The Golden One by Elizabeth Peters Read Free Book Online Page B

a huge armchair of Empire style, its arms and legs ornately gilded, and stared hopelessly at me. ‘I told
you all I know, Sitt. What do you want now?’
    ‘Are you expecting someone, Aslimi?’
    ‘No, Sitt, I swear.’
    ‘I am. He will be here soon, I expect.’
    We sat in silence. The sweat began to pour down Aslimi’s face. It shone like polished amber. I was about to offer him my handkerchief when there was a soft sound from behind the closed
door at the back of the shop.
    Aslimi kept his most valuable antiquities in the back room, which opened onto a narrow slit of a passage next to the shop. His eyes opened so wide I could see the whites all round the dark
pupils. For an instant cowardice struggled with greed. Greed won out; with a grunt he heaved himself to his feet. By the time he accomplished this feat, I had burst through the door, parasol in
hand.
    Facing me was the intruder. There was enough light from the open door behind me to show his tall, heavyset form and his black beard and mustache. It was the man Aslimi had described that
afternoon! The seller of stolen antiquities had returned! Aslimi screamed and thudded to the floor in a dead faint. I twisted the handle of my parasol, releasing the sword blade concealed
therein.
    ‘Stop where you are!’ I exclaimed in Arabic.
    With a sudden sweep of his arm, the man knocked the blade aside and seized me in a bruising grip.

Chapter Two

    ‘How many times have I told you not to attack an opponent with that damned parasol?’ Emerson demanded.
    ‘I did not attack you. You attacked me!’
    Emerson handed me into the cab and got in beside me. He was still wearing the beard and clothing he had borrowed from Ramses’s collection of disguises.
    ‘It was self-defence, Peabody. I can never predict what you are likely to do when you are in one of your combative moods. You didn’t recognize me, did you?’
    ‘I certainly would not have gone on the attack without provocation,’ I retorted.
    ‘Come, Peabody, be a sport. Admit you didn’t know me.’
    ‘I knew you the moment you took hold of me.’
    ‘I should hope so!’ He put his arm round me, which I permitted; but when his face approached mine I turned my head.
    ‘That is a very prickly beard, Emerson.’
    ‘Well, curse it, I can’t just peel it off; this adhesive won’t come loose unless it is soaked in water.’ Emerson was still in a high good humour and rather inclined, in
my opinion, to rub it in. ‘I told you Aslimi had lied to you.’
    ‘Was that why you went disguised as the man he had described?’
    ‘No, I did that because I wanted to,’ said Emerson, chuckling. ‘The description I finally pried out of him was the exact opposite of the one he gave you: medium height, slim,
young.’
    ‘But unknown to Aslimi.’
    ‘It doesn’t fit any of the thieves or go-betweens known to me either. We must accept it, however.’
    The beard assumed a particularly arrogant angle. I was forced to agree with him. After I had restored Aslimi from his faint, he could not quite get it straight in his head who the intruder was:
a thief bent on robbing and murdering him; or the Father of Curses, bent on something equally unpleasant; or both in the same body. He was certainly too confused and terrified to lie.
    We reached the hotel without anything of interest happening, to find that the children had not yet returned from dinner. Emerson had removed the turban and caftan, but the beard and moustache
occasioned a certain hesitation in the desk clerk; had it been anyone but me asking for the key, he might have questioned the identity of the fellow I was taking with me to my suite.
    ‘He didn’t recognize me either,’ Emerson declared smugly.
    ‘Ha,’ I said.
    Emerson was sitting with his chin and mouth in a basin of water, breathing through his nose, and I was enjoying a restorative whiskey and soda when there was a tap on the door. I responded, and
Nefret put her head in. ‘We only stopped by to say