The Egyptologist (54 page)

(FIG. I : THE FIRST EIGHT CHAMBERS, 18 DEC , 1922)

Extraordinary find, beyond wildest dreams. The Chamber,
the Hall of . The Chamber of Mysteries. The Hall of the Magi•
cian. The

Tuesday, 19 December, 1922

Journal:
Fell asleep last night on the floor, exhausted from work,
and this morning I am stiff in leg and neck. It was only from the halloo•
ing that I realised I had been woken by Carter of all people. I was just
able to reach Door A before he entered the tomb uninvited. He should
know better, the old fool. I hobbled outside to greet the grand lord tak•
ing time out from his garish pit to visit the working man. He had me at
a disadvantage in his efforts to sneak past me, as I was blinking, nearly
blind in the sunshine.

"Hard to find you over here. So, it's true what Carnarvon said? Un•
covered something quick-quick, have you?" he asked. "My God, man,
are you all right?" Carter was, as always, unnaturally obsessed with my
health.

"Woke me from a dead sleep, old man, is all."

"Well, congratulations to you, Trilipush. The gods seem to be smil•
ing on us all this season."

"Quite."

"I take it you've notified Lacau, for an Inspector's visit. What do
you think you have in there?"

"In good time, Carter."

He gazed at the opening of Door A in that nasty manner of his, no
praise or criticism, just a calm and disinterested Eye floating disembod•
ied, judging. "You know, I've found more dry holes in my time than I
care to recall."

"Even the mighty ones guess, Carter!" I could not stop laughing at
his nervous speculations. "Do just try and wait, old boy. You will have
a tour with the rest of the swells."

"Of course. Well, do have the Inspector in, Trilipush. Glad to know
where to find you if we need you. Do let me know if I can be of any as•
sistance." He turned away, then came back at once, reaching into his
pocket; I suspected a weapon, and cursed myself for having left my
Webley inside. "Nearly forgot why I came. This arrived at my camp,
mixed up with our post." He handed me a letter from my fiancee and
pottered off in his superior way, not looking back to see if his arrows
had landed. God alone knows how long he has been intercepting my
mail, which letters he has kept.

Nov. 29

So everything is clear to me now. Daddy has just explained it
and asked me to sign a cable and write you a letter. So here it is: I
release you. I must be a joke to you, Ralph. I suppose I disgust you,
just a rich girl too stupid to see what's going on. So now you are
free. I must even thank you, to be fair, because for all the time I
thought you loved me, I was happy. And even if Daddy tells me
now it wasn't true, that you wanted only his money from me, that
is still not so terrible, because for a while I was going to marry an
English Lord and explorer. I hate you. I hate you and I don't know
why I ever didn't hate you. Ferrell and you and Daddy are all
hateful. I hope you enjoy our money and your precious treasure
and the hell with you all.

Margaret Finneran

(Tuesday, 19 December, 1922, continued)

Carter's little missile was nothing at all, just an expanded version of
your cable of the 29th, and no less a forgery, though it appears to be
your handwriting. They must have medicated you thoroughly before
that conjuror's trick. But now the best antidote to such venom is work.

The hammer blows might as well have been delivered directly to my
weeping leg, Margaret. I ran through the ninth chamber and pounded
against its next door until a crack appeared, and I looked, and then I
wept, I think, for hours. I confess it to you. More than I have wept
since I was a young boy, before I had yet learnt that tears are the most
useless, most unquenching liquid there is.

A sliver of moon is enough to conjure you up, confess to you.
What might I still accomplish, if I begin again, back home. Home?

Could I argue you back to me? You need success. Your father, too.
Without it, I would bore you. I sparkled for you, once, I think. And
with this find? The forged cable will become real after the fact. A neat
trick, that.

What would she feel if I were something else? I have any number
of possibilities within me. Would she be troubled if I were someone
else? Of course she would: we respect the well-born, well-raised con•
querors. Me.

It does not matter. I am who I am and you love that man and so he
will come home to you. I will start again, take you away with me, away
from your father and everything else that poisons you. I will burn all
these papers, and we will start again from nothing, far away. I will
sleep now, and when I wake I will throw all this away. A failed expedi•
tion is not the end of anything, does not even prove that I am wrong.

The actual tomb may be hidden mere yards from here. I can return,
with Carnarvon or some other rich man. Margaret, you will not turn
me away simply for being the man I was when I left, and for not
yet
be•
coming even more. Enough. I have only to earn some money to pay my

way home and we will begin again. Tomorrow, the 20th, we begin
again. I am decided. Are we agreed? Tomorrow I will leave all of this
behind me and I will be off at first light, trekking home to you, as I
once trekked all the way from Turkey to Egypt. I will cable you that I
am coming home, I will beg you only to wait, "wait, make no rash deci•
sions. Are you brave? Be brave, my sweet girl, for me. We will sleep
now, your statuette come to life next to me. Close your eyes, as I am
about to close mine, can barely hopen themhold eys morrow

Wednesday, 20 December, 1922

Good morning, darling! And what wondrous, wild,
mad
adventures
we are having here! My discovery of Atum-hadu's fabulous tomb has
become a marvellous comic farce, quite exhilarating! Wherever shall I
begin this zany tale?

