Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (44 page)

Before the Reverend, flushing angrily, could reply, I said quickly, ‘It is a pity Mr Armadale is still missing. His disappearance only adds fuel to the fire.’

‘It would scarcely improve matters if he were found, I fear,’ Mr Wilbour said. ‘Another death, following that of Lord Baskerville – ’

‘You believe he is dead, then?’ Emerson asked, giving me a sly look.

‘He must have perished or he would have turned up by now,’ Wilbour replied. ‘No doubt he met with a fatal accident while wandering the hills in a state of distraction. It is a pity; he was a fine archaeologist.’

‘At any rate, their fears may keep the Gurnawis from trying to break into the tomb,’ I said.

‘You know better than that, my dear Mrs Emerson,’ said Insinger. ‘At any rate, with you and Mr Emerson on the job, we need not worry about the tomb.’

Nothing of further consequence was said that evening, only speculations as to what marvels the tomb might contain. We therefore bade our friends good night as soon as the meal was concluded.

The hour was still early, and the lobby was crowded with people. As we approached the staircase someone darted out from among the throng and caught my arm.

‘Mr and Mrs Emerson, I presume? Sure, and I’ve been looking forward to a chat with you. Perhaps you will do me the honour of joining me for coffee or a glass of brandy.’

So confident was the tone, so assured the manner, that I had to look twice before I realised that the man was a total stranger. His boyish figure and candid smile made him appear, at first, far too young to be smoking the cigar that protruded at a jaunty angle from his lips. Bright-red hair and a liberal sprinkling of freckles across a decidedly snub nose completed the picture of brash young Ireland, for his accent had been unmistakably of that nation. Seeing me stare at his cigar, he immediately flung it into a nearby container.

‘Your pardon, ma’am. In the pleasure of seeing you I forgot my manners.’

‘Who the devil are you?’ Emerson demanded.

The young man’s smile broadened. ‘Kevin O’Connell, of the
Daily Yell,
at your service. Mrs Emerson, how do you feel about seeing your husband brave the pharaoh’s curse? Did you attempt to dissuade him, or do you – ’

I caught my husband’s arm with both hands and managed to deflect the blow he had aimed at Mr O’Connell’s prominent chin.

‘For pity’s sake, Emerson – he is half your size!’

This admonition, as I expected, had the effect that an appeal to reason, social decorum, or Christian meekness would not have had. Emerson’s arm relaxed and his cheeks turned red – though, I fear, with rising anger rather than shame. Seizing my hand, he proceeded at a brisk pace up the stairs. Mr O’Connell trotted after us, spouting questions.

‘Would you care to venture an opinion as to what has become of Mr Armadale? Mrs Emerson, will you take an active part in the excavation? Mr Emerson, were you previously acquainted with Lady Baskerville? Was it, perhaps, old friendship that prompted you to accept such a perilous position?’

It is impossible to describe the tone of voice in which he uttered the word ‘friendship’, or the indelicate overtone with which he invested that harmless word. I felt my own face grow warm with annoyance. Emerson let out a muted roar. His foot lashed out, and with a startled yelp Mr O’Connell fell backward and rolled down the stairs.

As we reached the turn of the stair I glanced back and saw, to my relief, that Mr O’Connell had taken no serious injury. He had already regained his feet and, surrounded by a staring crowd, was engaged in brushing off the seat of his trousers. Meeting my eye, he had the effrontery to wink at me.

Emerson had his coat, tie, and half the buttons of his shirt off before I closed the door of our room.

‘Hang it up,’ I said, as he was about to toss his coat onto a chair. ‘I declare, Emerson, that is the third shirt you have ruined since we left. Can you never learn – ’

But I never finished the admonition. Obeying my order, Emerson had flung open the doors of the wardrobe. There was a flash of light and a thud; Emerson leaped back, one arm held at an unnatural angle. A bright line of red leaped up across his shirt sleeve. Crimson drops rained onto the floor, spattering the handle of the dagger that stood upright between Emerson’s feet. Its haft still quivered with the force of its fall.

Emerson’s hand clamped down on his forearm. The rush of blood slowed and stopped. A pain in the region of my chest reminded me that I was holding my breath. I let it out.

