The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog (32 page)

Tears blurred my vision as I read the last lines. How blessed I was in such affection! And how I had underestimated Evelyn! Ramses's lecture on preconceptions had not been directed at me (at least I
trusted it had not), but everything he had written about himself could as well be applied to me. And I,
of all people, ought to have known better. Had I not seen Evelyn coolly confront the hideous mummy? Had I not heard her accept an offer that made every nerve quiver with revulsion in the hope that by
doing so she could save those she loved? I was as guilty of prejudice against my own sex as the blind, biased men I had condemned.
Evelyn had not said a word about her adventure. Instead she had bent all her efforts on trying to find
an answer to the mystery. The analysis was brilliant,- the mind that had composed it was as keen as
my own.
Cyrus had been rereading Ramses's letter. Sensitive to every change in my expression, he said gently, "What is it, Amelia? Some bad news Ramses did not mention? I find it difficult to believe he could or would omit anything, but— "
"In that assumption you are correct. Evelyn is far more considerate of my feelings than is my son." I folded the letter and slipped it into my pocket. Let it rest there, against my heart, to remind me of my good fortune and my shame!"
"I hope you will forgive me for not sharing this with you, Cyrus," I went on. "It was the tender expressions of affection it contains that brought the tears to my eyes."
I was more than ready to follow his advice that I seek my couch, for it had been a tiring day. Never has fatigue prevented me from doing my duty, however. I first inspected my patient, whose condition was unchanged, and then went in search of Bertha. The sooner I could find a suitable establishment for her, the better, it really was a nuisance having to play chaperone as well as perform my other duties.
Somehow I was not surprised to find her sitting by the dying fire, talking with Kevin. Knowing he would be all the more determined to speak to her if I made a mystery of her identity, I had simply described
her as another victim of the villain who had attacked Emerson. I had expected Kevin would seek her out. No journalist could resist the mysteriously veiled, seductively gliding figure, and victimized women are particularly popular subjects. I could have composed the heading for his story myself, the words "love-slave" would undoubtedly appear. In the private pages of this journal I will admit that I was willing to throw poor Bertha to this Hibernian wolf of the press if her story would distract him from other
aspects of the case.
However, there was no reason why I should go out of my way to accommodate Kevin, so I interrupted the discussion and sent Bertha off to bed. "You had better do the same, Kevin. We rise at dawn and it will be a long day."
"Not for me," said Kevin with a lazy smile. "We detectives keep our own hours. Wandering to and fro, questioning this one and that—"
"You will not be wandering. You will be with me, so I can keep my eye on you."
"Ah well, it was worth a try," Kevin murmured. "While I am with you, Mrs.— Miss Peabody, you can
tell me all about your daring rescue of the professor. It's bound to come out, you know," he added with
a challenging smile. "Even now some of my more enterprising colleagues are interviewing various citizens of Luxor. From what I have heard, you cut rather a wide swath. Wouldn't you rather have the true facts published than the exaggerated fantasies some of my associates— "
"Oh, be quiet and go to bed," I snapped.
He went off, crooning some sentimental Irish melody in a way that was calculated to annoy me. When
I reached my own tent, Bertha was already asleep, or pretending to be. I fully intended to ask her what she had talked about with Kevin, but at that time I had other matters on my mind. Having sought my couch, I had at last leisure to consider what Evelyn had proposed.
Her first two suggestions I had myself considered. The third, I confess, I had not, and chagrin threatened to overcome me when I realized how stupid I had been. That a young gentleman should appear at the school on the very day Nefret was expected there, and that he should insist on meeting some of the scholars—it was highly suspicious, and I could not think why I had not seen it at the time Was it possible that maternal instincts I had never supposed I possessed had clouded my normally clear intellect?
Highly unlikely, I decided.
Evelyn's incisive outline had made clear to me something else I ought to have realized much earlier. No single suspicious circumstance but a combination of many— a piling up of confirmatory evidence— would be strong enough to induce an enemy to act with such violence and persistence. He might have been alerted in the first place by remembering a conversation with Willoughby Forth, who appeared to have babbled to every archaeologist in Egypt. Skillful questioning of the officers of the Sudan Expeditionary Force would add additional evidence. Greatly as I shrank from holding Walter culpable in the least degree, I had had to caution him more than once to be careful of appearing to know more than he should. He had several friendly rivals in the philological game, had he dropped hints to Frank Griffith, or another, that he was about to make a miraculous breakthrough in the decipherment of Meroitic? Griffith was honest, I had never suspected him,- but he might have spoken of the matter to someone else.
