The Curse of the Pharaohs (35 page)

"But what about—"

"No more at the present time," I said, rising. "Arthur has had all the excitement he ought to have. Mary, will you stay with him and make sure he rests? As soon as the good Sister finishes her well-deserved nap, I will send her to relieve you."

As we left the room, I saw Arthur reach for Mary's hand. Mary blushed and lowered her lashes. I had arranged that matter as well as I could, they must do the rest. Avoiding Mr. O'Connell's reproachful glance, I led the way to the sitting room.

"There are a few more loose ends to tie up," I said, taking a chair. "I did not want Mary to hear us discuss her mother's death."

"Quite correct," said Karl approvingly. "I thank you, Frau Professor, for—"

"That is all right, Karl," I said, wondering why he was thanking me, but not really caring very much.

Before I could continue, the door opened to admit Mr. Vandergelt. He gave the impression of having shrunk several inches since the day before. No one knew what to say, until Emerson, rising to the sublime heights of which he is sometimes capable, uttered the mot juste.

"Vandergelt, have a drink!"

"You're a real pal, Professor," the American said with a long sigh. "I think maybe I will."

"Did she send you away, Mr. Vandergelt?" I inquired sympathetically.

"With language that would make a mule-skinner blush," was the reply. "She sure enough took me in. I guess you mink I'm a blamed silly old fool."

"You were not the only one to be deceived," I assured him.

"Aber nein,"
Karl exclaimed. "I had for her always the most respectful, most—"

"That is why I refused your offer to stand guard with me last night," said Emerson, from the table where he was pouring whiskey for the afflicted Vandergelt. "Your respect for the lady might have prevented you from acting, if only for a split second; and even that brief time could have meant the difference between life and death."

"And naturally you turned
me
down," said Vandergelt gloomily. "I tell you, Professor, I'd have been too flabbergasted to move if I had seen her."

Emerson handed him the glass and he nodded his thanks before continuing. "You know that confounded woman expected me to marry her after all? She started cursing at me when I said I had to respectfully decline. I felt like a rat, but, gee whiz, folks, marrying a woman who has already murdered one husband just isn't sensible. A fellow would always be wondering if his morning coffee tasted peculiar."

"It would also be impractical to wait twenty or thirty years before enjoying the pleasures of connubial bliss," I said. "Cheer up, Mr. Vandergelt; time will heal your wound, and I know happiness awaits you in the future."

My well-chosen words lifted a little of the gloom from the American's countenance. He raised his glass in a graceful salute to me.

"I was just about to discuss the death of Madame Berengeria," I went on. "Will it pain you too much to hear..."

"One more whiskey and it wouldn't pain me to hear that Amalgamated Railroads had fallen twenty points," Mr. Vandergelt replied. He handed his empty glass to Emerson. "Join me in the next round, won't you, Professor?"

"I believe I will," Emerson replied, with an evil look at me. "We will drink, Vandergelt, to the perfidy of the female sex."

"I will join you both," I said gaily. "Emerson, your jests are sometimes a bit ill-timed. Mr. O'Connell is sitting on the edge of his chair, his pencil poised; explain in your own inimitable fashion the meaning of the little fairy tale we discussed last evening, and why that seemingly harmless story caused a murder."

"Ahem," said Emerson. "Well, if you insist, Peabody."

"I do. In fact, I will be barmaid and wait on you both." I took Vandergelt's empty glass from his hand. Emerson gave me a sheepish smile. He is pathetically easy to manage, poor man. The slightest kind gesture quite softens him.

"May I impose on your good nature too, ma'am?" O'Connell asked.

"Certainly," I replied graciously. "But none of your brash Irish gestures at the barmaid, Mr. O'Connell."

This little sally completed the atmosphere of good humor I was endeavoring to create. As I served the gentlemen—including Karl, who thanked me with a smile—Emerson took the floor.

