Tomb of the Golden Bird, page 35
“At the risk of sounding callous, we can’t worry about Margaret now. It will be hard enough getting ourselves away, without additional heroics. Here. I found your knife.”
Something pressed against his side and he shifted position slightly, so that it was concealed under his thigh. He hadn’t located any spyholes in the walls, but the keyhole was big and old-fashioned.
“We’ll have to wait until most of them have gone beddy-by,” David went on. “There will be two men on guard. Bashir has already left. I agreed to stay here. In fact, I refused to leave when they said I could. A disingenuous offer, wasn’t it?”
“A test, perhaps.”
“I thought so. The door is barred as well as locked, and they aren’t careless enough to trust me with the key. I may be able to pick the lock. If not, you’ll have to break the door down.”
“I can hardly wait.” Ramses rubbed his sore shoulder. “What time is it?”
“Almost eleven. In another hour the lads should be tucked in.”
Ramses groaned. “Damn. Nefret must be getting more frantic by the minute.”
“To say nothing of the parents,” David said. “Maybe Aunt Amelia will appear, parasol in hand.”
“Don’t try to cheer me up,” Ramses muttered. He took another mouthful of the disgusting food. It was cold as well as tasteless. “There’s no way they could have traced us. I made sure—clever me—that no one followed me.”
“I’d better go and put on a convincing show of cooperation.” David held out his hand. “They told me not to leave the dish.”
“Afraid I’ll smash it and use the shards to carve a hole in the door? Here, you’re welcome to the rest.”
David took the plate and went out without speaking again. They would work together, and fight together if necessary, like the well-oiled machine they had become.
The key turned with a click. There was nothing to do now but wait.
Emerson stood over his brother with fists clenched and brow thunderous.
“Remember the code,” Sethos said. He had prudently remained supine. “Mustn’t hit a man when he’s down.”
“Get up then!”
“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”
The door opened and Fatima put her head in. “Dinner is—” Seeing Sethos flat on the floor she broke off and ran to him. “He is sick again?”
“No, I hit him,” Emerson said between clenched teeth. “And I’ll do it again if he so much as blinks.”
“He will not blink,” Fatima cried. “Do not hit him again.”
“No, we want him conscious so he can answer questions,” I said.
Keeping a wary eye on Emerson, Sethos sat up, rubbing his chin. “You needn’t interrogate me, Amelia,” he said indistinctly. “I am prepared to speak freely, insofar as my injuries allow. They say whiskey is good for a sore jaw.”
Emerson snarled. “Give it to him,” I said impatiently. “And let me add, Sethos, that frivolity is distinctly out of place. What have you done with Margaret?”
For of course, Reader, I had put two and two together. On the night of the party Sethos had gone out of his way to infuriate Margaret and induce Kevin to remain. I had thought nothing of it at the time, nor could I blame myself. Hindsight is always more useful than observation. And there was another thing I hadn’t noticed at the time.
“Daoud!” I cried. “Is Daoud involved in this?”
Fatima, who had immediately supplied Sethos with whiskey, let out a little squeal of protest.
“He was ready and willing,” Sethos said. “Didn’t you tell him you wished you could abduct Margaret again?”
“Peabody!” Emerson exclaimed. “Did you?”
“Curse it,” I said. “I did say something of the sort. But it was…it was an expression of regret, not an order.”
“You shouldn’t expect Daoud to make such distinctions,” Sethos said. “‘Who will free me from this turbulent priest?’ was good enough for the minions of Edward II.”
“What does bloody Edward II have to do with this?” Emerson demanded. “And stop smirking!”
“I beg your pardon.” Sethos’s smirk vanished into the limbo of lost smiles. “Daoud did harbor a few doubts. You may have noticed he has kept out of your way the past few days. You mustn’t blame him, he thought he was doing as you wished.”
“I don’t blame him,” I said. “Or the driver, who, I do not doubt, obeyed Daoud’s orders to stay in hiding. Where did he take her? Not to his house, Kadija would have let me know.”
