The Falcon at the Portal: An Amelia Peabody Mystery (15 page)

"Selim—"

"The devil with Selim," said Emerson, removing my hat and tossing it aside.

The interlude was brief but refreshing, and it left Emerson in a conciliatory frame of mind. He went so far as to ask my opinion as to which "pyramid" we should tackle, and my own mood was so forbearing I did not comment sarcastically on the word. I cast my vote in favor of the Layer Pyramid. Emerson grinned.

"You want to crawl into the cursed substructure. Really, Pea-body, your penchant for dark, hot, dirty tunnels makes me wonder about you."

"Ah," I said, my interest reviving. "There are dark, hot, dirty tunnels in the substructure?"

Emerson chuckled. "Very dark and very dirty. Shall we have another look?"

Selim, who had tactfully disappeared behind a ridge, now returned, and I said, "We should start back, Emerson, we promised we would meet the children at two."

"Plenty of time," said Emerson, as I had expected.

So we headed back toward the other structure (the word "pyramid" stuck in my throat), which was farther south but closer to the cultivation. It is possible to see for quite* a distance in that clear dry air (after the morning mist has dispersed, and providing there is no wind to raise clouds of sand). I was unable to resist glancing back toward Giza from time to time; the pure perfection of those triangular silhouettes drew my eye like a magnet. We had not proceeded far when I beheld other shapes advancing in our direction. I called out to Emerson to stop.

"There are three individuals on horseback advancing in our direction, Emerson. I think—yes, it is Miss Maude and her brother and Mr. Godwin. I expect they are looking for us."

"Why?" Emerson inquired.

"We did mention yesterday that we were planning to visit the site. It is a delicate attention."

"You and your delicate attentions," Emerson grumbled. "Idle curiosity would be nearer the mark. Haven't they anything better to do than bother me?"

"Probably not. Mr. Reisner is still in the Sudan, and their season does not begin till January. No doubt they wish to give you the benefit of their experience at the site."

The young people were soon with us. Miss Maude looked very businesslike in a divided skirt and matching coat and a pair of well-cut tasseled boots. I had not supposed she meant to offer the benefit of
her
experience, since she had none; my supposition as to her reason for coming was soon confirmed, for her ingenuous countenance fell when she realized Ramses was not one of the party.

Geoffrey remained modestly silent, allowing Jack Reynolds to do most of the talking. He had spent several weeks excavating in the cemeteries adjoining the pyramid (as he called it) and offered to show us round.

Emerson was graciously pleased to accept and we went on together, with Miss Maude trailing disconsolately in the rear. Listening to Jack's comments, I was increasingly impressed with his competence, though, as he was. the first to admit, they had not spent enough time at the site to enable him to answer many of Emerson's pointed questions.

According to Jack, the monument had in fact been completed. It had been a step pyramid like the magnificent tomb of Zoser at Sakkara, with fourteen steps or layers. The original height was impossible to calculate, since the upper layers had disintegrated into a mass of formless rubble. Mr. Reisner had cleared the base along the east side and part of the north; the rest still lay hidden under heaps of debris. On the north side a great breach gaped, exposing stone steps that descended at a steep angle before disappearing into the darkness below. Even in the short space of time that had elapsed since Mr. Reisner cleared it, sand had half-filled the opening.

"The entrance to the substructure?" I inquired, leaning over to peer in.

"Yes, ma'am. Do be careful, Mrs. Emerson, if you lost your balance you would roll quite a long way." Geoffrey took me gently but firmly by the arm.

"Ten meters to the bottom of the stairs," said Emerson. "Then a long gallery which makes a right-angle turn to another stair, with several corridors opening off from it; one leads to an empty burial chamber. The plan indicates a perpendicular shaft going straight up to the surface from the end of the first gallery. Its upper entrance must be..." He shaded his eyes with his hand and went trotting off.

