A River in the Sky (28 page)

“Ghada is here with our washing, Aunt Amelia. She wants us to inspect it to be sure it is satisfactory.”

Rising in my turn, I said approvingly, “She certainly is prompt. I gave her quite a large load only yesterday.”

The girl was waiting for us in Nefret’s bedchamber. She had spread the laundry out across the bed—shirts, undergarments, nightgowns, and so on.

“Where is your little girl?” Nefret asked in Arabic.

“I did not know…” The big brown eyes were worried.

“That I meant what I said? I did. Bring her next time. Now you must get back quickly. Wait a moment, I will get your money.”

She ran back into the sitting room. The girl said anxiously, “Is it right, Sitt Hakim?”

The garments had been scrubbed until they were in danger of fraying, and everything had been ironed, including Emerson’s stockings. “Very good,” I said. “Very, very good.”

Nefret popped in and began counting out coins into the girl’s outstretched hand. They were of different sizes and values, for as I believe I have said, the currency in the Ottoman territories was not standardized; from Ghada’s reaction it was clear that Nefret hadn’t bothered to add them up.

“You give me too much,” she protested.

That was a complaint one seldom heard in this part of the world. I shook my head and Nefret said, “No. You must have worked very hard. Now go back to your baby.”

“Come tomorrow,” I added. “I will have more washing.”

“And bring the baby,” said Nefret.

Emerson was on his feet and fidgeting when we returned to the breakfast table. “Time we were off,” he announced.

Mr. Camden immediately leaped up, leaving his plate half full. I gestured to him to resume his seat, and informed Emerson that most of us had not finished eating.

“Where are we going?” Ramses asked.

“To my excavation, of course,” his father replied. “I want you to—”

“You are not going anywhere until you have eaten every scrap of your breakfast,” I said to Ramses.

“The fever is gone,” Ramses protested. “I want to see what Father—”

“You are as thin as a rail. I must fatten you up before Fatima sets eyes on you. You know how she is.”

“I am never fat enough for Fatima,” said Ramses resignedly. But he shoveled the rest of his eggs into his mouth and bit into a piece of bread.

I had a little discussion with Emerson before we left the house. He was determined to show off his cursed excavation and I was determined to continue my investigation of Major Morley. In the end I graciously agreed to a compromise. As Emerson pointed out, we stood a better chance of catching Morley when he sat down to his luncheon. There would be time for a quick visit to the excavation first.

We proceeded on our way. Emerson forged ahead, holding Ramses by the arm and talking animatedly. Mr. Camden walked with me.

“Your husband does not appear too concerned about his son,” said Mr. Camden. “I mean no disrespect,” he added quickly.

“Oh, that is just Emerson’s way. He hasn’t the slightest doubt that he can protect Ramses from any possible threat. Which reminds me that I meant to ask whether you agree with me that that threat may be exaggerated. Surely now that Ramses has reported Macomber’s murder, Mansur no longer has any reason to silence him.”

“I would not venture an opinion, Mrs. Emerson.” He looked so grave, I continued to press him.

“But you don’t agree with me?”

He hesitated for a moment and then said, “There was a reference, if you recall, to a mission that had to be completed before Mansur and von Eine left Palestine. She is still here. What conclusions may we draw from that?”

At the bottom of the hill Emerson led the way through patches of prickly pears and a few sickly-looking olive trees, till we saw the roped-off enclosure where he had been digging. Cords had been stretched across an area approximately twenty feet square—the grid he had laid out the day before. In one of the squares thus formed, several planks covered a space some ten feet by five.

“What is that?” I inquired of Emerson.

He turned a beaming face toward me. “The interesting discovery I mentioned. Just wait till you see, Peabody! I covered it as a precaution against…Hell and damnation!”

I clapped my hands to my ears. “Good heavens, Emerson, what is the matter?”

“Someone has been here. See, one of the ropes has been retied so hastily that the knot is loose.” He turned like a tiger on the inevitable assemblage of onlookers. “Which of you dared brave the curse I laid on this place?”

Before the echoes of his voice died the audience had fled. Shouting anathemas, Emerson ducked under the enclosing rope and ran to the boarded-over square. Removing the planks, he looked down. I alone of the watchers beheld the stiffening of his powerful frame.

