He Shall Thunder in the Sky (32 page)

     “No, you will not,” said Emerson, spreading gooseberry jam on a piece of bread. “I will go to the bank this evening.”

     “But sir —”

     “The responsibility is mine,” Emerson said.

     For once, Nefret did not continue the argument. Cupping her chin in her hands, elbows on the table, she studied Emerson intently. “What precisely are you paying for, then? It is a large sum, as you said.”

     Emerson was ready for the question and was able to give an honest, if not entirely comprehensive, answer.

     “You remember what Russell told us the night we dined with him? It appears that he was right. Wardani is collaborating with the enemy. Said, or whatever his name may be, must be one of Wardani’s lieutenants. What I hope to get for my money is the name of the German or Turkish agent with whom they have been dealing.”

     Nefret nodded. “That’s what I thought. He
would
be a big fish, wouldn’t he?”

     “Or she,” said Ramses. “I am surprised, Nefret, to find you so ready to dismiss your own sex from consideration.”

     Nefret’s lip curled. “A woman wouldn’t hold such an important position. The Turks and the Germans, and all the rest of the male population of the world, think they’re only good for wheedling information out of the men they seduce.” After a moment she added, “Present company excepted.”

     “Hmph,” said Emerson. “We’ve known a few women who were good for more than that. What’s the use of speculating? We will know tomorrow. Come and give me a hand, Ramses, I want to have a closer look at the statue before we leave for Giza.”

     The statue stood where the men had left it, still swathed in its wrappings. After these were removed we all stood in admiring silence for a time. The statue was an idealized image of a man who was also a god, and it radiated dignity. The sure outlines of eyes and mouth, the perfectly proportioned torso and arms were in the best traditions of Old Kingdom sculpture. Some authorities believe that Egyptian art attained its highest perfection in this period. At that moment I would have agreed with them.

     “It’s beautiful,” Nefret murmured. “I suppose it will go to the Museum?”

     “Undoubtedly,” Ramses replied. “Unless we can come up with something even finer that Quibell might be persuaded to take instead.”

     “No chance of that,” Emerson grunted. “If we had half a dozen of them he might let us have one. We won’t find any more, though.”

     “Don’t you want me to take photographs?” Nefret asked.

     “Later. Collect your arsenal, Peabody, and let’s go.”

     I had to retrieve my sword parasol from Jamal, the gardener, who also acted as handyman. He was Selim’s second or third cousin once or twice removed, a slender stripling as handsome as Selim but without the latter’s ambition and energy. I had explained to him about my parasol release sticking, and he had assured me it would be child’s play for a man of his expertise to fix it. I tested it, of course, and was pleased and surprised to find that it was now working properly.

     Selim and the rest of the crew were at the site when we arrived. Nefret left us soon after midday, by which time the men had reached bedrock. The cut blocks lining the shaft ended there, but the shaft went on down into the underlying stone of the plateau.

     “It cannot be much farther,” Selim said hopefully. Like myself, he was getting tired of sifting endless baskets of sand and rubble which contained not so much as a scrap of pottery.

     “Bah,” said my husband. “It could be another two meters. Or three, or four, or —”

     Selim groaned.

     “And,” said Emerson remorselessly, “you will have to set a guard tonight, and every succeeding night until we have finished with the burial chamber. After the find we made yesterday, every ambitious thief in the area will want to have a go at it.”

     “But we have found nothing else,” Selim said. “Only the statue.”

     “Yes,” said Emerson.

     We went on for a few more hours without reaching the bottom of the shaft. Glancing at the sun, from whose position he could tell time almost as accurately as he read a watch, Emerson called a halt to the work. When I expressed my surprise — for surely we now could not be far from the burial chamber — he gave me a sour look.

     “We have an errand in the city, in case you have forgotten. I must say it would be a pleasant change to have one season without these confounded distractions.”

     I ignored this complaint, which I had heard often. “And after we have done our errand?” I inquired, giving
him
a meaningful look.

     “I don’t know what the devil you mean,” said Emerson grumpily.