Having by such means established a possibility, the villain would seek further confirmation— and what better source than Nefret herself? She was not nearly so naive and helpless as Evelyn believed, but Evelyn's view was shared— as Nefret had herself pointed out— by society. There were a number of ways in which an acquaintance thus begun might be continued, if all else failed, the good old reliable "accident outside the gates of the park" might serve How surprised the injured young gentleman would
be to recognize the charming girl he had met at Miss Mclntosh's! How reluctant he would be to impose
on our kindness! How gratefully he would accept my ministrations, the friendly attentions of the dear children!
It had not been necessary. Evelyn had hit the nail on the head. I had seen Nefret perform the Invocation to Isis, and there was no way on earth she could have learned it from a family of missionaries, or even
in a native village while under the supervision of such a family. It would take a trained scholar to recognize its origins— but that was true of the other evidence as well.
Yet still our deadly foe had held his hand until he discovered the final proof— objects, artifacts, that
could only have come from a place such as Willoughby Forth had postulated. He must have searched
our rooms in Cairo and found the scepters. The attacks on us had not begun until after we had been
in the city for several days.
Evelyn— my dear, sweet Evelyn, whose intelligence I had so sadly underrated— had been right in
every particular. The villain was no longer in England. He was in Egypt— in our very camp. I had
known there was a traitor among us. Now I knew who he was.

*  *  *

"Charlie?!"
I had been waiting for Cyrus when he emerged from his tent next morning—at a discreet distance, of course, lest I embarrass him by inadvertently observing his ablutions. The pleased smile with which he had greeted me vanished as he listened to my explanation, and the name burst from him with the force
of incredulity.
"He is new with you this season, Cyrus. You had not known him before."
"No, but ... I know his father, his family. I wouldn't hire a fellow without— "
"He may be the true Charles H. Holly. Engineers and archaeologists are no more immune to greed
than members of other professions."
"May be the true . . . Excuse me, Amelia, sometimes I have a doggone hard time following your train
of thought. You surely don't suspect Charlie of being your Master Criminal in disguise?"
"It is possible, but unlikely. I doubt that Sethos would dare face me again. I could not be in his presence for long without penetrating any disguise he might assume." I added, with some asperity— for his
skeptical expression annoyed me— "My reasons for suspecting Charles have nothing to do with Sethos. He fits the description of a man whom I have reason to believe— "
"Uh-huh. So you said. You want to run through that again, my dear? I am afraid I didn't follow you
the first time."
So I ran through it again, and finished by reading the description Evelyn had given.
"But— but," Cyrus stuttered, "that description doesn't match Charlie in any particular. It sounds more
like Rene. Not that I believe he— "
"That is the point, Cyrus. 'Sir Henry' was obviously disguised He would take care to change those
aspects of his appearance when he came to us— the color of his hair, the mustache The long chin and narrow nose match Charlie's, and Charlie is approximately the same age."
"Jimminy," Cyrus muttered. "How many men that age have long chins and narrow noses, do you suppose? Two million? Five million?"
"But only one of them is here," I cried impatiently. "And one of us is a spy for Sethos! Consider that
not only was our food drugged, but that the ambush set for me yesterday must have been arranged by one who anticipated I would follow that path. He must have read the note from Kevin and realized I would respond as soon as I was able."
"An assumption that would certainly be made by anyone who had the honor of your acquaintance,"
said Cyrus, stroking his chin. "My dear girl, I am not denying there may be something in what you say.
But you would be the first to agree I cannot condemn a man on such equivocal evidence."
"I am not suggesting we hold a marsupial court— "
"I beg your pardon?" said Cyrus, staring.
"It is an American term, I believe? Having to do with illegal trials?"
"Oh. Kangaroo court, you mean?"
"No doubt. You know me better, I hope, than to suppose I would leap to unwarranted conclusions or subvert the principles of British justice In fact, I am inclined to agree that we ought to let him go on believing he is not under suspicion. Sooner or later he will betray himself and then we will have him!
And perhaps his leader as well. An excellent idea, Cyrus. He will have to be watched closely, of course."
"I guess I could manage that," Cyrus said slowly.
"I am glad we are in agreement. Now go and get your coffee, Cyrus. You appear a trifle sluggish this morning No offense taken, I hope?"
"None in the world, my dear. You will join me for breakfast, I hope?"
"First I must see how Mohammed is getting on. I confess I find myself postponing that task, his very presence— not to mention the varied insect life that pervades his person— makes my skin crawl. And don't suggest, Cyrus dear, that I leave the disgusting duty to another. That is not my way. Besides, it is possible that he may be able to speak today and I trust no one else to question him."
"I long ago gave up trying to talk you out of anything you had set your mind on," said Cyrus, smiling. "Your sense of duty is as remarkable as your boundless energy. Do you want me to come with you?"
