The Deeds of the Disturber (27 page)

Emerson slammed his knife down on the table. "Why the devil are we talking about our families? You are fencing with me, Peabody."

"You were the one who raised the subject, Emerson."

"Peabody—my darling Peabody ..." Emerson's voice dropped in pitch and took on a wheedling tone. "We don't need our cursed families. You and I and Ramses ... all for one and one for all, eh? Now tell me what happened today."

"Let me see. Oh yes, I almost forgot. You missed Mr. O'Connell. As did I. He left a note."

"I know. I read it." Emerson's lips curved upward. "I don't know what he is complaining about, he beat all his competitors with his story about the curse-carrying ushebtis (even if he did spell the word wrong). Six others received them—Petrie, Griffith, the Director of the Museum—"

"I know that, Emerson. I read Mr. O'Connell's story too. But thanks to you, he missed a bigger story, and his employers may not be pleased with him."

"Serves him right. It will teach him not to overindulge in spirits or trust Egyptologists bearing gifts."

"I certainly hope so, Emerson."

I applied myself to my Brussels sprouts. Emerson picked at his and watched me out of the corner of his eye.

"Would you care to discuss the case, Peabody?"

"Why, Emerson," I said, with a little laugh. "What has come over you? How often have you insisted that
(a),
there is no case, and
(b),
we should have nothing to do with it?"

"I said no such thing," Emerson exclaimed, with such sincerity that if I had not heard him with my own ears, I would have believed him. "At least. . . there is unquestionably a case of something—heaven only knows what—therefore I propose we discuss the matter. As for having nothing to do with it—who was kind enough to take you to an opium den last night, Peabody?"

"It was good of you, Emerson."

"Yes, Peabody, it was."

"But you only gave in because you knew I would go anyway."

"Hmph," said Emerson. "Well, do you want to talk about it or not?"

"Certainly, Emerson. Shall we retire to the library, or would you rather stay at the table so that Gargery can join in?"

The sarcasm was so subtle it passed clear over the head of Gargery, who beamed appreciatively. Emerson scowled. "The library, then. You don't mind, do you, Gargery?"

"Emerson," I said, between my teeth.

"Yes, Peabody. At once."

The change in his demeanor was appalling—no fire, no protest, only courteous acquiescence. It augured badly for the confidence I expected, but I did not abandon hope. If Emerson made a full confession and threw himself upon my mercy—or, even better, if he confessed all and told me it was none of my confounded business—then we could thrash the matter out and be rid of it. But the confidence must come from him, the fatal name must pass his lips first.

We settled ourselves before the fire.

"Well, Peabody," said Emerson. "Would you care to begin?"

"No, thank you, Emerson."

"Oh. Well, then . . . hmmm. We have thus far (for who knows what tomorrow will bring?) three different and apparently separate groups
of individuals. First, those connected with the Museum—Oldacre and the night watchman, Wilson, Budge, and the scholars who received the ushebtis. Second, the—er—the Egyptian connection, as you termed it."

He paused, and I waited with beating heart to see whether he would elaborate. Instead he pretended to clear his throat and continued. "Third, the dissolute aristocrats. It behooves us, I believe, to discuss whether two of the three, or all of them, are connected in any way.

"The cursed aristocrats are obviously connected with the Museum, through the gift of the mummy and Lord St. John's professed interest in archaeology. They are also connected with the opium trade and possibly thereby with group two. But there are a good many opium dens in London, the majority being operated by Chinese or Indians. There is nothing to suggest that Lord Liverpool procures his opium from an Egyptian."

"Except for the remark we overheard about unbelievers," I said coolly.

"Englishmen patronize these vile dens. We saw several of them last night."

And that was not all we saw last night, I thought. Would he now . . .

He would not. "One cannot call the lunatic priest a fourth group, since there is only one of him. What is his connection with any of the aforementioned—or is he an extraneous factor altogether?"

I rose, with dignity, from the easy chair in which I was sitting. "I see no sense in continuing this discussion, Emerson. We have not enough information on which to base an opinion, much less a theory. I must get to work on my paper for the Society for the Preservation of the Monuments of Ancient Egypt."

