The Egyptologist (44 page)

Reader, Reader, the point of my discussion with Porchy is only this:
this is all a necessary application of psychology and human emotion to
the problem. I know that CCF is susceptible to pressure because he
uses pressure in his daily dealings, and he understands, as a business•
man, that value clarifies in the heat of competition. I will tell him the
truth, not because I wish to replace him with Carnarvon (I certainly do
not want any such thing; I prefer a financier far off in Boston to one
stumbling about the site), but because he should know that I do not
need to scrounge American pennies when I could be tossing Milord's
pounds all about. Especially now, when my work is halted for my reor•
ganisation of men and money. Finneran forced me to accept his money,
which I did as a gesture to my fiancee, so I will do him the kindness of
continuing to accept it before accepting Carnarvon's instead. These are
human complications, which, Reader, invariably intrude on what
should be pure science. I cable CCF accordingly, and return to Villa
Trilipush.

Back from the post just now, and my barber being as good as his
word, I found squatting outside my front door his cousin, Amr, my new
second-in-command. A boy of sixteen, Amr will be an excellent head•
man, though he has much to learn. "Lord Carter," he says to me, "I
hope I am worthy." We shall see, young Amr. [Correct opening epi•
graph and dedication to "Amr."] I told him not to call me that, and I
told him that the ancient Egyptians valued discretion highly, as would
I, but that the ancient kings also dealt with indiscretion with the most
unspeakable rigour. Arrange to meet tomorrow, and as a symbolic pre•
liminary
baksheesh,
I give him a charming jack-in-the-box mummy.

The 29th of November, before I set off for Egypt to catch Paul Caldwell's mur•
derer, I practised my best speech and went to the house to say my farewells to the
woman who was breaking my heart for sport. But Finneran answered the door.
"Good," he said to my great surprise. "I could use an ear." Margaret was nowhere
to be seen as her father walked me down the hall. He pushed me into his study

and apologised gruffly for our previous meeting, when he'd shrieked at me in his
nervousness.

"Now give me your advice, Ferrell. I wonder if you've seen more than I have,"
he said, cracking his fingers, a sort of admission and apology and invitation to tell
all, you'll admit. Four days before, it seemed, Finneran had received a cable from
Trilipush: the finds in the tomb were extraordinary, beyond wildest dreams,
rooms and rooms, and Trilipush needed money to complete his work and pay his
team, but otherwise victory was theirs. Up until this cable, Finneran had
still
been withholding payments except, he admitted, for one small sum he'd sent in a
burst of hopefulness. But with this cable on the 25 th he'd been ready to renew the
money definitively and in full. And, sure enough, Finneran said, on the 26th, the
newspapers were shouting of an incredible find in Egypt. Now, you can look that
up yourself, Macy: the Press was bashing on and on about King Tutankhamun
and an Englishman named Howard Carter, who was the chief of that expedition;
it had
nothing at
all to do with Trilipush, but the coincidence was so strong (Trili•
push's cable had just come the day before), and Finneran (I later learnt) was in so
much danger, that he just pathetically assumed and hoped that Tutankhamun
was somehow related to his investment and Howard Carter was one of Trilipush's
men, some subforeman. "Honestly," Finneran said, "all those pharaohs' names
sound alike, don't they?" Finneran cabled on the 26th congratulating Trilipush
and informing him that the wires of money were going to start up again. He also
informed the other investors that everything was on track, and they'd made a
spectacular investment. He was decided: Trilipush was on the up and up, Oxford
was a misunderstanding, not worth talking about, Margaret was pleased, and so
Finneran was planning to release the investors' monthly payments, funds he'd
been holding in his own accounts. But on the 27th, he realised his mistake—
Carter and Trilipush were working on different projects—and Finneran hesitated
again. On the 28th, he received another cable from his man. Finneran threw it at
me. It read,
SEND ME NO MORE MONEY, HAVE FOUND NEW, RELIABLE SUPPORT, CARTER'S

BACKERS HAVE PLEADED WITH ME TO ACCEPT THEIR INVESTMENT. I Can't say I Was Sur•

prised by this: Trilipush had used Finneran to find his desert hole full of gold, and
now, having found it, why would he need the Finnerans ever again? He'd moved
up in the world to a better sort of people, cutting off his Boston crowd. I told
Finneran this in no uncertain terms. He goggled at me. "You think he's not com•
ing back? But I needed that money," he stammered. How much had he sent? Not
so much, just that one small credit, because the original protection for the in•
vestors had been that Trilipush agreed to spend his own money in the opening

weeks, as a proof of his confidence. "So what's the problem?" I asked. "You've lost
hardly a penny." No, he wasn't upset about the money he'd
spent,
Macy, he was
actually worried about his share of the purported
treasure,
if I understood him
correctly, which he was now going to lose. "What am I going to tell—" he began,
but I interrupted him, told him to relax, said I'd tell Margaret, not to worry. He
looked at me amazed. "You idiot. O'Toole and Kovacs, O'Toole and Kovacs—
what am I going to tell
them?"

I looked at Finneran's face, and now, Macy, now I finally understood. I'd seen
that face before and I've seen it since, the twisted mouth of the man who realises
he won't be able to pay his dangerous creditors.

"That I don't know, Finneran, but I know this. Cable Trilipush over Mar•
garet's signature, breaking the engagement. Trilipush is washing his hands of you
fast, so save Margaret first. Do that for her good name as soon as possible: she has
to break with him before he does it to her. You owe her that. And
if he
has any
feeling for her, which I doubt, she's your only hope to keep any control over him,
now that he doesn't need your purse."