     “I do,” said Ramses, who had just joined us. “And the answer is no, Mother. I have already told Fatima I will be dining out this evening. Alone.”

     “Oh, is that what you meant?” Emerson beetled his brows at me. “The answer is no, Peabody.”

     Naturally I did not intend to let them bully me. I bided my time, however, until after we had bathed and changed. Nefret had not returned. After the customary squawks and squeals and misconnections I managed to ring through to the hospital. She was still in surgery, where she had been all afternoon. That was what I had hoped to hear. She would return to the house when she was finished and was not likely to go out again. Long sessions of surgery left her wrung out physically, and sometimes emotionally as well.

     When I joined Emerson and Ramses I discovered that they had arrived at a compromise, as Emerson termed it. We would all dine out together and then Ramses would go on to wherever he was going.

     “It makes good sense, you see,” Emerson explained.

     “In what way?”

     Pretending he had not heard, Emerson hastily got into the driver’s seat. I ordered Ramses to sit in the tonneau next to me and subjected him to a searching inspection. He was looking very nice, I thought, except for a certain lumpiness about the fit of his coat. It could not be bandages; at his emphatic request (and because the healing process was proceeding nicely) I had reduced them in size.

     “Are you carrying a firearm?” I inquired.

     “Good God, no. The last thing I want to do is shoot someone.”

     “Take mine, then.” I reached into my handbag.

     “No, thank you.” He caught hold of my wrist. “That little Ladysmith of yours is one of the most ineffective weapons ever invented. I cannot imagine how you ever manage to hit anything with it.”

     “I usually don’t,” I admitted. “But if someone has you in a death grip —”

     “A knife is more efficient. Anyhow, the trick is to put the other fellow out of commission before he gets hold of you. Mother, what else have you got in that satchel? It is four times the size of your usual evening bag.”

     Before I could prevent him he had inserted his hand. “As I suspected,” he said, pulling out a fold of rusty-black cloth. “You are not going with me tonight, so put the idea out of your head. How would it look for Wardani to bring a woman with him?”

     “Tell me where you are going, then, and what you expect will occur.”

     “Very well.”

     In my surprise I inhaled a bit of my veiling and had to extract it from my mouth before I spoke. “What, no argument?”

     “Since you already know more than you ought,” said my son, “it is only sensible to tell you what more you need to know. We three will be seen dining in public and leaving the hotel together; I will slip away and you and Father will go directly home. The rendezvous is the ruined mosque near Burckhardt’s grave. Father knows the place. And you needn’t come along to protect me. David will be there, in safe concealment. He refused to let me go alone.”

     “God bless the boy,” I murmured.

     “Let us hope He will,” said Ramses.

     We went first to the bank, which was on the Sharia Qasr el-Nil. The transaction did not take long. None of Emerson’s transactions take long. When we came out, Emerson was carrying my “satchel,” as Ramses had termed it. A thousand pounds in gold weighs considerable.

     It was only a short drive from the bank to the Savoy Hotel, where, as Emerson now condescended to inform me, we were dining. I did not ask him why, since he would have told me a pack of lies and I had no doubt his true motive would become apparent in due course. The Savoy was favored by the “Best People” of Cairo officialdom and by British officers.

     I believe that none of the persons present will ever forget the sight of Emerson striding into the Savoy carrying a large black satin handbag trimmed with jet beads. Few men but Emerson would have done it. No man but Emerson could have done it with such aplomb. After we had been shown to a table he put the handbag on the floor under the table and planted both feet firmly upon it.

     “Are you trying to provoke someone into robbing us?” I inquired. “You might as well have held up a placard announcing we have something of value in that bag.”

     “Yes,” said Emerson, opening his menu.

     “Not much likelihood of that,” Ramses said. “No robber would rob the Father of Curses.”

     “Hmph,” said Emerson, glowering at him over the menu. “Another of Daoud’s sayings? Not one of his best.”

     He beckoned imperiously to the waiter. After we had got through the business of ordering our meals he planted his elbows on the table and looked curiously round the room.

