The Serpent on the Crown (27 page)

“And there was this,” Wasim said, handing over a much-folded paper. “Delivered by hand for you.”

One glance told Ramses it was not the message from Harriet Petherick he had hoped to receive. The dirty paper was addressed in awkward Arabic writing to “The Brother of Demons.” After he had read it he folded it again and put it in his pocket.

“Who gave you this?” he asked.

“I do not know, Brother of Demons. I found it with the other letters. There were many people here today.”

He had ample time to think about what he should do. Nobody asked him what he had accomplished that day; Emerson was too busy interrogating David about Deir el Medina and describing Cyrus’s work in the West Valley. Ramses was still weighing the pros and cons when, after an early dinner, his mother sent everyone to bed. They had put in a hard day and Emerson had decreed they would be out again at dawn. Having made up his mind, Ramses managed to intercept David.

“Oh, no,” the latter groaned, after he had read the message. “Not another anonymous letter inviting you to a secret rendezvous in the middle of the night.”

“We haven’t had one like that for quite a while.”

David had had his share of midnight rendezvous during the War. He fixed Ramses with a formidable stare.

“You aren’t thinking of accepting, I hope.”

“He says…” Ramses took the letter back. “‘How did the lady die? I know. Come alone. I will tell you.’ His Arabic isn’t very good, is it?”

“Not a native speaker.”

“Or he’s semiliterate. Could be one of the suffragis at the hotel. They are understandably cautious of the police.”

“You’re going,” David said resignedly.

“There’s a chance the fellow may really know something,” Ramses argued. “A chance worth taking.”

“I’m going with you.”

“I thought you’d say that. I’m not fool enough to go alone, and you’re the only one with enough experience to stay in concealment. Nefret would raise hell if I told her, and Father would raise a different variety of hell, and Mother…”

“Would come charging after you waving her parasol. I see your point. What about Sethos?”

Ramses was silent. “You don’t trust him?” David asked.

“No. Yes. Damned if I know what to think. He turned up most conveniently and coincidentally just after we got hold of one of the most valuable antiquities even he has ever seen.”

“The truth is, you don’t like him,” David said.

“Yes. No.”

“I feel the same way. Well.” David leaned back and folded his arms. “I’m with you, of course. It’ll be like old times.”

“Do you miss them?” Ramses asked curiously.

“If I had no responsibilities and no hostages to fortune, I’d be up to my neck in the nationalist movement. And probably in prison,” David added with a wry smile.

“I know. Maybe a murder investigation will take some of the edge off. I hate to ask you, but—”

“I’d have been deeply hurt if you hadn’t. How are we going to go about this?”

They met behind the stable, an hour before the appointed time. The rendezvous point was in the hills south of Deir el Bahri, only a short walk, but this would give them time to scout the area and find a place of concealment for David before the informant arrived—if he did arrive. They were both wearing dark galabeeyahs and head-cloths, and Ramses noted, with some misgivings, that David appeared to be in a cheerful frame of mind.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said sternly.

“Such as jumping the fellow when he draws a knife on you?”

“Nothing like that is likely to occur.”

He hoped he was right. He had told Nefret he meant to work late. She’d have his scalp for a trophy if she found out he had lied to her.

“Are you armed?” he asked.

“Two of them.” David waved his arms. If Ramses hadn’t known his abstemious friend so well, he would have suspected David had been drinking. It must be the possibility of action that had got his adrenaline flowing.

They walked briskly along the uneven path. It was as familiar to both of them as the passageways of the house, and the moon was bright. No one else was abroad. The villagers went to bed early to save lamp fuel, and would-be tomb robbers had apparently taken the night off—or were busy elsewhere.

When they reached the steep slopes of detritus that edged the foot of the gebel, Ramses said softly, “It’s somewhere near here.”

The letter writer had been vague about the precise location, possibly because his Arabic vocabulary was limited. Ramses planned to stand full in the moonlight, a safe distance from the cliff face, and wait for the man to come to him. David was no longer smiling; his lean face was set in lines Ramses remembered well from their war days. He nodded without speaking and slipped away, fading into the shadows. He hadn’t lost his touch.

There was no one in sight. No sound, no movement. Ramses went back the way they had come, waited for a while, and then retraced his steps. It lacked only ten minutes till the designated time. He came to a stop not far from the cleft into which David had vanished, and removed his turban.

The ten minutes passed, and so did another ten. He moved a little farther away from the cliff face, into full moonlight. He had just about decided his informant wasn’t coming when he heard the sound of someone approaching, slowly and cautiously. In the dead silence the crunch of stone under shod feet was as loud as a rockfall.

