The Egyptologist (19 page)

work?" Maybe it was the climate or the tucker or the conversation, but I was al•
ready finding America rather exhausting and I felt more than just a bit ill. None of
Terbroogan's words have stayed with me, until I asked where in Egypt Trilipush
had gone. "Deir el Bahari," replied Terbroogan, and I made him spell it for me, to
be sure. ("Do you see it, Macy?" I later ask my worthy but dim assistant, back at
our hotel, poring over maps, but he shakes his head and chews his lip. You don't
mind, do you, Macy? Something of comic relief is how I'm picturing you now.)

"And, because you have such trouble with Professor Trilipush," I asked the
turnip-faced chief, who was wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, "you sent
him on this excavation? Expensive way to get him out of your hair, no?"

He hadn't. It had been Terbroogan's option, and he'd
refused
Trilipush the
money for the trip, precisely because of disagreements over the quality of Trili¬
push's scholarship. (Honestly, Macy, these people were barking mad.) "Unt I hap•
pen to know he vath turned down by the MFA, the Met, and the Carnegie." He's
travelling on his own money, then? "Not at all. He sold shares in his misadventure
to some local businessmen."

My dear Macy, we now come to some language you may not appreciate. I've
been wondering whether to soften certain hard truths as I found them in those
days, and perhaps cast things in a more flattering light for you. Well, I will not do
that. I'm too old for it, and you've asked me for an honest rendering, and frankly,
it isn't my manner to provide any other kind. Slippery slope, that one. I'm a truth
man, me, and I think this must be exactly why I was so resistant this morning to
getting started on the Boston leg of my tale. Right, then: I'll apologise here, this
once, and that will be the end of it: I'm sorry if you read things in this chronicle,
Mr. Laurence Macy III, that are painful to you or upset your notion of your fam•
ily, or your poor, late aunt Margaret.

"Not at all. He sold shares in his misadventure to some local businessmen,
unsavoury types, if I may say, with unfortunate reputations." He mentioned your
great-uncle Chester Finneran, as well as Heinz Kovacs.

Why didn't he just fire Trilipush, if he was such a thorn in their side? The fel•
low explained with a certain tone that "the University generally preferred not to
do that" (honestly, these people). But "when he comes back from Egypt empty-
handed, which he certainly will, that should be enough to shame the man out," he
added with a nice shot of venom. Noting how he sounded, the professor then vis•
ibly exerted himself to give his bloke a fair go: "Trilipush is a good teacher, he was
a heroic soldier in Turkey, and he was educated at Oxford, which does add to our

department's credentials, and Atoomadoo is not uninteresting, only not defini•
tive, and so when one has problems, one prefers simply to place people where
they will quietly do their job, but this one, my Lord." That about exhausted the
old man's goodwill. "When he was new here, last year, he was positively fawning
towards me, but that did not last."

I think I must have said it something like this, Macy, though of course I made
no note of the exact wording: "Would it be useful to you and the University to dis•
creetly employ someone who may be able to provide you extra material in 'sham•
ing Mr. Trilipush out,' as you put it. If, for example, discrepancies in his Oxford
record were discovered—"

"But I saw his credentials, everything stamped and sealed and signed, no
question at all."

"Documents, Professor Terbroogan, are only pieces of paper that purport to
represent the truth. They're not truth itself. Surely in your field of study, you've
seen misleading, even malicious documents."

You've never seen a happier little Dutch professor, Macy, and we had a new
client in the Davies-Caldwell-Barry-Hoyt-Marlowe-Trilipush case.

Terbroogan walked me down the hall decorated with sphinx statues and pho•
tographs of him in sandy pits, and I asked to see Trilipush's office. This was a
small, windowless room in the basement, with shelves of books and pictures of
excavators and relics. Trilipush's desk was clean, but for a small stack of post
which had arrived for him since his departure to Egypt. And right there on the
top? An oversized envelope with a familiar return address, stamped with English
postage. Oh, yes, Macy, from our Beverly Quint: he'd asked me for Trilipush's ad•
dress and must've set to writing this the minute I left his rooms: a warning or tell•
tale reminiscence, certainly some proof of conspiracy in what I was beginning to
suspect had been the Marlowe-Caldwell murders at the hands of Trilipush and
with the leering knowledge of Quint. This envelope must've come over on my
very boat. Quint and I had floated across the Atlantic, one on top of the other,
quite unaware, and now we had arrived at our mutual destination, just inches
apart. So much might be answered right there, but damn him, my newest client
was hovering over me, asking if there was anything else I needed, and looking at
me with one of those faces you see from time to time in our profession, Macy, that
look of suspicious superiority from someone so removed from the dirty realities
of life that he cannot distinguish between the filth of the criminal and the
smudge on the fellow who had to wrestle the criminal in order to save the inno-

cent. I could've throttled the professor right there, standing on toff ceremony,
pushing me out the door when we might've saved so many middle steps, perhaps
even saved two more lives, and your lovely aunt Margaret more suffering. No, we
were out the door and into the hall, and the door was locked and Quint's package
sat undisturbed on Trilipush's desk, waiting for his return. Professor Terbroogan
meaningfully rattled the locked knob and looked at me looking at Quint's pack•
age through the glass plate in the door. There it is, Macy: from across the globe a
pom poofter could simply address an illicit package and count on the protection
of some Dutch University snob he'd never met! Whatever'd happened to poor
Paul Caldwell—and I had strong suspicions—was going to be devilish difficult
to unravel, because as fast as I was unravelling, these toffs and poms and perverts
and professors were going to ravel it up again, maybe to bide something wicked,
maybe just because they liked things tidy and that meant not letting a simple
Australian working man do his job. "Is there anything else you need, Mr. Ferrell?"
Terbroogan asked with an unmistakable tone that meant, "Gentlemen don't read
each other's post." No, of course they don't, even if gentlemen are murderers.

