Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (76 page)

‘Has it occurred to you,’ Emerson enquired, ‘that you have quite a number of acquaintances in prisons around the world?’

I considered the question. ‘Why, really, I can only think of two – no, three, since Evelyn’s cousin was apprehended last year in Budapest. That is not a great number.’

Emerson chuckled. He was in an excellent mood, and with good reason. The surroundings, the state of his career, the prospects before us – all were conducive to the most unexampled good spirits.

Two and a half months had passed since the events I have narrated, and we were on our way home. We were sitting on the deck of the steamer
Rembrandt;
the sun shone down and the white-capped waves curled away from the prow as the boat plunged rapidly toward Marseilles. The rest of the passengers were huddled at the farthest end of the boat (I can never remember whether it is the poop or the stern). Whatever it was, they were there, leaving us strictly alone. I had no objection to the privacy thus obtained, though I failed to understand their objections to our mummies. The poor things were dead, after all.

They were also very damp. That is why Emerson carried them out on deck every day to let them dry out. They lay in their brightly painted coffins staring serenely up at the sun, and I have no doubt they felt quite comfortable; for was not the sun-god the supreme deity they once worshipped? Ra Harakhte was performing his last service for his devotees, enabling them to survive for a few more centuries in the solemn halls of a modern temple of learning – a museum.

Our tomb had proved a disappointment after all. It had once been a royal sepulchre, there was no doubt of that; the design and the decorations were too grand for a commoner. But the original inhabitant had been anathema to someone; his name and portrait had been viciously hacked to bits wherever they appeared, and his mummy and funerary equipment had long since vanished. Some enterprising priest of a later dynasty had used the tomb for his own familial burial ground. Still later, the ceiling had collapsed and water had gotten into the burial chamber. We had found the remains of no less than ten mummies, all more or less battered, all more or less equipped with jewellery and amulets. M. Grebaut had been generous in his division of the spoils, giving Emerson the nastiest and most water-logged of the mummies. So the Chantress of Amon, Sat-Hathor, and the First Prophet of Min, Ahmose, enjoyed a few last days in the sun.

Karl and Mary had spoken their vows the day before we left Luxor. I had been matron of honour, and Emerson had given the bride away, with Mr Vandergelt acting as best man. Mr O’Connell had not been present. I had no fear for his broken heart, however; he was too dedicated a newsman to make a good husband. His account of the wedding had appeared in the Cairo newspaper and had been more notable for sensationalism – the last chapter of the Curse of the Pharaoh – than for spite.

As I remarked to Emerson at the time, there is nothing like a hobby to take a person’s mind off personal troubles. Mr Vandergelt was a good example of this, although I did not think his attraction to Lady Baskerville had ever been more than superficial. He had applied to the Department of Antiquities for Lord Baskerville’s concession and was eagerly planning a new season of digging.

‘Are you going to accept Mr Vandergelt’s offer of a position as chief archaeologist next season?’ I asked.

Emerson, lying back in his chair with his hat over his eyes, simply grunted. I tried a new approach. ‘Arthur – Lord Baskerville – has invited us to stay with him this summer. He will soon find a substitute for his lost love; a young man with his personal and financial attractions can take his pick of young ladies. But Mary was quite right not to accept him. Luxor is home to her, and she is deeply interested in Egyptology. She is far more intelligent than Arthur; such a match would never work out. I liked Arthur’s mother, though. I was quite moved when she kissed my hand and wept and thanked me for saving her boy.’

‘Shows what a fool the woman is,’ Emerson said from under his hat. ‘Your carelessness almost killed the young man. If you had only thought to ask him – ’

‘What about you? I never asked you this before, Emerson, but confess, now that we are alone; you did not know the guilty party was Lady Baskerville until the last night. All that nonsense about clues and deductions was drawn from her confession. If you had known, you would not have been so careless as to allow her to drop laudanum into your cup of coffee.’

Emerson sat up and pushed his hat back. ‘I admit that was an error in judgment. But how the devil was I to know that her maidservant was an opium addict and that her ladyship had obtained supplies of the drug from Atiyah? You say you knew; you might have warned me, you know.’

‘No one could possibly have anticipated that,’ I said, backtracking with my usual skill. ‘It is ironic, is it not? If Atiyah had not been an addict, she would probably have made an addition to the long list of Lady Baskerville’s victims. Though she saw the lady several times on her nocturnal journeys, she was too befuddled by the drug to realise what she was seeing. Nor would she have been a convincing witness.’

‘When it comes to that,’ said Emerson, now thoroughly aroused, and on the defensive, ‘how did you come to suspect Lady Baskerville? And don’t tell me it was intuition.’

‘I told you before. It was Arthur’s bed. Besides,’ I added, ‘it was not difficult for me to understand why a woman might be driven to murder her husband.’

‘Vice versa, Peabody, vice versa.’ Emerson slid down into a semirecumbent position and pushed his hat over his eyes.

‘There is one other point I never raised with you,’ I said.

‘And what is that?’

‘You,’ I said, ‘were overcome with sleepiness that last night. Don’t deny it; you were stumbling and muttering for hours afterward. If I had not tied Lady Baskerville up with her own veils, she would have escaped. What did you put in my coffee, Emerson?’

‘I never heard such nonsense,’ Emerson mumbled.

