can be no mistake, Cyrus. Would that there were! Not only did he look me straight in the face and call me ‘madam,’ but earlier he said … he said he would never be damned fool enough to saddle himself with a wife.”
Cyrus’s efforts to comfort me were interrupted by the arrival of the doctor. He was not the pompous little Frenchman with whose medical inexpertise I had been forced to deal on a previous occasion, * but an Englishman who had retired, for reasons of health, to a warmer clime. Evidently the desired effect had been achieved; though his beard was gray and his body cadaverously thin, he moved with the vigor of a young man, and his diagnosis assured me that we were fortunate to have found him.
We could only wait, he said, for the effects of the opium to dissipate. Though the dosage had been large, the patient had not been under its influence for long; there was every hope, given his splendid physique, that the process of recovery would be neither prolonged nor unduly arduous. The only serious injury was the wound on the back of the head, but this concerned Dr. Wallingford less than it had me. “There is no fracture of the skull,” he murmured, probing the area with sensitive fingers. “A concussion, perhaps… We cannot assess that until the patient has recovered consciousness.”
“His loss of memory,” I began.
“My dear lady, it would be a wonder if his memory were not confused, after such a blow on the head and daily doses of opium! Be of good heart; I have no doubt he will make a full recovery.”
He left after promising to return the following day and after giving me directions I did not need but which further reassured me, since they agreed in every particular with my own intentions: Keep the patient warm and quiet, try to get him to take nourishment.
“Chicken broth,” I murmured abstractedly.
A murmurous, musical mew sounded, as if in agreement. The cat Anubis had entered, as silently as the shadow he resembled. I stiffened as the animal jumped onto the bed and inspected Emerson from feet to head, pausing to sniff curiously at his face. Abdullah’s antipathy toward the beast was