The Ape Who Guards the Balance (41 page)

“David agrees with Mr. Carter, though,” Ramses explained. “That freehand copying is the best method of capturing the spirit of the original.”

“That depends on the spirit of the copyist,” Ned said somewhat cynically. “David’s work is first-rate. I tried to persuade . . . Well, never mind.”

When Emerson called a halt to the day’s work, I went down the path to see whether Sir Edward intended returning with us. I realized that Ned must have left for the day, since the only persons present were a few of the guards. There were lights inside the tomb, however. I was tempted to go in, but my professional conscience intervened; obviously the dedicated photographers were still at work, and it would have been wrong to disturb them. Sir Edward would return when he was ready, as was his right.

Our pleasant teatime on the verandah lacked its usual air of affability that evening. Emerson was brooding over the iniquities of Davis and Weigall, and David was brooding over his broken heart. He even looked thinner than he had the previous day, which was impossible. I wondered if Abdullah had raised the subject of Mustafa Karim’s suitable daughter, and decided not to ask.

“Mother, who was that woman with whom you were talking at Karnak yesterday morning?”

It was Ramses who spoke. The question was unexpected but welcome. At that point in time the topic of murder was less difficult than certain others.

“She claimed to be an innocent tourist,” I said. “But her behavior was highly suspicious. If your father had not interfered—”

“She would have lured you behind a pillar, chloroformed you, and had you carried off by her waiting henchmen?” said Emerson. “Peabody, there are times when I despair of you.”

“You had not met her before?” Ramses asked.

“I saw her at Cyrus’s reception, but did not speak to her then. You did, David.”

“What?” David started. “I beg your pardon?”

I repeated what I had said. “You were talking with her daughter, or so I suppose the young woman to have been. Fair-haired, rather plump? Mrs. Ferncliffe came and drew her away.”

“Oh, yes.” David was not at all interested, but he made an effort to be courteous. “I didn’t realize the older lady was her mother. She didn’t speak to me.”

Perched on the ledge with his hands clasping his raised knees, Ramses said, “I’ve been thinking about something you said, Mother—you and Uncle Walter. Perhaps your idea of a murder cult is not so far-fetched as it sounded. Not that it is likely such a thing actually exists, but the suggestion of it, and those horribly mutilated bodies, have cast a spell of superstitious terror over the local people. They are obviously afraid to talk to us. Is it possible that our adversaries are using fear to compensate for a weakness in physical strength? How many of them are there?”

“Good thinking,” Nefret exclaimed.

“Not really,” said Ramses. “We have encountered only a few members of what may be a large organization. However, we’ve never seen more than three or four of them at a time, have we? There were only three men at Layla’s house. She said more were expected, but that doesn’t necessarily imply a large number.”

“There were at least four in Cairo,” Nefret said thoughtfully. “Two who came in through the window, two in the house across the street.”

“There were three of them in the house,” David said. His hand went unconsciously to his throat. “And the woman.”

Three simple words, pronounced without emphasis or hidden meaning—yet their effect on Nefret was remarkable. Her breath caught in a sharp gasp.

“The woman,” she repeated. “Amazing, isn’t it, how we have overlooked the female participants? Yet there have been several of them, and the roles they played were not negligible. A woman who called herself Mrs. Markham infiltrated the WSPU and assisted Sethos in the robbery of Mr. Romer’s antiquities. A woman tried to cut David’s throat that night in Cairo. Another woman, Layla, was obviously an important member of the group. Some or all of the women in that abominable house in Luxor are also involved.”

“Nefret,” I exclaimed. “What are you saying?”

She cut me off with a peremptory gesture. Her eyes were shining with excitement. “I had an inkling of the truth a few days ago, when I tried to question you about Sethos, and
you
refused to discuss the matter. You said that the attempted abduction in London lacked Sethos’s characteristic touch. You were right. He would not have planned such a crude, brutal attack or allowed his subordinates to handle you so roughly.

“Yet the clues that led us to suspect Sethos cannot be dismissed, expecially the clue of the typewriter. If it was not Sethos who sent that message, it was someone close to him—someone who had access to his private collection of treasures, who is familiar with the illegal antiquities business and the criminal underworld, who hates Aunt Amelia and wants to harm her. I believe that someone is a woman—and that you know who she is!”

