The Falcon at the Portal: An Amelia Peabody Mystery (51 page)

"You believe there is a common denominator?"

"There must be. It wouldn't be playing fair if there were not."

"God," I remarked, "does not always play fair."

"That is why I don't believe in him. A decent deity would have better manners than the creatures he created out of dirt."

I prefer to avoid theological discussions with Emerson. His opinions are distressingly unorthodox, and sometimes uncomfortably close to my own private musings.

We had reached our house; the doorman stood ready to admit us. I shivered. "Emerson, can't we keep the boys from going to Cairo tonight?"

"Having one of your dire forebodings, are you, Peabody?"

"I don't need a premonition to know they will be in danger. David told me what happened last night. It is highly suspicious."

"Everything strikes you as highly suspicious," Emerson said agreeably. "But I know what you mean. We will have another conference with the boys immediately after dinner."

We went straight in to dinner, since we were later than I had expected we would be, and Emerson proceeded to regale the others with a description of what we had found at Jack's. It was not the most appropriate conversation for a dinner table, but then most of our conversations are not.

Of all of us Geoffrey was the most disturbed. "Hashish! That is even worse than I feared. Where could Jack have got it?"

"Since it is illegal, he would have to exercise some discretion in obtaining it," Ramses replied. "But it is not difficult to find."

"Karl too," Nefret murmured. I knew she was thinking of Mary and the children.

"Let us not waste time in vain regrets," I said briskly. "Rather we should apply our collective intelligence to answering the questions that arise from this discovery."

Agreement was unanimous, but answers were few; part of the difficulty was the necessity of avoiding the other "hashish connection," as I called it to myself. I understood Ramses's insistence that Nefret not be told of that aspect of the case, but omitting any mention of the subject made discussion cursed difficult in the light of what we had learned that evening. Several times I found myself on the verge of a reference to it, and Ramses sat poised like a bird of prey, anticipating a slip and ready to pounce on the culprit.

Finally Emerson declared, "I promised von Bork I would have another little chat with him tomorrow. I will interview Reynolds at the same time. If I can do nothing more, I will at least put the fear of God into him."

"The fear of Emerson, rather," I said. "Can't you take his guns away from him?"

"Now there's a thought," Emerson admitted, stroking his chin. "That arsenal of his is too convenient—not only for Reynolds, but for anyone who chose to help himself. I understand there has already been one theft. Do you happen to know what was taken, Geoffrey?"

"No, sir." A look of distaste twisted the young man's delicate lips. "As I told you, I abhor firearms. I wouldn't know one from another."

"You mentioned the Colts," Ramses said. "There were two of them—new service revolvers, forty-five caliber. He also has—or had, when I saw the collection the day we first went to luncheon with the Reynolds's—a shotgun—a Winchester slide-action with a twenty-inch barrel—two rifles, a Springfield and a Mauser Gewehr, and a Luger pistol."

Observing Geoffrey's skeptical look, I explained, "Ramses's memory is seldom at fault, Geoffrey. Well, Emerson? Were any of them missing?"

"Only one of the Colts. Reynolds isn't the only man in Cairo who owns a rifle, but... Hmmm, yes. I will relieve him of his collection tomorrow."

The rain having ended, we went to the courtyard for coffee. I had no intention of allowing Ramses to get away from me without a private discussion—or, as he would have called it, a lecture— and was racking my brain to think of a way of accomplishing this when Nefret excused herself and Geoffrey. His cough had been troubling him all evening, and I could see she was worried about him. They went off arm in arm; as soon as the door had closed behind them, I turned to my son.

"After the failure of your plan last night and the attack on you this afternoon, I trust it has occurred to you that you had better not venture out tonight."

"Sssh!" said Emerson, glancing uneasily over his shoulder.

"Your whispers are louder than my ordinary speech," I retorted. "No one can overhear. Goodness gracious, how uncomfortable it is, having to keep things from our nearest and dearest! Ramses, I want your promise."

"You have it."

"It would be foolhardy in the extreme to ... Oh."

Emerson leaned forward and David drew his chair closer. We must have looked like a band of conspirators, heads together, hissing at one another.

"What made you change your mind?" I demanded, nose to nose with Ramses. "For I do not suppose it was concern for your mother's feelings that moved you."

"Simple logic," said Ramses, refusing to take the bait. "We were under surveillance last night. It took me longer than it ought to realize that, and then we had something of a problem eluding the lads. How they became suspicious of us I don't know."

"Finding you dangling from a rope outside the window?" Emerson suggested sarcastically.

"That is one possibility. The point is that we can't use those personae again, and working our way into the organization from another direction would take a long time. Since we now know that the man we were after is also the forger, we may be able to employ other methods."

"He's been a busy little rascal," said Emerson in his normal tones. I immediately shushed him. He swore—softly—and leaned closer. "Dealing drugs, manufacturing forgeries, and excavating ancient sites. Not to mention committing a murder and arranging accidents for us. We still are not certain of the motive behind those."

"They must be designed to keep us away from the site," David murmured. "The attack on Ramses today cannot be the result of our investigation of the drug business. There's no way they could know who we really are."

"An informant in the police?" I asked.

Ramses shook his head. "Russell is the only one who knows our identities. He's too good a policeman to let that information slip. The attack today resembled the earlier accidents, and that suggests the motive is the one Mr. Vandergelt proposed."

"Yes, but what the—" Emerson caught himself. "Damn and blast!"

"Quite," said Ramses. "It's the very devil, isn't it, having to whisper and conspire? I think our friend is becoming a bit rattled, though. We've been pressing him from several different directions and we must continue to do so. Do you want me back at work tomorrow, Father? Under the circumstances I believe we should concentrate our forces."

