The Ape Who Guards the Balance (29 page)

“Er—yes.”

“We have already investigated that group,” said Ramses.

“We?” Sir Edward repeated, raising one eyebrow.

“We!” I exclaimed. “What have you done? Ramses, I strictly forbade you and David to . . . Where did you go—and how, if a mere mother may ask, did you
know
where to go?”

“Now, Peabody, calm yourself,” Emerson began.

“Emerson, how could you allow them to do such a thing?”

“Someone had to,” Emerson insisted. “Layla might have sought temporary refuge with her—er—sisters in misfortune. Don’t be such a bloo—blooming hypocrite, Peabody, you know perfectly well you would have gone yourself if I had given you the chance.”

“None of them admitted knowing anything,” said Ramses. “But one would not expect them to, in front of the others. I mentioned a reward. We may yet receive information from one of the—er—ladies.”

“Girls, you mean,” Nefret muttered. “Some of them no older than—”

Ramses broke into a fit of coughing, and Nefret said hastily, “I’m sure you would like more tea, Sir Edward. Do bring me your cup.”

He rose obediently, smiling a little, and approached her.

“And how,” I inquired, “do you know their ages?”

“Curse it!” said Nefret.

“Damnation!” said Sir Edward, dropping his cup. Tepid tea and bright red blood dripped onto Nefret’s skirt. Growling, Horus withdrew the paw that had raked Sir Edward’s hand.

I administered first aid and apologies, which Sir Edward accepted with the comment that he was pleased to know Miss Forth had such a faithful guardian. Nefret made good her escape, with the excuse—which had a certain validity—that she must change and rinse the blood out before it set. Emerson declared he had work to do before dinner. Sir Edward said he believed he would take a stroll. How the boys eluded me I do not know, but when I looked round I realized I was alone.

I went after Ramses first, but could not locate him or David anywhere in the house. Nefret had barred her door. She pretended not to hear my knock, so I went round to the window and banged on the shutters until she opened them.

We had a little chat.

When I left her I looked for Emerson and found he had gone to earth in a quiet corner of the courtyard. He was smoking his pipe and talking with Ramses. Ramses got to his feet when he saw me. He may have been exhibiting the good manners I had taught him, but his pose strongly suggested that he was about to bolt.

“Don’t scold the lad, Peabody,” Emerson said, making room for me on the bench. “He came to me, in a very manly fashion, and attempted to take full responsibility for Nefret’s behavior. I do not hold him accountable.” He sighed. “I do not hold anyone accountable for Nefret.”

“I have just talked with her,” I said.

“Ah,” said Emerson hopefully. “Did she promise she would never do it again?”

“No. She said she would do it again as soon as she could, and as often as possible.” I smiled somewhat ruefully at my son. “Sit down, Ramses, and don’t look so wary. I do not blame you. Nefret is . . . In a nutshell, she is precisely the daughter I would have chosen! She is determined to help those unfortunate women, and I believe she can and will.”

“She wants to help the whole bloody suffering world,” Ramses said. He appeared to be watching a beetle that was heading purposefully for a bit of bread crust. “She’ll break her heart, Mother.”

“Broken hearts can be mended,” I said. “A heart that is impervious to pain is also impervious to joy.”

Emerson snorted, and Ramses looked up. “No doubt that is true, Mother. However, we must also consider the risk to Nefret’s—er—body. Aside from the other dangers involved in attacking a business enterprise of that sort, there is the strong possibility that some of the women in the House of the Doves are in the pay of our unknown enemy.”

“Damned right,” said Emerson. “None of you is to go to that quarter again, do you hear?”

“I doubt additional visits would produce useful results,” Ramses replied. “We have done what we could.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Now go and find David, Ramses, and tell him it is safe to come out of hiding. Dinner will be ready shortly.”

After he had taken a cup of postprandial coffee with us, Sir Edward begged to be excused. “I have letters to write,” he explained with a smile. “My dear mother is quite frail; I try to write at least three times a week.”

“If she is that confounded frail, why doesn’t he stay with her?” Emerson inquired after the young man had left the room.