I assured him it was not necessary, and he went off, shaking his head. It had become a habit of his recently.
I stopped outside the shelter to speak with the guard He was one of Cyrus's crew, a stocky, dark-skinned fellow with the aquiline features that spoke of Berber or Touareg blood. Like the desert men, he wore a khafiya or headcloth instead of a turban. He assured me he had looked in on Mohammed at regular intervals during the night and had found no change.
Yet as soon as I pushed the curtained hanging aside I realized that there had been a change—the most final change of all. Mohammed lay in the same position in which I had last seen him, flat on his back, with his mouth ajar and his eyes half-closed. But now no breath of air stirred the bristling hairs of his beard, and blood had issued from his mouth to stain the bandages around his jaws a rusty brown.

CHAPTER 13

"Superstition has its practical uses."

"Sitt Hakim," said a voice behind me. "Will you admit this case is beyond even your skill?"
It was Emerson, of course, speaking in the annoying drawl that indicates he is trying to be sarcastic.
I turned, holding the curtain aside.
"He is dead," I said. "How did you know?"
"It requires very little medical expertise to realize that a man cannot live long with a knife in his heart."
I had not seen the shaft of the knife till then, I was a good deal more shaken than I would have admitted, especially to Emerson. "Not his heart," I said. "The knife is in the center of his chest. Many people make that mistake. The blade may have pierced a lung. A man in his condition would not survive even a slight wound."
Squaring my shoulders, I started toward Mohammed. Emerson pushed me rudely aside, and bent over
the body. I made no objection. Revolting as Mohammed had been in life, he was even more disgusting
dead. After a few moments I heard a nasty sucking sound and Emerson straightened, the knife in his hand.
"He has only been dead for a few hours. The blood has dried, but there is no sign of stiffening in the
jaw or extremities. The knife is the kind most of the men carry, with no distinctive features."
"We must search the place," I said firmly. "Let me pass. The killer may have left some clue."
Emerson took my arm and pushed me out of the shelter. "When you own a dog you are not supposed
to bark, Peabody. Where is your tame detective?"
He was sitting by the fire with the others, calmly drinking tea Surprise— and that short-lived— rather than horror was the general response to Emerson's terse announcement that Mohammed was no more. Charlie appeared to be as astonished as anyone, which only confirmed my suspicions. If a spy and a traitor does not learn how to counterfeit emotion convincingly, he does not last long in his profession.
Cyrus was the only one to comprehend instantly the seriousness of the blow "Doggone it! Don't feel
bad, my dear, you did all you could. A serious injury like that— "
"Even the great Sitt Hakim's talents could not have prevailed in this case," said Emerson. He had been holding the knife behind him, now he tossed it onto the ground. "Mohammed was murdered— and not
by me. In the dark of night the deed was done, with that knife."
The others eyed the weapon as if it had been a snake coiled to strike Charlie was the first to speak
"Then then he was deliberately silenced! This is horrible! It means there is a traitor among us!"
He did it very well, I must say.
"We knew that," Emerson said impatiently. "And now that it is too late, we know that Mohammed
was a danger to him or to his leader. How the devil did the killer get past your guard, Vandergelt?"
"I am going to find out pretty quick," said Cyrus grimly.
"Mr. O'Connell will wish to accompany you," said Emerson, as Cyrus got to his feet
Kevin was not at all anxious to volunteer. "At least let me finish my breakfast," he pleaded. "If the
fellow is dead, he can wait a few more minutes."
"You lack the dogged zeal that is supposed to characterize your profession, Mr. O'Connell," said Emerson. "I had expected you would be on fire to examine the body, study the ghastly face, probe
the wound, search the bloodstained garments, crawl around the floor looking for clues. The fleas and
lice and flies won't bother a man of your hardened nerve, but do watch out for scorpions."
Kevin's face had gone a trifle green. "Stop that, Emerson," I ordered. "Come, Kevin. I will go with you."
"Chacun a son gout,"
remarked Emerson, taking a chair and reaching for the teapot.
As I had expected, Kevin was of no help at all. After one glance at Mohammed's motionless form he hastily turned his back and began scribbling in his notebook while I crawled around the floor and carried out the other actions Emerson had suggested. I did allow myself to omit one, probing the wound was not necessary, since the stains on the knife blade were sufficient indication of how deeply it had penetrated.
While I searched for clues Cyrus was interrogating the guard. I heard most of what was said, for Cyrus's voice was rather loud and the guard's voice rose in volume as he defended himself. He stoutly denied
that anyone had approached during the night. Yes, he might have dozed off,  no one had relieved him, and a man could not do without sleep indefinitely. But his body had blocked the entrance to the shelter and he swore he would have sprung instantly awake if anyone had tried to pass him.