“We decided, Daoud and I, that we couldn’t risk that,” Sethos said. “Margaret resides at present with one of Daoud’s innumerable kinsmen. He’s deaf as a post and somewhat feeble-witted, and his wife is a sour old beldam who is at odds with every other woman in the village. She has been well paid to look after Margaret, however, so I believe my dear wife has every possible comfort.”
“Don’t you know?” I asked in horror. “Haven’t you been to see her?”
“Well, you see I had a plan,” Sethos explained, leaning comfortably against the wall. “It occurred to me that Margaret might be in need of wooing again. Though she would never admit it, she has a fondness for romance. After you pointed out that she might reasonably resent my failure to do something dashing, such as having her carried off—”
“Are you blaming this on me?” I demanded.
“Not at all, Amelia dear. You made a sensible suggestion, which I duly followed. I intended to stage a daring rescue, sword in hand—supposing I could get hold of one—and carry her away from her captors.”
“Good Gad!” Emerson exclaimed. “Are you telling us that Margaret’s abduction has nothing to do with the—the other business?”
“That is correct,” Sethos said. “I had to tell you, in order to relieve Nefret’s mind. It is possible that David got wind of my impulsive gesture and set out, like a knight of old, to free the captive princess.”
“It is possible,” Nefret said hopefully. “David has kin in Gurneh, and they all love and trust him.”
“I’ll go and find them,” Emerson said, jumping up.
“And free poor Margaret,” Nefret said, with an indignant look at Sethos.
“Dinner is served,” said Fatima.
I took hold of my head with both hands, for it felt as if it were bursting with confusion and conjecture.
“Wait, Emerson,” I said. “We must discuss this.”
“Dinner is served,” Fatima insisted. “What shall I tell Maaman?”
It was necessary for someone to keep her head. They were all about to rush off on a hypothetical quest, while Maaman wept into the soup and Sethos…I was not finished with Sethos.
“We may as well dine,” I said. “No, listen to me, Nefret. Ramses and David may already be on their way home. Premature action will only confuse the situation.”
As usual, mine was the last word. We seated ourselves, and Fatima served the soup. Nefret took one sip and put her spoon down.
“Is it not good?” Fatima asked.
“It’s fine. I’m just not hungry.” Nefret met my inquiring gaze and smiled faintly. “No, Mother, I’m not having one of my premonitions. If I were, I wouldn’t be sitting here. He isn’t in imminent danger. I only want to see him. To be sure.”
“I understand, my dear,” I said sympathetically. “And we will take action soon. First, however, a few matters require clarification.”
I waited until Fatima had removed the soup plates and served the fish course. The delay was meant to get her out of the room, but it had another effect, which I had, of course, intended. Sethos seemed to have lost his appetite. He stared fixedly at his fish, which stared back at him with blank white eyes, until I addressed him.
“You got us off the track, with your customary skill, by your long-winded story about Margaret. I don’t doubt it was the truth. You never lie when you can be easily caught out. However, it was not the whole truth, was it? Everything else you have told us, from the first, was a fabrication. There is only one logical way of accounting for all our misadventures. You arranged them. Kindly do not waste my time by denying it. It was you, all along.”
“I thought so,” Emerson growled. “By the Almighty, I knew it!”
It was not his black scowl but the disappointment and distress on Nefret’s face that broke down Sethos’s defenses. “It’s a fair cop,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll talk. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
“Start from the beginning,” I ordered. “And go on until you have reached the end.”
“The famous message is a fraud. Gibberish. The man from whom I purportedly stole it is in our pay. He is also in the pay of the opposition, and for all I know, in the pay of a dozen other people. If you wondered how they got on my trail so quickly—as you ought to have done—that’s how. He told them. And fingered me, as he had been instructed to do.
