The Serpent on the Crown (35 page)

“Not a sign of her,” Cyrus reported. “I’ve been up and down the Valley, calling her name.”

“Not even her horse,” I said, for there were only four of the animals, including mine.

“She came on foot.” Cyrus tugged agitatedly at his goatee. “By one of the paths over the hills, maybe. She could have fallen and hurt herself badly. Wouldn’t she have answered me if she could?”

“She is as nimble as a goat, and knows every foot of the cliffs,” I said, trying to reassure myself as well as Cyrus. Accidents can happen even to the most expert. “Let us go about this in logical fashion. We will proceed slowly along the Valley to the tomb of Ay, where you have been working.”

The sun had risen, bathing the barren ground in light except for the shadows below the eastern cliffs. No sign of life rewarded our anxious eyes; no voice responded to Emerson’s stentorian calls. When we reached the tomb of Ay we dismounted and left the horses; they had all been trained to stand.

“Either she is out of earshot or she has chosen not to answer,” said Emerson. He was in command, of himself and of us, as Emerson always is in cases of emergency. His next order admitted another possibility, one none of us wished to face. “Bertie, you and Cyrus go that way, Peabody and I will work along the west face. Stay within hailing distance.”

It was a slow, painful search. Painful in every sense of the word, for anxiety increased the discomfort of heat and rough terrain. We looked into every crevice and down into every gully and hole, fearing to find a crumpled body. “She may have given up and returned to the Castle,” I said.

Emerson grunted.

There had been four possibilities, not three; and the fourth possibility was, after all, the correct one. A shout from Bertie stopped us in our tracks and sent us hastening back. Though they were not far distant we did not see them until we were almost upon them, owing to the unevenness of the cliff face. They had reached the unfinished tomb we had briefly investigated—number 25. Cyrus had both arms round his stepson, trying to hold him back. In the mouth of the tomb were two forms. Lidman’s pale, unshaven face showed the effects of two days of privation, but he had strength enough to hold Jumana tightly against him. Her hands and feet were tied; over the folds of the gag her eyes blazed with frustrated fury. The point of the knife in Lidman’s right hand rested against her breast.

“Stop!” he shrieked. “Don’t come any closer.”

“You heard him, Bertie,” said Emerson. “Stand still and be quiet.”

That deep, powerful voice never failed in its effect. Bertie stopped struggling and Cyrus relaxed his grip. “I’m sorry,” the boy gasped. “I lost my head.”

“Perfectly understandable,” said Emerson, in the same calm voice. “But not sensible. Let me do the talking. I presume, Mr. Lidman, that you are prepared to negotiate.”

Lidman nodded. He was breathing hard and the hand holding the knife trembled.

“Just take your time, Mr. Lidman,” I said soothingly. “You don’t look at all well.”

My sympathetic tone calmed him. “I ran out of food and water,” he muttered. “Tired…thirsty…”

“Oh dear,” I said. “Would you care for a drink?” I held up my canteen invitingly. The gurgle of water drew Lidman’s eyes. He swallowed, and said hoarsely, “No, Mrs. Emerson, you won’t catch me so easily.”

“All right so far, Peabody,” said Emerson out of the corner of his mouth. “May I get a word in now?”

“By all means, my dear. I only meant to assure Mr. Lidman that we mean him no harm.”

Bertie’s murderous expression contradicted that statement, but he remained motionless.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone either,” Lidman faltered.

“Excellent,” Emerson said. “We see eye to eye on that. What is it you want?”

Lidman drew a deep breath and burst into speech. “The statue. It is mine by rights. I have hidden it where you will never find it. Let me take it away with me, give me free passage out of Luxor, and I will release the girl unharmed.”

“Agreed,” said Emerson. “Now let her go.”

Lidman’s sunken, shadowed eyes hardened. “I am not so far gone as that, Professor. You are a man of your word, but you would lie to save a life. We need to work out the details of our agreement, is it not so? One of you must accompany me to the railroad station and go with me to Cairo.”

“Hmmm.” Emerson rubbed his chin. “I see several difficulties in that scheme, Lidman. I could get you past the police at the railroad station and onto the train, but you aren’t fool enough to suppose you can keep me under control during the entire journey, even with a knife in my ribs. I’d have you flat on your back before we reached Qena.”

“Good Lord, Professor,” Bertie cried. “Why are you arguing on his side? Look here, I’ll go with him.”

