The Laughter of Dead Kings (21 page)

“Tell him to slow down,” I yelled at Feisal, who was up front with the driver.

“We’re late,” Feisal yelled back.

Late for what? I wondered. I didn’t ask. The Jeep hit another pothole; Schmidt ricocheted off the window frame and onto my lap.

Feisal deigned to explain after the driver had dropped us off at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings. “I’m meeting Ahmed
Saleh, the subinspector in charge of western Thebes. He’s miffed because I haven’t been answering his calls. He’s a born complainer, but I figured I had better shut him up before he goes over my head. Or,” Feisal added, “behind my back, with a knife in his hand.”

“Is he after your job?” I asked.

“They’re all after my job. For ten piastres I’d let them have it.”

The subinspector was not at the guards’ kiosk. Feisal’s irritated question got an expansive gesture and an explanation Feisal cut short.

“He’s gone on along the main path. Confound him, I told him to wait for me here.”

He lengthened his stride. There’s no denying we were all a little sensitive about that particular tomb; like a murderer who is guiltily conscious of where the body is hidden, we got nervous whenever anyone went near it.

The sun was past the zenith. Many of the tourists had gone off to lunch, but there were enough of them left to slow our progress; we had to veer around groups clustered around a lecturing guide, and a few of those maddening trios and foursomes who spread themselves out across the path, yielding the way to no one. When we came in sight of the tomb—The Tomb—Feisal screeched to a stop. Dust spurted up from under his heels.

Perched on the enclosure wall above the entrance was a pretty little woman wearing a becomingly arranged head scarf and a full skirt which spread out around her in an amber pool. She was looking down, and seemed to be chatting with someone who was out of sight on the steps below.

Feisal let out a bellow. The woman looked up, displayed a set of gleaming white teeth, and sprang to her feet.

“Here you are at last,” she cried, hurrying toward him. “Saleh, here he is.”

Feisal put out a hand to fend her off. Unperturbed and still
beaming, Saida threw her arms around me. Over her head I saw a man emerge from the depths of the stairs and come toward us. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

“What the hell are you doing?” Feisal shouted. “I told you no one was to be allowed in that tomb.”

Mr. Saleh’s most conspicuous feature was a magnificent black beard, which he kept stroking nervously. He greeted his superior with an ingratiating smile and looked imploringly at Saida.

Like the lady she was, she came to his rescue. “He was only inspecting the steps, Feisal. I asked him—”

“What’s to inspect? They’re steps!” Feisal lowered his voice a few decibels. “You asked him, did you? And smiled and fluttered your lashes and—”

Her melting brown eyes congealed like hardening fudge. “Don’t you dare talk to me that way!”

I detached myself from Saida’s fond embrace and took Feisal’s arm. “Watch it,” I muttered.

“What?” He stared at me and, with a visible effort, got himself under control. “Oh. Right. I’m sorry, Saida.”

Saida, now in Schmidt’s fond embrace, said cheerfully, “I forgive you.”

“As for you, Saleh,” Feisal began.

“I was only—”

“Never mind. What did you want to see me about?”

“It can wait. There is no problem. Whenever you can spare the time, Chief Inspector.”

He was backing away, step by step, as he spoke. Feisal nodded curtly. “Later, then.”

“Yes, sir. As you say.” He beat a hasty retreat, but I caught a glimpse of his face before he turned, and I understood why Feisal had mentioned knives in the back.

“Oooh,” Saida cooed. “I do love you when you are being masterful.”

“Knock it off, Saida,” Feisal growled. “What are you doing here?”

“Here in Luxor or here in the Valley?” She studied his flushed face and sobered. “I suppose I can travel where I please? I tried to reach you this morning but you did not answer your phone. Then I called your office, and they told me you would be in the Valley this afternoon. When I arrived, Saleh was at the guard post. He graciously accompanied me.”

She stopped talking and looked inquiringly at him, as if inviting him to reply. The eyes were melting and the lashes were fluttering. Poor bemused Feisal was trying desperately to think of a way of dropping the subject, but I, immune to melting eyes and so on, realized we were in for it. She was not the lady to let him off the hook or quit excavating when she suspected something important lay just beneath the surface.

“All right, Saida,” I said. “Let’s stop playing games. What are you after?”