The footsteps stopped. He was close by now, watching. Ramses didn’t move. A few minutes passed with agonizing slowness; then a dark form took shape against the deeper darkness and came toward him.

It was a woman. She was completely covered with the black tob and face veil worn by old-fashioned Egyptian females, but Ramses got the impression of feeble old age from the way she moved, slowly and bent over.

The uneven steps stopped a few feet away, just out of reach and the veiled head tilted as if in inquiry.

“Don’t be afraid,” Ramses whispered in Arabic. “You know me. You know I won’t hurt you.”

He took a step forward, his hand outstretched. The veiled form stumbled back.

“It is well,” Ramses said quickly. “I will come no closer. What did you want to tell me?”

She flung out a black-clad arm, pointing, and let out a high-pitched cawing sound, like that of a bird. Ramses whirled round, staring in the direction she had indicated.

And that was the last thing he remembered.

FROM MANUSCRIPT H (CONT.)

“
W
ake up, dammit! Say something!”

He knew the voice. The name escaped him for the moment, buried like other memories under a thick layer of pain, but something told him he owed the speaker acknowledgment.

“What happened?” he croaked. “Who are you?”

“Don’t do this to me, Ramses. Open your eyes, will you?”

“I’d rather not.” The name came back to him. “David.”

“Drink this.” An object was jammed against his mouth. One sip of the liquid brought him to a sitting position, choking and sputtering.

“That’s better,” David said with a long sigh of relief. “I took a leaf from Aunt Amelia’s handbook of convenient accoutrements. There’s nothing like brandy, she says.”

Finding that his eyes were now open, Ramses surveyed his surroundings. The scenery hadn’t changed. He was in the same place, but he was sitting instead of standing. Moonlight flooded the ground and shone darkly on a pool of liquid near where his head had rested.

“Blood,” he said, pleased at being able to identify it. “Mine?”

“You got a hard knock on the head.” David sat back on his heels. “She had a club of some sort hidden in that damned full sleeve. Swung it before I could move.”

“She’s gone?”

“Damn right she’s gone. I fired at her as she was raising her handy club a second time. Missed.”

Ramses got out a croak of protest, and David said, “Knowing your dislike of firearms, I didn’t tell you I had brought a pistol. I’m glad I did. I didn’t mean to hit her, only stop her before she could deliver another blow. She scuttled off. I didn’t chase after her, I was afraid you were…”

His voice failed. Ramses discovered he was now capable of uttering more than three words at a time. “Have some of that brandy.”

“Excellent idea.”

“And then give me another nip. God, my head feels as if it’s about to fall off.”

“Your head ought to be used to that sort of thing by now. You must have inherited the Professor’s thick skull.”

David handed him the flask. The blessed stuff ran through his veins like liquid fire. Cautiously he got to his feet.

“Steady.” David took hold of his arm. “Maybe you shouldn’t try to walk. I can go back to the house and get—”

“No, I’m all right,” Ramses said, as they started back along the path. “I don’t suppose there’s a hope of keeping Nefret in the dark about this.”

“What do you think?”

“Not a hope. Dammit, she’s going to be furious.”

Moonlight made walking tricky, hiding obstacles in shadow. He was grateful for the support of David’s arm. By the time they reached home he felt all right except for an aching head; but his spirits plummeted when he saw the main house was brightly lighted.

Nefret was waiting for them, and she was definitely furious. When he had failed to come to bed she had gone looking for him; discovering he was not in the workroom, she had searched the house and, in the process, raised the whole household. They all trailed along when she dragged him off to the clinic and unwound the turban David had used as a bandage. It was like being attended by a flock of magpies, Ramses thought; they all settled down on various pieces of furniture and peppered him with comments and questions while Nefret bathed and bandaged his head. He let David do most of the talking. Nefret had already told David what she thought of him for collaborating in such a crazy scheme, and he was on the defensive.

“We took all possible precautions,” he protested. “It was seeing what I assumed was a woman that lowered my guard for a vital second.”

“Me too,” Ramses said.

“Keep quiet,” Nefret barked.

“It wasn’t a woman?” Emerson asked.

“If it was, she could run like a gazelle and swing like a batsman,” David said. “But that damned—excuse me, ladies—that all-enveloping tob, and the way she—he—moved, like a feeble old woman, took both of us in at first.”

“All right, are you, my boy?” Emerson asked anxiously.

“He’ll live.” Nefret pinned the bandage neatly in place. “If I don’t kill him. And David.”

