He Shall Thunder in the Sky taps-12 Read online

  I’m in a fey mood tonight, as you can probably tell. I’ve put off writing to you because there is so much I want to say that can’t be said. The thought that a stranger—or worse, a person I know—might read these letters is constantly in my mind; it’s as if someone were lurking behind the door listening to our private thoughts and confidences.

  So I will confine myself to facts.

  Aunt Amelia and I are alone this evening; the Professor and Ramses have gone out. With the lamps lit and the curtains drawn, this cavernous parlor looks almost cozy, especially with Aunt Amelia darning socks. Yes, you heard me: she is darning socks! She gets these housewifely attacks from time to time, heaven only knows why. Since she darns as thoroughly as she does everything, the stockings end up with huge lumps on toes or heels, and the hapless wearer thereof ends up with huge blisters. I think Ramses quietly and tactfully throws his away, but the Professor, who never pays any attention to what clothing he puts on, goes round limping and swearing.

  I take it back. This room is not cozy. It never can be. A fluffy, furry animal might help, but I can’t have the puppies here; they chew the legs of the furniture and misbehave on the Oriental rugs. I even miss that wretched beast Horus! I couldn’t have brought him, since he refuses to be parted from Sennia, but I wish I had a cat of my own. Seshat spends most of her time in Ramses’s room.

  Someday, when we are all together again, we will find a better house, or build one. It will be large and sprawling, with courtyards and fountains and gardens, and plenty of room, so we can all be together—but not too close together! If you would rather, we’ll get the dear old Amelia out of drydock for you and David and the infant. It will happen someday. It must.

  Goodness, I sound like a little old lady, rocking and recalling the memories of her youth. Let me think what news I can write about.

  You asked about the hospital. One must be patient; it will take time to convince “respectable” women—and their conservative husbands—that we will not offend their modesty or their religious principles. There has been one very hopeful development. This morning I had a caller—none other than el-Gharbi, the most powerful procurer of el Was’a. They say he controls not only prostitution but every other illegal activity in that district. I had seen him once or twice when I went to the old clinic, and an unforgettable figure he was—squatting on the mastaba bench outside one of his “Houses,” robed like a woman and jangling with gold. When he turned up today, borne in a litter and accompanied by an escort—all young and handsome, elegantly robed and heavily armed—our poor old doorkeeper almost fainted. He came rushing to find me. It seems el-Gharbi had asked for me by name. When I went out, there he was, sitting cross-legged in the litter like some grotesrque statue of ebony and ivory, veiled and adorned. I could smell the patchouli ten yads away.

  When I told the family about it later, I thought the Professor was going to explode. While he sputtered and swore, I repeated that curious conversation. The girl I had operated on the night before was one of his; he had sent her to me. He had come in person because he had heard a great deal about me and he wanted to see for himself what I was like. Odd, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine why he should be interested.

  Did I call him names (I know a lot of good Arabic terms for men like him) and tell him never to darken my door again? No, Lia, I did not. Once I might have done, but I’ve learned better. It is pointless to complain that the world isn’t the way it ought to be. By all accounts he is a kinder master than some. I told him I appreciated his interest and would be happy to treat any of the women who needed my services.

  The Professor was not so tolerant. “What damnable effrontery!” was the least inflammatory of the remarks he made. When he wound down, it was Ramses’s turn.

  Someone who didn’t know him well might have thought he was bored by the discussion. He was sitting on the ground with his back against a packing case and his knees raised and his head bent, devouring Fatima ’s food. Ramses is never a model of sartorial elegance, as you know; he’d been running his fingers through his hair, to push it out of the way, and it was all tangled over his forehead. Perspiration streaked his face and throat and bare forearms, and his shirt was sticking to his shoulders. He raised his head and opened his mouth.

  “You need a haircut,” I said. “And don’t lecture me.”