"Never mind, Cyrus," I called. "The killer did not enter that way. Come here and see."
The slit in the canvas wall would have escaped my notice had I not been searching for something of the sort. It had been made by a very sharp knife— probably the same one that had penetrated Mohammed's scrawny chest.
"The killer would not even have to enter," I said. "Only insert an arm and strike. He must have known exactly where Mohammed's pallet was placed. And I had left a lamp burning, so that the guard could
see inside. It was a waste of time looking for clues here Let us see if he left footprints outside."
But of course he had not. The ground was too hard to take prints.
I dismissed Kevin, who was very glad to go. Taking Cyrus's arm, I held him back and let Kevin draw ahead.
"Now will you take the precaution I suggested?" I hissed. "Charlie must be put under restraint! You
were willing to take such measures with Kevin— "
"And still am," Cyrus said grimly. "Archaeology is not the only profession whose members may be seduced by greed."
I believe I gasped aloud. "You don't mean— "
"Who would know better than the man who sent it that you had received an invitation you wouldn't resist? I thought from the start there was something funny about that, a die-hard like O'Connell would
be more likely to sneak up on you than ask you to come to him. He practically goaded you into bringing him here, and now you see what has happened— the first night after he arrived."
"No," I said. "Surely not Kevin!"
It was not the first time those words had burst from my lips. Kevin could not have heard them, but at
that very moment he turned his head and looked back. It might have been my overstrained nerves, it might have been the distorted angle at which I saw him, but on his face was a sly, secretive expression more sinister than any I had seen on that countenance before.
Ineptly assisted by Kevin, I interrogated the others in an attempt to establish alibis. I did not expect
useful results, and I got none. Everyone claimed to have slept the sleep of the innocent and weary, and denied they had heard anything unusual. Charles swore Rene could not have left the tent they shared without awakening him, Rene swore the same about Charles That meant nothing. I could— and did—
say the same about Bertha. But the dastardly deed could have been accomplished in five minutes or less, and innocent or guilty, we had all been tired enough to sleep soundly.
Emerson watched me with a sour amusement he made no attempt to conceal. At last he said, "Satisfied, Miss Peabody? I could have told you this was a waste of time. Does anyone save myself intend to do
any work today?"
Taking this for the order it undoubtedly was, Rene and Charles followed Emerson's example, and Emerson. So did the cat.
My spirits were rather low as I prepared my equipment— notepad and pencils, measuring rule and water flask, candles and matches. If the day went on as it had begun, I did not know how I could bear it. Emerson had returned to calling me MISS Peabody. He had not requested my assistance that day.
Instead of progressing toward that greater understanding for which I had hoped, we were farther apart than before.
Mohammed's death, before he could speak, was discouraging too.
If I had needed anything else to lower my spirits, the knowledge of where we were working that day would have done the job. Cyrus was determined to investigate the new tomb. It had not been mentioned by any of the earlier visitors to the wadi, so it could truly be called unknown, and nothing fires the imagination of an excavator so much as the hope of being the first to enter such a sepulcher. To be sure, the place had obviously been known to Emerson, but as Cyrus dourly remarked, "That son of a gun knows a lot more than he's saying about a lot of things. He doesn't think there's anything worth finding
or he'd have dug into the place himself a long time ago. But he's not the last word, consarn him! There's bound to be something there."
I had not told him of my discovery. The ring bezel was in my pocket even at that moment. I seemed to feel it pressing against my breast— which was nonsense, because it was very small and light. Had I followed the dictates of my archaeological conscience, I would have left it behind, safely enclosed in a box labeled with the location and date of the discovery. I cannot explain or defend the idle fancy that told me I must keep it close, like an amulet warding off danger.
The old demonic, animal-headed gods of Egypt had been proscribed by the heretic king, but it is easier
to pass edicts than enforce them when that which is forbidden appeals to passionate, deep-seated human needs and desires. Our earlier excavation had turned up evidence that the common people had not abandoned their beloved household gods. Sobek was a crocodile god whose chief center of worship was in the Fayum, far to the north. It was the first time any representation of him had been found at Amarna, but his presence was no more surprising than that of Bes, the grotesque little patron of matrimony, and Thoueris, who protected pregnant women. But for me to come upon the crocodile god's image there, after narrowly escaping another deadly threat... Is it any wonder superstition fought with reason in my mind?
First the snake, now the crocodile. Did the third fate still threaten us? If the traditions of myth and
folktale held true, it would be the most dangerous of all.