The Eye of the Serpent (10 page)

‘And why on earth did you tell him I was a professor?'

‘Are you kidding? If I'd said you were a private detective investigating a disappearance, he'd have been up the road to our dig before you had time to put your pants on. It's got that human angle he's looking for.' Ethan considered for a moment.
‘That's your cover story from now on, Wilfred. Anybody asks what you're doing here, you specialize in dating pottery.'

‘But I don't know anything about it.'

‘You won't need to. Just start any sentence on the subject and the person you're speaking to will be asleep by the time you get to the end of it.' He glanced at Alec. ‘You hanging in there, kid?'

Alec nodded. It had been quite a day and he still hadn't even reached the site. ‘I'm fine,' he said. ‘You certainly scared off Mr Corcoran. You might as well have invited him to jump into a pot of boiling oil.'

‘Works every time. It's only when you start playing hard to get that everybody wants to know what you're trying to hide.'

‘So . . . how many people know about Tom's disappearance?'

‘There's us, there's the people up at the dig and there's Tom's parents. That's as far as it goes for now. But if people like Biff Corcoran ever get a sniff of it, that site will be like an ant heap covered in honey. Crawling.' He glanced at Llewellyn. ‘Remember our deal,
Professor
.'

Llewellyn smiled and nodded. ‘I could get used
to that title,' he said. ‘Do you know anything about dating pottery, Mr Wade?'

Ethan shook his head. ‘I never got much further than dating dames,' he said, ‘but I figure that's a whole lot more interesting than a bunch of broken vases.'

They drove on along the valley, the road curving left and right between the outcrops of stone, until finally, at the bottom of a hill, on a flat spread of ground to their left, they saw the tents and vehicles belonging to Sir William Devlin's archaeological expedition.

AS MOHAMMED BROUGHT
the Ford to a halt in front of the encampment, Alec saw Coates emerge from a tent and come hurrying towards them, an expression of concern on his face.

‘Master Alec!' he cried. ‘You were a long time. I was beginning to get worried.' Then he noticed the ancient car upon which Alec was perched. ‘What on earth has happened? Where's the other car?'

‘Relax, Coates,' Alec advised him. ‘We broke down in the desert, but Mohammed here came along and gave us a lift.'

‘
And
saved you from a pack of savage hyenas,' Mohammed reminded him.

‘Oh yes, the hyenas,' said Alec sheepishly. ‘Forgot about them.' He had hoped to avoid mentioning the attack, knowing exactly what Coates's reaction would be.

The valet's face drained of all colour. ‘Hyenas?' he echoed. ‘Oh my good golly gosh!'

Alec stepped down from the running board. ‘It's nothing to get excited about,' he said. ‘Mr Wade shot two of them and I stabbed a third one.'

‘Don't forget I hit one of them with my Ford,' added Mohammed.

‘You—' Coates looked at Ethan, who was in the process of counting some coins into Mohammed's outstretched hand. ‘Mr Wade,' he said sternly. ‘A word in your ear, if you don't mind. You assured me that Master Alec would be perfectly safe in your company.'

Ethan looked up and adopted a puzzled expression. ‘Well, he's right here, safe and sound. What more do you want?'

‘Yes, he
is
here, but it sounds as though he's damned lucky to be alive.'

Ethan dropped the last piastre into Mohammed's hand and turned to face the valet. ‘Believe me,' he said, ‘luck had nothing to do
with it. That's a plucky kid you got there. Sure saved my neck.' He glanced over his shoulder. ‘OK, Mohammed, don't forget our deal now.' He lifted a finger to his lips in an exaggerated gesture of silence.

Mohammed nodded, then turned to Llewellyn, who had just got out of his seat. ‘What about your trunk,
effendi
?' he asked.

‘Oh, you can take that over to the Winter Palace,' said Llewellyn loftily. ‘Have them send it up to my room.' He took a watch from his pocket and consulted it for a moment. ‘And if you would be so kind as to come back for me at . . . shall we say, five p.m.?'