We followed Emerson to the west, where a largish dimple, or concavity, suggested a hollow beneath. "Here's where the shaft reaches the surface," Emerson said dogmatically. "What's in it?"

"In it?" Jack repeated, looking puzzled.

"There must be something in it," said Emerson slowly and patiently, "or we would be able to see the bottom. It was not left open by the men who constructed it in the first place; that would have constituted an invitation to tomb robbers. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes, sir, that is obvious," said Jack.

"Ah. I am glad you agree with me. So the builders of the shaft must have filled it with something, eh? Barsanti indicates the existence of masonry in the upper portion. Reisner's report makes no mention of it. What I am endeavoring to discover, in my clumsy fashion," said Emerson, "is whether the original filling is still there—and what it consists of—and how far it extends—and whether the shaft contains anything else, such as offerings or funerary deposits or subsidiary burials."

Jack had, I believe, begun to sense something odd in Emerson's manner, but having very little sense of humor he could not quite put his finger on what it was. A line in Geoffrey's thin cheek deepened into a dimple, but he tactfully repressed his amusement. "So far as I know, Professor, no one has excavated the shaft," he said. "Our team certainly did not."

"Good gracious," Emerson exclaimed. "How I admire your courage! If the material, whatever it may be, that fills that shaft, had fallen down into the passageway, you might have been buried alive."

"We spent most of our time on the subsidiary graves and the exterior of the pyramid," said Jack. Emerson's sarcasm had become too exaggerated to ignore; the young man was biting his mustache and glowering.

"Oh, bah," said Emerson, tiring of the game. "The published reports are shamefully inadequate. Where are Reisner's field notes?"

Jack was visibly taken aback. "I couldn't say, sir. I'm sure he would be delighted to show them to you, but without his permission I couldn't possibly—er—even if I knew how to locate them."

"Never mind," Emerson muttered. "I'll have to do it all over again anyhow."

"Emerson," I said. "It is getting late."

"Yes, yes. Just hang on a minute, Peabody."

And without further ado he began to climb the crumbling slope, scrambling agilely upward above a miniature avalanche of pebbles and broken stone.

"Goodness to gracious, look at him go!" Jack exclaimed, staring. "I wouldn't have believed a fellow his size could move so fast."

"He surpasses his own legend," said Geoffrey Godwin with an odd little smile. "Do you know, Mrs. Emerson, that before I met the Professor I doubted most of the stories I had heard about him?"

"The only apocryphal stories are the ones about his magical powers," I said with a laugh. "Though he performs a superb exorcism when called on to do so. As for the other tales, it is impossible to exaggerate where Emerson is concerned."

"The same is true of the rest of you," Geoffrey said gallantly. "You too have become a legend in Egypt, Mrs. Emerson, and Ramses is fast becoming one."

"I have no idea where you got that impression," I replied. I did, though. Maude must have repeated some of the absurd stories Nefret had told her.

Poised on the summit, one hand shielding his eyes, Emerson scanned the surrounding terrain. His splendid physique was outlined against the sky, and his black hair gleamed like a raven's wing. I wondered what the devil he had done with his hat.

"What's he doing?" Maude asked.

Her brother chuckled indulgently. "There's not room in that little head of yours for archaeology, is there? If you'd paid more attention to my brotherly lectures, you wouldn't have to ask. He's looking for buried tombs. Sometimes shadows define a sunken area or a stretch of wall. He won't see much this time of day, though. Sun's too high."

Evidently Emerson came to the same conclusion, for he started back down. "Be careful!" I shouted, as a stone rolled under his foot and thumped to the ground. Geoffrey said something to Jack in a low voice, and Jack called, "It's easier going on the other side, Professor."