“That was only a courteous excuse, Emerson. He does not wish to intrude on our privacy. Speaking of letters, we have messages of our own to write. I will write Evelyn; will you pen a line to Walter? The rest of you may include messages if you like; remember, we must convince them to return home at once, but avoid alarming them.”

“Not such an easy task,” Ramses murmured.

Nor was it. I labored for some time over my note, rubbing words out and changing them. When at last I was satisfied I had done the best I could, I put down my pencil. His pen poised, David was frowning over the paper on the table before him. The others, including Emerson, were reading.

“I thought you were going to write Walter, Emerson,” I said.

“I have.”

I picked up the paper he indicated. It read: “Catch the next boat home. Sincere regards, R.E.”

“Really, Emerson,” I exclaimed.

“Well, why repeat information you have probably given in excruciating detail? You’ve been at it for hours, Peabody.”

“Hardly so long, my dear. I have given them all the necessary information, however. Nefret, do you want to add anything?”

“That depends on how detailed that information of yours is,” Nefret replied. “What did you say about Ramses and David? You know how Aunt Evelyn worries.”

“You may read the letter if you like.”

Ramses leaned over her shoulder and read with her. “Hmmm. You have vivid powers of description, Mother. Perhaps I had better add a few lines of reassurance.”

“With your left hand?” Nefret shook her head. “My dear boy, a scrawl like that would only worry Aunt Evelyn more. I know; I will append a medical report. The facts will be less alarming than the fancies a loving imagination can invent.”

She was still writing when Selim and Daoud came in. They were to catch the morning train, so Emerson gave them money for expenses and warned them again to be on the alert.

“Stay until you have seen them board the boat,” he instructed. “No matter how long it takes. Curse it,” he added gloomily, contemplating the reduction of his work force by two of its most valuable members.

“What if Mr. Walter Emerson will not go?” Selim inquired.

“Knock him on the head and—”

“Now, Emerson, don’t confuse the lad,” I said, for Selim’s eyes and mouth had gone wide with consternation. “You must just . . . Well. What should he do?”

“It is high time someone asked that question,” said Ramses. “We’ve been talking about them as if they were parcels to be dispatched at our convenience. I’ve seen Aunt Evelyn in action, and I assure you she will not take kindly to being ordered about.”

“Walter won’t want to go either,” I agreed. “But there is the child. They cannot send her home unaccompanied, and they surely won’t expose her to danger. No loving parent would.”

The silence that ensued was not precisely uncomfortable. Not precisely. Ramses, who was standing behind Nefret with his hands resting on the back of her chair, stared off into space with a particularly blank expression.

“Hmph,” said Emerson loudly. “Selim was quite right to raise the point. There is a possiblity, I suppose, that Walter will pack Evelyn and the child onto the boat and come on here himself. Evelyn might not like it, but she would accept it. Not even she would expect him to let her come alone, or bring Lia.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” I said. “If one or all of them insists on coming here, Selim, he—or she!—must do as she likes. They are free agents, after all. We can only advise and warn, we cannot command them.”

We gave the letters to Selim and wished him and Daoud a good journey. Daoud embraced David and wrung Ramses’s and Emerson’s hands. He was a very silent man, but he had followed every word with extreme interest, and he was obviously pleased and proud to have been selected for such an important mission.

We dispersed shortly thereafter. Emerson went off arm in arm with Nefret; I knew he would find some transparent excuse to search her room before he let her enter it. I followed Ramses, and caught him up at the door of his room.

“Yes, Mother?” He raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“How is your hand? Would you like me to have a look at it?”

“Nefret changed the bandage before we went to dinner.”

“A little laudanum to help you sleep?”

“No, thank you.” He waited for a moment, watching me. Then he said, “You didn’t expose me to danger, Mother. You did your damnedest to keep me out of it.”

“Don’t swear, Ramses.”

“I beg your pardon, Mother.”

“Good night, my dear.”

“Good night, Mother.”