“He saved my life,” Ramses said. “Again.”

“You think she meant to kill you?” his mother asked. Bright-eyed and alert, every hair in place, she sat perched on a stool with the voluminous folds of her dressing gown flowing around her. “Why?”

“That’s a good question,” David said. “We talked about it all the way back. Ramses claims he doesn’t know why.”

“People seldom murder other people without some sort of reason,” remarked Sethos. He was leaning against the wall, his arms folded. “Logical or otherwise. Ramses, have you been spreading alarm and dissension?”

“No,” Ramses snapped. “Well…”

“Well?” Sethos echoed.

“It can’t be relevant,” Ramses insisted. “I did spread the word that I was the only one, except Father, who knew where the statue was hidden. Mother had started a similar rumor, about herself, and I thought it wise to—er—”

“Take the danger upon yourself?” his mother inquired coolly. “That was thoughtful of you, my dear. But I agree that it does not seem relevant. If one wishes to learn a secret, one does not silence the holder of that secret.”

“Expressed in your usual pedantic manner,” said Emerson, now reassured as to his son’s condition. “Perhaps she—he—didn’t intend murder, but abduction and interrogation?”

“Man or woman, it would take more than one person to accomplish that,” said his wife.

“Thank you,” Ramses said. “Now can I go to bed?”

“Definitely,” Nefret said. “And if you say one word about breakfast at six, Father…”

Emerson looked at her in alarm. He wasn’t at all intimidated by his wife—their loud arguments were relished by both of them—but when Nefret spoke in that tone of voice they all knuckled under.

“No, no, wouldn’t dream of it. Sleep as long as you like, my boy. Er—eight o’clock?”

Nefret led him off in triumph, her chin set.

Their house was quiet and dark, except for the night-light in the children’s room. The dog was stretched out across the threshold. Ramses didn’t see her until he stumbled over her. Amira let out a moan of protest, Ramses swore at her, and Nefret told them both to keep quiet.

“Lucky the children didn’t wake,” Ramses said in an attempt at casual conversation.

“Lucky for you.”

She closed the door of their room and turned into his arms. “I hate it when you do this sort of thing,” she whispered.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. For scolding you. It was only because—”

“Show me you’re sorry, then.”

The attack on Ramses was somewhat disturbing. My medical experience, confirmed by Nefret, had assured me he was not badly hurt, but if David had not been with him the consequences might have been serious. When we met for breakfast (at eight o’clock) he looked quite normal except for the bandage around his head. Fatima gave him an extralarge helping of porridge and four eggs.

“I have been thinking,” I began.

“Rrrrrr,” said Emerson. “She thought at me for two hours last night. Bloody nonsense. Not a sensible idea in the lot.”

“I can only conclude,” I continued, unperturbed by the interruption, “that Ramses knows something the rest of us do not. A fact, perhaps unnoticed by him, that makes him dangerous to our unknown enemy. Something to do with Mrs. Petherick.”

“Or the statuette,” said Emerson, forgetting he had dismissed my conjectures as nonsense.

“I can’t think what it might be,” Ramses said. “I had no conversations with the lady when others were not present. As for the statue, I know no more than the rest of you.”

“Let’s have another look at it,” Sethos suggested. The gleam in his eyes might have been interpreted as greed. Emerson interpreted it that way.

“Later,” he said, with a hard look at his brother.

“Have you seen the newspaper this morning?” David asked.

“Never read the cursed thing,” Emerson said loftily.

Normally I didn’t either. The news was always at least a day late, and little of it was of immediate interest to us. Since the “mystery of the black afrit” I had of course perused the Cairo papers, but I hadn’t had a chance to see them that morning.

“What do they say about Mrs. Petherick?” I asked.

“Nothing new, Aunt Amelia. There’s a rehash of her literary career and her romantic biography, by some gushing female admirer, and a lurid story about Egyptian mummies.”

David did not mention the political news, though the major headline read “New Riots in the Delta.” He was the only one who followed the political situation closely. It did not make for encouraging reading; the country was still in a state of unrest, anticipating that the forthcoming declaration of Egyptian independence would not answer all the demands of the “radicals,” as the British government termed them.

“Howard Carter arrived in Cairo day before yesterday,” David added.

“What?” Emerson bounded up. “How do you know that?”

“It’s in the social column,” David said, smiling. He knew that was one part of the newspaper Emerson would never consider reading. “He’s not planning to leave for Luxor for another week.”

