The Deeds of the Disturber (22 page)

Kevin fell on it like a fish on a worm. "I say, Professor, but that is ... it opens up all sorts of possibilities, don't you think? For one thing, Ahmet was in police custody . . . no, that won't wash, for there is no way of knowing when the messages were dispatched, eh? On the other hand . . ."He rubbed his forehead. "Confound it, I have forgot what I was going to say."

"Take your time, Mr. O'Connell, take your time," said Emerson, with a benevolent smile. "We are in no hurry."

"Thank you, sir. I say, sir, but I do appreciate your confidence. I hope this is the beginning of a firm friendship, sir. I have always admired your . . . your ..."

"Have another whiskey," said Emerson.

"Thank you, Emerson, old chap. Excellent whishkey . . . Now I remember what I was about to say. These usherbis—shaberis—oh, hang it, never mind, you know what I mean. These li'l statues. If you and Mr. Budge got 'em, maybe some of the other chaps did too, eh?"

Emerson exclaimed, "There, you see, Peabody? I told you Mr. O'Connell was a sharp young fellow. We had begun to wonder the same thing, Mr. O'Connell, and were, in fact, about to send around to inquire. We got so far as to make out a list of possible recipients before your startling news distracted us."

"What a story," Kevin muttered, helping himself to the whiskey— for Emerson had placed the decanter handily at his elbow.

"Yes, indeed," said Emerson. "It is a pity there is not time enough to make the inquiries immediately. One would prefer to get the initial reactions of the recipients, before they have time to think it over, and perhaps refuse to talk to the press."

With some little difficulty Kevin extracted his watch from his waistcoat and squinted at it. "There is time," he declared. "Plenty of time. Yes. You won't be leaving until after midnight ..."

"Mrs. Emerson's religious scruples forbid it," Emerson said gravely.

"Yes, quite. Very nice, too . . . I'll tell you what, my dear chap— you don't mind if I call you my dear chap?"

Emerson replied with the most malevolent grin I have ever seen on
a human countenance, and with a slap on the back that almost propelled Kevin out of his chair. "Whatever you like, my boy."

"Good old Emerson," Kevin exclaimed. "You wait for me, eh? I'll—I'll just run off and do my errands and come back here. You wait for me, eh? I'll hurry, that's what I'll do. Eh?"

"Do that," Emerson replied. "Gargery, Mr. O'Connell is leaving; fetch his coat, if you please."

O'Connell had scarcely left the room when Emerson was on his feet. "Quick, Peabody."

"But Emerson," I exclaimed, scarcely able to contain my laughter, "my religious scruples—"

Emerson seized me by the wrist. "What religious scruples? What scruples? You have none, Peabody, and you know it."

"Not when duty and honor call," I replied—somewhat breathlessly, for Emerson was pulling me along at a great pace. "All lesser considerations must give way—Emerson, please, these cursed ruffles—are tripping me up—"

Scarcely pausing, Emerson swept me into his arms, ruffles and all, and ran up the stairs. Upon reaching our room, he set me on my feet with a thump. "Peabody," he said, holding me by the shoulders, "I am acceding to your absurd expectation only because the alternative is worse—to have you follow me in some ludicrous disguise. Which you would do, wouldn't you?"

"Certainly." I placed my arms around his neck. "And you wouldn't have it any other way."

"Quite right, my darling Peabody. Why do you suppose I love you so much?"

•"Well," I said, lowering my eyelids, "I had thought perhaps—"

"Right again, Peabody." Emerson gave me a hearty smack on the lips and then released me and began tearing off his coat. "Make haste, Peabody, or I'll leave you behind."

The ghostly gaslights glowed amid the fog as hand-in-hand we hastened through the darkness. Never, I venture to say, has there been a more suitable ambiance for eerie adventure than the reeking, murky, muddy streets of dear old London. I had trod the vile alleyways of Old Cairo after dark, and pursued a faceless shadow across desert wastes lit only by the distant stars; all experiences I would not have missed for the world, and this was another such. In addition to being extremely picturesque, fog has many advantages for those who wish to pass unseen.

We had not gone a hundred feet from the house before we were invisible to anyone who might be watching the establishment.

