The Ape Who Guards the Balance (24 page)

“But I didn’t have sense enough to think of it,” said Ramses. “Do you mind shutting up, David?”

“It won’t do, Ramses,” Nefret said. The color rushed into her face and she jumped up. “You’ve left out everything of importance. Curse it, don’t you understand that we cannot deal effectively with this situation until we have all the facts? Any detail, no matter how small, may be important.”

Emerson, who had listened in silence, cleared his throat. “Quite right. Ramses, my boy—”

Nefret whirled round and shook her finger in his astonished face. “That applies to you too, Professor—and you, Aunt Amelia. What happened tonight might have been prevented if you had not kept certain matters from us.”

“Nefret,” Ramses said. “Don’t.”

My poor dear Emerson looked like a man who has been clawed by his pet kitten. With a little cry of self-reproach Nefret flung herself onto his lap and put her arms round his neck.

“I didn’t mean it. Forgive me!”

“My dear, the reproach was not undeserved. No, don’t get up; I rather like having you there.”

He enclosed her in his arms and she hid her face against his broad shoulder, and we all tactfully pretended not to see the sobs that shook her slim body. I had expected she would give way before long. Her temperament is quite unlike my own. She performs as coolly and efficiently in an emergency as I could do, but once the emergency is over, her tempestuous and loving nature seeks an outlet for the emotions she has repressed. So I let her cry for a bit in Emerson’s fatherly embrace, and then suggested that some of us ought to retire to our beds.

Nefret sat up. The only evidences of tears were her wet lashes and a damp patch on Emerson’s shirt. “Not until we have finished. Ramses, tell it again, from the beginning, and this time don’t leave anything out.”

We had to wring some of it out of him. Perched on Emerson’s knee, with his arm around her, Nefret exhibited such skill at interrogation I was not forced to intervene.

“I am not surprised that Layla should be involved in a criminal activity,” I said. “Apparently her services are for sale to anyone who can meet her price.”

“Criminal activities,” said my son, “enabled her to escape from a life of misery and degradation. Can one who has never been forced to make such a choice condemn hers?”

“Good gracious, how pompous you sound,” I said. “I must admit the justice of your remark, however; women have a difficult enough time in this man’s world, and moral scruples are luxuries some of them cannot afford.”

“In this case,” said Nefret, her voice smooth as honey, “Layla’s moral scruples were stronger than greed. Or was there another reason why she took the risk of freeing you?”

Ramses looked quickly at her and as quickly returned his gaze to his feet, at which he had been staring most of the time. “Several reasons, I think. Even a woman devoid of ordinary moral scruples may balk at murder. Father—and Mother too, of course—have formidable reputations; had we come to harm, they would have exacted retribution. Layla implied that her employers had something particularly unpleasant in mind for me, and possibly David as well. The pronoun ‘you’ can be singular or plural, and I did not ask her to elaborate, since my mind was—”

“Stop that,” I said irritably.

“Yes, Mother.”

“You made me forget what I was going to ask next.”

“I beg your pardon, Mother.”

“I know what
I
was going to ask next,” said Nefret. “It is a simple question, and vitally important. What do these people want?”

“Us,” Ramses said. “Both of us, or they would have left the one they didn’t want dead in the temple.”

“That’s too simple,” Nefret snapped. “Abduction isn’t an end in itself, it is a means to an end. If you hadn’t got away, we would have received a demand for—what? Money? The papyrus? Or . . . something else?”

“Wait a minute,” Cyrus ejaculated, tugging at his goatee. “You’re getting ahead of me here. What papyrus?”

“The children picked it up in Cairo,” I explained. “From a dealer—the same fellow who turned up in the Nile a few days ago, mangled by what appeared to have been a crocodile.”

“But, Amelia,” Cyrus began.

“Yes, I know. There are no crocodiles in Luxor. I will explain it all to you later, Cyrus. Someone does seem to want the papyrus back. Do you think that was the motive behind the boys’ little misadventure, Nefret?”

“There is another possibility.”