  “I know I do. I wasn’t going to lecture you. I was about to say, ‘Well done.’ ”

  Can you imagine that, Lia—Ramses paying me a compliment? You know what a low opinion he has of my good sense and self-control. I wish…

  I can’t write any more. It is very late and and my hand is cramped from holding the pen. Please excuse the atrocious writing. Aunt Amelia is folding up her mending. I love you, Lia, dear.

  Chapter 9

  When Nefret asked how long I meant to wait, I did not know the answer. Farouk might be late (although an individual expecting to receive a large sum of money generally is not), and there would certainly be a heated discussion when Emerson insisted upon verification before payment. I did not doubt my formidable husband’s ability to overcome an opponent, even one as treacherous as Farouk, but Emerson and Ramses would then have to bind and gag the young villain and transport him across the river to the house. The journey could take anywhere from an hour to two hours, depending on the available transportation, and precipitate action by Nefret and me would only confirm Emerson’s unjust (for the most part) opinion of women.

  In order to discipline myself, I had turned to a task I particularly dislike—mending. Nefret read for a while, or pretended to; finally she declared her intention of writing to Lia. I ought to have emulated her; my weekly letter to Evelyn was overdue; but it was confounded difficult to write a cheery, chatty letter when I did not feel at all cheery, and it was impossible to chat about the subject uppermost in my mind. We were both masking our true feelings; when Evelyn wrote me she did not mention her worries about her boys in the trenches and her other boy, dear as a son, in exile so far away. I must also prevaricate and equivocate; it would only increase Evelyn’s anxiety if she learned that David and Ramses were also risking their lives for the cause. Nor had I forgotten Ramses’s warning to Nefret, that the post would almost certainly be read by the military authorities, and his even more pointed remarks about the need for secrecy.

  I wondered what the deuce Nefret found to write about. Perhaps her letters to Lia were as stilted as mine to Evelyn.

  By half past one o’clock in the morning I had mended eight pairs of stockings. Later I had to discard all but the first pair; I had sewed the toes to the heels and the tops to the soles, passing my needle in and out of the fabric without paying the least attention to what I was doing. After I had run the needle deep into my finger for the tenth time I bit off the thread and pushed the sewing basket aside. Nefret looked up from her letter.

  “I’ve finished,” she said. “Is it time?”

  “We will wait another half hour.”

  Nefret bowed her head in silent acquiescence. The lamplight gilded her bright hair and shone on her ringless hands, which rested in her lap. She had removed her wedding ring the day after Geoffrey died. I never asked what she had done with it.

  I was trying to think of something comforting to say when Nefret looked up. “They are safe,” she said gently. “I’m sure nothing has happened.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Twenty-seven minutes more. I began planning what I would do. At my insistence, Emerson had described the location of the house, which I had never seen. Should we drive the motorcar, disdaining secrecy, or find a boat to take us directly across the river?

  Twenty-five minutes. How slowly the time passed! I decided the motorcar would be quicker. I would send Ali after Daoud and Selim…

  At twenty minutes before two, the shutters rattled. I sprang to my feet. Nefret ran to the window and flung the shutters back. I heard a thump and saw movement, and there was Seshat, sitting on the windowsill.

  “Curse it,” I exclaimed.
“It is only the cat.”

  “No.” Nefret looked out into the dark garden. “They are coming.”

  Like a butler ushering visitors into a room, Seshat waited for the men to reach the window before she jumped down onto the floor. Emerson was the first to enter. Ramses followed him, and drew the shutters closed.

  “Well?” I cried. “Where is he? Where have you put him?”

  “He did not come,” Emerson said. “We waited for over an hour.”

  They had had time to accept the failure of our hopes, though I could see it weighed heavily upon them. I turned away for fear Nefret would see what a terrible blow the news had dealt me. Her expressive face had mirrored her own disappointment, but she did not, could not, know how much was at stake.

  “So it was a trick after all?” I muttered.

