Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (60 page)

I found Karl sitting with his back against the fence, making a fair copy of an inscription. Urgent as Emerson’s summons had been, I could not help pausing for a moment to admire the rapidity with which his hand traced the complex shapes of the hieroglyphic signs: tiny birds and animals and figures of men and women, and the more abstruse symbols derived from flowers, architectural shapes, and so on. So absorbed was the young man in his task that he did not notice my presence until I touched him on the shoulder.

With the aid of Karl and the reis we managed to lift the slab, though it was a delicate and dangerous procedure. By means of levers and wedges it was gradually raised and at last tipped back onto its side, exposing the remains of the long-dead thief. It was hard to think of those brittle scraps as having once been human. Even the skull had been crushed to fragments.

‘Curse it, this is when we need our photographer,’ Emerson muttered. ‘Peabody, go back to the house and – ’

‘Be reasonable, Professor,’ Vandergelt exclaimed. ‘This can wait till morning. You don’t want the missus wandering around the plateau at night.’

‘Is it night?’ Emerson enquired.

‘Permit that I make a sketch, Herr Professor,’ Karl said. ‘I do not draw with the grace and facility of Miss Mary, but – ’

‘Yes, yes, that is a good idea.’ Emerson squatted. Taking out a little brush, he began to clean the muffling dust from the bones.

‘I don’t know what you expect to find,’ Vandergelt grunted, wiping his perspiring brow. ‘This poor fellow was a peasant; there won’t be any precious objects on his body.’

But even as he spoke a brilliant spark sprang to life in the dust Emerson’s brush had shifted. ‘Wax,’ Emerson snapped. ‘Hurry, Peabody. I need wax.’

I moved at once to obey – not the imperious dictates of a tyrannical husband, but the imperative need of a fellow professional. Paraffin wax was among the supplies we commonly kept on hand; it was used to hold broken objects together until a more permanent adhesive could be applied. I melted a considerable quantity over my small spirit lamp and hastened back to the tomb to find that Emerson had finished clearing the object whose first glitter had told us of the presence of gold.

He snatched the pan from me, careless of the heat, and poured the liquid in a slow stream onto the ground. I saw only flashes of colour – blue and reddish orange and cobalt – before the hardening wax hid the object.

Emerson transferred the mass to a box and, with his prize in his hand, was persuaded to stop work for the night. Abdullah and Karl were to remain on guard.

As we neared the house, Emerson broke a long silence. ‘Not a word of this, Vandergelt, even to Lady Baskerville.’

‘But – ’

‘I will inform her in due course and with the proper precautions. Curse it, Vandergelt, most of the servants have relatives in the villages. If they hear that we have found gold – ’

‘I get you, Professor,’ the American replied. ‘Hey – where are you going?’ For Emerson, instead of following the path to the front gate, had started toward the back of the house.

‘To our room, of course,’ was the reply. ‘Tell Lady Baskerville we will be with her as soon as we have bathed and changed.’

We left the American scratching his dishevelled head. As we climbed in through our window, I reflected complacently on the convenience of this entrance – and, less complacently, on its vulnerability to unauthorised persons.

Emerson lighted the lamps. ‘Bolt the door, Peabody.’

I did so, and drew the curtains across the window. Meanwhile Emerson cleared the table and placed a clean white handkerchief on its surface. Opening the box, he carefully slid the contents out onto the kerchief.

His wisdom in using wax to fasten the broken pieces together was immediately manifest. Crushed and dispersed as they were, they yet retained traces of the original pattern. Had he plucked them out of the dust one by one, any hope of restoring the object would have been lost.

It was a pectoral, or pendant, in the shape of a winged scarab. The central element was cut from lapis, and this hard stone had survived almost intact. The delicate wings, formed of thin gold set with small pieces of turquoise and carnelian, were so badly battered that their shape could only be surmised by an expert – which, of course, I am. Enclosing the scarab was a framework of gold which had held, among other elements, a pair of cartouches containing the names of a pharaoh. The tiny hieroglyphic signs were not incised in the gold, but inlaid, each small shape being cut out of a chip of precious stone. These were now scattered at random, but my trained eye immediately fell on an ‘ankh’ sign shaped from lapis and a tiny turquoise chick, which represented the sound ‘u’ or ‘w.’

‘Good Gad,’ I said. ‘I am surprised it was not crushed to powder.’

