The Ape Who Guards the Balance (25 page)

“Uncle Walter!” David started to his feet. “Good heavens! He and Aunt Evelyn and Lia . . . They mustn’t come! They could be in terrible danger.”

“Now, David, don’t be so melodramatic,” I said. “There is no reason to suppose—”

“He’s right, though,” Emerson said. “At the moment we don’t know what the devil is going on, much less why. Three more potential victims would complicate the problem even further. We had better head them off.”

“It is too late,” I said hollowly. “They sailed from Marseilles this morning.”

It was Katherine who dispelled the Gothic atmosphere with a simple statement. “Always expect the worst and take steps to prevent it.”

“Just what I was about to say,” I exclaimed. “Steps! We must take steps! Er—what steps?”

There was something very comforting about that calm pink-cheeked face of hers. “First, take every possible means to protect yourselves. Secure this place and don’t go abroad without an escort. Second, postpone or cancel the visit of your family. I don’t doubt Evelyn and Walter can take care of themselves, but the girl cannot; she would only be an additional source of anxiety. Third, find out who is responsible for this and stop them.”

“That’s a pretty ambitious program, my dear,” Cyrus said, shaking his head. “Where do we start?”

It warmed my heart to hear him say “we,” but I had expected no less of him.

“In Gurneh, obviously,” said Ramses. “And, as Mrs. Vandergelt has so sensibly suggested, all together.”

I had expected the village would be abuzz with excitement, for the events of the preceding night would certainly be known by now to every inhabitant, spreading rapidly along that web of gossip that is the primary source of news in illiterate societies. However, as we rode along the winding path I saw the place was abnormally quiet. A few people greeted us; others we saw only as a flutter of skirts as the wearers thereof whisked themselves behind a wall.

“That was Ali Yussuf,” I exclaimed. “What is wrong with him?”

Emerson chuckled. “An uneasy conscience, my dear Peabody. Even if he had nothing to do with last night’s affair, he is afraid we will hold him responsible for what happened to the boys.”

“One cannot help being suspicious, Emerson. How could the miscreants have been so bold as to bring their captives here unless some of the villagers were in league with them?”

Ramses was riding ahead, but he can hear a whisper across the Nile, as the Egyptians say. He turned his head. “This was only a temporary stopover, Mother. They would have moved us under cover of darkness.”

Kadija was standing in the doorway when we rode up to Abdullah’s house. She informed us that neither Abdullah nor Daoud was at home. “Curse it,” said Emerson. “I told Daoud to keep the old rascal out of this. Where have they gone, Kadija?”

Daoud’s wife understood English though she never spoke it. Looking as mysterious as only a black veil can make one look, she gave Emerson the answer he had expected.

“Curse it,” Emerson repeated. “I suppose the whole lot of them have gone there.”

“Not all,” said Kadija in Arabic. “Some are asking questions, Father of Curses. Many questions of many people. Will you come in and drink tea and wait?”

We declined with thanks and were about to proceed when Kadija came out of the house, moving with ponderous and dignified deliberation. Her hand, large and calloused as a man’s, rested for a moment on David’s booted foot before she turned to Ramses and inspected him closely. It was not Ramses whom she addressed, however. “Will you stay for a moment, Nur Misur?”

“Yes, of course. Go on,” Nefret said to the rest of us.

She was only a moment. “Well?” I asked. “What is so funny?”

Nefret got her face under control. “She told me a very amusing story.”

“Kadija?” I said in surprise. “What sort of story?”

“Uh—never mind. What she really wanted was reassurance about the boys. She was too shy to ask them directly how they are feeling.”

We could have found the house we sought even without David’s directions. It was surrounded by a crowd of people, all gesticulating wildly and talking at the top of their lungs. The black robes of the women contrasted with the white and blue and sand-colored galabeeyahs of the men, and children darted in and out like little brown beetles. The men greeted us without self-consciousness; either their consciences were clear, or they had none.

This was not the house in which Layla had once lived. I remembered that establishment very well. This was larger and more isolated, with a few dusty tamarisk trees behind it and no other house in sight. The location was well suited to the purpose it had served; a cart loaded with, let us say, sugar cane, could drive through the gates into the walled courtyard without arousing suspicion.