  Emerson unfastened the heavy money belt and tossed it onto the table. “I wish I knew. He could have eluded us that night; why would he offer an exchange and then renege? Come and sit down, my dear, I know you have been under quite a strain. Would you like a whiskey and soda?”

  “No. Well…”

  Ramses went to the sideboard. “Would you care for something, Nefret?”

  “No, thank you.” She sat down and lifted Seshat onto her lap.

  “He told Emerson to come alone,” I said, taking the glass Ramses handed me. “If he saw you—”

  “He did not see me.” Ramses does not often venture to interrupt me. I forgave him when I saw his hooded eyes and the lines of strain that bracketed his mouth. He was wearing a suit of dull brown he had recently purchased in Cairo; when I came across it in his wardrobe (in the process of collecting things to be laundered or cleaned), I had wondered why he had selected such an unbecoming shade, almost the same color as his tanned face. I ought to have realized. With the coat buttoned up to his throat he would be virtually invisible at night.

  “I beg your pardon,” I said. “Please sit down.”

  “Thank you, I would rather not.”

  He removed his coat. I let out an involuntary cry of surprise. “You are carrying a gun. I thought you never—”

  “Do you suppose I would sacrifice Father’s safety to my principles?” He unbuckled the straps that held the holster in place under his left arm and placed the whole contraption carefully down on a table. “I assure you, it was not an idle boast when I said Farouk could not have seen me. Darkness was complete before I reached Maadi, and I spent the next three hours roosting in a tree. There was the usual nocturnal traffic—the occupants of the new villas coming and going in their carriages, the less-distinguished residents on foot. By the time Father got there, no one had come near the house for over an hour. Mahira goes to bed at sundown. I could hear her snoring.”

  Emerson took up the tale. “Knowing Ramses would have warned me off if Farouk had played us false, I stood under the damned tree, with my back against the wall of the house. Since I could not strike a light to look at my watch, I had no idea how much time had passed; it seemed like a year before Ramses slid down to the ground and spoke to me.”

  “How did you know the time?” I asked Ramses, who was prowling restlessly round the room.

  “Radium paint on the hands and numerals of my watch. It glows faintly in the dark.”

  Nefret had been stroking the cat, who permitted this familiarity with her usual air of condescension. Now Nefret said, “Perhaps this evening was a test, to make certain you would meet his demands.”

  “That is possible,” Ramses agreed. “In which case he will communicate with us again.”

  He swayed a little, and caught hold of the back of a chair. Nefret removed the cat from her lap. “I am going to bed. The rest of you had better do the same.”

  I waited until the door had closed before I went to Ramses. “Now tell me the truth. Were you hurt? Was your father injured?”

  “I did tell you the truth,” Ramses said, with such an air of righteous indignation that I could not help smiling. “It happened just as we said, Mother. I am only a little tired.”

  “And disappointed,” said Emerson, who had lit his pipe and was puffing away with great satisfaction. “Ah. All those hours without the comforting poison of nicotine added to my misery. Devil take it, Peabody , it was a blow.”

  “It will be a blow to David too,” Ramses said. “I do not look forward to telling—Mother, put that down! There is a shell in the chamber.”

  “My finger was not on the trigger,” I protested.

  He took the weapon from my hands, and Emerson, who had leaped to his feet, sat down with a gusty sigh. “Don’t even think about ‘borrowing’ that pistol, Peabody . It is far too heavy for you.”

  “Quite an ingenious contrivance,” I said, examining the holster. “Is this a spring inside? Ouch.”

  “As you see,” said Ramses.

  “Your invention?”

  “My refinement of someone else’s invention.”

  “Could you—”

  “No!” Emerson said loudly.

  “How did you know what I was going to ask?”

  “I know you only too well, Peabody ,” said my husband, scowling. “You were about to ask him to fit that little gun of yours with a similar spring. I strictly forbid it. You are already armed and dangerous.”