‘It was under the thief’s body,’ Emerson replied. ‘His flesh cushioned and protected the jewel. When the flesh decayed the stone settled and the gold was flattened, but not smashed to bits as it would have been had the slab fallen directly onto it.’

It was not difficult for my trained imagination to reconstruct the ancient drama, and its setting: the burial chamber, lighted only by the smoky flame of a cheap clay lamp, the lid of the great stone sarcophagus flung aside, and the carved face of the dead man staring enigmatically at the furtive figures that darted hither and thither, scooping up handfuls of jewellery, stuffing golden statues and bowls into the sacks they had brought for that purpose. Hardened men, these thieves of ancient Gurneh; but they could not have been entirely immune to terror, for one of them had flung the dead king’s amulet over his head so that the scarab rested on his wildly beating heart. Fleeing with his loot, he had been caught by the trap, whose thunderous fall must surely have roused the cemetery guards. The priests, coming to restore the damage, had left the fallen monolith as a warning to future thieves; and indeed, as Emerson had said, no better proof of the disfavour of the gods could have been found.

With a sigh I returned to the present, and to Emerson, who was carefully restoring the object to the box.

‘If we could only read the cartouche,’ I said. ‘The ornament must belong to the owner of our tomb.’

‘Ah, you missed that, did you?’ Emerson grinned maliciously at me.

‘Do you mean – ’

‘Of course I do. You are letting your feminine weakness for gold cloud your wits, Peabody. Use your brain. Unless you would like me to enlighten you – ’

‘That will not be necessary,’ I replied, thinking rapidly. ‘From the fact that the name and figure of the tomb owner have been hacked out, we may suppose that he was one of the heretic pharaohs – possibly even Akhenaton himself, if the tomb was begun in the early days of his reign before he left Thebes and forbade the worship of the old gods. However, the fragments of the remaining hieroglyphs do not fit his name. There is only one name that does fit….’ I hesitated, hastily searching my memory. ‘The name of Tutankhamon,’ I concluded triumphantly.

‘Humph,’ said Emerson.

‘We know,’ I went on, ‘that the royal personages of – ’

‘Enough,’ Emerson said rudely. ‘I know more about the subject than you do, so don’t lecture me. Please hurry and change. I have a great deal to do, and I want to get at it.’

Ordinarily Emerson is as free of professional jealousy as any man can be, but occasionally he reacts badly when my wits prove to be sharper than his. So I let him sulk, and as I dressed I tried to remember what I knew of the pharaoh Tutankhamon.

Not much was known of him. He had married one of Akhenaton’s daughters, but had not followed the heretical religious view of his father-in-law after he returned to Thebes. Though it would be an unparalleled thrill to discover any royal tomb, I could not help but wish we had found someone other than this ephemeral and short-reigned king. One of the great Amenhoteps or Thutmosids would have been much more exciting.

We found the others awaiting us in the drawing room. I really believe Emerson had forgotten about Madame Berengeria in the delight of his discovery. A stricken expression crossed his face when he beheld the lady’s ample form, decked in its usual bizarre costume. But the others paid us little heed; even Madame was listening openmouthed to Vandergelt’s dramatic description of the thief’s remains. (He did not mention the gold.)

‘Poor fellow,’ Mary said gently. ‘To think of him lying there all these thousands of years, mourned by wife and mother and children, forgotten by the world.’

‘He was a thief and criminal who deserved his fate,’ said Lady Baskerville.

‘His accursed soul writhes in the fiery pits of Amenti,’ remarked Madame Berengeria in sepulchral tones. ‘Eternal punishment … doom and destruction…. Er, since you insist, Mr Vandergelt, I believe I will take another drop of sherry.’

Vandergelt rose obediently. Mary’s lips tightened but she said nothing; no doubt she had long since learned that any attempt to control her mother only resulted in a strident argument. So far as I was concerned, the sooner the lady drank herself into a stupor, the better.

Lady Baskerville’s black eyes flashed contemptuously as she gazed at the other woman. Rising, as if she were too restless to sit still, she strolled to the window. It was her favourite position; the whitewashed walls set off the grace of her black-clad figure. ‘So you believe we are nearing our goal, Professor?’ she asked.

‘Possibly. I want to get back to the Valley at first light tomorrow. From now on, our photographer’s aid will be essential. Milverton, I want … But where the devil is he?’

