The Ape Who Guards the Balance (10 page)

“Must you be so cursed long-winded?” I demanded. “Do you think that’s the explanation for the ambush? A simple swindle?”

“No,” Ramses said. “The second part of the theory holds, I think—Yussuf Mahmud hoped to get away with the money before the others came—but I’m afraid we must consider that unpleasant alternative I mentioned. The woman had every intention of slitting David’s throat. And is it only a coincidence that they held off attacking until you were with us?”

“I hope so,” I said honestly.

“So do I, my girl. They couldn’t have known you would be there, but they were definitely expecting David and me, and they took extraordinary measures to ensure we would be caught or killed. It can’t be a coincidence that Yussuf Mahmud offered the papyrus to us. There are too many other dealers in Cairo who would have snapped it up at the price we paid. I’m afraid we must face the possibility that somehow, some way, someone has discovered our real identities.”

“How could they?” David demanded.

Poor boy, he had been so proud of his clever disguise! Ramses wasn’t keen on admitting failure either. He tightened his mouth up in that way he has. When he answered, the words sounded as if they were being squeezed through a crack.

“No scheme is completely foolproof. Several possibilities occur to me . . . But why waste time in conjecture? It’s late, and Nefret should be in bed.”

The reeds rustled eerily. I shivered. The night wind was cold.

David leaned forward and took my hand. He is such a dear! That sweet smile of his softened his face (and a handsome face it is, too). “Quite right. Come, little sister, you’ve had a busy night.”

I let him help me out of the boat and up the bank. We went single file, with David leading, finding the easiest and least-littered path. The mud squelched under my boots.

“Coincidences do happen,” David said. “We may be starting at shadows.”

“It’s always safest to expect the worst,” said a sour voice behind me. “What a damned nuisance. We spent three years building up those personae.”

I slipped on something that squashed and gave off a horrible smell. A hand grabbed my shirttail and steadied me.

“Thank you,” I said. “Ugh! What
was
that? No, don’t tell me. Ramses is right, you can’t be Ali and Achmet again. If they do know who you really are, the papyrus could have been a means of luring you into that awful neighborhood. A would-be killer or kidnapper couldn’t easily get at you when you’re on the dahabeeyah with us and the crew, or in the respectable parts of Cairo, with lots of other people around.”

“There’s one positive aspect to this,” Ramses admitted. (He much prefers to look on the dark side.) “We got the papyrus. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“All the more reason to stay away from the Old City,” I said. “Give me your word, Ramses, that you and David won’t go back there at night.”

“What? Oh, yes, certainly.”

So that was the end of
that
. None of us had to point out that we would soon know the answer to our question. We had got away—with the papyrus—and if Whoever-They-Were knew who Ramses and David were, they might come after it. But don’t worry, darling, we know how to take care of ourselves—and each other.

:

“M
y dear Emerson,” I said. “We must call on M. Maspero before we leave Cairo.”

“Damned if I will,” snarled Emerson.

We were breakfasting upon the upper deck, as is our pleasant custom—though not as pleasant as it had been before motorized barges and steamers invaded the area. How I yearned to retreat to the bucolic shores of Luxor, where the sunrise colors were undimmed by smoke and the fresh morning breeze was untainted by the stench of petrol and oil!

Emerson had already expressed the same opinion and proposed that we sail that day. That is so like a man! They assume that they need only express a desire to have it immediately fulfilled. As I pointed out to him, a number of matters remained to be done before we could depart—such as giving Reis Hassan time to collect the crew and get the necessary supplies on board. Calling on M. Maspero was, in my opinion, almost as important. The goodwill of the Director of the Department of Antiquities is essential for anyone who wishes to excavate in Egypt. Emerson did not have it.

For the past several seasons we had been working on a particularly boring collection of tombs. In all fairness to Maspero it must be admitted that Emerson’s stubbornness was chiefly responsible. He had infuriated Maspero by refusing to open the tomb of Tetisheri—our great discovery—to tourists. This refusal had been couched in terms that were remarkably rude even for Emerson. Maspero had retaliated by rejecting Emerson’s request to search for new tombs in the Valley of the Kings, adding insult to injury by suggesting that he finish clearing the smaller, nonroyal tombs, of which there were quite a number in the Valley. Most of these sepulchres had been discovered by other archaeologists and were known to contain absolutely nothing of interest.