Emerson shot him a look that silenced him. I knew, of course, what Emerson was doing. Lidman’s offer had not been serious. We were in the first stage of negotiations. But they could not go on long, not with two impulsive young persons involved. Jumana’s eyes were closed and she leaned against her captor. She was going to do something foolish, I knew it, and if she didn’t, Bertie would.

“Mrs. Emerson will accompany me,” Lidman said.

“No, she won’t,” said Emerson. “Not,” he added, with a nod at me, “that she isn’t perfectly capable of laying you by the heels as effectively as I, but I would never live it down if I allowed my wife to take on such a job. Come, come, Lidman, you can do better than that.”

“All right,” Lidman said. “All right. The statue. It is mine by rights, but I will give it up in exchange for freedom. When Mrs. Emerson has escorted me to Cairo I will tell her the hiding place. You will never find it otherwise. Even if you captured me and tortured me I would not speak. Wild horses could not tear the truth from my lips!”

“We haven’t any horses of that sort,” Emerson said absently.

Like the sensible man he was, Cyrus had not spoken, though he had tugged at his goatee so persistently that it hung limp and twisted. Now he said, “See here, Lidman, what about if I go with you? I’m a harmless old fellow, not nearly so dangerous as Mrs. Emerson. What’s more, I’ll pay you for the statue. We’ll go straight to my bank in Cairo and I’ll hand over fifty thousand pounds. I’ll trust you to keep your part of the bargain.”

“I must think,” Lidman muttered. “You have me confused.”

“Go ahead,” Cyrus said.

I wondered what trick Lidman had up his sleeve. He must know his proposed plan and all its variants were doomed to failure. There were too many of us; he couldn’t herd the lot of us onto the train or control the activities of those left behind. Unless he had a confederate? I looked up at the cliffs towering toward the sky and saw only a pair of vultures swinging on the blue air. And what had he meant by that claim, repeated a second time—that the statuette was his by rights? As I pursued these thoughts I also kept a close eye on the less predictable members of the group—Lidman, Bertie, and Jumana. Bertie was poised on the balls of his feet, his hands clenched into fists, his face distorted. Jumana was quiet—too quiet.

Even as the thought entered my mind, the reckless girl acted. Stiffening, she pulled away from Lidman’s grasp and threw herself sideward against his right arm. At the same instant, almost as if they had been in mental communication, Bertie made such a leap as I have never seen, even from Emerson. He caught Lidman’s knife hand and dragged it away from Jumana. As the two struggled for possession of the knife, Jumana fell and rolled, a helpless bundle, down the stairs into the tomb. Cyrus rushed after her; Emerson pulled Bertie away from his adversary and clamped a hard hand over the boy’s wrist, which was spurting blood like a fountain; Lidman looked wildly around and began to climb up the cliff.

Emerson reached in his pocket, and, to my astonishment, produced a handkerchief. He hardly ever has one. Knotting it tightly around Bertie’s arm, he shoved the boy at me. “Here,” he said, and began to climb after Lidman.

The makeshift tourniquet had stopped the worst of the bleeding. Single-minded and staggering, Bertie made for the opening of the tomb. I considered my choices, selected the most imperative, and took my little pistol from my pocket. Lidman was a good twenty feet above, slipping and stumbling, and dislodging stones that bounced off Emerson’s bare head.

“Get back, Emerson,” I shouted. “I am about to shoot.”

Emerson looked down. “Peabody, don’t do that,” he exclaimed loudly. “Oh, good Gad…”

He ducked, trying to force his body into a crack less than a foot wide. I pulled the trigger.

I had aimed at Lidman’s leg. Somewhat to my surprise, for the angle was difficult, my aim was true. Lidman screamed and lost his balance. He fell quite heavily, hitting the cliff face at least twice and missing Emerson by a narrow margin before his body came to rest at my feet.

“So much for the statuette,” said Emerson, lowering himself to the ground. “Peabody, I told you—”

“He isn’t dead,” I said. “But he might have got away, Emerson, if I hadn’t fired. I hit him, you see!”

“Very nice, my dear,” said Emerson. He turned the crumpled body over with his foot. Lidman’s face was smeared with blood and his shirt was torn to bloody rags, but he was still breathing. “Your bullet didn’t do as much damage as the fall. He’s had a rough few days, hasn’t he?”