The doorbell rang. Julius Padraig O'Toole entered and nodded to me coldly. I
was dismissed while Finneran welcomed O'Toole into the study with an expert
display of boot licking. I waited in the parlour. There was no shouting, no guns
went off. The study door opened a quarter of an hour later, and O'Toole strode
calmly down the hall and out of the house. Finneran sat at his desk, thumping his
humidor with his fingertips. I asked him what O'Toole had wanted. "Shut the
goddamn door," he replied. I left. Margaret was nowhere to be found then or that
night.

Mr. Trilish. I am needing rent money for the next six months, right this
moment, yes surely a necessity minor on you. Quick quick! And here
also an issue of bony contention. For if it is different, yes, than we dis•
cussed through the agent, this is necessary now to increase times 5x
the amount for each month of renting the house. And this is obvious,
yes, because of the interest in the Tut things. So many people all in-
fluxing! Happy circumstances! Thank you heroic Mr. Carter! And with
a house beautiful like this one! Ho boy! So at least ten people have
asked the agent if my house is available and it is unless rent is paid
by you now for six months more at once, on this new price. Yours
very seriously, Mr. Gamil.

Wednesday, 29 November, 1922

Journal:
A message was slipped under my door during the night
that puts the expedition's finances under new strain. Heroic concentra•
tion on the issues at hand is now the key. Feed the cats and set off into
the rising dawn, to
work.

Amr meets me on the Nile's west bank with plaster, and with the
sun rising behind us I show him the correct route to the site. He has his
own donkey, which is excellent. He follows me to my tomb and says
not a word. I order him to clear the makeshift screen away from the
opening of the tomb, and I allow him to walk in behind me. He is duly
awed. I owe this boy an education in exchange for his muscles, and I
mean to do it well. "Archaeology, Amr, is not only digging, but an ap•
proach to our surroundings and our labourers (you, for now) that ex•
presses our unselfish, unself-conscious appreciation of the historical
surroundings to which we are the heirs."

He is a brave boy, a proud example of the modern Egyptian, fast to
understand. I have him begin hammering boards together and plaster•
ing them a uniform white to make a better screen for the tomb's open•
ing.

In the meantime, I reenter my tomb and reorient myself to the work
left to be done in this vast and extraordinary space, which maps for
now as

(FIG . F : TH E FIRS T SI X CHAMBERS , 2 9 NOVEMBER , 1922 )

Plainly, the treasures to date are not so much material as historical,
the clues that we are on the right track, tauntingly leading us to the
more palpable findings, which are soon to appear and soon to outdazzle
by a wide margin this season's other finds. As an example of the histori•
cal prizes I mean, the unmistakable bloody footprints all over the
Chamber of the Injured Workman should be noted briefly, as they are
quite unique in the history of Egyptology. The likely explanation—and
one readily admits that it is for now merely a hypothesis—is that a
workman was injured, perhaps closing and sealing Door B.

I mallet in wedges and chisel away at the outline of the Great Por•
tal. I begin trying to fit a crowbar in the spaces, but it is absurd to think
that the boy and I can do this by ourselves. I could wait until Lord
Carnarvon's decision opens this and any number of other doors for me.
I could hope that Margaret will finally exert herself to tease her father
and his flunkies back into line. I could go ask my barber to lend some
muscle. Carter shoved through his tomb very fast, and if hammering is
the method down there, I can hardly be expected to preserve every
blank rock stuck in my path.
What might be behind Door C?
I keep asking

myself. Yet more definitive proof of Atum-hadu, as well as, at last, the
treasury? How close I am and how abandoned, how completely left to
my own wits.

I have much work to do at the site, and time is running out, if CCF's
will has withered as badly as I fear. But Carter's site is magnetic, and I
do not wish to offend the old-timer by skipping his big moment with

the crowds and Press today, so at noon I order Amr to finish his car•
pentry and stand guard until later this afternoon, while I set off on his
donkey to the Valley and Howard Carter's celebration in the sands.

Margaret:
My darling. I am sitting above the Valley of the Kings,
about to attend a luncheon and the official opening of one of my col•
league's tombs. I am in a fix here, your father's stubbornness having
glued my hands together. I am reassured at least to know that there is
no stronger solvent than your love. I know you are, even as I write this,
pushing your father back to the correct path.

My love, it is a bit later now and I have returned to this same se•
cluded spot to jot down my thoughts of what I just saw, before I head
back to Deir el Bahari and my own pressing work, though I do move
slowly on my injury. It is worth noting these events simply to show
you, one day, when all of this is cleared up, the sort of people that so
confused your father's loyalty and judgement. Nothing! There is
nothing in this find of Carter's that should give a man even a minute's
envy or confusion. Your father's bumbling is positively comical now
that I have seen the "splendour" of Tut-ankh-Amen.

Besides Merton of the
Tlmes
and other journalists grubbing for a free
luncheon, there was Carter, the Earl and his daughter, a passel of
pashas, Lady Allenby, Engelbach from Antiquities, the Commandant of
the local police, Effendi the Antiquities Inspector for Luxor, and a veri•
table Burke's of English fops and their women, one of whom, a Lady
Prattlemuddle, as far as I could hear, brought her Yorkshire terrier with
her to the event (a sweet but unmanned, silky thing with a black leather
collar) and then bleated like a birthing cow when the dog inevitably
pranced off somewhere, no doubt to find a lunch more appetising than
what we were offered on the long tables out at the head of the Valley.