‘That shirt was ruined in any case,’ I said. ‘Do, pray, hold your arm out so that you do not drip onto your good trousers.’

I make it a rule always to remain calm. Nevertheless, it was with considerable speed that I crossed the room, snatching a towel from the washstand as I passed it. I had brought medical supplies with me, as is my custom; in a few moments I had cleaned and bandaged the wound which, fortunately, was not deep. I did not even mention a physician. I was confident that Emerson shared my own feelings on that matter. The news of an accident to the newly appointed director of the Luxor expedition could have disastrous consequences.

When I had finished I leaned back against the divan; and I confess I was unable to repress a sigh. Emerson looked at me seriously. Then a slight smile curved the corners of his mouth.

‘You are a trifle pale, Peabody. I trust we are not going to have a display of female vapours?’

‘I fail to see any humour in the situation.’

‘I am surprised at you. For my part, I am struck by the ludicrous ineptitude of the whole business. As nearly as I can make out, the knife was simply placed on the top shelf of the wardrobe, which rests somewhat insecurely on wooden pegs. The vigour of my movement in opening the door caused the weapon to topple out; it was pure accident that it struck me instead of falling harmlessly to the floor. Nor could the unknown have been sure that I would be the one to….’ As realisation dawned, anger replaced the amusement on his face, and he cried out, ‘Good Gad, Peabody, you might have been seriously injured if you had been the one to open that wardrobe!’

‘I thought you had concluded that no serious injury was contemplated,’ I reminded him. ‘No masculine vapours, Emerson, if you please. It was meant as a warning, nothing more.’

‘Or as an additional demonstration of the effectiveness of the pharaoh’s curse. That seems more likely. No one who knows us would expect that we would be deterred from our plans by such a childish trick. Yet unless the incident becomes public knowledge it will be wasted effort.’

Our eyes met. I nodded. ‘You are thinking of Mr O’Connell. Would he really go to such lengths in order to get a story?’

‘These fellows will stop at nothing,’ Emerson said with gloomy conviction.

He was certainly in a position to know, for during his active career he had featured prominently in sensational newspaper stories. As one reporter had explained to me, ‘He makes such splendid copy, Mrs Emerson – always shouting and striking people.’

There was some truth in this statement, and Emerson’s performance that evening would undoubtedly make equally splendid copy. I could almost see the headlines: ‘Attack on our reporter by famous archaeologist! Frenzied Emerson reacts violently to question about his intimacy with dead man’s widow!’

No wonder Mr O’Connell had looked so pleased after being kicked down the stairs. He would consider a few bruises a small price to pay for a good story. I remembered his name now. He had been the first to break the story about the curse – or rather, to invent it.

There was no question about Mr O’Connell’s scruples, or lack thereof. Certainly he would have had no difficulty in gaining access to our room. The locks were flimsy, and the servants were amenable to bribery. But was he capable of planning a trick that might have ended in injury, however slight? I found that hard to believe. Brash, rude, and unscrupulous he might be, but I am an excellent judge of character, and I had seen no trace of viciousness in his freckled countenance.

We examined the knife but learned nothing from it; it was a common type, of the sort that can be bought in any bazaar. There was no point in questioning the servants. As Emerson said, the less publicity, the better. So we retired to our bed, with its canopy of fine white mosquito netting. In the ensuing hour I was reassured as to the negligibility of Emerson’s wound. It did not seem to inconvenience him in the slightest.

We set out for Aziyeh early next morning. Though we had sent no message ahead, the news of our coming had spread, by that mysterious unseen means of communication common to primitive people, so that when our hired carriage stopped in the dusty village square, most of the population was assembled to greet us. Towering over the other heads was a snowy turban surmounting a familiar bearded face. Abdullah had been our reis, or foreman, in the past. His beard was now almost as white as his turban, but his giant frame looked as strong as ever, and a smile of welcome struggled with his instinctive patriarchal dignity as he pushed forward to shake our hands.