In all fairness to Emerson, we had every right to expect special consideration from Maspero, since, for reasons that have no bearing on the present narrative, we had handed over the entire contents of the tomb to the Cairo Museum, without claiming the usual finder’s share. (This had also had a deleterious effect on our relations with the British Museum, whose officials had expected we would donate our share to them. Emerson cared no more for the opinion of the British Museum than he did for that of M. Maspero.)

A sensible man would have backed off and asked for permission to work elsewhere. Emerson is not a sensible man. With grim determination, and a good deal of bad language, he had accepted the project and kept at it until we were all ready to scream with boredom. Over the past years he had investigated a dozen of the tombs in question. There were, I calculated, a dozen more to go.

“I will go alone, then,” I said.

“No, you will not!”

I was pleased to observe that our little disagreement (together with several cups of strong coffee) had roused Emerson from his habitual morning lethargy. He sat up, shoulders squared and fists clenched. A handsome flush of temper warmed his cheeks, and the cleft in his strong chin quivered.

It is a waste of time to argue with Emerson. I turned to the children. “And what are your plans for the day, my dears?”

Ramses, sprawled on the settee in a position as languorous as Emerson’s had been before I stirred him up, started and straightened. “I beg your pardon, Mother?”

“How lazy you are this morning,” I said disapprovingly. “And Nefret looks as if she had not slept either. Was it one of your bad dreams that kept you awake, my dear girl?”

“No, Aunt Amelia.” She covered her mouth with her hand to hide a yawn. “I was up late. Studying.”

“Very commendable. But you need your sleep, and I would like to see you take a little more trouble over your morning toilette. You ought to have put your hair up, the wind is blowing it all over your face. Ramses, finish doing up your shirt buttons. David at least is . . . What is that mark on your neck, David? Did you cut yourself?”

He had buttoned his shirt as high as it would go, but eyes as keen as mine cannot be deceived. His hand went to his throat.

“The razor slipped, Aunt Amelia.”

“Now that is just what I mean. Lack of sleep makes one clumsy and careless. Those straight razors are dangerous implements, and you—”

The engines of a passing tourist steamer made me break off, for it was impossible for me to make myself heard over the racket. Emerson managed to make himself heard, however.

“Damnation! The sooner we leave this cacophonous chaos, the better! I am going to speak with Reis Hassan.”

Hassan informed him we could not possibly get off before the Thursday, two days hence, and Emerson had to be content with that. He was still muttering profanely when we started for the museum, where he proposed to spend the morning examining the most recent exhibits.

His refusal to call on Maspero suited me quite well, in fact, since an encounter between them was sure to make matters worse. I decided to take Nefret with me. She and M. Maspero were on excellent terms. French gentlemen are usually on excellent terms with pretty young women.

We left Emerson and the boys in the Salle d’Honneur and proceeded to the administrative offices on the north side of the building. Maspero was expecting us. He kissed our hands and paid us his usual extravagant compliments—which were, honesty compels me to admit, not undeserved. Nefret looked quite the lady in her spotless white gloves and beribboned hat; her elegant frock of green muslin set off her slim figure and golden-red hair. My own frock was a new one and I had put aside my heavy working parasol for one that matched the dress. Like all my parasols it had a stout steel shaft and a rather sharp point, but ruffles and lace concealed its utility.

After a servant had served tea, I began by making Emerson’s apologies. “We are to leave Cairo in two days, Monsieur, and he has a great deal of work to do. He asked me to present his compliments.”

Maspero was too intelligent to believe this and too suave to say so. “You will, I hope, present my compliments to the Professor.”

Frenchmen are almost as fond as Arabs of prolonged and formal courtesies. It took me a while to get to the reason for my visit. I had not counted on a positive answer, so I was not surprised—though I was disappointed—when Maspero’s face lost its smile.

