Lion in the Valley (19 page)

I
left him looking like a blooming idiot, as Emerson might have said (though
Emerson would probably have employed a more colorful adjective). I have found
that people are often struck dumb with amazement at the quickness of my
intellect. However, I was confident that he would do as I had asked. By
appealing to his gallantry in assisting a lady in distress I had struck at the
deepest chords in an Englishman's nature, and I did not doubt he would rise to
the occasion.

Enid
wisely waited until she heard my voice before drawing the curtain aside and
joining us in the sitting room. Emerson greeted her with hearty good will.

"I
am glad to see you on your feet again, Miss Marshall. If you feel any signs of
a recurrence, you must tell Mrs. Emerson at once so she can pump you full of
ipecacuanha. First thing tomorrow we will begin excavating at the base of the
pyramid. Perhaps you can tell me—"

I
thought it wise to intervene. "First, Emerson, tell
me
what progress you made today. Have you discovered any traces of the
causeway?"

Emerson
scowled. "Nothing but a few bricks. I don't doubt that the causeway once
ran along that line, but the local looters have removed every scrap of stone.
It is a waste of time to go on. Instead I will begin at the pyramid and work
out from there. I want Miss Marshall to take charge of one group of diggers
and—"

Consternation
ruffled the serenity of the girl's brow, and again I came to her rescue.
"I think it would be better for her to work with me for a few days,
Emerson—to get the hang of our methods, if you will excuse the slang. I propose
to have a look at the subsidiary pyramid. It shouldn't take long to determine
whether there is anything left in the burial chamber. If necessary, we can hire
a few more men."

"I
don't know, Peabody," Emerson began. But I did not hear his objections;
for, out of the corner of my eye, I had seen Ramses close his mouth. His mouth
was usually open, speaking or attempting to speak; the sudden compression of
his lips would have passed unnoticed by a casual observer, but years of
experience had taught me not to ignore the slightest change in that impassive
though juvenile countenance. I promised myself I would have a word with Master
Ramses. He knew something about the small pyramid, possibly from the illicit digging
he had done at Dahshoor the year before.

"Well
then, that is settled," Emerson said. "Er—it is getting late, don't
you think?"

"No,
not really," I said absently, for I was still thinking about the duplicity
of my son. "Where are the rest of the things I bought today?"

Emerson
indicated an untidy heap in the corner of the room. "Well," I said
with a sigh, "we had better sort them out. Some will have to be taken to
the tents. I also
brought a few small items with me in the
saddle bags. Where..."

Eventually
I found them on the mastaba outside, where Abdullah had dumped them before
returning the mare to her owner. Shaking my head, I carried them inside. My
poor little nosegay had been crushed by Abdullah's careless handling. Emerson
glanced at it as I put it to one side. "Buying yourself posies,
Amelia?"

"No
indeed. It was a gift from a gentleman," I said jestingly. Not that I
wanted to arouse Emerson's jealousy, for such tricks are unworthy of an
affectionate spouse. However, a little stirring up never hurts a husband.

Emerson
only grunted. "Baehler, I suppose. These Frenchmen—"

"He
is not French, Emerson. He is Swiss."

"It
is the same thing."

"In
fact, I am not certain of the identity of the kind giver. The flowers were
handed to me by a vendor as I left the hotel. Poor things, they were so
pretty.... Here, Emerson, smell the fragrance."

I
thrust them at him with playful impetuosity, so that the lower part of his face
was quite smothered by the fading blossoms. Emerson's eyes bulged. With a cry
he struck at my hand. The flowers fell to the floor, and Emerson began jumping
up and down on them.