“Our people were on the spot too. Everybody following everybody else. The so-called attempt on my life at the railroad station was set up. My unfortunate colleague broke a leg when I shoved him off the platform, but the train had already stopped, and they fished him out alive. From that point on the only people who were after me, and you, were the opposition. I led them a merry dance, as I had been ordered to do. The reason, as Amelia has undoubtedly deduced, was to discover who they were—not the hired thugs, but the people who are running the show. Sooner or later, if their underlings failed, one or more of them would be forced to take a hand. So we reasoned, at any rate.
“I suppose it was inevitable that I should come down with malaria, after all that dashing about. I hadn’t intended to throw myself on your mercy, but I didn’t have much choice; and it had become evident that they would go after you in any case. In a way it was to our advantage, because it focused the hunt. My new instructions ordered me to sit tight and wait.”
He paused to take a sip of water.
“Wonderful,” Emerson snarled. “While you were sitting tight, they came after us, and poor old Gargery.”
“That wasn’t part of the plan,” Sethos insisted. “I don’t know why they made off with him, but he wasn’t injured. If you look back, you will admit that none of the family has been hurt—only individuals like the holy man, whom they took for me.”
He looked surreptitiously at his watch, and I saw him frown. “As I said, the message is a fake. We know what they’re planning, and steps have been taken to prevent it. The only reason we’ve held off is that we’re hoping to get a line on the higher-ups before we act.”
“What are they planning?” I asked.
Sethos hesitated, but only briefly. “I may as well tell you, since I’ve spilled the rest of the beans. They’re after Feisal of Iraq. He will be deposed and replaced by Sayid Talib, who wants a republic—so he claims, at any rate—and the end of the British Mandate. The British Commissioner will be expelled, and so will your friend Miss Bell. She is under the illusion that the Iraqis all adore her, but many of them resent the influence of a woman, a foreigner, and a heretic over their king. They don’t think much of Feisal either, and the dear lady is partially responsible for the contempt in which he is held. Every time she marches into the palace as if she owned the place, his stock goes down.”
He drank again, more deeply. “So now you have it,” he said. “The plot, the whole plot, and nothing but the plot.”
FROM MANUSCRIPT H
Waiting was hell. He walked up and down the room, methodically working some of the kinks out of sore muscles, and fighting a useless, senseless desire to do something now, this instant, that would get him back to his wife. He could have sworn at least three hours had passed before he finally heard a scratching sound. He sprinted for the door.
“David?” he breathed into the keyhole.
“Here.”
“How’s it going?”
“Give me a few minutes.”
Picking locks was one of the useful skills they had learned during the war. David didn’t have the necessary tools, though, and the process wasn’t as easy as sensational novels suggested. Ramses got his knife from under the mattress, slipped it into the sheath, and went back to the door. The scratching and clicking went on till he couldn’t stand it any longer.
“I’ll force it,” he whispered. “Get out of the way.”
“It’s only been sixty seconds,” David said calmly. “Control your impetuosity. That’s always been your worst fault. I think…Got it.”
The door swung open, and for the first time he saw the hallway down which he had been hustled. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and dust lay thick on the floor, scuffed by footprints. On the floor lay the body of a man wearing a faded galabeeyah.
“I had to put him out,” David said softly. “Don’t even think about it, Ramses, we aren’t hanging around any longer than we have to. There’s another one at the front door. This way.”
David was reading his mind, as he always did. And he was right, as he always was.
This part of the house was the servants’ quarters. A door at the far end of the passage opened onto the salon, which was in the European style of the last century. Crumbling strips of bas-relief framed dusty mirrors and the faded remains of painted panels. Fallen plaster crunched under their feet. Moonlight filtered through cracks in the shutters.
“What about the other doors?” Ramses whispered.
“Chained, bolted, barred, and barricaded. Trust me, this is our best chance.”