A half-hour's sleep was all I was granted last night after writing to
you and all at once dreaming of you, and then a blink later I looked at
my watch before I understood what had woken me, a man shouting my
name, footsteps growing louder as he tramped through Atum-hadu's
rich and holy tomb. My heavy eyes could scarcely open, but each angry-
phrase stung me to wakefulness: "Sweet Jesus' salty tears! Where's my
'mountains of gold'? What the hell is all this? Did a child paint these?"
(I must teach your father to shed that typical philistine's urge: blaming
the artist when art is not to one's taste!) I hobbled into the History
Chamber, and there was our CCF, gnawing his unlit cigar, waving his
electric torch around, a sword of yellow dust he brought down on my
face. "You there," he yelled. "Mister Carter said I'd find Trilipush here.
Where's Trilipush, eh? You speak English? Speak up, boy!" Very funny,

M., no? He thought I was a native, in the dark room, with my beard
and the robe I have been working in! I could have held my tongue,
shook my head, but that would not have brought about an understand•
ing, which is what your father and I needed most, what we enjoy now, a
renewal of our partnership, stronger than ever from our trials.

When CCF left Boston some weeks ago, he was probably—and this
is funny to us both right now, he and I, we are both laughing, he is
looking over my shoulder making sure I capture all of this in my jour•
nal just the way it happened—he was probably angry at me, and you
would have known that, wouldn't you?

Of course, I would prefer (as would CCF) not to mention any of
this, but there is a need (CCF agrees) to clarify for anyone who may
have brought CCF here, or knew he was coming. Yes, before we could
renew our friendship, this ridiculous but cleansing scene had to be en•
acted, which it is possible someone may have heard and misunderstood,
as CCF did have directions from Carter to look for me here, so I will

do my best to reconstruct this quite daffy misunderstanding, precisely
like one of those film comedies you so love!

"Finneran? How did you find me?"

"Holy mother of Jesus a-weeping! You? What's happened to you?"
"All manner of good news."

"Lord, that Carter. Should have invested in
him."

"Would have been a terrible mistake, Chester. He has not accom•
plished a fraction of what you and I have managed here on much less."

"What's that infernal smell?"

"Well, the leg, you see, not a major injury, but—"

"Holy saints and torments, what the devil is — " Your father's light
was off my face and over my shoulder now. He walked past me, follow•
ing his light into the Bastet Shrine. "What was done to that cat?" he
shrieked, sensitive soul.

"These are complex questions, Chester. The ancients' respect for fe•
lines, you see, was religious and — "

"You little vermin. You treacherous, gold-digging little cad. Those
poisonous cables — "

"Cables?" I was baffled. He was, to be historically accurate—and he
is nodding sheepishly as I write this—he was simply raving from the
pressures he had put himself under. Apparently, Margaret, he has some
financial problems. You knew that, but perhaps not their extent. And
you should have told me much earlier. At any rate, such pressures can

make a man believe anything, jump at shadows, see sharp conspiracy
where there is only dull coincidence, and so it has been with your poor
father: he began on some absurd tale of slanderous cables sent from
Luxor. He even dropped them on the floor, one at a time, in great over•
wrought drama, and while he and I examine them again now, I cer•
tainly am as horrified as anyone. I only mention them as you probably
already heard about them in Boston, quite terrible things, anonymous
notes to church and press and police and our own partners. CCF and I
will burn the nasty things now, be done with them, although there is
good reason to believe — CCF and I agree — that these shots were fired
by someone here trying to disrupt our success by simultaneously at•
tacking CCF in Boston and me on the ground. That Carter is our prime
suspect, with Ferrell his secret agent abroad, CCF and I are in com•
plete agreement.

Your father was angry, as I know you know, but he had truly come
here—whether or not his pride allowed him to confess it—to see our
discovery
in situ,
and to put much-needed physical muscle behind his fi•
nancial muscle to make this excavation a family triumph. "Some ge•
nius! You English fairy, I shoulda steered clear of you, but Margaret
said you were just what she wanted, you windbag, and then you do this
to me."

"Is that why you forced her to break with me?"

"Forced? Are you insane? It took no doing at all. She's got suitors
by the dozen. Christ, even that little detective wants her, she's got no
end of boys chasing her, and you think giving you up was any sacri•
fice?" Of course, your father was only trying to anger me, a natural re•
sponse for the poor fellow, the pressure he was under, Ferrell's and ter
Breuggen's lies confusing him. "Oh, heck, please don't write that part
down, Pushy!" he has just said to me, the old devil trying to fudge the
official record! He is apologising to you now for having said all that
about you, and is demanding I write that down right now, too.

"Didn't you find anything for my collection?" he asked. "I had
hoped you had at least managed that! And those," he yelled, waving his
light behind me, again back into the History Chamber, shoving me