‘Very good, Mr Llewellyn. Of course, after five it costs a little extra.'

Llewellyn rolled his eyes. ‘Now why am I not surprised to hear that?' he muttered.

Mohammed gave him an innocent smile, then started up the car and turned it round. He drove off along the valley, honking his horn as he did so, and the Ford's ancient engine protested noisily as it struggled to cope with the steep hill.

‘Beats me how that old jalopy keeps going,' muttered Ethan. ‘And how come he never saw
that storm? It came from right behind us.' He looked at Llewellyn. ‘You sure you didn't see anything?'

‘Nothing,' said Llewellyn. ‘It was clear all the way until we found you and those confounded hyenas.' He suddenly became all businesslike. ‘I'll start making my enquiries, if I may.'

‘That's fine,' Ethan told him. ‘But please confine yourself to this encampment. The excavation site is off limits to anyone who ain't employed by me.'

‘Oh, I wouldn't be interested,' said Llewellyn. ‘All those old bones and bandages – quite morbid really. Will you be available to answer some questions yourself, Mr Wade?'

‘Er . . . later, maybe. Right now I have things to organize. But don't forget what I said earlier. I'm giving you one chance. If I hear a single bad report about you, you'll be out of here so fast your boots won't touch the ground.'

‘I'll be discreet,' said Llewellyn; and waddled off towards the rows of tents, looking for victims.

‘I'd rather hoped we'd seen the last of him,' muttered Coates, gazing after him disapprovingly. ‘How did he persuade you to let him come here?'

‘That's a long story.' Ethan looked around
impatiently and then shouted, ‘Mickey, where are you?'

The small, skinny figure of Mickey Randall emerged from one of the tents and ran over, nodding to Llewellyn as he passed by.

‘Right here, Mr Wade. What's the problem?'

‘My automobile broke down some twenty miles back along the road. Full of sand, by the looks of it. I need you to take a tool box and another driver down there and get it working again.'

‘Sure thing, boss. I'll get straight onto it.' Mickey started to hurry off, then seemed to remember something and turned back. ‘Oh, yeah, that Dr Duval arrived while you were gone.'

‘Duval? Here already? How could that be? I wasn't expecting him till next week.' Ethan looked around again. ‘Where is he?'

‘The doctor wanted to go straight down to the tomb. I thought it would be all right. But, boss, there's something you—'

‘That's OK, Mickey, you hurry along and get that car fixed. I'll go down and do the welcome routine.' He grinned at Alec. ‘Whaddya say, kid? Wanna come with me and sneak a peek at the tomb?'

‘You bet, Mr Wade!' Alec was so excited he could hardly stand still.

‘Just a moment,' said Coates loftily. ‘Master Alec has had nothing to eat or drink since this morning. Surely there's time for a cup of tea and a buttered crumpet before he goes haring off again.'

Ethan laughed. ‘You English and your tea,' he said. ‘And I'm not even going to ask what a buttered crumpet is.' He studied Alec slyly for a moment. ‘Well, Alec, what do you think?' he said. ‘A nice cup of tea . . . or a first look at Akhenaten's tomb?' He started walking confidently away and Alec immediately bounded after him.

Coates stood there for a moment, staring after them, his hands on his hips. Then he sighed, shrugged his shoulders and trudged back to his tent.

The entrance was well hidden, Alec had to admit.

First they had to climb a steep, narrow path that rose between the rocks for some twenty feet. Then the ground dropped away suddenly and levelled out. It was in the midst of this flat space that an opening suddenly descended steeply into
the bowels of the earth. Covered with sand, as it had been for thousands of years, it was all but invisible; nobody could have suspected that there was anything down here. It was pure luck, Ethan told Alec, that a workman sent to dig a hole for a new latrine had driven the blade of his shovel in at that precise spot and heard the distinctive clang of metal hitting stone.