“Stay back,” he said very quietly. “All of you.”

Assuming that this order did not apply to me, I went to his side.

The space below was only a few feet deep, its sides meticulously straight. It was just the right shape for the purpose to which someone had put it.

I am hardened to death in many forms. I had seen worse. He lay on his back, his hands folded and his eyes closed. He might have been sleeping had it not been for the stain, now dark and hardened, that had dyed his white beard a rusty brown.

Emerson put his arm round my waist. “I told you to stay back.”

“I am hardened to death, Emerson. I have seen worse. We must determine how he died.”

“I believe it is safe to say it was not a heart attack,” said Emerson, tightening his grip. “You aren’t going to determine anything, Peabody. Nor you,” he added, as Nefret came to his side.

“Not here, at any rate,” Nefret said quietly. “Who could have done this? He was so harmless. I rather liked him.”

“I didn’t,” said Emerson. “And at this moment we cannot be at
all certain he was incapable of doing harm. However, I object to murder on principle. Camden, go and notify the authorities. He held British papers, so the consul should be told of this.”

Mr. Camden ran off and Emerson replaced the planks over the hole. “Selim, stay here and keep everyone away. The rest of you, come with me.”

“And what are you going to do?” I inquired.

“Interrogate the principal suspect. I’ll have him out of that hole if I have to go down and drag him out.”

We retraced our steps in some haste. “It’s Major Morley Father suspects, isn’t it?” Ramses asked. “Why? Is—was, I should say—the victim that fellow Plato you told me about?”

“That is right, you never met him,” I said. “Yes, that is—was—he.”

“But why Morley?” Ramses persisted. “From the look of it, the fellow’s throat was cut. Morley wouldn’t dirty his aristocratic hands, would he?”

“He would hire someone to do the job,” I said thoughtfully. “Perhaps your friend Mansur? We still don’t know precisely how they are connected.”

“If they are,” said Ramses, who then relapsed into silence.

I had not been near Morley’s excavation for some days. There had been significant changes. Several tents, one large and ornate, now occupied the space beyond the barrier. I wondered why neither Emerson nor Mr. Camden had seen fit to mention this. Or rather, I did not wonder. They were both men. They wouldn’t have realized that Morley would not have abandoned his elegant hotel for a tent, however large, without good reason. The obvious explanation was that he had to be on the scene day and night because he was running short of time. Time to do what? Reach the location Plato had designated as the hiding place of the Ark? That would not be as simple as it sounded. According to Emerson and other authorities, the under
ground regions were a maze of abandoned cisterns, tunnels old and new, deep shafts and ancient burial caves. More than ever I was determined to get into those regions and explore them for myself.

I did not mention this to Ramses.

When we joined Emerson he was talking with one of the guards at the barrier. The fellow was someone I had not seen before, an imposing figure almost as tall and burly as Emerson, distinguished by a black patch over one eye. As we came up to them Emerson turned to me and said, with a deference I had yet to see him display to a Turkish guard, “My dear, may I present Ali Bey Jarrah, the commandant of the Turkish gendarmerie.”

“And this, of course, is Mrs. Emerson.” Ali Bey made me a polite bow, which I acknowledged with a nod and a smile. His English was excellent, his voice a reverberant baritone, his smile displaying several broken teeth.

Emerson went on to introduce the others. Nefret received an admiring glance, Ramses a courteous acknowledgment, and Daoud an appraising look. I had a feeling that that one eye had measured us and memorized us.

“Ali Bey is also in search of Major Morley,” Emerson explained. “I was asking him to do us the favor of postponing his errand in favor of the sudden emergency that has arisen. As I told you, sir, the body is that of a European, a colleague of Major Morley. I have sent someone to report the discovery, but it is absolutely necessary that I inform Morley at once. I want you to come with me and observe his reaction.”

“Ah.” Ali Bey’s one visible eye lit up. “It is the British police method? You will question him cleverly and determine whether he is the killer?”

“Aywa, yes,” said Emerson. “With your help.”

“It is well known that the Father of Curses and his lady have brought many criminals to justice. Come, follow me.”

