The Falcon at the Portal: An Amelia Peabody Mystery (48 page)

"Peabody, Peabody! Ramses does not need your permission to accept a position. Nor mine," Emerson added gloomily. "I don't like this any better than you do, but for pity's sake don't embarrass Ramses by scolding Russell as if they were naughty schoolboys and Russell had led him into mischief. That isn't what I want to discuss."

"The photograph."

"Yes. I've got a theory, Peabody."

"About the forgeries?"

"In a way."

"Really, Emerson, there are times when I would like to murder you," I exclaimed, so loudly that the grille in the door creaked open and the alarmed face of Ali peered out. At my urgent request he closed the grille again, and I returned to my grievance.

"Are you going to tell me your theory, or are you just going to go on dropping enigmatic hints until I lose my temper?"

"Enigmatic hints, of course," said Emerson with a chuckle. "See what you can make of them, eh? I will play fair, though, and tell you what the objects in the photograph remind me of. Couches, both domestic and funerary, were often mounted on carved animal legs. Obviously only the well-to-do could afford such things, and the materials used in this set are rare and expensive. A set of such ivory legs was found at Abydos, in one of the Second Dynasty royal tombs."

He paused invitingly. I said nothing. An idea had come to me, too, but I was cursed if I was going to share it with him. Emerson always makes fun of my theories—until I am proved correct.

"Enigmatic hint number two," said Emerson. "I believe that Vandergelt had the right idea. There's something at Zawaiet we are not meant to find. Things have been suspiciously quiet lately—"

"Because we are digging in the wrong place!" The words popped into my head and straight out my mouth before I could stop them. I clapped my hand over my lips. Emerson let out a roar of laughter and put one arm round my shoulders.

"That is a possibility," he said. "Would you care to go on, or shall we have another of our little competitions in crime? Sealed envelopes and all the rest?"

"Are you telling me that you know the name of the person who is responsible for the accidents?"

"And for murdering Maude Reynolds? No, I don't. And if you have the confounded audacity to claim that you do—"

"No," I admitted. "I see a few rays of light I had not seen earlier; they explain some of what has happened, but I am still in the dark as to the identity of the criminal."

"All the same, Peabody, I think I will put a message in one of those little envelopes. Just in case."

I turned to him, taking hold of his coat. The lighted lamp beside the door cast enough illumination to show his smiling lips and firm chin. "In case something happens to you? What are you planning to do?"

"Why, I am going to dig at various other places all round the site, that's all."

"What, play hot and cold like the children's game, with a murderous attack as a sign you are getting warmer? You mustn't, Emerson, at least not until we have mustered our forces."

"Ramses, you mean? He has enough on his mind without worrying about me. What the devil, Peabody, we've always managed quite nicely by ourselves, you and I. Well—almost always."

"I do not doubt for a moment that we can manage," I said stoutly. "It is Ramses and David I am concerned about. Ramses is always taking foolish chances, and David cannot control him."

"Any more than I can control you." Emerson gave my shoulder a hearty squeeze. "People who live in glass houses, Peabody! The only way we can help the boys is to keep their activities strictly to ourselves. I want your word that you will not breathe a word about them to a living soul."

"Does that include Nefret?"

"There is nothing she can do. She would only worry."

It was true, but it was not the real reason. A young wife who has not learned better is likely to confide in her husband, and we did not know Geoffrey well enough to count on his discretion.

I woke before daylight and found I was unable to woo slumber again. The Reader may well imagine why. The boys (I could not help thinking of them that way still) had been involved in their perilous and disgusting quest for at least a week. Since I had not known of it, I had slept soundly; now that I did know of it, I did not see how I could sleep again until I knew they were safely back.

With the utmost caution I folded the thin sheet back, and was about to slip silently out of bed when an arm wrapped round me and pulled me back.

"If you intended to go haring off to the
Amelia,
I advise against it," Emerson said in my ear. "It is near dawn; if they had not returned Lia would have come to us."