‘The great thing is that this isn't even visible from the road,' he added. ‘That's why we've got everything pitched on the other side, so if any tourists do make it this far along the valley, all they're gonna see is tents and chairs and a few bored-looking people. So far, it seems to be working.' He began to walk down the steps. ‘Now watch yourself,' he warned Alec. ‘These steps are steep.' He unhooked an Eveready from his belt and switched it on.

The first thing that struck Alec as he gazed down the steps was the scale of the doors that awaited them below. They were huge, ornate, made from what looked like bronze, and dominated by two huge images of serpents – king cobras by the looks of them – their heads raised, their mouths open, revealing forked tongues. Red stones had been set into the eye-sockets
and they glittered in the beam of Ethan's torch, giving the momentary illusion that the creatures had somehow come alive.

‘Apophis,' murmured Alec, remembering what Uncle Will had said earlier. The serpent god of the ancient Egyptians, often associated with Seth, the god of the underworld, the closest thing the ancient Egyptians had to a devil.

It felt very claustrophobic on those steps: they'd only gone a few feet below the level of the sand and the sun had been extinguished like a snuffed-out candle. It was cool down here – one almost might say chilly – and there was a curious smell in the air, an indefinable odour of dust and decay with a certain sulphurous tone mixed in. Through the open doors a glow of light washed out; and as they reached the bottom of the steps, a shadow fell across the opening.

As Alec watched, the head of a creature emerged from the doorway – the snarling, spotted head of a huge leopard. Alec's blood turned cold within him and he was on the point of turning and fleeing back up the steps when a man's arm came into view, and he realized with a sense of relief that it was simply a painted wooden statue. After a moment the Arab
workman moved into view, carefully holding the front part of the statue; his assistant followed, supporting the back legs. Ethan and Alec pressed back against the wall to allow them access to the steps. They bowed their heads respectfully to Ethan as they went by and he gave them a few words of encouragement. Then they began to inch themselves carefully up the steps, well aware that one slip could mean irreparable damage to a priceless treasure.

‘No wonder this business takes so long,' observed Ethan to no one in particular.

‘What happens to the antiquities once you bring them out?' asked Alec.

‘We've got a workshop set up in an empty cave across from here,' said Ethan. ‘We get the stuff boxed up there and we take it out by truck at night.' He laughed at his own cunning. ‘My idea is, we get everything squared away and
then
we make our big announcement. Come on.'

He led Alec through the open doorway and they stepped into the antechamber. Alec got his first real look at the interior of the new tomb. His initial impression was of a complete mess. There were so many different artefacts in here, piled carelessly one on top of the other. The
workmen had hung oil lanterns around the walls to illuminate the treasures; the resulting fumes made it hard to focus on them at first. Alec looked around in wide-eyed wonder. He saw statues and jars and murals and jewellery and scrolls and more jars . . . Behind the almost perfect remains of a battle chariot there was another doorway and he noticed something strange about it: a small oval of midnight-black that must have been an opening into another room beyond the first.

‘We've still got a lot to do,' explained Ethan. ‘Everything was shut down when Will became ill so we lost the best part of a month. I've only just got things running again.'

There were various people working in the antechamber. A man whom Alec recognized as the team's medic, Doc Hopper, held a sketchpad and was painting a watercolour of a bas relief carving on a wall. Like all members of the team, he had a secondary talent to supplement his main function, and it was his artistic abilities that came to the fore; but at any moment he might be obliged to drop his sketchpad and run to help deal with a broken leg or an infected scorpion sting. He noticed Alec and nodded to him with a welcoming smile.

On the other side of the chamber an Arab workman with a box camera was photographing a statue of Apophis (once again, the snake god, Alec thought), and every so often the space was lit by the brief glare of flash powder, the resulting smoke making it even harder to breathe. Over to Alec's right, a couple more Arabs were carefully brushing away the fine dust that had accumulated around a necklace, the cord of which had long since rotted away, so that it could be photographed intact before being removed bead by bead and reassembled somewhere else.