He stopped in front of a pair of ornate double doors. “Let me go first,” he whispered, and eased one of them open. The rusted hinges let out a groan. David slid through the gap. Ramses moved forward and looked out into the entrance hall. A curved staircase led up to the first floor. A single lamp burned low. The man stationed at the front door wore European clothing, trousers and shirt and boots. He had been asleep, but the squeaking hinge had roused him. His eyes glinted in the lamplight.
This was the trickiest part of the whole business. Recognizing David, the fellow might not let out a yell, but he would certainly say something, if only, “What the hell are you doing here?” And he wouldn’t whisper. David had just a few seconds in which to silence him, and he couldn’t risk the sound of a struggle. Ramses stood poised, his hand on his knife, ready to move as soon as David did.
David leaped, knocking the guard flat on the floor. They rolled back and forth, the guard trying to free himself, David trying to keep his hand over the fellow’s mouth. Ramses stood over them, waiting for his chance. The grappling bodies writhed and twisted. He was afraid of hitting the wrong man.
Then the guard got one arm loose and struck. David let out a grunt of pain and fell onto his back, with the other man astride him.
“What are you waiting for?” David gasped.
The guard’s back was a temptingly vulnerable target, but Ramses couldn’t bring himself to kill, not even then. He brought the hilt of his knife down on the bare black head. It was heavy enough to stun the fellow, and Ramses finished the job with a series of hard, methodical blows. Doubled over and breathing unevenly, David unfastened the chain, which rattled as it fell loose, and drew the bolts. A voice from the head of the staircase called out, demanding to know what was going on.
The door wouldn’t open. The key wasn’t in the lock. Ramses turned the unconscious man onto his back and started investigating his pockets. Then he saw the key, hanging on a string round the fellow’s neck. A hard tug snapped the string. He forced the key into the lock and turned it.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. David flung the door open and they bolted out. The time for caution had passed, speed was their only hope now. The pursuit was underway. David stumbled, and Ramses caught him round the waist, pulling him forward. They reached the street and turned right.
There was no one in sight, not even a cart they could hide behind. Heavy footsteps pounded after them. Ahead, too far ahead, Ramses saw the lights of the Winter Palace. Panting and leaning on each other, they ran on.
The first order of business, I decided, was to find Margaret. In fact, it was the only action we could take, since we had no idea what had become of the boys (as I would always think of them). They had not turned up when we were ready to leave; I instructed Fatima that if and when they did, she should tell them where we had gone and order them to remain at the house.
Nefret had changed out of her flimsy frock and evening slippers and I had assumed trousers and coat—and, of course, my belt of tools and parasol. There was no way of knowing what we might encounter. When we got to the stable Emerson had seen to it that the horses were saddled and ready.
The hour was late, the village of Gurneh dark and slumbering. The house we sought showed no signs of life. Emerson assured us it was the right place; he had identified it from Sethos’s description of the owner.
We dismounted, and Sethos spoke for the first time since he had finished his story. “I don’t suppose you would consider letting me go in first? I could snatch Margaret up and—”
Emerson called him a bad name, and I said coldly, “Your effrontery passes all bounds. Go ahead, Emerson, wake the poor old soul.”
It was not the old man who came to the door, but his wife, and her reception of us was in keeping with her reputation. Brandishing a stick, she began shouting and swearing. Even the sight of Emerson did not daunt her.
“We are not thieves,” he bellowed. “We mean you no harm. Curse it! Be quiet, woman, and heed the Father of Curses.”
He snatched the stick from her hand and took hold of her. She went on struggling and screaming until I stepped forward, parasol in hand.
“Be still,” I said sternly. “Or I will use my magic to turn you into a goat.”
People can believe the most absurd things. My parasol was known and dreaded by some of the more superstitious Egyptians. Fortunately the old lady was one of them.
She led us, without further violence, to the room where Margaret was confined. Either she had not been asleep or the dispute had wakened her; she was on her feet, brandishing a jar which must have contained a beverage of some sort. I had deemed it proper to be the first person to enter. For a moment I thought she would heave the jar at me.