Nevertheless, Emerson set a rapid pace until we reached the Strand, where we took a hansom cab. The streets near St. James's Square had been almost deserted, but as we proceeded eastward, a strange new world became apparent to my interested gaze.

Wharves line the north side of the Thames east of London Bridge. It was here that the cab stopped, and Emerson helped me out. I had noticed the strange look the cab driver gave Emerson, when the latter mentioned our destination; I understood it better now. Even at that hour and on that holy day, the wretched inhabitants of the East End were out in search of pleasure and forgetfulness, crawling rodentlike to the gin mills (and worse) in the vile alleyways. Into such a narrow passage Emerson led me. I was reminded of another such night in quite a different clime; the night we had wandered the alleys of the Khan el Khaleel, and found the body of the antiquities dealer hung like a sack of potatoes from the ceiling beam of his own shop. (
The Mummy Case
) The same foul stench and impenetrable darkness, the same unnameable liquids squelching underfoot. . . . If anything, the smells of London were richer and more spontaneous. I was filled with a flood of affectionate appreciation so abundant it would not be denied expression.

"Emerson," I whispered, "this may not be the most appropriate moment for such a statement, but I must tell you, my dear, that I am well aware that few men would demonstrate such confidence and respect for a wife as you are presently demonstrating in allowing me to share—"

Emerson squeezed my hand. "Do keep quiet, Peabody. Remember what I told you."

The warning had not been necessary, but it had been valid. My voice was low for a woman's, but it would never pass for that of a man; I had therefore agreed to let Emerson do whatever talking was necessary, and to refrain from comment.

A flight of stairs led down to a pitch-black entrance. After fumbling for a moment, Emerson found the latch, and the door swung open.

A single lamp near the door barely penetrated the gloom within. The room was narrow; how long it was I could not tell, for the far end was lost in murky darkness. Wooden bunks lined both walls. The occupants were visible only as fragments of bodies—a pallid, upturned face here,
a limp dangling arm there. Like the eyes of crouching beasts the small red circles of burning opium in the bowls of the metal pipes brightened and dimmed, as the smokers inhaled the poison. There was a low murmur of sound—not conversation, but myriad mumbled monologues, broken now and then by a soft cry or high-pitched gasp of maniacal laughter.

In the narrow passageway between the rows of beds, about ten feet from the entrance, was a brazier filled with charcoal, whose reek blended with the fragrant smoke of the drug. It was tended—oh horror!—by a woman. She was no more than a huddle of rags as she crouched by the foul little fire. A filthy cloth was thrown over her head, like a travesty of the
tarhah
of fine muslin worn by Egyptian ladies. From beneath it wisps of coarse gray hair straggled down to conceal the face that had sunk upon her breast.

Emerson's notion of disguise runs heavily to beards. He was wearing the one he had worn at the Museum, but he had done nothing else to change his appearance, except to cover his head with a cap and wrinkle his oldest tweed coat by rolling it into a ball and stamping on it. The cap, borrowed from Gargery, was too small for him, and the breadth of his shoulders prohibited the acquisition of any other article of attire from one of the servants. In any case it would have been impossible for him to conceal that splendid physique or his mellow, resonant voice. His attempt to soften the last-mentioned characteristic resulted in a grotesque growl.

"Two pipes!"

The woman's head lifted sharply, and she drew a corner of the
tarhah
across the lower part of her face. The serpentine smoothness of her movements betrayed the falsity of her disguise, and the eyes that fixed themselves on Emerson were those of a woman in the prime of life— dark as a midnight sky, smoldering with suppressed fires. For she knew him—and he knew her. The shock of astonishment and of recognition that ran through his body was as palpable as a shudder.

A hiss of ironic laughter issued from the lips hidden by the
tarhah.
"Two pipes, effendi? For Emerson, Father of Curses, and his—his ..."

Her head tilted on her long slender neck, as she leaned to one side in an effort to see me more clearly. Emerson pushed me behind him.

"Your tastes have changed since last we met, Emerson," she went on in a jeering voice. "You did not care for boys then."

"They will hear you," Emerson muttered, indicating the lax forms on the nearby beds.

"They are in Paradise; they hear only the murmurs of the houris.