She burst into speech, eyes blazing and hands weaving patterns. “Honesty! Candor! The trust of the man who says he loves me! You insult my intelligence, Feisal. Do you think I am too stupid to put two and two and two and two together? For days you have been worried and afraid—”

Stung, Feisal interrupted at the top of his lungs. “What do you mean, afraid?”

Saida brushed the interruption aside with a sweeping gesture. “Your friends, your famous friends, who helped you to save Tetisheri, suddenly appear. They are interviewed by Ashraf, who does not waste time on social courtesies. They visit the museum and one of them, a lady who is not known to suffer from squeamishness, expresses a dislike of mummies. I begin to wonder. And then Ali,
poor Ali, who had not an enemy in the world, disappears and is found dead. I begin to ask questions. It is not difficult to get answers if you know what questions to ask. Ali was not the only one to see that interesting van stop at the tomb. The others thought nothing of it, because no one told them they should! They believed it was an official visit. But it was not, was it, Feisal, because if it had been you would have told me about it. Me, of all people. Me, who has been nagging Ashraf for years to take better care of—”

Feisal covered her mouth with his hand. Over his fingers her eyes widened until the whites showed all around the dark pupils. She pushed his hand away.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Tell me. Do not spare my feelings. Is he—did they—”

Schmidt’s resigned expression mirrored my own thought. Denial would have been futile. She’d insist on seeing for herself, and a flat refusal would only strengthen her suspicions.

Feisal’s silence had the same effect. He was the picture of guilt, shoulders bowed, head hanging. He was seeing not only exposure, but the loss of his beloved.

“They took him,” I said. “They’re holding him for ransom.”

Men think they rule the roost, but some women know better. Saida blew out a breath of relief. She had feared the worst—the destruction or mutilation of the mummy. “Well, then,” she said briskly, “we must get him back. And when we do, Feisal will be the hero, and Ashraf will look like a blithering idiot!”

I
t was a pretty ambitious agenda, and I could see trouble brewing if Saida stuck to it. I started to point this out, but nobody heard me, since the lovers were wrapped in a passionate embrace and
Schmidt was watching with romantic relish. Once the two had untangled themselves, Schmidt said, “Let us go somewhere for a nice lunch, eh?”

“We need to talk, Schmidt,” I said.

“Talking and eating are not mutually exclusive. In fact,” said Schmidt, “I think more clearly when I am eating.”

We found a restaurant across the street from one of the big temples—Medinet Habu, I think it was—where the proprietor greeted Feisal by name and promised to produce anything we wanted, so long as it was chicken or rice. We settled ourselves with various beverages at one of the long tables while he went off to cook it. Wary cats brushed against our ankles. The place was cool and shady and a little shabby, and the view was about as good as it could get: the great pylons of the temple, pale gold against an azure sky.

“Now,” said Saida, “tell me everything.”

Schmidt was more than happy to oblige, interrupting himself from time to time to tell the cats to be patient, there would be chicken. Saida listened attentively, her head cocked and her elbows on the table. When Schmidt wound down, she said, “So you have not the slightest idea where he might be?”

I thought she was referring to Tutankhamon until she turned those big brown eyes to me. “You feel that he has betrayed you?”

My first reaction was anger. Nobody else had been rude enough to suggest that John had made a fool of me, that his protestations of innocence had been false, that he was the one behind the whole scam. I hadn’t wanted to talk about it either. Meeting her sympathetic but steady gaze, I realized it was time I did.

“He’s certainly told me a pack of lies,” I said. “From the very beginning.”

“Are you sure?” Schmidt asked anxiously.

“Oh, yes.” The dealer in Berlin who wasn’t a dealer, the so-called monsignor who probably had nothing to do with the Vatican…

“But that does not prove he is guilty of stealing—” Schmidt began.

“Shh,” we all three hissed.

He continued, “…him. He—John—may be pursuing a Clue.”

“Without telling us?” Feisal demanded. He looked as if he too was relieved to be able to discuss what had been weighing on his mind.

“Candor is not one of his most conspicuous characteristics,” I said.

“He would not want to endanger us,” Schmidt insisted. “Especially Vicky.”

