He Shall Thunder in the Sky (34 page)

     It was typical of David that he should think first of the danger to someone else. “The Professor mustn’t go alone. The fellow wouldn’t think twice about knifing him in the back, or shooting him. Where are they meeting and when? I’ll be there too.”

     “Not you, no.” Ramses went on to explain. “His choice of a rendezvous was no accident. I don’t know how much he knows, or how much he has told others, but if something goes wrong tomorrow night you must not be found near that house. I’m going with Father. Between the two of us we should be able to deal with Farouk. The little swine isn’t going to shoot anybody until he has made certain we have the money with us.”

     The area between the edge of the cemetery and the city gate was an open field, used in times of festivals, now deserted. Pale clouds of dust stirred around their feet as they walked under a sickle moon through patches of weeds and bare earth. There was no sign of life but the night was alive with sounds and movements — the sharp baying of pariah dogs, the scuttle of rats. A great winged shape of darkness swept low over their heads and a brief squeak heralded the demise of a mouse or shrew. He had grown up amid these sounds and rich, variegated smells — donkey dung, rotting vegetation — and he had walked paths like this one many times with David. He was reluctant to break the companionable silence, but ahead the glow of those parts of Cairo that never slept — the brothels and houses of pleasure — were growing brighter, and there was more to discuss before they parted.

     He gave David a brief account of what had transpired at the rendezvous, and David described his new abode, in the slums of Boulaq. “Biggest cockroaches I’ve ever seen. I’m thinking of making a collection.” Then David said, “What’s this I hear about a statue of solid gold?”

     Ramses laughed. “You ought to know how the rumor-mongers exaggerate. It is a treasure, though.” He described the statue and answered David’s questions; but after David’s initial excitement had passed, he said, “Strange place to find such a thing.”

     “I thought that would occur to you.”

     “But surely it must have occurred to the Professor as well. A royal Fourth Dynasty statue in the shaft of a private tomb? Even the most highly favored official would not possess such a thing; it must have been made to stand in a temple.”

     “Quite.” They passed between the massive towers of the Bab el-Nasr, one of the few remaining gates of the eleventh century fortifications, and were, suddenly, in the city. “It hadn’t been thrown in,” Ramses went on. “It was upright and undamaged, and not far from the surface. The sand around it was loose, and the purported thieves had left a conspicuous cavity that pinpointed its position.”

     David pondered for a moment, his head bent. “Are you suggesting it was placed there recently? That the diggers wanted you to find it? Why? It’s a unique work of art, worth a great deal of money in the antiquities market. Such benevolence on the part of a thief . . . Oh. Oh, good Lord! You don’t think it could have been —”

     “I think that’s what Father thinks. He sees the dread hand of Sethos everywhere, as Mother puts it, but in this case he could be right. I’ve been half expecting Sethos would turn up; such men gather like vultures in times of war or civil disorder. He’s been acquiring illegal antiquities for years, and according to Mother he keeps the finest for himself.”

     “But why would he plant one of his treasures in your tomb?” David emitted a gurgle of suppressed laughter. “A present for Aunt Amelia?”

     “A distraction, rather,” Ramses corrected. “Perhaps he’s hoping that a superb find will make her concentrate on the excavation instead of looking for enemy agents.”

     “Has she been doing that?”

     “Well, I think she may be looking for
him
. That is a damned peculiar relationship, David; I don’t doubt she is devoted to Father, but she’s always had a weakness for the rascal.”

     “He has rescued her from danger on several occasions,” David pointed out.

     “Oh, yes, he knows precisely how to manipulate her. If she is telling the truth about their encounters he hasn’t made a single false move. She’s such a hopeless romantic!”

     “He may really care for her.”

     “You’re another damned romantic,” Ramses said sourly. “Never mind Sethos’s motives; in a way I hope I’m wrong about them, because I’d hate to believe my mind works along the same lines as his.”

     “He could be one of the busy little spies in our midst, then — perhaps even the man in charge. That isn’t a happy prospect.” David sounded worried. “He has contacts all over the Middle East, especially in the criminal underground of Cairo, and if he is as expert at disguise as you —”

     “He’s even better. He could be almost anyone.” Ramses added, in a studiously neutral voice, “Except Mrs. Fortescue.”