Emerson’s eyes widened. “Hell and damnation! Can it be—but it must be! Bertha!”

•

Thirteen

•

I
had to clear my throat before I could speak intelligibly. “No. Impossible.”

“It can’t be coincidental,” Emerson muttered. “She fits Nefret’s criteria in every particular.”

“Not every particular, Emerson. She was not . . . Oh, good Gad! Do you believe she
was
?”

Nefret’s blue eyes glittered like the best Kashmir sapphires. “I hope you won’t think me ill-mannered, Aunt Amelia, if I suggest you tell us what the devil you are talking about—for a change. Bertha was the woman who was involved in the Vincey affair the year you and the Professor were in Egypt without us. What has she to do with Sethos?”

“Sethos was also involved in that business,” Emerson admitted. “We were unaware of it until the very end, and once again he managed to elude us.”

“And so did Bertha,” I said numbly. “We encountered her again the following year, at which time she was actively engaged in the illicit antiquities game.”

“So it was she who abducted Nefret,” Ramses said. “Then who is Matilda?”

“Bertha’s bodyguard and lieutenant. It was she who helped carry Nefret off and . . . How the devil do you know that name?”

For once Ramses had no ready reply. His dark-fringed eyes, avoiding mine, locked with those of Nefret, who squared her shoulders and spoke in a firm voice.

“We found your list, Aunt Amelia. What else can we do but eavesdrop and pry when you treat us like infants? Ramses, I forbid you to apologize.”

“I hadn’t intended to,” said Ramses.

“No, you were trying to invent a plausible lie. No more of that! We want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Well, Aunt Amelia?”

“You are in the right,” I said numbly, for my brain was still struggling to assimilate this unexpected revelation. “In some ways Bertha would be a more dangerous adversary than Sethos himself. She is and was a totally unscrupulous, brilliantly clever woman, and she boasted of having formed a criminal organization of women. Layla must have been one of her henchmen—er—women. Another fact that may well be relevant is that she—er—she appears to harbor a personal grudge against me.”

“Why?” Nefret asked. “Did she explain?”

“Perhaps ‘grudge’ is not the precise word. The precise word she used was ‘hate.’ She said she had lain awake nights planning how she would kill me. Some of the methods she had invented were—again I quote—very ingenious.”

I had not realized the recollection of that conversation would be so disturbing. I do not believe voice or countenance betrayed me, but Nefret’s stony face softened, and Emerson put a supportive hand on my shoulder.

“ ‘Grudge’ does seem inadequate,” said my son coolly. “What had you done to annoy her, Mother?”

“I had treated her much more gently than she deserved,” I replied. “Her antipathy toward me arises from . . . Emerson, my dear, I am sorry to embarrass you, but—”

Emerson’s brows drew together in a scowl. “Peabody, are you still harboring that flattering fantasy about Bertha’s attachment to me? Her interest in me was transitory and—er—specific. And, I hope I need not say, unreciprocated! After the death of her paramour she went looking for another protector, for, as you once said, my dear, discrimination against women makes it difficult for them to succeed in criminal endeavors without a male partner. We now have reason to believe she found that partner.”

“Of course,” Nefret cried. “It is all coming together. Bertha joined Sethos and fell in love with him. She believed she had captured his heart until the mere sight of you at the demonstration caused him to betray the unaltered intensity of his devotion! Frenzied with jealousy, Bertha sent the message that would have delivered you into her vengeful hands had not your gallant defenders arrived in the nick of time. When Sethos learned of it he flew into a rage, accused her, told her he never wanted to set eyes on her again. If she hated you before, how much greater cause has she now! Cast off by the man she loves—”

“Oh, good Gad,” Emerson exclaimed. “Nefret, I don’t know which offends me most, your sentimental ideas or the language in which you express them. Bertha was incapable of the emotion you mention. Her original profession was—er—the same as Layla’s, which would explain why she turned to women in the same business when she sought allies. However, the rest of your melodramatic plot makes a certain amount of sense. It would explain how the papyrus got to Cairo. She robbed Sethos before she left him.”