"Mr. Reisner isn't going to like that," I remarked. "Especially if Geoffrey remains with us, as he has declared his intention of doing."

"Then he will have to lump it," said Emerson.

From Manuscript H

The retreating footsteps must have been as light as a child's; it was the soft click of the closing latch that woke Ramses, and his sleep-fogged brain was slow to respond. It took him several seconds to realize that he was lying on the couch in his father's study. A drowsy smile curved his lips as he remembered. Emerson had ordered the others off to the dig and ordered him to rest. He must have slept heavily for hours. The light was that of late afternoon.

Rising, he stretched and yawned and went out. He found Sennia in the courtyard, with Basima in close attendance; the child was trotting back and forth from the fountain with a little pail with which she was watering the flowers, and the floor, and Horus. When she saw Ramses she dropped the pail and ran to him, squealing with pleasure.

"She is very wet," Basima warned him.

"So I see. It's all right, Basima," he added, laughing, as a pair of wet arms went round his neck and a dripping body soaked his shirt. "I need to change my clothing, anyhow."

"Not until you have eaten," said Fatima, appearing in the archway. "The Father of Curses said you were working and not to disturb you, but it is not good to go so long without food. I will bring soup and cold lamb and lettuces and bread and—"

"No, don't bother. We'll have an early tea, Sennia and I. Would you like that, little bird?"

"Jam," said Sennia.

She was picking up English rapidly, though her speech was still a bewildering mixture of both languages. Perched on his knee she explained to him that flowers needed much water, and that she was helping to make them look pretty.

"Do you think Horus looks pretty when he is watered?" Ramses asked. The cat gave him a sour look.

But as he responded to the child's chatter, part of his mind wandered back to the sound that had wakened him. If it wasn't Fatima who had looked in to see if he wanted food or drink, who was it? Or had he imagined that sly soft little sound?

When Fatima came back with tea and food and milk for Sennia, he said casually, "I suppose the others are still at the dig."

"All but Geoffrey Effendi. He said he did not feel well, and went to his room to rest. I hope it is not a bad sickness. He is not a strong man."

"He's stronger than he looks," Ramses said. "No, little bird, cats do not like jam. And don't eat it from the same spoon you put in Horus's mouth."

She was a distraction and a delight, the innocent cause of his misery and one of the few things that allowed him to forget it for a while. No doubt his mother could compose a pithy aphorism on the irony of that.

After Sennia had been carried off for a bath and a change of clothing he was too restless to sit still, so he went to the stable. With no particular goal in mind he headed up into the desert; the emptiness of sand and sky always helped him to think more clearly. This time he could have wished he wasn't thinking straight, that he was misled by anger and jealousy; but the evidence was mounting, and all of it pointed to the same man. He hoped he was wrong. Of all the solutions to his personal problems, this would be the worst.

He let Risha set his own pace, paying little attention to his surroundings until a cool wind lifted the hair on his forehead and a sudden twilight turned the air gray. Looking up, he saw the approaching storm; it was still some distance away, but it looked like a bad one. Undirected, Risha had headed for the same place they had been so often; they were less than a mile from Zawaiet el 'Aryan. He decided he might as well go on and lend a hand if they were still there. Knowing his father, he thought they probably were.

He was within sight of the little group when the first shot whistled past, so close he could have sworn he heard the wind of its passage. His hands tightened on the reins, but Risha, who had better sense than he, stretched out and broke into his long, smooth gallop. By the time his agitated family had done arguing and in
terrogating him and inspecting him for bullet holes, there was no sense in searching for the rifleman.

He and David took the horses to the stable and helped rub them down. He learned there what he had expected to learn. It still wasn't proof positive, he told himself. Apparently none of the others shared his suspicions; his father would have gone straight after Reynolds if his mother had not prevented him. Obeying her orders, he and David went to his room to change their wet clothing.

"It must have been Jack Reynolds," David said, while Ramses rummaged through the wardrobe looking for dry garments.

"The rumors mention an Englishman."

"That means little or nothing. Wardani used the words sahib and effendi and Inglizi interchangeably; they indicate a social class rather than a particular nationality."

"I seem to be out of clean shirts," Ramses muttered.

"A lot of your things are at the
Amelia."
David left his wet clothes lying on the floor and went to assist in the search. He pulled out a dresser drawer and reached in. "What's this?"

He had found the little statue of Horus. "Maude gave it to me," Ramses said. "It was a Christmas gift. She bought it in the suk, I suppose."

"Charming Western naivete," David said.

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't that what Europeans say of Egyptian work? Primitive, naive? All that means is that they don't understand, or care to understand, that particular artistic tradition. No Egyptian made this."

Ramses tossed the galabeeyah he had removed from the wardrobe across a chair and went to David.

"How do you know?"

"Hard to put in words. The workmanship is rather good, really; but the musculature of the chest and arms, the cast of the features—well, they aren't Egyptian, that's all. They are in the Western tradition, even though the artist was trying to imitate the ancient style. She must have ..."

His voice trailed off as a belated realization of the implication of his analysis came to him.

"Made it herself?" Ramses finished the sentence.

"Why didn't you show me this before?" David demanded.

"My gentlemanly instincts got in my way," Ramses said in
disgust. "It seemed indecent to show the girl's gift, especially after Nefret ridiculed it so ruthlessly. Besides, the idea never occurred to me. I haven't your eye. And Maude never said anything about her hobby, or showed us examples of her work ..."

"He'd make damned good and sure she didn't," David said. "Especially after he learned you were on his trail. Everything points to him, you know. He took alarm when Nefret made that pointed reference to fakes and the London dealer; how else could anyone have known that the Professor had the scarab? He had to kill Maude because she was about to tell you the truth."