  “Speaking of that, Emerson, I am having problems with my sword parasol. Jamal claimed he had repaired it, but the release keeps sticking.”

  “I’ll have a look at it if you like, Mother,” Ramses said. His momentary animation had faded, leaving him looking deathly tired.

  “Never mind, my dear, I will let Jamal have another try. Go to bed. As for David, let him hope a little longer. All is not lost; we may yet receive a message.”

  I spoke confidently and encouragingly, but I was conscious of a growing sense of discouragement that troubled my slumber and shadowed my thoughts all the next day. Blighted hope is harder to bear than no hope at all.

  At breakfast next morning Emerson asked Nefret to take photographs of the statue. I stayed to help her with the lighting. We employed the same mirror reflectors we were accustomed to using in the tombs; they gave a subtler and more controlled light than flash powder or magnesium wire. It took us quite some time, since of course long exposures were necessary.

  When we had finished and were on our way to join the others at Giza , Nefret remarked, “I am surprised the Professor has not stationed armed guards all round the statue, by night and by day.”

  “My dear girl, how could a thief make off with something so heavy? It required forty of our sturdiest workmen to lift the thing!”

  Nefret chuckled. “It is rather a ludicrous image, I admit: forty thieves, just as in ‘Ali Baba,’ staggering along the road with the statue on their shoulders, trying to appear inconspicuous.”

  “Yes,” I said, chuckling. It echoed somewhat hollowly. At that time the statue was the least of my concerns.

  Before we parted for the night, we had agreed on certain steps to be taken the following day. Ramses, who was still inclined to impart information in dribbles, explained that he and David had arranged several means of communication. He had on one occasion actually passed a message to David when I was present, for one of David’s roles was that of a flower vendor, outside Shepheard’s hotel. I remembered the occasion well; the flowers had been rather wilted. If we had not heard from Farouk by mid-afternoon we would go to Shepheard’s for tea, and after Ramses had seen David, Ramses would try to locate Farouk. He refused to emit even a dribble of information explaining how he meant to go about it, but I assumed that the conspirators had ways of contacting one another in case of an emergency.

  None of this information could be imparted to Nefret. If she went with us to Shepheard’s I would have to find some means of distracting her while Ramses approached the flower vendor; David’s disguise had been good enough to fool me, but her keen eyes might not be so easily deceived.

  As it turned out, my scheming was unnecessary. Shortly after midday we received a message t
hat threw all our plans into disarray.

  Instead of using basket carriers, as we had done in the past, Emerson had caused to be laid down between the tomb and the dump site a set of tracks along which wheeled carts could run. As I stood watching one of the filled carts being pushed toward the dump, a man on horseback approached. I was about to shout at him to go away when I realized that he was in the uniform of the Cairo Police. I hastened to meet him. At my insistence he handed over the letter he carried, which was in fact directed to Emerson.

  This would not have prevented me from opening the envelope had not Emerson himself joined us. He too had recognized the uniform; he too realized that something serious must have occurred. Thomas Russell might as well have sent along a town crier to announce in stentorian tones that the messenger was from him. The uniform was well known to all Cairenes.

  “I was told to wait for an answer, sir,” said the man, saluting. “It is urgent.”

  “Oh? Hmph. Yes.”

  With maddening deliberation Emerson extracted a sheet of paper from the envelope. I stood on tiptoe to read it over his shoulder.

  Professor Emerson :

  I believe you can be of assistance to the police in a case which came to my attention early this morning. The evidence of your son is also required. Please come to my office at the earliest opportunity.

  Sincerely,

  Thomas Russell.

  P.S. Do not bring Miss Forth.

  “I will be there in two hours,” Emerson said to the officer.

  “Oh, no, Emerson, we must go straightaway! How can you bear the suspense? He would not have—”

  “Two hours!” Emerson bellowed, drowning me out. The policeman started convulsively, saluted, banged his hand painfully against the stiff brim of his helmet, and galloped off.