We retired to the house of the sheikh, where half the male population crowded into the small parlour. There we sat drinking sweet black tea and exchanging compliments, while the temperature steadily rose. Long periods of courteous silence were broken by repeated comments of ‘May God preserve you’ and ‘You have honoured us.’ This ceremony can take several hours, but Emerson’s audience knew him well, and they exchanged amused glances when, after a mere twenty minutes, he broached the reason for our visit.

‘I go to Luxor to carry on the work of the lord who died. Who will come with me?’

The question was followed by soft exclamations and well-feigned looks of surprise. That the surprise was false I had no doubt. Abdullah’s was not the only familiar face in the room; many of our other men were there as well. The workers Emerson had trained were always in demand, and I did not doubt that these people had left other positions in order to come to us. Obviously they had anticipated the request and had, in all probability, already decided what they would do.

However, it is not the nature of Egyptians to agree to anything without a good deal of debate and discussion. After an interval Abdullah rose to his feet, his turban brushing the low ceiling.

‘Emerson’s friendship for us is known,’ he said. ‘But why does he not employ the men of Luxor who worked for the dead lord?’

‘I prefer to work with my friends,’ Emerson replied. ‘Men I can trust in danger and difficulty.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Abdullah stroked his beard. ‘Emerson speaks of danger. It is known that he never lies. Will he tell us what danger he means?’

‘Scorpions, snakes, landslides,’ Emerson shot back. ‘The same dangers we men have always faced together.’

‘And the dead who will not die, but walk abroad under the moon?’

This was a much more direct question than I had anticipated. Emerson, too, was caught off guard. He did not answer immediately. Every man in the room sat with his eyes fixed unwinkingly on my husband.

At last he said quietly, ‘You of all men, Abdullah, know that there is no such thing. Have you forgotten the mummy that was no mummy, but only an evil man?’

‘I remember well, Emerson, but who is to say that such things cannot exist? They say that the lord who is dead disturbed the sleep of the pharaoh. They say – ’

‘They are fools who say so,’ Emerson interrupted. ‘Has not God promised the faithful protection against evil spirits? I go to carry on the work. I look for men to come with me, not fools and cowards.’

The issue had never really been in doubt. When we left the village we had our crew, but thanks to Abdullah’s piously expressed doubts we had to agree to a wage considerably higher than was customary. Superstition has its practical uses.

On the following morning I sat, as I have described, on the terrace of Shepheard’s and reviewed the events of the past two days. You will now comprehend, reader, why a single small cloud cast a faint shadow on the brightness of my pleasure. The cut on Emerson’s arm was healing nicely, but the doubts that incident had raised were not so easily cured. I had taken it for granted that the death of Lord Baskerville and the disappearance of his assistant were parts of a single, isolated tragedy, and that the so-called curse was no more than the invention of an enterprising journalist. The strange case of the knife in the wardrobe raised another and more alarming possibility.

It is foolish to brood about matters one cannot control, so I dismissed the problem for the moment and enjoyed the constantly changing panorama unrolling before me until Emerson finally joined me. I had sent a messenger to Monsieur Grebaut earlier, informing him that we planned to call on him that morning. We were going to be late, thanks to Emerson’s procrastination, but when I saw his scowl and his tight-set lips I realised I was fortunate to persuade him to go at all.

Since we were last in Egypt the Museum had been moved from its overcrowded quarters at Boulaq to the Palace of Gizeh. The result was an improvement in the amount of space only; the crumbling, overly ornate decorations of the palace were poorly suited for purposes of display, and the antiquities were in wretched condition. This increased Emerson’s bad temper; he was red with annoyance by the time we reached the office, and when a supercilious secretary informed us that we must come back another day, since the Director was too busy to see us, he pushed the young man rudely aside and hurled himself at the door of the inner office.

I was not surprised when it failed to yield, for I had heard a sound like that of a key being turned in a lock. Locks do not hinder Emerson when he wishes to proceed; a second, more vigorous assault burst the door open. With a consoling smile at the cowering secretary I followed my impetuous husband into Grebaut’s sanctum.

The room was crowded to the bursting point with open boxes containing antiquities, all awaiting examination and classification. Pots of baked clay, scraps of wood from furniture and coffins, alabaster jars, ushabtis, and dozens of other items overflowed the packing cases onto tables and desk.