“Daoud has been talking again,” Emerson said to me. “I really must stop him from spreading those wild stories.”

I thought he looked rather pleased, though.

“Were you formerly acquainted with the commandant?” I asked. “You seem to be on excellent terms with him.”

“I was not, but I had heard a great deal about him. He lost his eye during a riot at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when he stepped between an ax-wielding Greek monk and the Franciscan who was the holy man’s intended victim.”

I could think of nothing to say to this. So I said nothing.

The commandant led the way to an area some distance behind the tents. The scene reminded me of Doré or some other painter of horrors. A group of half-naked men were gathered around a primitive pulley standing over a black hole in the ground. Grunting and straining, one of the men hauled on a rope stretching down into the hole and brought up a heavy basket, which he unhooked and carried away. Another man took his place; another basket was pulled up and taken off to a dump nearby.

A brusque order from Ali Bey brought the work to a stop. “Where is the Mudir?” he asked.

“Down there.” One of the workmen gestured.

Before I could stop him, Emerson caught hold of the rope and went down hand over hand.

“Curse it,” I shouted. “Emerson, come back here at once!”

I reached for the rope and at once found myself in the grasp of four muscular arms. One pair belonged to Ramses, the other to the commandant.

“What the devil do you think you are doing, Mother?”

“The Sitt must not go down there!” cried Ali Bey, just as emphatically.

“It was, perhaps, ill-advised,” I admitted. “I acted instinctively. You may let me go, gentlemen.”

I leaned over the hole, while Ramses maintained a tight grip on me. There was no sign of Emerson, but far below I could see the glow of torches. I called Emerson’s name; after a somewhat nerve-racking minute or two I received a reply.

“Found him,” Emerson shouted, his voice weirdly distorted by echoes.

He ascended as he had descended, and climbed up onto the edge of the hole. “Lower the harness,” he said to the workmen, and to me, in English, “The fat fool can’t even climb a rope.”

The harness was a wooden seat with ropes on both sides, like a child’s swing. The men lowered it and then bent to the windlass, their stringy muscles straining. Emerson’s description of Morley as fat was exaggerated. He was only out of condition, but he was certainly no lightweight.

The commandant said reproachfully, “You said I should watch while you questioned him, Father of Curses.”

“You shall. I have not told him the news.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Morley’s haughty manner did not come off so well as he sat with his feet dangling and his gloved hands clutching the ropes. He was coated with dirt and perspiration. “I did as you required, I hired an archaeologist to assist—”

“Where is she, then? Never mind her, Morley, I have news for you. Plato Panagopolous is dead. Murdered. Why did you kill him?”

Under the grime on his face Morley turned pale. He sputtered wordlessly for a few moments and then gasped, “Murdered? Killed? Where? Why?”

Emerson turned to Ali Bey. “What do you think?”

“Hmmm. I see surprise, yes, and fear on his face, and I hear it in his voice. Was it at the news of Pana…Papa—the man’s death, or of alarm that you have accused him?”

“That may have been an error,” Emerson admitted, looking chagrined.

“Emerson,” I said. “Perhaps you had better leave the interrogation to me.”

Morley had recovered himself. “Interrogation? What right do you have to question me?”

I would have told him, but he hurried on, now flushed with anger instead of deathly pale. “Why would I want to harm Panagopolous? We had come to an amicable agreement, after a—er—slight misunderstanding.”

“Stemming,” I said, “from your attempt to cheat him of his share of the profits of this expedition. You took the scroll and left him penniless. Believing, as proved to be the case, that we would be following you to Palestine, he came to us with a cock-and-bull story. You did not attack him; you had already left the country. He inflicted the injury upon himself in order to win our sympathy. Once here, he blackmailed you into taking him back into partnership by threatening to expose the falsity of his famous scroll. He cheated you, and you cheated him. A pretty pair, I must say.”

If Morley had been flushed before, he was now reddish-purple as a beet. “The scroll is not a fake! It is genuine. It will lead me to the secret passage.”

“He speaks the truth,” Ali Bey said interestedly. “Or I am no judge of men.”

“He speaks what he believes is the truth,” I said. “Where is the scroll now, Major Morley?”