Leaving Emerson to guard Lidman until we could send a litter, we got the other wounded back to the house. Nefret put several stitches into Bertie’s arm while her assistant Nasrin and I tended to Jumana.

“This family is certainly hard on clothing,” I remarked. “I fear your shirt and trousers are beyond repair, Jumana.”

I tossed them into a corner and, since she was now attired only in her undergarments, pulled the curtain that separated that part of the examining room from the outer half, where Nefret was working on Bertie. Perched on the edge of the table, with her feet dangling, Jumana pressed her lips tightly together while I applied antiseptic, and Nasrin smeared Khadija’s green ointment lavishly over face and limbs and body. Jumana had a number of nasty bruises, not only from her tumble down the stairs of the tomb but from her initial encounter with Lidman. Not until we had finished did she speak.

“I did wrong. If you will not punish me for my stupidity, at least scold me!”

“I think you have been punished enough,” I replied. “You will be stiff and sore for days. Thank God it was no worse.”

Her wide eyes were fixed on the curtain. There hadn’t been a sound from Bertie.

“It might have been worse, much worse. I only meant to find him, if I could. There were footprints, not yours or Bertie’s or the Professor’s, at the entrance to Tomb 25. I was going to go back to tell Mr. Vandergelt when he jumped out at me and knocked me down, and—and he was strong, stronger than I thought. I didn’t think he would do that.”

He had seen the advantage of taking a hostage and he had handled the poor girl ruthlessly. She was wiry and strong, but so small, and Lidman’s strength had been that of a desperate man.

Bertie had overheard. “You behaved like a bloody little fool,” he shouted. “If you suspected Lidman was there, why didn’t you tell me and Cyrus? Oh, no, you had to prove your superiority. It would serve you right if you had broken every bone in your body.”

Jumana stiffened. “You didn’t think of it, did you? We caught him, didn’t we?”

“No thanks to you. The only thing that saved you was the fact that Lidman hadn’t the least idea how to use a knife. If he’d had it at your throat—”

“Well, he didn’t,” Jumana yelled.

The curtain was yanked aside. Bertie’s shirt had been another casualty; Nefret had strapped his arm to his chest and every muscle was rigid with rage. Jumana gasped. “Are you…”

“All right? No! I might have bled to death. Damn it, Jumana, if you ever pull another stunt like this…” His eyes moved from her swollen, green-streaked face, over bare brown shoulders and arms, down to her little bare feet. “Good God. Are you…”

“She’ll be fine and so will you,” I interrupted, before his naturally kindly nature could destroy the effect of that admirable shouting match. “Now go and rest. We need to clear the examining room for Mr. Lidman.”

Lidman was still unconscious when they carried him in. After a quick examination Nefret’s face lengthened. “It doesn’t look good, Aunt Amelia. There are internal injuries. I daren’t operate under these conditions. His blood pressure is dangerously low.”

“Will he recover consciousness?”

“One never knows. But it isn’t likely.”

Emerson had refused our medical assistance. He had no more bumps and cuts than was usual after a day at work, and for a wonder his shirt was relatively intact. I expected he would declare his intention of returning to work—somewhere—but instead he hung around getting in Nefret’s way and asking after Lidman every few minutes.

“Leave the man alone, Emerson,” I scolded. “We’ll find the statue, he can’t have taken it far.”

“It isn’t only that.” Emerson fingered the cleft in his chin. “He’s guilty of something, no question about it, but of what? If he is a murderer as well as a thief, who shoved him in the river?”

I countered with another question. “Are you ready to commit yourself as to the identity of the killer?”

“Hmph,” said Emerson, and took his departure.

I had sent one of our fellows across to Luxor to tell Sethos and Inspector Ayyid that they could abandon their stakeout, as I believe it is called, at the railroad station. Both of them arrived shortly thereafter, and I brought them up-to-date.

“He cannot be questioned,” I informed Ayyid, who had expressed his intention of doing so. “Nefret and I are of the opinion that he will probably pass on without ever regaining consciousness.”

“Can she do nothing to rouse him?” Ayyid demanded.

I wondered what he had in mind—smelling salts or a touch of torture? I said firmly, “You may rest assured that she will do whatever her physician’s oath permits. She is with him now, and I will sit by him tonight. You can count on me, I believe, to conduct a proper interrogation should that be possible.”

“Believe me,” said Sethos, “you can count on her. And,” he added, with a secretive little smile, “on Nefret.”