Tell me what you came for, and then go. This is no place for you or your ..."

"I would speak with you. If not here, tell me where."

"So you have not forgotten Ayesha? Your words come as balm to my wounded and forsaken heart ..." A burst of mocking laughter ended the sentence. Then she hissed, "Your face was not meant to conceal your thoughts, Emerson. I read them now as I used to do. You did not expect to find me here. What do you want? How dare you come here, flaunting your new lover and endangering me by your very presence?"

Needless to say, I was hanging on every word, and finding the conversation—to say the least—replete with provocative suggestions. Unfortunately at this most interesting point, Ayesha caught herself. What she heard or what she saw I never knew. With a supple, serpentine twist, she sprang to her feet and vanished into the smoky shadows at the back of the room.

"The devil," Emerson exclaimed. "Quick, Peabody!"

But the door through which she had passed was known only to her. Emerson was still kicking the wall and swearing when a flood of men swept down the stairs and into the room. The silver badges on their helmets glistened and the blast of police whistles rent the air.

The befuddled occupants of the couches were dragged up and hustled out. Most were too bewildered to protest; the few that did were roughly subdued. There was nothing for it but to submit and wait until a more propitious moment to explain our identities and demand our release, and I certainly did not need Emerson's reminder: "If you utter one word, Peabody, in English, Arabic, or any other language known to you, I will throttle you."

I forgave him the peremptory tone, for there was no time for discussion. (There were other things I might or might not forgive, once I had had leisure to consider them.) Though our hopes of gaining information had been foiled by the raid, we might yet learn something from our fellow prisoners if they believed we were prisoners like themselves, and if they were unaware of the fact that we understood their native tongue.

In the darkness and the confusion we went unremarked, especially since we were not (though I blush to say it) the only English persons present. After being pushed up the stairs, we were thrust into a waiting vehicle along with a dozen others. There was hardly room to stand, much less sit; after the horses had been whipped up, the wagon rattled violently over the cobblestones and only the press of bodies around us
prevented us from being thrown to the floor. My dear Emerson had wrapped his arms around me, holding me close and sparing me the worst of the bumps, but he could do nothing to protect me from the aroma of opium, unwashed bodies, and other elements I hesitate to mention.

Except in its final stages, opium does not dull the senses of the user. The men around us had been shaken from their happy stupors; they were now fully capable of vocalization, and they indulged freely. Emerson kept trying to cover my ears with his hands. What with that handicap, and the general racket—the groans and curses within and the banging of the wagon wheels without—I was unable to make much sense of what was said; but one remark aroused considerable interest.

"Curse the unbelievers! It is because of them we are here; the police never would bother if they had not ..."

But at that juncture the wagon came to an abrupt halt, and the speaker (whose adjectives I have edited out) was thrown off-balance and said no more.

Dragged from the vehicle as roughly as we had been thrust into it, we were escorted through a courtyard whose paving stones shone greasily in the light of the lamps flanking the door, and into a large, crowded room. It seemed very bright after the darkness outside; the flaring gas lamps played with merciless accuracy on the sickly faces and tattered rags of the prisoners. They were beating their breasts and wringing their hands and wailing in their high-pitched Egyptian fashion; the officers were cursing and shouting orders. It was a very Bedlam.

Emerson drew me within the protective circle of his arm. "Hang on, Peabody," he whispered. "I will announce my identity and we'll soon—"

He broke off with a faint cry; and for the first time, I saw the pallor of fear whiten my gallant Emerson's face. His eyes, fixed and glaring, had focused on the object that had shaken his courageous spirit—a camera.

How the journalists had got wind of the affair I did not know. I thought perhaps the police commissioners, desirous of public acclaim, had notified the press in advance. In any event, they were there in full measure, sharp-eyed as birds of prey.

"Oh, damnation," said Emerson hoarsely. "I will
not
announce my identity, Peabody. Not until I can find some way of doing so in private."

The police officers were arranging the prisoners in a rough line. Two
of them approached us. In that motley and bedraggled throng, Emerson stood out like a lion among jackals, though his beard had come loose and was hanging at an angle. Even the constables recognized his quality. One nudged the other and they came to a stop, staring.