"Oh," said Emerson. "You—you have nothing to add to what I have said, Peabody?"

"Nothing. And you have nothing more to con—to say?"

"Er ... I think not."

"Then I will leave you to your manuscript, Emerson, and begin mine."

Emerson went meekly to his desk. He glanced at his manuscript. "Damnation!" he shouted.

"Is anything wrong, my dear?" I inquired.

"Wrong! Of all the ... er, hmmmm." His effort to smile distorted his features to an alarming extent. "Er, no, my dear. Nothing at all."

Reader, my heart sickened within me. The old Emerson would have stormed up and down the room, throwing pens at the wall and telling me in no uncertain terms what he thought of my confounded conceit
in daring to revise his work. This new Emerson was a man I scarcely recognized—a man I despised. Only guilt, and the fear of being found out, could produce such abhorrent civility.

Emerson returned to his work. Muffled growls and the violent quivering of his broad shoulders continued to convey sentiments he dared not voice aloud. I could not concentrate on my paper, even though the date of my appearance was only a fortnight away. How could I think of the flooded burial chamber of the Black Pyramid without remembering some of the most exquisitely tender moments of my marriage, when Emerson and I vowed to perish in one another's arms (providing, of course, that we were unable to find a way out of the place where we had been entombed, which I fully expected we would and which indeed proved to be the case).

I believe my lips trembled uncontrollably—but briefly, for I mastered my emotion and vowed again that never would a word of inquiry or reproach sully lips that had never been pressed to those of another than my husband (though I had had one or two narrow escapes). I decided to distract myself by making a few notes of my own on the British Museum Case.

In the past I had had occasion to try several methods of organizing my ideas, but had not found them useful, probably because my brain works too swiftly to be easily organized. I decided to attempt a new technique, writing down first the questions that remained unanswered and next to each a possible means of approach. I therefore ruled a sheet of paper into two neat columns and headed one QUESTIONS and the other WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM.

The first question, in chronological order, concerned the death of the night watchman, so I wrote:

1. "Who is Ayesha, and where and how did Emerson know her? Question Ayesha ..."

The words were not the ones I had meant to write. I scratched them out.

Emerson looked up from his work. "Your pen needs mending, my dear."

"Thank you for mentioning it, Emerson."

I began again.

1. "Was the death of the night watchman the result of natural causes?" Next to it I wrote, "Request the Home Secretary to exhume the body?"

I put a question mark after it because I doubted the Home Secretary, who was, after all, only a man, would respond to such a sensible suggestion without more evidence of foul play than I was able to offer.

2. 
"What is the meaning, if any, of the peculiar scraps of odds and ends found near the body?"

The obvious course of action to pursue here was to ask Mr. Budge when the room had last been swept. The debris might have been the meaningless accumulation of days or weeks (or months, to judge by what I had seen of Budge's housekeeping).

3.  "Were the splashes of dark liquid human blood?"

Inquire of Inspector Cuff? I meant to do so, though I did not expect significant results. The inept police might not have noticed the dried liquid, and Inspector Cuff might not tell me the truth.

That seemed to take care of questions relating to the night watchman. I proceeded, therefore, to the next incident, the murder of Mr. Oldacre.

4.  "Was he a user of drugs? And, if the answer was in the affirmative, was he an habitue of the opium den we had visited?"

Ask Inspector Cuff. And hope that for once he would give over smiling and bowing and answer a simple question.

Or—a useful thought!—ask Mr. Wilson. He had been acquainted with the dead man. Miss Minton, who seemed to know everything Mr. Wilson knew, was another possible source of information. In fact, since she was a woman, it behooved me to try her first, since I was more likely to get a sensible answer from her.

5.  "Was he a blackmailer? Whom was he blackmailing, and for what offense?"

It was unlikely in the extreme that Inspector Cuff would answer those questions, even if he knew the answers. Again, Mr. Wilson and Miss Minton might respond to interrogation.