     Not all the tables were occupied. The hour was early for the “Best People.” The only ones I recognized were Lord Edward Cecil and several of his set. Catching Lord Edward’s eye, I nodded, and the gentleman hastily wiped the grin off his face.

     “Who are those people with Cecil?” Emerson inquired.

     I told him the names, which would mean no more to my Reader than they did to Emerson. “And that fellow who is smirking at Cecil?” he asked.

     “His name is Aubrey Herbert,” Ramses said. “One of Woolley’s and Lawrence’s associates. He was once honorary attaché in Constantinople.”

     “You know him?” Emerson demanded.

     “I have met him.” A spark of amusement shone in Ramses’s half-veiled eyes. “I’ve been informed that he considers me frightfully underbred.”

     “The opinions of such persons should not concern you,” I said indignantly.

     “I assure you, Mother, they do not. May I ask, Father, what prompts your interest in him?”

     “I am looking for someone,” said Emerson.

     “Who?”

     “That fellow Hamilton. You know him, don’t you, Ramses? You can point him out.”

     “I don’t see him,” Ramses said. “What made you suppose he would be here?”

     “He lives at the Savoy, doesn’t he? I know!” Emerson pushed his chair back. “I will send up my card.”

     And off he went, fumbling in his pockets.

     “Why this sudden interest in Major Hamilton?” I asked Ramses, nodding at the waiter to serve the soup. There was no sense in waiting for Emerson, who would return if and when he chose.

     “I don’t know.”

     “I do hope he doesn’t mean to quarrel with the Major.”

     “Why should he?”

     “The Major was somewhat rude at first, but Nefret said he was charming to her. Oh, dear. You don’t think your father intends to warn the Major to stay away from her, or —”

     “No, I don’t.”

     “Or perhaps it is the little girl. He might wish —”

     “Mother, it is surely a waste of time to speculate. Why don’t you eat your soup before it gets cold?”

     “Speculation,” I retorted, “is never a waste of time. It clears away the deadwood in the thickets of deduction.”

     Ramses retreated behind his serviette.

     “Something caught in your throat?” his father inquired, returning and resuming his seat.

     “No, sir. Was the Major in?” Ramses was a trifle flushed. I hoped he was not coming down with a fever.

     “That we will discover in due course,” said Emerson, beginning on his soup. He eats very neatly but very quickly; he finished before me and then resumed speaking. “I sent up a message saying I was here and wanted to see him.”

     The response to his message did not take the form he expected. Ramses saw her first; he said something under his breath, and directed my attention toward the door of the dining salon.

     “It is only Miss Molly,” I said. “Why such bad language?”

     “I am beginning to think of her as a Jonah,” Ramses said.

     “Nonsense,” said Emerson, turning to smile at the dainty little figure. She saw us at the same moment and came tripping toward us. I could tell from her affected walk and her pleased face that she thought she looked very grown-up. Her pink satin frock was so fresh she must have just put it on, and the ringlets framing her face were held back with a circlet of artificial rosebuds. Clothing makes the woman, as I always say; in this ensemble, which was more suitable for a jeune fille than a child, she did appear older than her admitted age. It must have been her indulgent uncle who had authorized the purchase.

     Miss Nordstrom followed close on the heels of her charge. Her face was even more forbidding than it had been on the occasion of our first meeting, and I thought she looked very tired.

     “I hope you are recovered,” I said sympathetically.

     “Thank you, Mrs. Emerson. It was only a mild — er — indisposition. You must excuse us for interrupting your dinner,” she went on. “Come along, Molly, and don’t keep the gentlemen standing.”

     “Can’t we sit with you?” Molly asked me.

     “As you see, we have almost finished dinner,” I said.

     “Oh, so have I. Finished dinner, I mean. Nordie said I could come downstairs for a sweet if I drank all my milk. The milk here tastes very horrid.” She made a comical face at Emerson, who beamed down at her from his great height.

     “Certainly, my dear. And you too, of course, Miss Er-um. Will the Major be joining us?”

     The waiter brought two more chairs and we all shifted round, to the great inconvenience of all concerned. Miss Molly settled herself into her chair between me and Ramses with an air of great satisfaction.