How well I remember the premonitory chill that froze the blood in my veins at that moment. Emerson may scoff; but I knew instantly that something dreadful had happened. I ought to have observed at once that the young man was not with the others. My only excuse is that my archaeological fever was still in the ascendancy.

‘He is in his room, I suppose,’ Lady Baskerville said casually. ‘I thought this afternoon that he looked feverish and suggested that he rest.’

Across the width of the room Emerson’s eyes sought mine. In his grave countenance I read a concern that matched my own. Some wave of mental vibration must have touched Lady Baskerville. She paled visibly and exclaimed, ‘Radcliffe, why do you look so strange? What is wrong?’’

‘Nothing, nothing,’ Emerson replied. ‘I will just look in on the young man and remind him we are waiting. The rest of you stay here.’

I knew the order did not apply to me. However, Emerson’s longer legs gave him an advantage; he was the first to reach the door of Milverton’s room. Without pausing to knock he flung it wide. The room was in darkness, but I knew at once, by means of that sixth sense that warns us of another human presence – or its absence – that no one was there.

‘He has fled,’ I exclaimed. ‘I knew he was weak; I ought to have anticipated this.’

‘Wait a moment, Amelia, before you jump to conclusions,’ Emerson replied, striking a match and lighting the lamp. ‘He may have gone for a walk, or…’ But as the lamp flared up, the sight of the room put an end to this and every other innocent explanation.

Though not equipped with the degree of luxury that marked the quarters of Lord Baskerville and his lady, the staff rooms were comfortable enough; Lord Baskerville held, quite correctly in my opinion, that people could work more effectively when they were not distracted by physical discomfort. This chamber contained an iron bedstead, a table and chair, a wardrobe and chest of drawers, and the usual portable offices, chastely concealed behind a screen. It was in a state of shocking disarray. The wardrobe doors stood open, the drawers of the dresser spilled garments out in utter confusion. In contrast, the bed was made with almost military precision, the corners of the spread tucked in and the folds falling neatly to the floor.

‘I knew it,’ I groaned. ‘I had a feeling of …’

‘Don’t say it, Peabody!’

‘… of impending doom!’

‘I asked you not to say that.’

‘But perhaps,’ I went on, more cheerfully, ‘perhaps he has not fled. Perhaps the disorder is the result of a frantic search – ’

‘For what, in God’s name? No, no; I am afraid your original idea is correct. Curse the young rascal, he has a ridiculously large wardrobe, doesn’t he? We shall never be able to determine whether anything is missing. I wonder…’

He had been rummaging through the strewn garments as he spoke. Now he kicked the screen away and examined the washbasin. ‘His shaving tackle is still here. Of course he may have had an extra set, or planned to purchase replacements. I confess it begins to look bad for the new Lord Baskerville.’

A sharp cry from the doorway betokened the presence of Lady Baskerville. Her eyes wide with alarm, she leaned on the arm of Mr Vandergelt.

‘Where is Mr Milverton?’ she cried shrilly. ‘And what did you mean, Radcliffe, by your reference to … to …’

‘As you see, Milverton is not here,’ Emerson replied. ‘But he is not … that is to say, his real name is Arthur Baskerville. He is your late husband’s nephew. He promised to go to the authorities today, but it looks as if he – Here – look out, Vandergelt – ’

He jumped to assist the American; for on hearing the news Lady Baskerville had promptly fainted, in the most graceful manner imaginable. I watched in aloof silence as the two men tugged at the lady’s limp form; finally Vandergelt won out, and lifted her into his arms.

‘By Jimminy, Professor, tact is not your strong point,’ he exclaimed. ‘Was that the truth, though, about Milverton – Baskerville – whoever he is?’

‘Certainly,’ Emerson replied haughtily.

‘Well, this has sure been a day of surprises all around. I’ll just take the poor lady to her room. Then maybe we’d better have a little council of war, to decide what to do next.’

‘I know what we ought to do next,’ Emerson said. ‘And I mean to do it.’

Scowling in magisterial fashion, he strode to the door. Vandergelt vanished with his burden. I lingered, scanning the room in hopes of seeing a hitherto unnoticed clue. Though Arthur’s cowardly flight had confirmed my suspicions of his guilt, I felt no triumph, only chagrin and distress.

Yet – why should he flee? That very morning he had seemed cheerful, relieved of his anxiety. What had happened in the intervening hours to make him a fugitive?