When I saw who stood in the open doorway I understood why none of the men had had the temerity to attempt to enter. Daoud’s large frame filled the aperture from side to side and from lintel to threshold. He rushed at us with cries of pleasure and relief, embraced David, and was about to do the same to Ramses when Nefret got between them.

Abdullah awaited us inside. His snowy-white beard bristled with indignation, and a ferocious scowl darkened his venerable brow. He addressed Emerson in tones of icy reproof.

“Why did you not tell me? This would not have happened if you had taken me into your confidence.”

“Now, see here, Abdullah,” Emerson began.

“I understand. I am too old. Too old and stupid. I will go sit in the sun with the other senile old men and—”

“You were in our confidence, Abdullah,” I interrupted. “You knew as much as we did. We were not expecting anything like this either.”

“Ah.” Abdullah sat down on the stairs and scratched his ear. “Then I forgive you, Sitt. Now what shall we do?”

“It appears to me that you are already doing it,” said Ramses, glancing at the open door of the room on our left. It had once been comfortably furnished, with rugs and tables, a wide divan and several armchairs of European style, and a large cupboard or wardrobe against the far wall. The shutters had been flung open and sunlight streaming through the windows illumined a scene of utter chaos—rugs rolled up and thrown aside, cushions scattered across the floor, chairs overturned.

“We are searching for clues,” Abdullah explained.

“Trampling them underfoot, most likely,” said Emerson. “Where is Selim? I told him to . . . Oh, good Gad!”

A resounding crash from above indicated Selim’s presence. Ramses slipped past Abdullah and hurried up the stairs, with the rest of us following.

Selim was not alone. Two of his brothers and one of his second cousins once removed were rampaging through the rooms on the first floor, “searching for clues,” one presumed. Emerson’s roar stopped but did not at all disconcert them; they gathered round, all talking at once as they tried to tell him what they had done.

I left Emerson patiently explaining the principles of searching suspected premises, and joined Ramses, who stood looking into one of the rooms.

It was a woman’s bedchamber. The furnishings were an odd mixture of local and imported luxury—Oriental rugs of silken beauty, a toilet table draped with muslin, carved chests, and vessels of fine china behind a screen. I deduced that Selim and his crew had not had time to demolish this room, but there was evidence of a hasty search. One of the chests stood open; its contents spilled out in a flood of rainbow-hued fabric. The bedsheet was crumpled and dusty.

“This is where you were confined?” I asked.

“Yes.” Ramses crossed to the bed. He picked up a piece of white cotton, which I had not seen because it was the same color as the sheet, examined it, and dropped it onto the floor. I did not need to ask what it was.

A search of the room produced nothing except a few lengths of rope, knotted and cut—and Ramses’s boots, which had been kicked under the bed. I was glad to get them back, for he had only the two pair, and boots are expensive.

Nefret and I investigated the chests. They contained women’s clothing, some Egyptian, some European—including a nightdress of transparent silk permeated with a scent that made Nefret wrinkle her nose.

“She must bathe in the cursed stuff,” she muttered.

“She took everything of value with her,” said Emerson, who had overturned the mattress and bedsprings. “There is no jewelry, no money. And no papers.”

Nefret tossed the nightdress back into the chest. “She left all her clothing, though.”

“There wasn’t time to pack a trunk,” said Ramses. “Nor would she have dared return to get her things. She said others were coming soon.”

Katherine sat down on a hassock. “If she carried away only what she could put in a smallish bundle, she will have to replenish her wardrobe. We should inquire at the markets and shops.”

“I was about to make that suggestion,” said a voice in pure cultivated English.

He stood watching us from the doorway, clad in well-cut tweeds and gleaming boots, his hat in his hand, his fair hair as smooth as if he had just passed his brushes over it.

“Sir Edward!” I cried. “What are you doing here?”

“I have been here for some time, Mrs. Emerson. Good morning to you all,” he added with a pleasant smile.

“Daoud was not supposed to admit anyone,” Ramses said.

“Daoud did not include me in that interdict,” said Sir Edward amiably. “He remembered me as a friend and coworker. As a friend I could not remain aloof. The news was all over Luxor this morning. I am relieved tofind it was exaggerated”—his cool blue eyes moved over Ramses and spared a glance for David—“but not entirely inaccurate. How could I not offer my assistance?”