Miss
Marshall leaped from her chair and retreated to the farthest corner of the
room, staring. Knowing Emerson, I did not share her alarm, but I considered his
reaction exaggerated, and I did not hesitate to say so. "Emerson, Mr.
Baehler only meant to make a gallant gesture. You really must—"

"Gallant?"
Emerson glared at me, and with a start of horror I saw that his brown cheek was
disfigured by a creeping trail of blood. "A gallant gesture, upon my
word,"
he cried. "Inserting a poisoned insect or an asp into a bouquet!" He
resumed jumping up and down on the flowers. If a beaten earth floor could have
reverberated, this one would have done so. "When my face— thump—turns
black—thump—remember—thump—I gave my life—thump—for you!"

"Emerson,
my dearest Emerson!" I rushed to his side and attempted to lay hold of
him. "Do stop jumping; violent physical activity will increase the
rapidity of the movement of the poison through your veins!"

"Hmmm,"
said Emerson, standing still. "That is a good point, Peabody."

My
heart pounded in profound agitation as I turned his face to the light. The
wound was no more than a scratch, and it had already stopped bleeding. Shallow
and uneven, it did not in the least resemble the bite of a venomous reptile or
insect. Yet my tender anxiety was not entirely assuaged until I heard Ramses
remark calmly, "There is no animal life of any kind here, Papa. I believe
this bit of metal must have scratched you. It seems exceedingly unlikely—"

Emerson
flung himself at Ramses. "Drop it at once, my boy!"

Ramses
eluded him with eellike sinuosity. "I am confident there is no danger,
Papa. The object is—or was, until you trampled it underfoot—a trinket of some
kind. The material appears to be gold."

Gold!
How often in the course of human history has that word trembled through the
air, rousing the strongest of passions! Even we, who had learned in the course
of our archaeological endeavors that the smallest scrap of broken pottery may
be more important than jeweled treasures—even we, I say, felt our pulses
quicken.

Ramses
held the scrap near the lamp. The sensuous shimmer of light along its surface
proved him right.

"I
don't like you holding it, my boy," Emerson said nervously. "Give it
to Papa."

Ramses
obeyed, remarking as he did so, "Your fears for my well-being are, I
assure you, Papa, without foundation. Mysterious poisons unknown to science are
rare indeed; in fact, I believe I am safe in asserting that they exist only in
sensational fiction. Even the most virulent substances in the pharmacopoeia
require dosages of several milligrams in order to ensure a fatal result, and if
you will stop and consider the matter for a moment, you will agree that it
would be impossible for a bit of metal this size to contain enough—"

"You
have made your point, Ramses," I said.

Emerson
turned the twisted metal over in his fingers. "It appears to be a
ring," he said in a quiet voice.

"I
do believe you are correct, Emerson. How very odd! Wait—turn it this way. I
caught a glimpse of something—"

"There
are a few hieroglyphic signs still decipherable," said the shrill voice of
my infuriating offspring. "They were stamped upon the bezel of the ring,
which had the shape of the cartouche used to enclose royal names. The
alphabetic hieroglyph for
n
was at the bottom; above it you will see the
form of an animal-headed god, followed by two reed signs. The name is
unquestionably that of Sethos, either the first or the second pharaoh of that
name, and I would surmise—"

"Sethos!"
I cried. "Good Gad—can it be—but it must be! That he would dare—that he
would show such consummate—such incredible effrontery—that— that—"

Emerson
took me by the shoulders and shook me so vigorously that quantities of hairpins
flew from my head.
  
"You
 
are hysterical,
 
Peabody,"
 
he
 
shouted.

"Calm
yourself—be still—stop shouting! What are you talking about? Who the devil is
Sethos?"

I
realized that Emerson had not been present when Mr. Nemo told me of this
pseudonym. As soon as I could persuade him to leave off shaking me, I rendered
the necessary explanations. The effect of my statement upon my husband was
terrible to behold. The alteration of his normally handsome features was so
dreadful that Enid fled into the night and Ramses was moved to exclaim,
"Such engorgement of the blood vessels may betoken a seizure, Mama. Some
cold water dashed in Papa's face—"

I
was unable to prevent the application of this remedy, for Ramses acted upon it
even as he spoke, and I must admit that it had a salubrious effect. Emerson
sputtered and swore, but his fiery complexion subsided by gradual degrees and
his acute intelligence triumphed over his choler. He stood in silence for a
moment, dripping. Then he said quietly, "Nemo is certain of the
name?"