     “You’re certain?” The undercurrent of laughter was absent from David’s voice when he went on. “She could be one of his confederates. He had several women in his organization.”

     Ramses knew David was thinking of one woman in particular — the diabolical creature who had been responsible for his grandfather’s death. She was out of the picture, at any rate, struck down by a dozen vengeful hands.

     “Possibly,” he said.

     “What about that bizarre Frenchman who follows her about? Could he be Sethos?”

     Ramses shook his head. “Too obvious. Have you ever seen anyone who looked more like a villain? He’d be more likely to take on the identity of a well-known person — Clayton, or Woolley, or . . . Not Lawrence, he’s not tall enough.”

     They skirted the edge of the Red Blind district. A pair of men in uniform reeled toward them, arms entwined, voices raised in song. It was long past tattoo, and the lads were in for it when they returned to the barracks, but some of them were willing to endure punishment for the pleasures of the brothels and grog shops. Ramses and David stepped out of the way and as the men staggered past they heard a maudlin, off-key reference to someone’s dear old mother. David switched to Arabic.

     “Why don’t you ask the Professor whom he suspects?”

     “I could do that,” Ramses admitted.

     “It is time you began treating your parents like responsible adults,” David said severely.

     Ramses smiled. “As always, you speak words of wisdom. We must part here, my brother. The bridge is ahead.”

     “You will let me know —”

     “Aywa. Of course. Take care. Maas salameh.”

:

W
hen we reached the house we learned from Fatima, who had waited up for us, that Nefret had returned an hour before. She had refused the food Fatima wanted to serve, saying she was too tired to eat, and had gone straight to her room. My heart went out to the child, for I knew she must be concerned about one of her patients. I stopped outside her door but saw no light through the keyhole and heard no sound, so I went on.

     I myself was suffering from a slight alimentary indisposition. I put it down to nerves, and too much rich food, and having rid myself of the latter along the roadside, I accepted a refreshing cup of tea from Fatima before retiring. Needless to say, I did not sleep until I heard a soft tap on the door — the signal Ramses had grudgingly agreed to give on his return. I had promised I would not detain him, so I suppressed my natural impulses and turned onto my side, where I encountered a pair of large, warm hands. Emerson had been wakeful too. In silence he drew me into his embrace and held me until I fell asleep.

Somewhat to my surprise, for she was not usually an early riser, I found Nefret already at the breakfast table when I went down. One look at her face told me my surmise had been correct. Her cheeks lacked their usual pretty color and there were dark shadows under her eyes. I knew better than to offer commiseration or comfort; when I commented on her promptness she informed me somewhat curtly that she was going back to the hospital. One of her patients was in dire straits and she wanted to be there.

     Only one thing could have taken my mind off what was to transpire that night, and we did not find it. The burial chamber at the bottom of the deep shaft had been looted in antiquity. All that remained were a few bones and broken scraps of the funerary equipment.

     We left Ramses to catalog and collect these disappointing fragments, and climbed the rough ladders back to the surface. I remarked to Emerson, below me, “There is another burial shaft. Perhaps it will lead to something more interesting.”

     Emerson grunted.

     “Are you going to start on it today?”

     “No.”

     I stopped and looked down at him. “I understand, my dear,” I said sympathetically. “It is difficult to concentrate on excavation when so much hangs on our midnight rendezvous.”

     Emerson described the said rendezvous with a series of carefully selected adjectives, adding that only I would stop for a chat while halfway up a rickety ladder. He gave me a friendly little push.

     Once on the surface, Emerson resumed the conversation. “I strongly object to one of the words you used, Peabody.”

     “ ‘Midnight’ was not entirely accurate,” I admitted.

     “But it sounds more romantic than eleven P.M., eh?” Emerson’s smile metamorphosed into a grimace that showed even more teeth and was not at all friendly. “That was not the word. You said ‘our.’ I thought I had made it clear to you that the first person plural does not apply. Must I say it again?”

     “Here and now, with Selim waiting for instructions?” I indicated our youthful reis, who was squatting on the ground smoking and pretending he was not trying to overhear.