“You are such a bloody romantic, Schmidt,” Feisal growled. “Face it. He was always the most obvious suspect. He has the connections and the insane imagination. If I hadn’t provided him with an excuse to come to Luxor he’d have invented one, so he could be on the scene for the final negotiations.”

There was pain as well as anger in his voice. It hurts to think you have been betrayed by someone you trusted.

Only Schmidt, the bloody romantic, spoke up in John’s defense. “I will not believe it until he admits it.” He considered the statement and then added, “Perhaps not even then.”

“All right, let’s go over it again,” Feisal said wearily. “He was in the temple last night—”

“Along with a number of other dubious characters,” I interrupted. “Let’s not go over it again. We’ve got to stop speculating and guessing and concentrate on locating it…him. And I don’t mean John. Anybody got a bright idea?”

The food (chicken and rice) arrived, along with bowls of stewed tomatoes and bread and hummus. The genial host left, the cats
came out from under the table, and we stared stupidly at one another until Saida banged her fist on the table.

“Vicky is right! To begin with, let us assume that he is still somewhere in the Luxor area.”

“That’s an unverified assumption,” Feisal said.

Saida gave him a scornful look. “We have to start somewhere, and it is a logical assumption, given the difficulties involved in transporting him elsewhere. The second assumption—”

Feisal opened his mouth. Saida raised her voice a notch and went on. “Which is also logical, is that he is still on the West Bank. Shall I explain to you why?”

“A conspicuous vehicle like that would have run a greater risk of being noticed on the streets of Luxor,” Feisal said in a bored voice.

“Very good,” Saida said condescendingly. “Whereas, on this side of the river, there are sparsely inhabited areas where, with caution, the vehicle could pull off the road, transfer its passenger, and remove the distinctive camouflage. Disappear, in other words.”

We’d considered some of those points before, but hearing them laid out in that incisive contralto carried greater conviction. Feisal wasn’t ready to admit it, though. “So you’ve narrowed it down to a few hundred square miles. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Go to hell,” Saida said pleasantly. “To proceed. There are two general types of hiding places for such an object—a cave or abandoned tomb in the cliffs, or a room in a structure of some sort.”

I remembered my dream, of Tutankhamon laid out on a bed in a fancy hotel, with the air-conditioning going full blast. Crazy, of course, but…

“They would want to protect him as much as possible, wouldn’t they?” I asked. “Away from dust and insects and predatory animals and rockfalls and so on. And there would be less chance of someone
stumbling on the hiding place by accident if it had walls around it and doors that could be closed and locked.”

“But Ali’s body was found in the cliffs.” Feisal was still fighting a rearguard action.

“Pah,” said Saida. “The villains would take him far away from the place where he met his death.” She looked around. Schmidt and the cats had eaten all the chicken. “Let us go. Vicky, would you like to visit the loo before we start back?”

She led the way to a room at the back which, to put it as nicely as possible, would not have rated even one star in a guide to elegant restrooms. I will spare you the details, except to mention that I understood why she was wearing skirts instead of trousers. While we washed our hands at a stained basin with a well-used scrap of soap, she gave me a sidelong glance and sighed.

“Men are very pleasant to have around, but they are deficient in common sense, poor things. You saw at once the logic of what I was saying.”

“They don’t think the way we do, that’s for sure.”

“Except for your lover?”

She had got me away for a little girl talk. I liked her a lot but I wasn’t in the mood for confidences. Not yet.

“John doesn’t think the way anybody else does,” I said with perfect accuracy.

“You are worried for him, aren’t you?”

I accepted a handful of tissues which she produced from the billowing folds of her skirt. There was a towel, hanging on a hook by the sink, but I’d rather have wiped my hands on the floor.

“I haven’t made up my mind,” I said.

S
chmidt had fallen in love with Saida early on, and when she asked for the loan of his notebook and pen he was ready to kneel
at her feet. Their heads together, the two of them made lists while we drove to the boat landing. Once we were on the East Bank, Feisal and Saida went off arm in arm, destination undeclared, and Schmidt and I headed for the hotel.

The telephone was ringing when we entered his suite. I pounced on it; why kid myself, I was still hoping a familiar voice would announce a triumphant return, with Tut under one arm and the principal perp under the other. The caller was from housekeeping, asking if she could bring my laundry.