"So you say," I retorted, wishing he had not done so in such close proximity to my aural orifice. Emerson's whispers are as penetrating as a shout.

"So I do." Another arm enclosed me, drawing me closer.

"I thought you were asleep."

"Obviously I am not."

Obviously he was not.

If he was trying to take my mind off the boys he succeeded, but only temporarily. By the time I rose and dressed, the dawn was breaking. As if in sympathy with my mood it was not the pearly pink of a normal sunrise, but a soggy gray. White mist veiled the windows. I knew the sun would probably dissolve the fog in a few hours, but the sight of it intensified the uneasiness that had returned following the conclusion of Emerson's engaging attentions. Like darkness, mist and fog are of great assistance to assassins.

When we went down to breakfast I was relieved to see Lia already there. So was Nefret, but in that first instant I had eyes only for my niece, whose greeting told me that my apprehensions had been needless.

"David will be along shortly. He and Ramses were up till all hours talking."

"Ah," I said. "Is Ramses coming with him?"

"He went straight to Harvard Camp." She smiled affectionately. "Don't worry, Aunt Amelia, I made Ramses eat something before he left."

"Hmph," said Emerson. He looked at Nefret, whose untouched breakfast had a congealed look about it. "What's wrong with you? Feeling ill?"

"No, sir." She would have left it at that, but Emerson's piercing blue stare is difficult to ignore. "I had trouble sleeping," she admitted.

"One of your dreams?" I inquired.

"Yes." She picked up her fork and took a bite of scrambled

I knew she would say no more. She would never discuss those nightmares, which had troubled her for years. They were infrequent but very disturbing, and she claimed she could never remember the content. I had my doubts about that; but my efforts to induce her to discuss them, with me or with a qualified medical person, had come to naught.

The others soon joined us: first David, then Geoffrey a few minutes later. Fatima was in seventh heaven, with so many people to be stuffed with food. She kept pressing delicacies upon us and replacing people's plates with freshly cooked food. Everyone did his or her best to eat, but as I looked round the table I thought I had never seen so many haggard faces and drooping eyelids. The only ones who appeared normal were Geoffrey and Emerson. I wondered how the lad could have slept so well while his wife suffered the pangs of nightmare ... And then I dismissed the rude speculation that had entered my mind.

As if feeling my gaze upon him Geoffrey looked up from his plate and gave me a cheerful smile. "You ought to have come with us last night, Aunt Amelia. I had a most interesting conversation with Sir John."

"I don't want to hear about it," Emerson declared. "It's time we were off."

I suggested we go by way of the Giza plateau but Emerson, misunderstanding my motives, vetoed the idea in terms that allowed no room for discussion. The pace he set allowed no room for discussion either. Upon our arrival he summoned all of us, including Selim and Daoud, to a conference.

"I have finished with the cemeteries for the time being," he announced. "Today we begin clearing the shaft. From the top."

This abrupt and arbitrary decision was accepted without comment by those who knew him well. Observing that Geoffrey's eyes had widened and that he was on the verge of speech, I intervened, to spare the lad the reprimand a question would undoubtedly have provoked.

"Far be it from me to question the dictatorial nature of your decrees, Emerson," I said, "but perhaps if you condescended to explain why you are taking this course and what you hope to accomplish—?"

Emerson drew a deep sigh, like a patient schoolmaster facing a particularly dull child. "I should think that would be obvious. However, if you insist. Where is that plan of Barsanti's?" He began throwing papers around. "Ah, here it is."

We all gathered round the table and Emerson began lecturing, using the stem of his pipe as a pointer. "The entrance to the substructure is this long descending stair and passageway. What then was the purpose of the shaft, which goes straight up to the surface from the end of the first passageway?"

"Perhaps it was made by tomb robbers?" Selim suggested.