“Well? It is getting late and—”

“I will be brief,” said Nefret. There was a note in her voice I did not like at all. “Let us suppose that the attack on Aunt Amelia in London and our subsequent encounters with Yussuf Mahmud are connected. If one person is behind all of them, that person must be the Master Criminal himself. All the clues lead back to him—the typewritten message, the possibility that the papyrus came from his private collection, even the fact that someone has discovered that Ali the Rat is Ramses. That is a tenuous lead, I admit, but Sethos is one of the few people who knows you found his private laboratory, and if, as I strongly suspect, he has been in touch with you since, he is probably familiar with our habits. Your turn, Aunt Amelia. It is time you told us everything you know about that man. And I mean everything!”

Goodness, but the child had a stare almost as forbidding as that of Emerson at his best! I daresay I could have stared her down, but I could not deny the justice of her charge.

“You are correct,” I said. “We have encountered Sethos since, and I . . . Oh dear. There is no doubt that he knows a good deal more about all of us, including Ramses, than he ought.”

•

Eight

•

O
ur discussion ended at that point, for Ramses’s face had turned an unpleasant shade of grayish-green, and Nefret bundled him off to bed. He went protesting, if feebly, so I assured him we would not continue without him.

“I need to collect my thoughts,” I explained. “And arrange them in a logical sequence. I do not believe I am capable of doing so at this time.”

“Small wonder,” said Emerson. “It has been a trying evening for you, my dear. Off to bed with you too. We will continue tomorrow morning.”

Katherine cleared her throat. “Amelia, would you think me rude if I asked whether Cyrus and I might join you? Curiosity killed the cat, you know. You would not want my death on your conscience.”

At that moment I would have agreed to anything in order to be left alone—to collect my thoughts, as I have said. Brief reflection assured me that affection as well as curiosity had prompted her request, and that no one could assist us better than these dear friends. Cyrus knew more of our extraordinary history than most people, and his wife’s cynical intelligence had served me well in the past. Recollecting that the following day was Friday, the Moslem holy day, when we breakfasted later and more leisurely than on workdays, I invited them to join us for that meal.

My dear Emerson tucked me into bed as tenderly as a woman might have done, and Fatima insisted on my drinking a glass of warm milk flavored with cardamom, to help me sleep.

“You are all being kinder to me than I deserve,” I said. “Come to bed, Emerson, you have been as worried as I.”

“Later, my dear.”

“You don’t mean to sit up all night standing guard, do you?”

“Not all night. David and I will take it in turn. He would have struck me, I think, if I had not agreed.” Emerson’s hard face softened. “He’s fit enough, Peabody. Selim’s young wife stuffed him full of lamb stew, and Nefret assures me the wound is negligible.”

“I meant to examine him again,” I murmured. “Ramses too. She wouldn’t let me . . .”

Emerson took my hand. His voice seemed to come from a great distance. “She didn’t mean it, you know, Peabody.”

“Yes, she did. Oh, Emerson—was I in error? I honestly believed I was acting for the best . . . for their own good . . .” A great yawn interrupted my speech, and the truth dawned at last. “Curse it, Emerson! You put laudanum in the milk. How could. . . .”

“Sleep well, my love.” I felt his lips brush my cheek, and felt nothing more.

I woke before the others, rested and ready to take up the reins once more. Emerson was sleeping heavily; he did not stir even when I planted a kiss on his bristly cheek, so I dressed and tiptoed out.

The others were in the same state as Emerson, even David, whose cousin Achmet had taken over the duties of guard. I stood for a while by Ramses’s bed, looking down at him. Nefret must have made him take laudanum, or one of her newfangled medicines, for he was deeply asleep. When I brushed the tangled curls away from his face he only murmured and smiled.

I was on the verandah busily making notes when Cyrus and Katherine rode up, Cyrus on his favorite mare Queenie and Katherine on a placid broad-backed pony. Her straw hat was tied under her chin with a large bow, and she looked more than ever like a pleasant pussycat.

Emerson and the children came in shortly thereafter, and we sat down to breakfast. Conversation was sporadic, and not only because we were eating. One was conscious of a certain air of constraint. I was relieved to see that Ramses’s appetite was normal, though he had some little difficulty eating with his left hand. I wondered how Nefret had bullied him into wearing a sling, and whether his injuries were more extensive than I had realized, and whether I ought not insist on examining him myself . . .