"It
is hardly a name he would invent, Emerson. He knows nothing of Egyptology. And
what name could be more appropriate? For Set, as we know, was the evil
adversary of the noble Osiris, and might be termed the Egyptian Satan. Though
it appears that during some period of history, he was well enough regarded to
act as patron of a royal house. The name Sethos means 'man of Set,' or
'follower of Set.' You remember, I am sure, the Kadesh inscription of Ramses
the Second, which exalts the pharaoh by comparing his powers to those of the
god:

"Lord
of fear, great of fame, In the hearts of all the lands. Great of awe, rich in
glory,

As
is Set upon his mountain. ... Like a wild lion in a valley of goats!

"How
admirably does this same comparison suit the enigmatic person who has assumed
the sobriquet of Sethos! Ranging at will among his helpless victims, like the
king of beasts—"

"Yes,
yes," Emerson said. "But the name has another significance which
seems to have eluded you."

"Sethos
the First was the father of Ramses the Second," squeaked our son of the
same name.

His
father gave him a look of pure dislike—one of the few times I had seen Emerson
regard the boy with disfavor.

"What
the devil does that have to do with anything?" he demanded.

"Nothing
at all," I said. "What are you getting at, Emerson?"

"Have
you forgotten, Peabody, that Set was a redheaded god?"

There
could be no doubt, even in the skeptical mind of my husband, that the token of
flowers and jewel had come from that villain, the Master Criminal. Only he
would have thought to taunt me by presenting me with one of the antique
treasures he had stolen from a royal tomb—for, as I hardly need say, golden
rings with a kingly cartouche are not easy to come by.

Emerson
and I were still discussing the matter as we strolled across the silvery desert
toward the Bent Pyramid. Miss Marshall trailed timidly in our wake, encumbered
as we were by toilet articles, blankets, and so on. Knowing the poor girl must
be utterly mystified, I requested Emerson to render a brief statement of our
encounter with the Master Criminal during the previous season. He declined with
a degree of acerbity even greater than the mention of this person's name generally
produced, so I took the task on myself.

"You
know, of course, Miss Marshall, about the deplorable trade in illicit
antiquities. Owing to the vast number of buried tombs and cities, it is
impossible for the Department of Antiquities to guard all of them, especially
since the locations of many are not known. Untrained diggers, both native and
foreign, lured by the high prices such antiques command, carry out digs of
their own, often neglecting to keep the careful records that are essential if
we—"

"If
she already knows it, why are you telling her about it?" Emerson demanded.
"The facts are known to every schoolchild, much less a trained excavator
like Miss Marshall."

I
laughed lightly. "Quite right, Emerson. I have delivered the lecture so
often to tourists and other ignoramuses that I forgot myself.

"At
any rate, Miss Marshall, we discovered that the illicit trade had increased a
hundredfold, and deduced that some genius of crime had taken charge of the
business. These deductions were triumphantly confirmed when we encountered the
mastermind himself. Our investigations—the details of which I will not tell
you at the present time, though they were fraught with interesting
incidents—put a spoke in the wheel of this man; he had us abducted and
imprisoned in a pyramid, from which we escaped by the skin of our teeth just in
time to stop the genius of crime—"

"On
the whole, Amelia," said Emerson in a reflective voice, "I believe I
prefer even the atrocious term Master Criminal to genius of crime."

"Very
well, Emerson, it is of small concern to me.

As
I was saying, Miss Marshall, we robbed Sethos of his ill-gotten gains, but
unfortunately he made good his escape. He is out there somewhere, lurking in
the shadows of the underworld and, I do not doubt, burning for revenge. The
flowers were a reminder that his unseen eyes are upon us and his unseen hand
may at any moment descend."