     “Oh, curse it,” Emerson said.

     Daoud got the men started and Selim descended the ladder in order to take Ramses’s place in the tomb chamber, assuming, that is, that Ramses would consent to be replaced. After assuring me that David was still safe and unsuspected, and that the delivery of weapons had gone off without incident, and that nobody had tried to murder him, he had rather avoided me. I knew why, of course. Injured and weakened as he had been, he had been forced to rely on me and on his father for help. Now he regretted that weakness of body and will, and wished he had not involved us. In other words, he was thinking like a man. Emerson was just as bad; I always had trouble convincing him that he needed me to protect him. Dealing with not one but two male egos was really going to be a nuisance.

     I took Emerson to the rest place, where he immediately began lecturing. I sipped my tea and let him run on until he ran out of breath and patience. “So what have you to say?” he demanded.

     “Oh, I am to be allowed to speak? Well, then, I grant you that if he is alone, you and Ramses can probably manage him by yourselves, always assuming he doesn’t assassinate one or both of you from ambush as you approach. However —”

     “Probably?” Emerson repeated, in a voice like thunder.

     “However,” I continued, “it is likely that he will be accompanied by a band of ruffians like himself, bent on robbery and murder. They could not let you live, for they would know you would —”

     “Stop that!” Emerson shouted. “Such idle speculation —”

     “Clears away the deadwood in the thickets of deduction,” said Ramses, appearing out of thin air like the afrit to which he had often been compared. Emerson stared at him in stupefaction, and Ramses went on, “Father, why don’t you tell her precisely what we are planning to do? It may relieve her mind.”

     “What?” said Emerson.

     “I said —”

     “I heard you. I also heard you utter an aphorism even more preposterous than your mother’s efforts along those lines. Don’t you start, Ramses. I cannot put up with two of you.”

     “It was one of Mother’s, as a matter of fact,” Ramses said, taking a seat on a packing case. “Well, Father?”

     “Tell her, then,” Emerson said. He added gloomily, “It won’t stop her for long, though.”

     “It will be all right, Mother,” Ramses said. He smiled at me; the softening of his features and the familiar reassurance disarmed me — as he had no doubt counted on its doing. “Farouk is not collaborating with the Germans for ideological reasons. He’s doing it for the money. We are offering him more than he could hope to get from the other side, so he will come to the rendezvous. He won’t want to share it, so he will come alone. He won’t shoot Father from behind a wall because he won’t know for certain that Father has the money on his person. We will frighten him off if we go in force, so we can’t risk it.”

     I started to speak. Ramses raised his voice and went on. “I will precede Father by two hours and keep watch. If I see anything at all that contradicts my assumptions, or that makes me uneasy, I will head Father off. Is that acceptable to you?”

     “It still seems to me —”

     “One more thing.” Ramses fixed intent black eyes on me. His face was very grave. “We are counting on you to keep Nefret out of this. She will want to go with us, and she mustn’t. If she were present, Father would be worrying about her instead of thinking of his own safety.”

     “And so would you,” I said.

     Emerson had listened without attempting to interrupt; now he glanced at his son, and said, “Ramses is right. In all fairness I must point out that he acted as impulsively as Nefret, and he was lucky to get away with only a knock on the head.”

     Ramses’s high cheekbones darkened. “All right, it was stupid of me! But if she had let me enter that room first, you can be damned sure Farouk would never have laid a hand on her. I’d probably do something equally stupid if he threatened her again, and so would you, Father. Supposing there is a scrap — wouldn’t she wade right in, trying to help us, and wouldn’t you fall over your own feet trying to get her out of it?”

     “I have heard of such things happening,” said Emerson. He looked at me. “No doubt you will accuse us of being patronizing and overly protective —”

     “I do. You are. You always have been. But . . .”

     Emerson heard the note of hesitation in my voice, and for once he had the good sense to keep quiet. His blue eyes were steady, his lean brown face resolute. I looked from him to Ramses, whose unruly black hair curled over his temples and whose well-cut features were so like his father’s. They were very dear to me. Would I put them at even greater risk by insisting on playing my part in the night’s adventure?