“There’s another thing,” Ramses said slowly. “Something Layla said. ‘Your lady mother knows. Ask her whether women cannot be as dangerous as men.’ ”

“You might have mentioned that little detail earlier,” I said, not entirely displeased to find someone beside myself guilty of negligence. “It is highly significant!”

“Only in context,” said Nefret, giving me a critical look.

“She claimed later that she had tried to warn me,” Ramses said. He turned to me with as affable an expression as I had ever seen on his face. If his lips had been curved a fraction of an inch more, I would have said he was smiling. “A confounded oblique warning, if that is how it was meant. Never mind, Mother; it’s all right, you know. Would you like a whiskey and soda?”

“Thank you,” I said meekly.

The atmosphere had lightened appreciably. After Ramses had supplied me with the beverage he had offered, he went on. “This theory makes better sense than our original assumption that Sethos was once again our secret adversary. If it is true, the terms of the equation have changed—and not to our advantage. Sethos seems to be bound by a certain code of honor. Obviously no such scruples affect Bertha. She may have decided that the sweetest form of revenge would be to harm, not Mother, but those who are close to her. Viewed in that light, the attacks on us take on quite a different character. Yussuf was not sent to retrieve the papyrus; he was supposed to injure or abduct Nefret.”

“He did try to get the papyrus,” Nefret insisted. “That was what woke me, when he—”

“Stumbled over the box containing the papyrus,” said Ramses. “That explains one of the points that troubled me—how he or any outsider would have known it was in your room. He didn’t know, until he saw it or stubbed his toe on it.”

“Damn it, Ramses, are you implying I was careless about hiding it?”

“Or,” said Ramses hastily, “he was searching for something, anything, worth stealing. Yussuf Mahmud was a thief and a physical coward. Greed overcame him, and when you fought back he fled. The men who attacked David and me could easily have dispatched us. Uncertainty as to our fate would presumably have caused extreme mental anguish to Mother. What could be more painful than to fear for those you love, to know that they are enduring captivity, torture and a prolonged, unpleasant death?”

The hand Emerson had placed on my shoulder tightened. “Did Layla tell you that was what they had in mind for you and David?”

“Not in so many words” was the response. “But it would have been a reasonable conjecture even if she had not hinted at some such thing.”

“Hell and damnation!” Nefret exclaimed. “We’ve got to find the cursed woman! Where can she be hiding? The House of the Doves? How I despise that name!”

“No,” Ramses said firmly. “A woman who favors expensive French champagne would prefer more elegant accommodations.”

“Of course,” I exclaimed. “The champagne! That is another piece of confirmatory evidence. Good Gad, she was actually staying at Layla’s house!”

“Part of the time,” Ramses said. “She must have gone off that night to make the arrangements for our—er—removal. Another indication, perhaps, that her manpower (if you will excuse the term) is limited.”

“Not limited enough,” Emerson said grimly. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Damned if I can think what to do next.”

“One never knows,” I said. “Something may yet turn up!”

“Such as a cobra in my bed,” said Nefret. But she said it lightly, and her smile at me was almost friendly.

A thump and a wild flutter of vines heralded the arrival of Horus. He sat down on the ledge and stared at Ramses, who edged away from him.

“Well, there is your guard against snakes,” I said. “The sacred cat of Re, who cuts off the head of the Serpent of Darkness.”

“If Re depended on that one to protect him, the sun would never rise again,” said Ramses.

Nefret picked up the cat and cuddled him, crooning in a manner most inappropriate for a beast that size. “He was Nefret’s hero, wasn’t him?”

“Disgusting,” said Ramses.

I could not but agree.

:

S
ince I had been unable to keep the appointment with Miss Buchanan at the Mission School, I had invited her and one of her teachers to dine, along with Katherine and Cyrus, of course. I had intended to ask Mr. Paul, the photographer, as well. My motives were entirely charitable; he was a stranger in Luxor, and knew few people. However, Sir Edward informed me he did not accept social invitations. “He’s an odd little chap. Not comfortable in society.”

Sir Edward was not with us either. His absences were becoming highly suspicious. I doubted that the odd little Mr. Paul was the attraction; Sir Edward must have struck up an acquaintance with one of the lady tourists. Not that it was my affair.