“Unnecessary,” said Emerson. “We have the matter under control.”

“Ah, but have you? No one who knows you all as I do would doubt your ability to defend yourselves against ordinary enemies. The very fact that these enemies succeeded in abducting Ramses and his servant—”

“David is not my servant,” Ramses said.

“—and his friend,” Sir Edward corrected smoothly, “strong young men who were, I do not doubt, on the alert, suggests that they are dangerous and unscrupulous. As I told Mrs. Emerson the other evening, I am looking for something to occupy my mind. My archaeological services are not needed, it appears, so I beg you will accept my services as a guard.”

“For ‘the ladies,’ you mean?” Nefret inquired, lashes fluttering and lips trembling. “Oh, Sir Edward, how gallant! How noble! How can we ever thank you?”

It was such an outrageous parody I was tempted to laugh. Sir Edward was no more taken in than I. He planted his hand upon the approximate region of his heart, and gazed at Nefret with the sickening intensity of a provincial actor playing Sir Galahad. “The protection of helpless females is an Englishman’s sacred duty, Miss Forth.”

Emerson was not amused. “What nonsense,” he grumbled. “This is no laughing matter, Sir Edward.”

“I am well aware of that, sir. If I have been informed correctly, the woman who owned this house was the same one Mrs. Emerson and I encountered a few years ago. I was able to be of some small service to her then. Dare I flatter myself that I may be again?”

Emerson dismissed the offer with a frown and a peremptory gesture. “We are wasting time with these empty courtesies. We have not finished searching the place.”

Sir Edward was wise enough to refrain from further argument, but he followed at a discreet distance while we examined the remaining rooms and the flat roof. We found nothing of a personal nature except an empty tin that had contained opium, and a nargileh. The kitchen, a separate building near the main house, was a shambles. It reeked of vegetables that had begun to go bad, milk that had curdled, and the thin sour beer of Egypt. The only unusual item was a broken bottle of green glass. Ramses sorted through the fragments till he found one that had part of a label.

“Moët and Chandon,” he said.

“The lady has expensive tastes,” Sir Edward murmured.

“She has the means to indulge them,” I said. “She has buried two wealthy husbands.”

The only remaining place to be searched was the shed. It had been painful enough for me to see the room where Ramses had been imprisoned; the gag and the tightly knotted ropes were mute but powerful evidence of those long hours of discomfort and uncertainty. The filthy little shed was even worse. My sympathetic imagination—a quality with which I am amply endowed—pictured David lying helpless and wounded on the hard floor, despairing of rescue, fearing the worst, in ignorance of what had befallen the friend he loved like a brother. What would have been his fate, and that of Ramses, if Layla had not come to their aid? Not a clean, quick death, for their attackers could have dispatched them at any time. A number of alternatives came to mind. A shudder ran through my frame.

There was not room in the horrid little place for all of us, so I left the search to Emerson and Ramses. All they found was an overturned beer jar and a pile of cigarette ends, a rough clay lamp and a thin layer of musty straw.

We returned to Abdullah’s house, hoping that the inquiries he had set in motion had produced more information. Our people had been on the job since dawn, and I must say they had covered the village thoroughly. A crowd of witnesses awaited us, some grumbling and resentful, some curious and cheerful. Abdullah brought them in one by one while we sipped the tea Kadija served.

Everyone had known of Layla’s return; it had been a subject of interest, particularly to some of the men. However, when they dropped by to renew old acquaintances they had been turned away. They were indignant but not surprised; Layla had always been unpredictable, as one of them put it, adding philosophically, “That is what comes of letting women have their own money. They do what they wish instead of what men tell them to do.”

“Damned right,” said Nefret, after this last witness had taken his leave. “I beg your pardon, Aunt Amelia and Mrs. Vandergelt.”

“Granted,” said Katherine with a smile. She had got accustomed to hearing Nefret use bad language, and I had more or less given up hope of stopping Nefret from using it. She had learned a good deal of it from Emerson.

Aside from the unhelpful information about Layla, the majority of the witnesses had nothing much to say, though some of them said it at considerable length. Strangers had been seen coming and going from Layla’s house; they were unfriendly people who would not stop and fahddle or answer questions. Finally Emerson put a stop to the proceedings with a vehement comment.