I had Chester Finneran's address from Terbroogan. I recall standing outside
the gates of Harvard University, hailing a cab. I must've gone to his house across
the river, for I've no notes of interviews between those I conducted with Ter•
broogan and Finneran, dated the same day. But I've no recollection of the cab
ride. I feel so ill right now, I don't know if I'll be able to continue. I'll post this at
once.

HF

Sunday, 15 October, 1922

To Margaret:
It is just after midnight, my love. I sit on my balcony,
put the waiters through their paces, relax with a photograph of you be•
fore me on the table.

Your abruptly truncated letter troubled me, my darling, not because
of the evidence of mis-medication, but because I know that you have
been struggling to hide symptoms from me, and when you realised
what you had sent me, I am certain you worried and unduly strained

your nerves further. And of course, as this was your first letter follow•
ing my departure for Egypt, your sorrowful emotional state had likely
already taken a toll on your still healing body.

You are adorable, Margaret. You have always downplayed your
bad days, as if I would not notice the difference between you healthy
and ill. When you finally admitted your condition to me, the day after
the party, I should have looked more surprised for you. My love, I am
sorry if I was unconvincing, but one day last summer, your father had
already told me everything. You must not be angry with him. CCF is
father to us both now. When I asked him for your hand, he felt himself
honour-bound to tell your would-be husband the entire tale. He
wanted to tell me the worst and see that my love for you was unshaken.
CCF spoke openly, and well before your timid little report, I had heard
all about the nerve specialists, the exhaustion caused by the medication,
the rarity of your illness. I also heard your excellent prognosis, your
imminent and certain cure. And, Margaret, upon my word, I have
never had a moment's concern since. I know you are every day
stronger, and Inge is but a temporary nurse to administer the last of

your medications and nothing more. Whether she joins us for the early
days of marriage, or whether you will already be fully restored to
health—time will tell. In the meantime, you must not worry, and cer•
tainly never about the strength of my love for you, my angel.

Your father is a man of many parts. He presents such a rough exte•
rior to the world, and of course his business milieu allows for no other,
but I have seen him speak of you. I have seen him drop his guard and
reveal his deep concern and tenderness. I saw his eyes mist when he
spoke of the worry your illness had caused him, and his determination
when he told me, "Ralph, she's beating this thing. You've got nothing to
worry about in her as your hale and healthy, intact wife." He is a father,
bless his heart.

I mourn the loss of my own father every day, and you should think
of CCF with fondness, as I do, for a father's love is one of the most pre•
cious gifts.

I remember the anticipation I would feel, as a boy in Trilipush Hall,
when I knew Father was due to return from an expedition soon. He
would have been gone for weeks or even months, and I longed for
nothing more than to be taken up in his strong arms and popped on his
knee in front of the great fire to hear of his adventures. Would today be
the day he arrived? How I would pace the vast, echoing chambers of
the Hall.

Ah, Trilipush Hall! There were marvels to be found there. The
walls cluttered with portraits of wigged and grinning ancestors. The
endless suits of armour and forests of halberds, lances, pikes, the
walls of unstrung crossbows. The hanging tapestries with scenes of
mediaeval hunts and balls. The drawer where Father haphazardly
tossed his military honours and medals, and those of our ancestors.
The relics Father had brought back from Africa, Malacca, China. The
blazing fire in the hearth ten feet tall—a hasp of log the shape of a
ham hock, but zebra-striped grey and black and fluttering its long,
orange tresses of flame — in front of which I would lie on my stomach
in solitude and practise hieroglyphs. On some days, out the east win•
dow of the main room, you could see streaming rain and at the same
instant, through the west window, sunshine breaking through the
clouds, and I would run back and forth from window to window,
imagining myself in different countries at Father's side, fighting ban•
dits while he pulled astounding artefacts from the earth. I would look
out the window (streaked with rain or sparkling with new sun), and I

would watch the birds on the emerald grounds—the omnipresent
pheasant and the uncomplaining grouse had grown more plentiful
and arrogant in Father's absence, as no hunts took place without him.
And I would long for the sound of carriage wheels out front: would
today be the day of his return? The great room grew darker and
darker until only the fire's orange embers lit my face and the dark
wood furnishings carved with scenes of Trilipushian triumphs dating
back to the Conquest, and I would fall asleep there, under rugs, ig•
noring the calls of servants wandering from chamber to chamber, up
and down the oaken stairs.