“Alas, chère Madame, I would do anything in my power to please you, but you must see that it is impossible for me to give the Professor permission to carry out new excavations in the Valley of the Kings. Mr. Theodore Davis has the concession and I cannot arbitrarily take it from him, particularly when he has had such remarkable luck in finding new tombs. Have you seen the display of the materials he discovered last year in the tomb of the parents of Queen Tiyi?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But, Monsieur Maspero, it is such a pity.” Nefret leaned forward. “The Professor is the finest excavator in Egypt. He is wasting his talents on those boring little tombs.”

Maspero gazed admiringly at her wide blue eyes and prettily flushed cheeks—but he shook his head. “Mademoiselle, no one regrets this more than I. No one respects the abilities of M. Emerson more than I. It is entirely his decision. There are hundreds of other sites in Egypt. They are at his disposal—except for the Valley of the Kings.”

After chatting a little longer we took our leave, and had our hands kissed again.

“Curse it,” said Nefret, as we made our way toward the Mummy Room, where we had arranged to meet the others.

“Don’t swear,” I said automatically.

“That was not swearing. What an obdurate old man Maspero is!”

“It is not altogether his fault,” I admitted. “He exaggerated, of course, when he said Emerson could have any other site in Egypt. A good many of them have already been assigned, but there are others, even in the Theban area. It is only Emerson’s confounded stubbornness that keeps us chained to our boring task. Where the devil has he got to?”

We finally tracked him down where I might have expected he would be—brooding gloomily over the exhibit Maspero had referred to. Mr. Davis’s discovery—or, to be more accurate, the discovery of Mr. Quibell, who had been supervising the excavations at that time—was that of a tomb that had survived until modern times with its contents almost untouched. The objects were not as fine as the onesWE had found in Queen Tetisheri’s tomb, of course. Yuya and Thuya had been commoners, but their daughter was a queen, the chief wife of the great Amenhotep III, and their mortuary equipment included several gifts from the royal family.

“Ah, there you are, my dear,” I said. “I hope we did not keep you waiting.”

Emerson was in such an evil temper that my sarcasm went unremarked. “Do you know how long it took Davis to clear this tomb? Three weeks! We spent three years with Tetisheri! One can only wonder—”

I cut his fulminations short. “Yes, my dear, I am in complete agreement, but I am ready for lunch. Where are Ramses and David?”

“They went to look at papyri,” Emerson said. He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the doorway.

Though M. Maspero’s methods of organization left a great deal to be desired, he had gathered most of the papyri together in a single room. Ramses and David were in rapt contemplation of one of the finest—a funerary papyrus that had been made for a queen of the Twenty-first Dynasty.

The Book of the Dead is a modern term; ancient collections of spells designed to ward off the perils of the Underworld and lead the dead man or woman triumphantly into everlasting life bore various names: the Book of That Which Is in the Underworld, the Book of Gates, the Book of Coming Forth by Day, and so on. At certain periods these protective spells were written on the wooden coffins or on the walls of the tomb. Later, they were inscribed on papyri and illustrated by charming little paintings showing the various stages through which the deceased passed on his way to paradise. The length of the papyrus and, by extension, its efficacy, depended on the price the purchaser was able to pay. Yes; even immortality could be bought, but let us not sneer at these innocent pagans, dear Reader. The medieval Christian church sold pardons and prayers for the dead, and are there not those still among us who endow religious institutions in the expectation of being “let off” punishment for their sins?

But I digress. More relevant to the tale I am about to unfold is the origin of certain of these papyri. They were buried with the dead, sometimes at the side or between the legs of the mummy. The particular roll the boys were inspecting had come from the royal cache at Deir el Bahri. The mummies of a miscellaneous lot of royal personages had been rescued from their despoiled tombs and hidden in a cleft in the Theban hills, where they had escaped discovery until the 1880s of the present era. The discoverers were tomb robbers from the village of Gurneh on the West Bank. For several years they had sold objects such as papyri to illegal dealers, but finally the Antiquities Department got wind of their activities and forced them to disclose the location of the tomb. The battered, abused mummies and the remains of their funerary equipment had been removed to the Museum.