“The sling is just to protect his hand, Aunt Amelia. His arm is not hurt.”

They were the first words Nefret had addressed to me since she had uttered those stinging accusations the night before. Her blue eyes were anxious and her smile tentative. I smiled warmly back at her.

“Thank you, my dear, for reassuring me. I have complete confidence in your skill. And thank you for tending to me so efficiently. I slept like a baby and woke refreshed.”

“Oh, Aunt Amelia, I am sorry for what I said last night! I didn’t—”

“You are becoming tediously repetitive, Nefret.” Ramses pushed his plate away. “And you are wasting time. I see that Mother has organized her thoughts in her usual efficient fashion and in writing; shall we ask her to begin?”

I shuffled my papers together and picked them up, wishing I had thought to do so before my son’s vulturine stare fell upon them. The pages had a good many lines scratched out and scribbled over. The complexity of my thought processes does not lend itself to written organization. However, I had decided what to say and I proceeded to say it.

“I agree with Ramses; we ought not waste time in apologies and expressions of regret. If anyone of us has erred, she—er—he or she did so with the best of intentions. There is nothing so futile as—”

“Peabody,” said Emerson. “Please. Abjure aphorisms, if you are able.”

The glint in his handsome blue eyes was one of amusement rather than annoyance. The same affectionate amusement warmed the other faces—except, of course, for that of Ramses. His expression was no more rigid than usual, however, so I concluded we were in accord once more, all grievances forgot.

“Certainly, my dear,” I said. “I begin with the assumption that you are all familiar with the history of our original encounters with Sethos. Ramses has told David and Nefret, and Cyrus has told Katherine? Hmmm, yes, I thought so. I gleaned certain bits of additional information during my—er—private interview with him. After long and thoughtful consideration of that interview I have extracted the following facts that may be relevant.

“Sethos does have a private collection of antiquities. What he said—er . . .” I pretended to consult my notes. It was not necessary; never would I forget those words, or the look in those strange chameleon eyes when he pronounced them. “He said: ‘The most beautiful objects I take, I keep for myself.’ ”

Emerson growled deep in his throat, and Ramses remarked, with greater tact than I would have expected, “The papyrus certainly meets his criteria. What else did he say?”

I started to shake my head—caught Nefret’s fond but critical eye—and sighed. “That Emerson was one of the few individuals in the world who could constitute a danger to him. He did not explain why. He claimed he had never harmed a woman. He promised . . . No, let me be absolutely accurate. He implied that he would never again interfere with me or injure those I love.”

“It appears you misunderstood that one,” my son said dryly.

“What else?” Nefret demanded inflexibly.

“As to his familiarity with our personal habits and private affairs . . . Well, let me put it this way. He knows enough about Ramses to suspect that he has become interested in the art of disguise, and that he could easily pass as an Egyptian. Once the suspicion arose, a clever man might be able to deduce the identity of Ali the Rat. For one thing, Ali was seen in Cairo only when we were there. I cannot think of anything else that would help us. That is the truth, Nefret.”

It was the truth—or so I honestly believed. It would not be fair or accurate to say I was mistaken, for at that time none of us had the faintest inkling . . . But excuses do not become me. I was wrong, and the price I paid for my error was one that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

A pensive and (in Nefret’s case) somewhat skeptical silence followed. No one questioned my statement, however. Finally Ramses said, “It doesn’t get us any further, does it? There is nothing to suggest Sethos is not behind this business and nothing to prove that he is. If the incident in London is unrelated to the others, we have another unknown foe to contend with, and it may be that he would have exchanged David and me for the papyrus. If Sethos is the mastermind, he only took us prisoner as a means of getting to Mother. Humiliating, isn’t it, David? No one wants us for our charming selves.”

“Could I have a look at this famous papyrus?” Cyrus asked. “It must be something darned remarkable if a fellow is willing to go to such lengths to get it back.”

“It is,” Ramses said.

“As papyri go,” said Emerson, who is not as impressed by papyri as are some people. “Fetch it here, Ramses.”

Ramses did so. Cyrus let out a low whistle. “It’s darned elegant, all right. Mr. Walter Emerson is going to go off his head about it.”