I had long since despaired of persuading my family to attend church services on Sunday. Their religious backgrounds were diverse, to say the least. David’s father had been a Christian, in name at least, though, in Abdullah’s picturesque words, he had “died cursing God.” Nefret had been Priestess of Isis in a community where the old gods of Egypt were worshiped, and I had a nasty suspicion she had not entirely abandoned her belief in those heathen deities. Perhaps she shared the views of Abdullah, who was something of a heathen himself: “There is no harm in protecting oneself from that which is not true!” Emerson’s views on the subject of organized religion ranged from the blasphemous to the merely rude, and Ramses never expressed his views, if he had any. So for us the Sabbath was a workday like any other, since we allowed our Moslem workers their day of rest on Friday. We were therefore up bright and early and ready to return to the Valley. It had been a quiet night, without incident.

Later that morning Ned Ayrton joined us for a brief period of refreshment, as he had got into the habit of doing. Let me add that this was in no way a reflection upon his work habits, which were conscientious to a fault. Many excavators do not pause for breakfast until after they have been at work for several hours. We always took a little rest and a cup of tea at around ten in the morning, and so did Ned. I do not believe I will be accused of vanity when I say that he enjoyed our company. In response to Emerson’s pointed inquiry he said his men were sinking a pit below the squared-off area they had discovered the day before.

“It has been rather hard going,” he explained. “The limestone chips have been soaked by water and are fused together like cement.”

“Not a good sign,” said Emerson, stroking his chin.

“No. One can only hope that if there is a tomb entrance below, the rain did not penetrate so far. Well, I have been too long away; it is the pleasure of your company, Mrs. Emerson, that is to blame.”

After he had gone, I said, “Mr. Davis’s expectations are so high they must make Ned very nervous. I cannot suppose he will find anything where he is digging now.”

“Hmmm,” said Emerson.

I am convinced my husband has a sixth sense for such things. It was not until later in the afternoon, just as we were about to stop for the day, that Ned came running back to tell us the news. “Eureka!” was his first word, and his last for a time; he was too out of breath to continue.

“Ah,” said Emerson. “So you’ve found a tomb entrance, have you?”

“Yes, sir. Rock-cut steps, at any rate. I thought perhaps you might want to have a look.”

It was a polite way of putting it. Wild horses could not have kept Emerson away. The rest of us followed.

The opening lay directly to the right of the open entrance to the tomb of Ramses IX. Mounds of debris still surrounded it, but the top of a stone-cut stair was clearly visible.

Ned’s men were still at work shoveling rock into baskets, clearing down the steps. Emerson snatched a shovel from one of them. His eyes were glazed, his lips half parted. Those who have felt that passion for discovery, and have been deprived of it for too long, can comprehend the intensity of his emotion at that moment. I can only compare it with the feelings of a starving individual who sees a platter of rare roast beef. He does not care that it is not
his
roast beef. If he is hungry enough, he will have it, whatever the consequences.

It well-nigh broke my heart to stop him, but I knew I must. “Emerson, my dear, Mr. Ayrton’s men are shoveling quite nicely. You will only get in their way.”

Emerson started and came out of his trance. “Er—hmmm. Yes. It—er—certainly looks promising, Ayrton. Good clean fill just here; no water. Typical Eighteenth Dynasty type. Probably undisturbed since the Twentieth Dynasty.”

Ned smiled and brushed the damp hair away from his perspiring face. “I am glad to hear you say so, sir. You see, I rather jumped the gun day before yesterday—sent Mr. Davis a message saying I’d found him a tomb, and then had to take it back. I didn’t want to make the same mistake a second time.”

“The place could have been robbed ten times over before the entrance was concealed under the debris,” Emerson said. “Almost certainly was. Hmph. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours to . . .”

Then, dear Reader, the true mettle of the man I had married was displayed. At that moment there was nothing on earth Emerson desired more than a glimpse of what lay at the bottom of those stone-cut steps. If the discovery had been his—as it ought to have been—he would have uncovered the entrance that day, with his bare hands if need be, and camped on the spot all night to protect his find. The struggle was intense, but professional honor won out over envy.

Emerson squared his mighty shoulders. “Stop,” he said.

“Sir?” Ned stared in wonderment.

Like myself, Ramses knew his father had gone as far as he was capable of going. He put a friendly hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You don’t want to expose the entrance and leave it open overnight.”

“Good Lord, no, I couldn’t do that. Mr. Davis will want to be here when we open it.”