Emerson snorted. "You know what tomb robbers' tunnels look like, Selim. This shaft was built by professional masons, not by robbers in haste and in secrecy. It may be a later construction. I want to see what, if anything, is in it. Does that answer your question, Peabody?"

"Only part of it. You mean to concentrate on the substructure then?"

"I intend to clear the place out." Emerson's handsome face took on a look of demonic pleasure. "I got Reisner to admit he didn't do a damn thing down there last year. Barsanti's excavations were inadequate. I am going to go about this slowly and methodically, taking all possible precautions. That is why I want the shaft completely clear before we enter the substructure."

Had I not been distracted by other considerations, I would have rejoiced at Emerson's new scheme. It was what I had wanted all along. He was absolutely correct in clearing the shaft before proceeding with his investigation of the substructure. If the filling gave way, several hundred tons of rock and sand would drop straight down into the corridors below.

The top of the shaft was marked by a shallow depression, no different in appearance from others that covered the uneven terrain, but of course we had plotted its precise location when we made our plan of the site. Emerson got the men to work, indicating an area we had already excavated as the location of the dump. Before long the sand was flying and the basketmen were trotting busily back and forth, accompanying their tedious labor with a crooning chant. Apparently they had got over the superstitious fear of the place that had followed the discovery of Maude's body.

However, when I expressed this optimistic sentiment to Emerson, he shook his head. "They are in the open air, some distance from the spot where her body was found. We may not be able to persuade them so easily to enter the place."

"Let us hope nothing else occurs."

Emerson's jaw tightened. "I will make certain it doesn't."

Hands on his hips, he stood looking on, his keen eyes intent on the men who were in the depression filling their baskets. He was watching, I knew, for the slightest sign of movement under their bare feet and busy hands, ready to leap to their rescue should a subsidence occur. Naturally I remained at his side, ready to leap to
his
rescue.

He and Selim saw the object at the same moment; their shouts caused the diggers to halt their activities. Before I could stop him, Emerson hastened to the spot. Naturally I followed him.

The object was a bone, too large to be human; others, half-buried by a layer of fine sand, lay around it, covering an area approximately a meter square. Emerson required no more than a glance to identify the strange deposit.

"Animal burials," he muttered. "They were mummified; that's a scrap of linen. All right, Selim, brush away the sand but don't move anything until we get photographs."

There were several layers of bones and horns—rams, goats, gazelles, oxen—separated from one another by layers of fine sand. Even with all of us concentrating on the area, progress was slow, owing to Emerson's insistence on proper procedures.

We were still uncovering bones when I decreed a halt. It was sometimes necessary for me to do this, since Emerson would have gone on until dark or until everyone else dropped in his or her tracks. That day it was David whose increasingly clumsy and slow movements aroused my concern. Geoffrey had teased him about his drowsy looks until a sharp glance from me put an end to little jokes about bridegrooms.

I hadn't been able to get any information out of anyone all day. My attempts to get David to myself had been foiled by Lia, who stuck close to him and ignored my hints that she should go somewhere and do something else. It became clear to me that David knew something he did not want
me
to know and that Lia and Emerson were both in the conspiracy to keep me in ignorance.

That is a state of affairs I never allow. I therefore demanded Emerson's company on the way back to the house and held my horse to a walk. "What happened last night?" I demanded. "Were they able to learn the identity of the man they seek? What are they going to do next?"

"I don't know," said Emerson.

"Confound it, Emerson! I will not be kept in the dark. If you won't tell me—"

"Don't shout!" Emerson bellowed. Geoffrey, riding ahead with Nefret, turned his head to look at us.

"Now see what you've done," I said.

"I haven't done anything, curse it! He's accustomed to our shouting at one another, we do it all the time." But he moderated his voice. "I've not had an opportunity to speak with David at length. He said only that they had run up against a slight snag last night, but there was no harm done. They mean to give it one more try tonight, and if they are not successful we will discuss the matter further."