‘You drank my coffee,’ I continued remorselessly. ‘Unlike you, I suspected Lady Baskerville might take steps to ensure that you would be asleep and helpless that night. I therefore drank the poison myself, like … well, like a number of heroines I have read about. So, my dear Emerson – what was in
my
coffee, and who put it there?’

Emerson was silent. I waited, having discovered that cold forbearance is more effective than accusations in loosening a witness’s tongue.

‘It was your own fault,’ Emerson said at last.

‘Oh?’

‘If you would stay peacefully at home, like a sensible woman, when you are told to – ’

‘So you put opium in my coffee. Lady Baskerville put it in yours, and in Mr O’Connell’s, after you had chosen him to accompany you. Really,’ I said, in some vexation, ‘the affair is positively farcical. Emerson, your carelessness astonishes me. What if Lady Baskerville had wished to render
me
hors de combat too? Your little contribution, which I presume you obtained from my medical chest, added to hers, would have put an end to my nocturnal activities permanently.’

Emerson leaped to his feet. His hat, lifted from his head by the vigour of his movement, floated around for a few seconds and then dropped onto the head of Sat-Hathor, the Chantress of Amon. It was a rather amusing sight, but I had no impulse to laugh. Poor Emerson’s face had gone white under his deep tan. Careless of the watchers on the lower deck he lifted me up out of my chair and crushed me to him.

‘Peabody,’ he exclaimed, in a voice hoarse with emotion, ‘I am the stupidest idiot in creation. My blood runs cold when I think … Can you forgive me?’

I forgave him, with gestures instead of words. After a long embrace he released me.

‘In fact,’ he said, ‘we should call it a draw. You tried to shoot me, I tried to poison you. As I said before, Peabody, we are well matched.’

It was impossible to resist him. I began to laugh, and after a moment Emerson’s deep-throated chuckle blended with mine.

‘What do you say we go down to the cabin?” he inquired. ‘The mummies will do very well alone for a while.’

‘Not just yet. Bastet was just waking when we came up; you know she will prowl and howl for some time before she resigns herself.’

‘I should never have brought that cat,’ Emerson growled. Then he brightened up. ‘But just think, Peabody, what a pair she and Ramses will make. Never a dull moment, eh?’

‘It will toughen him up for next season,’ I agreed.

‘Do you really think – ’

‘I really do. Good heavens, Emerson, Luxor is becoming known as a health resort. The boy will be better off there than in that nasty damp winter climate of England.’

‘No doubt you are right, Peabody.’

‘I always am. Where do you think we should excavate next winter?’

Emerson retrieved his hat from the Chantress of Amon and clapped it onto the back of his head. His face had the look I loved to see – baked as brown as a Nubian’s by the Egyptian sun, his eyes narrowed speculatively, a half-smile on his lips.

‘I fear the Valley is exhausted,’ he replied, stroking his chin. ‘There will be no more royal tombs found. But the Western Valley has possibilities. I will tell Vandergelt we ought to work there next season. And yet, Peabody…’

‘Yes, my dear Emerson?’

Emerson took a turn around the deck, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Do you remember the pectoral we found on the crushed body of the thief?’

‘How could I forget it?’

‘We read the cartouche as that of Tutankhamon.’

‘And decided that our tomb must have belonged to him. It is the only possible conclusion, Emerson.’

‘No doubt, no doubt. But, Peabody, consider the dimensions of the tomb. Would such a short-lived and ephemeral king have time enough and wealth enough to construct such a sepulchre?’

‘You discussed that in your
Zeitschrift
article,’ I reminded him.

‘I know. But I cannot help wondering … You don’t suppose a gang of thieves would rob two tombs in the same night?’

‘Not unless the said tombs were practically side by side,’ I said, laughing.

‘Ha, ha.’ Emerson echoed my mirth. ‘Impossible, of course. That part of the Valley cannot contain any other tombs. All the same, Peabody, I have a strange feeling that I have missed something.’

‘Impossible, my dear Emerson.’

‘Quite, my dear Peabody.’

A
FTER
the death of the author of these memoirs (of which this is the third volume to appear), her heirs felt that her animated (if biased) descriptions of the early days of excavation in Egypt should not be kept from historians of that period. Since certain episodes involve matters that might embarrass the descendants of the participants therein (and possibly render publisher and editor subject to legal action), it was agreed that the memoirs should appear in the guise of fiction. A certain amount of judicious editing was done, and many of the names were changed, including that of Mrs ‘Emerson.’ However, in recent years rumours have circulated regarding the accuracy of these works and the identity of their author – originated, we suspect, by disaffected members of Mrs ‘Emerson’s’ family, who resent their exclusion from the financial proceeds (modest though they are) of the works in question. The editor therefore wishes to disclaim all responsibility for, first, the opinions expressed herein, which are those of the late lamented Mrs ‘Emerson’; and second, certain minor errors of fact, which are due in part to Mrs ‘Emerson’s’ faulty memory and in even larger part to her personal eccentricities and prejudices.

The editor also wishes to apologize for the stylistic peculiarities of this foreword, which seems to have been unconsciously influenced by the literary style of Mrs ‘Emerson.’ She would no doubt be pleased at such a demonstration of the influence she continues to exert on those who were affected by it during her long and vigorous life.