"Lady Berengeria's death was in its way a masterpiece of tragic irony, for the poor stupid woman did not have the slightest intention of accusing Lady Baskerville of murder. Like all the good ladies of Luxor, who, in their infinite Christian charity spend most of their time dissecting their fellow women, she knew Lady Baskerville's reputation. 'The Tale of the Two Brothers' was a slam at an adultress, not a murderess. And it could not have been more apt. The heart in the cedar tree is the heart of a lover—vulnerable, exposed, trusting in the love of the beloved. If the object of adoration proves false the lover has no defense. Lord Baskerville trusted his wife. Even when he had ceased to love her he did not mink of defending himself against her. It is a tribute to some long-buried streak of intelligence and sensitivity in Madame Berengeria that she sensed the meaning of the metaphor. Who knows what she might have been, if the vicissitudes of life had not proved too great for her will?"

I gazed at my husband with tears of affection dimming my sight. How often is Emerson misjudged by those who do not know him! How tender, how delicate are the feelings he conceals beneath a mask of ferocity!

Unaware of my sentiments, Emerson took a stiff drink of whiskey and resumed, in a more practical vein. "The first part of the story of the Two Brothers concerns a faithless wife who turns one man against another by her lies. Think of that story, gentlemen and Peabody, in terms of our tragic triangle. Again, the metaphor was apt; and Lady Baskerville's guilty conscience led her to choose the wrong reference. She thought herself in danger of exposure—and it was so easy to slip a fatal dose of opium into Madame Berengeria's bottle of brandy. What was one more murder? She had already committed three. And what was the death of one dreadful old woman? A blessing in disguise, really."

Silence followed the conclusion of his remarks. Then he addressed Mr. O'Connell, whose pencil had been racing across the page. "Any questions?" he said.

"Wait, just let me get the last part. 'What was the death of one dreadful...'"

"Old woman," Emerson supplied.

"Silly old fool," Mr. Vandergelt muttered, staring into his empty glass.

The door opened and Mary entered.

"He is asleep," she said, smiling at me. "I am so happy for him. He will so enjoy being Lord Baskerville."

"And I am happy for you," I replied, with a meaningful look.

"But how did you know?" Mary exclaimed, blushing prettily. "We have not told anyone yet."

"I always know these things," I began.

Fortunately I said no more; for even as I spoke Karl von Bork crossed to Mary's side. He put his arm around her and she leaned against him, her flush deepening into a rosy glow.

"We have you to thank, Frau Professor," he said, his mustaches positively curling in the ardor of his happiness. "It is not proper to speak of this so soon after the unhappy, the unfortunate occurrence we have been discussing; but my dear Mary is quite alone in the world now, and she needs me. I have confidence that you will be to her a true friend until comes the blissful time when I can take her to the place which is—"

"What?" Emerson exclaimed, staring.

"Begorrah!" cried Mr. O'Connell, flinging his pencil across the room.

"Silly old fool," said Mr. Vandergelt to his empty glass.

"My very best wishes to both of you," I said. "Of course I knew it all along."

"Has it occurred to you," Emerson inquired, "that you have quite a number of acquaintances in prisons around the world?"

I considered the question. "Why, really, I can only think of two—no, three, since Evelyn's cousin was apprehended last year in Budapest. That is not a great number."

Emerson chuckled. He was in an excellent mood, and with good reason. The surroundings, the state of his career, the prospects before us—all were conducive to the most unexampled good spirits.

Two and a half months had passed since the events I have narrated, and we were on our way home. We were sitting on the deck of the steamer
Rembrandt;
the sun shone down and the white-capped waves curled away from the prow as the boat plunged rapidly toward Marseilles. The rest of the passengers were huddled at the farthest end of the boat (I can never remember whether it is the poop or the stern). Whatever it was, they were there, leaving us strictly alone. I had no objection to the privacy thus obtained, though I failed to understand their objections to our mummies. The poor things were dead, after all.

They were also very damp. That is why Emerson carried them out on deck every day to let them dry out. They lay in their brightly painted coffins staring serenely up at the sun, and I have no doubt they felt quite comfortable; for was not the sun-god the supreme deity they once worshiped? Ra Harakhte was performing his last service for his devotees, enabling them to survive for a few more centuries in the solemn halls of a modern temple of learning—a museum.