Now inspired and feeling the intellectual juices flowing freely, I dashed off question after question.

6.  "Who is the lunatic in the leopard skin?" The obvious solution was to catch the scoundrel in the act, but that was not as easy as it seemed.  Emerson had already tried and failed; after the riot at the Museum, the fellow might not show his face in public again. Lure him out into the open, then, and set an ambush. But how? Nothing useful occurred to me at the moment, so I put that aside for the time being and went on to the next question.

7.  "Who sent the shawabtys to Emerson and the rest? Was it the same lunatic?" There seemed no action I could take to learn the answer, but I was inclined to believe the answer was yes. Thus far the lunatic had committed no act of violence. The warning of the shawabtys had the same hallmark as his activities in the Museum—sinister in appearance and harmless in actuality. Like Ramses, I was more and more
inclined to think the fellow was not a lunatic at all, but a man with a distorted sense of humor and the means to indulge it. As Ramses had said (curse the child) royal shawabtys were not easily procured.

The weight of the evidence, such as it was, seemed to point to Lord Liverpool or Lord St. John or one of their "set." Yet there are, thanks to the lawless looting of ancient Near Eastern sites by antiquities dealers and idle tourists, many private collections of antiquities in England. Or the "priest" might have taken them from the Museum. He seemed to know his way about, and because of the wretched organization of the place there were probably hundreds of forgotten objects in the dusty cellars and storage rooms. The priest's familiarity with ancient Egyptian suggested to me not a dilettante, but a scholar, yet I found it hard to believe any of my acquaintances could behave in such an extraordinary fashion. Young Mr. Wilson had been with us when the priest made one of his appearances. Petrie . . . Certainly not Petrie, the man had absolutely no sense of humor.

8.  (I had just thought of this, so it was not in proper chronological order.) "Were there any circumstances surrounding the acquisition of the mummy that might account for what was happening?" Unlikely as it seemed, the question ought to be explored, in my opinion, and the obvious source was Lord Liverpool. He had invited me to visit him; why not take advantage of the invitation? And have a look, while I was there, for an empty case that might have contained ushebtis.

9.  His lordship was a user of opium. "What opium den did he frequent? Were he and his friends the unbelievers mentioned by the man in the paddy wagon?"

With a firm hand I inscribed, under WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT, "Question Ayesha."

Ten

P
OETS ARE ALWAYS running on about the benefits of sleep, which is reputed to be "a gentle thing, beloved from pole to pole," and which "knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," et cetera, ad infinitum. I myself have always regarded it as a frightful waste of time. There are so many other interesting things to do, it seems a pity to waste one third of the day in a state of unconsciousness. However, I woke the following morning refreshed and in a slightly more cheerful state of mind. Making out a neat list had cleared my head and suggested several useful lines of inquiry. I was mulling them over and trying to determine which to pursue first when Emerson rolled over and flung his arm around me.

He was still asleep. The movement had been instinctive, habitual, unconscious. Was that what our marriage had become? Nothing more to him than dull habit? A groan escaped my lips. Without daring to look at him, I slipped out of bed.

It was not until I had studied my list that I remembered I could do nothing that day. I had promised to take the children out in honor of Percy's birthday. I was not about to go back on my promise, for I pride myself on keeping my word, even to children, but it was a bitter blow. Dare I confess what thought lessened the pain? I am ashamed to do so, but I suppose I may as well. It was the knowledge that Emerson would hate it even more than I would.

However, I let him eat his breakfast first, for I am not a vicious person, even when provoked. He retreated immediately behind his newspaper and did not speak until Percy asked, "Uncle Radcliffe, sir—when should we be ready to leave?"

"Where are you going?" Emerson asked, peering over the paper.

I explained. "It is Percy's birthday, Emerson. I promised we would take the children on a little excursion, to celebrate."

Emerson's face fell.
"You
promised? But, Peabody—"

"They have seen none of the sights of London, Emerson. Even if this were not a special occasion, we ought to acquaint them with the historic and artistic monuments of the capital of their nation. Their education has been badly neglected this past week—"