The Golden One (65 page)

‘Have they got him?’ she asked, referring to Sebastian. He was still screaming. ‘I can’t see from here.’

‘Bertie got a rope around him,’ Cyrus said. ‘They don’t seem to be in any hurry to pull him up, though.’

Leaving the robbers in Selim’s charge, we took a silent, shivering Sebastian back to his ma and pa. As Emerson declared, he had not finished with Mr Albion, not by a
damned sight. We all went along, naturally. No one wanted to miss the denouement.

There was no response to Emerson’s emphatic knocks on the door of the Albions’s sitting room. Fearing that he would wake the poor convalescent officers, I announced in low but
penetrating tones, ‘We have your son. If you want him back you must let us in.’

The door was flung open by Mrs Albion. Despite the lateness of the hour she was fully dressed and bejewelled. ‘What have you done to him?’ she cried, seizing hold of the young
man.

‘He did it to himself,’ I replied, pushing mother and son out of the way. Mr Albion was sitting on the sofa. He must have arrived just before we did, since he was breathless,
dishevelled, and very red in the face.

‘Now you’ve brought him back, get out,’ he said.

‘This is not a presentation, it is an exchange,’ said Emerson. ‘Peabody, my dear, may I invite you to take a chair, since no one else has had the courtesy to do so? Albion, I
want the artifacts you got from Jamil.’

‘Be damned to you!’ Albion growled.

Having determined that her son was intact, Mrs Albion turned indignantly on Emerson. ‘Mr Albion paid for those objects, sir. Are you a common thief?’

‘Not at all common, madam,’ said Emerson, with a smile that reminded me of his brother. ‘I propose not to press charges for armed assault and purchasing illegal antiquities, in
return for the objects that were stolen – and for your promise to leave Luxor immediately. Your husband and your son are extremely inept criminals, but I cannot have this sort of thing. It
interferes with my work. Come now, Albion, you are a practical man. Admit you’ve lost.’

‘Lost?’ Mrs Albion gasped. ‘Mr Albion does not lose. Mr Albion – ’

‘Is a practical man,’ her husband said, with difficulty. ‘All right, then. I’ll get them.’

‘And I will come with you,’ Emerson declared. ‘To make sure you don’t overlook anything.’

They returned with a heavy box, which Emerson handed to Cyrus. ‘All there. All yours. Shall we go, my dears?’

Mrs Albion appeared to be in a state of shock. Her eyes had a bewildered look and she kept murmuring, ‘Mr Albion does not lose. Mr Albion . . .’

Was in for a spot of marital trouble, if I was any judge. I sincerely hoped so.

‘Just one more thing,’ Bertie said, in his quiet voice. ‘Sebastian, take off your glasses and put up your hands.’

‘Hopelessly, incorrigibly well-bred,’ said Emerson, shaking his head, as Bertie knocked Sebastian flat.

Cyrus’s fantasia was remembered for years as the finest, most extravagant entertainment Luxor had ever seen. The courtyard and the Castle were thrown open; tourists,
convalescent officers, Egyptian workmen, and the permanent residents of Luxor mingled in amity, eating and drinking, dancing and singing. It was such a crush I soon gave up trying to do my social
duty and was enjoying the sight of Selim and Nefret trying to waltz to the beat of an Egyptian drum, when someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to see Marjorie Fisher, a longtime friend
who lived in Luxor.

‘It’s been ages, Amelia,’ she said. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘Just the usual,’ I replied. ‘And what have you been up to?’

She laughed. ‘The usual. Lunches, teas, visitors . . . That reminds me, I ran into someone recently who asked to be remembered to you. A sweet little thing with freckles on her nose. Her
name is Molly Throgmorton.’

I swallowed the wrong way. ‘Molly
what
?’

‘She has been recently married,’ Marjorie said. ‘Her husband was with her – a very pleasant but rather coarse American, who looked to be at least fifty years her senior
– but she was wearing a diamond the size of a lima bean, my dear, so he must be extremely rich. She said you knew her by her maiden name, but I’m afraid I have forgotten it. Do you know
who I mean?’

‘Yes. I know who you mean. Where is she – where are they staying?’

‘They left Luxor on Tuesday. Is something wrong, Amelia?’

‘No. It’s just that I am . . . sorry to have missed her. I don’t suppose she happened to mention where they were going?’

Marjorie shook her head. ‘She said she hoped to see you another time. Her exact words were “Tell her she hasn’t seen the last of me”. Rather an odd way of expressing it,
but I suppose she meant it as a touch of humour.’

‘No doubt,’ I said.

‘I am going to break all the rules of decorum and ask Selim to dance with me,’ Marjorie announced with a smile. ‘He waltzes beautifully! Come to tea on Friday,
Amelia?’

‘Thank you. That would be nice.’

The festivities were still in progress when we took our departure, leaving Jumana to ‘cavort with the young people’, as Emerson put it. The sounds of revelry faded into silence as
the carriage traversed the winding road, and the still, starry night of Egypt enclosed us.

‘Vandergelt informed me that the Albions left Luxor yesterday,’ Emerson remarked. He added pensively, ‘I must say that the general quality of criminals has sadly deteriorated.
Not that I mind – especially at the present time. How are you feeling, my dear?’

He put his arm round Nefret and she leaned against his shoulder. ‘A little tired, perhaps. But it was a wonderful evening.’

‘Life,’ Emerson declared, in such a happy frame of mind he actually committed an aphorism, ‘life could not be better. Eh, Peabody?’

‘Indeed, Emerson.’

Not for worlds would I have cast a shadow on his good humour. Nor was there cause to do so; my fancies were no more than that, idle thoughts of a wandering mind. Yet the words kept going round
and round in my head, like a broken gramophone record.

‘If she blames me for her mother’s death, how do you suppose she feels about you?’ . . . ‘Tell her she hasn’t seen the last of me . . .’

‘The young serpent also has poisoned fangs.’