Emerson sat down. “Ah. Making the rounds of the antiquities dealers, I expect. Hmph. A week, eh? Let’s be off. That is…Ramses, are you sure you are fit for this?”

“Fit for translating hieratic?” I inquired. “I should think so. Now, Emerson, no objection, if you please. We agreed, did we not, that that was to be his primary task? Yes. Is it advisable for a person who has taken a head injury to work in the dust and heat? No.” I patted Ramses’s hand. “Have a nice quiet day, my dear. We will be back for tea.”

I have never been a skilled horsewoman, but the smooth gait of our Arabians was a pleasure. It was certainly more pleasurable than the steep climb over the hills, which was the only other way of reaching the Valley.

Needless to say, Reader, my thoughts did not dwell entirely on Egyptology. The welfare of my loved ones would always take precedence over scholarship, and there was good reason to assume that danger still threatened some, if not all. Emerson had scoffed at my conjectures, but that did not prevent me from pursuing them mentally.

Mr. Lidman’s misadventure had been a blow—to Lidman himself, naturally, but also to me, since I had reached the conclusion that he had been responsible for the attempts to break into the house. However, he had the best of all possible alibis for the attack on Ramses, having been incapacitated and guarded at the time. Were there two villains? Three, four? A gang? The statuette was prize enough to inspire the lust of several persons, but as I had cogently pointed out, Ramses’s attacker could not have hoped to gain possession of it by that method.

I was baffled. But only for the moment. Something was bound to turn up.

Emerson sent the others down into the burial chamber and set me to work sifting debris. It was not an onerous task, since there was not much, and our people had already picked out the largest objects, such as they were, so I had ample opportunity to look about me. An hour or so later Emerson pulled himself out of the pit and addressed me.

“How are you, my dear?”

“Hot. Bored. Where are you off to?”

“A little stroll,” Emerson said.

“May I join you, Emerson?”

“Need you ask, Peabody?”

Emerson seldom strolls. On this occasion he actually sauntered, hands in his pockets, whistling off-key and looking interestedly from side to side like an ordinary tourist. From time to time he stopped and stared at nothing in particular that I could see. As I believe I have explained elsewhere, but will repeat for the sake of forgetful Readers, the East Valley is shaped like a maple or oak leaf, with lobes reaching out in all directions. They are not interconnected except at their base; each ends in rugged cliffs, so it is necessary to retrace one’s steps after one has explored each. Tomb entrances are everywhere, some blocked with steel gates, some open to visitors. We must have seen a dozen of them during that stroll: Ramses IX, Ramses VI, Amenmose, and others. Instead of entering them, Emerson spent an inordinate amount of time staring at their surroundings. At one point his well-shaped lips parted, and I waited breathlessly for a statement that would explain his actions.

“Workmen’s huts,” he said.

“So?” I asked, when it was apparent he had nothing to add.

“Interesting,” said Emerson.

“Not very.”

“Now, now, Peabody, keep an open mind. Everything is of interest to a trained excavator.”

The last area we visited was the side wadi in which the tomb of Thutmose III was located. Remembering our encounter with the ibn Simsahs, I moved closer to Emerson, but not a sight or sound disturbed the quiet of the place until Emerson spoke again.

“Might bear investigating,” he muttered, contemplating the pile of rubble in which he had dug.

“It won’t be investigated by you,” I replied somewhat tartly, for his enigmatic comments were beginning to get on my nerves, and I was extremely warm. “Lord Carnarvon holds the concession.”

“You need not remind me of that, Peabody. Well, shall we start back?”

The usual crowd of sightseers had gathered round KV55. Among them I saw Sir Malcolm’s head, crowned by a fashionable pith helmet. He stood a little distance away from the jostling crowd, eyeing them disdainfully. Seeing Emerson, he moved to intercept us and bade us good morning.

“What are you doing here?” Emerson demanded in his customary forthright manner.

“I believe the Valley of the Kings is open to all visitors, Professor.” Sir Malcolm snapped his fingers. A worried-looking dragoman hastened up and opened a sunshade over his head. “Observing an excavation in progress here is a rare treat.”

“Weren’t you present when Howard Carter was working across the way?” I asked.

“Yes. The fellow is competent enough,” Sir Malcolm conceded. “But all he turned up were some wretched workmen’s huts. Professor Emerson is in a class by himself. I would consider it a privilege to observe his procedures.”

The compliment mollified Emerson somewhat, but like myself he entertained doubts as to Sir Malcolm’s motives. “My procedures, sir, are surely known to an aficionado like yourself. This tomb contains nothing of interest.”