I had been about to point this out myself. The descent was more dangerous than the ascent, since a misstep would send the climber tumbling head over heels, with little hope of stopping himself until the rocky ground did it for him. On the east side much of the stone had been exposed, offering a rough sort of staircase. Emerson followed Jack's suggestion, moving horizontally along the slope for a space before continuing his descent. He was within twenty feet of the bottom, moving with the same grace and agility he had displayed while ascending, when he suddenly stopped, stooped, and lost his footing. Staggering and swaying, he flailed his arms wildly as he strove to regain his balance. At one point his body was almost perpendicular to the side and I felt sure he was gone, but with a mighty effort he gathered his forces and threw himself back against the facing with a thud that roused the direst of forebodings as to the condition of his ribs.

I was, of course, already running toward the spot where I had fully expected him to land with an even louder thud. I began climbing, and I was not surprised to see Selim, who had remained aloof from the group, climbing beside me.

Emerson was flattened against the slanting surface, his back to me, one scraped, bleeding hand clamped over the edge of a stone. He turned his head and looked down.

"Confound it, what are you doing up here? Get out of my way, Selim, and drag her with you."

"Drag who?" I cried. The side of his head must have banged against the rock. Blood matted the hair at his temple and trickled down his cheek.

"Whom," Emerson corrected, with an infuriating but reassuring grin. "To be precise—you, Peabody. A mild crack on the cranium does not necessarily induce amnesia. Damnation," he added, "the whole bloody lot of them is on the way up."

It was a slight exaggeration; Maude had remained below, wringing her hands and bleating like a sheep. Emerson's profane
adjurations stopped the young men before they had got very far; they retreated, Selim followed, and Emerson swung himself down beside me, assisting my descent with helpful gestures and suggestions. "That stone is loose, try the next one over . .. what the devil did you think you were doing? ... almost there ... if I had fallen I would have swept you down with me. Your heart may be pure, though I have my doubts, but your strength is not the strength of two, much less ten. How dare you take such chances, you adorable idiot?"

The last words were mumbled, since we had reached the ground, where we were surrounded by our anxious companions. Maude cried out and covered her eyes when she saw Emerson's face. It did present a rather horrific spectacle, smeared with blood and dust and perspiration. Geoffrey put a steadying arm round the girl.

"I tried to warn you, sir," he exclaimed. "I almost took a tumble on that stretch myself last year; it is very unstable."

"So I observed," said Emerson. "I got it, though."

And from his pocket he took a large potsherd of pale buff ware. On it, in black paint, was a row of hieroglyphic signs.

We refused Miss Maude's kindly suggestion that we stop at her house for sartorial and medical repairs, since we were already shockingly late. The water in my canteen and my small, medical kit sufficed to restore Emerson to relative respectability. The cuts and abrasions were numerous but shallow; wounds on the head and face always bleed quite a lot. We went straight to the tram station at Mena House, where we left the horses with Selim and bade farewell to our youthful acquaintances. Jack Reynolds assured us in parting that they would be delighted to lend us a hand if we wanted assistance at the dig, since they would not be starting work officially for several weeks.

Once arrived in Cairo, we took a cab to the hotel. During the drive I made Emerson put on the cravat I had brought, smoothed his hair with my folding comb, and shook the sand off his coat. He submitted to these attentions with sullen resignation, remarking only, "Aren't you going to wash my face and brush my teeth?"

I shook my head. "I have done the best I could, Emerson, but

I am afraid the children are going to get something of a shock. You look dreadful."

The children were not the only ones who reacted to Emerson's appearance with consternation. Every head of every diner turned to stare as my imposing and unkempt husband entered the dining salon. Nefret had been watching the door; she jumped up and hurried to meet us.

"Professor darling, what happened? Come back to the dahabeeyah at once and let me examine you."

"What, now?" Emerson drew her hand through his arm and led her back to the table. "I need food, not fussing, my dear; we have had a busy morning."

"So it would seem," said Ramses, who had risen and was holding a chair for me. "You are not seriously injured, Father?"

"No, no, just a bump on the head. I'll tell you all about it as soon as we have ordered. I'm ravenous. Where is the cursed waiter?"