Our tomb had proved a disappointment after all. It had once been a royal sepulcher, there was no doubt of that; the design and the decorations were too grand for a commoner. But the original inhabitant had been anathema to someone; his name and portrait had been viciously hacked
to
bits wherever they appeared, and his mummy and funerary equipment had long since vanished. Some enterprising priest of a later dynasty had used the tomb for his own familial burial ground. Still later, the ceiling had collapsed and water had gotten into the burial chamber. We had found the remains of no less than ten mummies, all more or less battered, all more or less equipped with jewelry and amulets. M. Grebaut had been generous in his division of the spoils, giving Emerson the nastiest and most water-logged of the mummies. So the Chantress of Amon, Sat-Hathor, and the First Prophet of Min, Ahmose, enjoyed a few last days in the sun.

Karl and Mary had spoken their vows the day before we left Luxor. I had been matron of honor, and Emerson had given the bride away, with Mr. Vandergelt acting as best man. Mr. O'Connell had not been present. I had no fear for his broken heart, however; he was too dedicated a newsman to make a good husband. His account of the wedding had appeared in the Cairo newspaper and had been more notable for sensationalism—the last chapter of the Curse of the Pharaoh—than for spite.

As I remarked to Emerson at the time, there is nothing like a hobby to take a person's mind off personal troubles. Mr. Vandergelt was a good example of this, although I did not think his attraction to Lady Baskerville had ever been more than superficial. He had applied to the Department of Antiquities for Lord Baskerville's concession and was eagerly planning a new season of digging.

"Are you going to accept Mr. Vandergelt's offer of a position as chief archaeologist next season?" I asked.

Emerson, lying back in his chair with his hat over his eyes, simply grunted. I tried a new approach. "Arthur— Lord Baskerville—has invited us to stay with him this summer. He will soon find a substitute for his lost love; a young man with his personal and financial attractions can take his pick of young ladies. But Mary was quite right not to accept him. Luxor is home to her, and she is deeply interested in Egyptology. She is far more intelligent than Arthur; such a match would never work out. I liked Arthur's mother, though. I was quite moved when she kissed my hand and wept and thanked me for saving her boy."

"Shows what a fool the woman is," Emerson said from under his hat. "Your carelessness almost killed the young man. If you had only thought to ask him—"

"What about you? I never asked you this before, Emerson, but confess, now that we are alone; you did not know the guilty party was Lady Baskerville until the last night. All that nonsense about clues and deductions was drawn from her confession. If you had known, you would not have been so careless as to allow her to drop laudanum into your cup of coffee."

Emerson sat up and pushed his hat back. "I admit that was an error in judgment. But how the devil was I to know that her maidservant was an opium addict and that her ladyship had obtained supplies of the drug from Atiyah? You say you knew; you might have warned me, you know."

"No one could possibly have anticipated that," I said, back-tracking with my usual skill. "It is ironic, is it not? If Atiyah had not been an addict, she would probably have made an addition to the long list of Lady Baskerville's victims. Though she saw the lady several times on her nocturnal journeys, she was too befuddled by the drug to realize what she was seeing. Nor would she have been a convincing witness."

"When it comes to that," said Emerson, now thoroughly aroused, and on the defensive, "how did you come to suspect Lady Baskerville? And don't tell me it was intuition."

"I told you before. It was Arthur's bed. Besides," I added, "it was not difficult for me to understand why a woman might be driven to murder her husband."

"Vice versa, Peabody, vice versa." Emerson slid down into a semirecumbent position and pushed his hat over his eyes.

"There is one other point I never raised with you," I said.

"And what is that?"

"You," I said, "were overcome with sleepiness that last night. Don't deny it; you were stumbling and muttering for hours afterward. If I had not tied Lady Baskerville up with her own veils, she would have escaped. What did you put in my coffee, Emerson?"

"I never heard such nonsense," Emerson mumbled.

"You drank my coffee," I continued remorselessly. "Unlike you, I suspected Lady Baskerville might take steps to ensure that you would be asleep and helpless that night. I therefore drank the poison myself, like... well, like a number of heroines I have read about. So, my dear Emerson —what was in
my
coffee, and who put it there?"

Emerson was silent. I waited, having discovered that cold forbearance is more effective than accusations in loosening a witness's tongue.