A River in the Sky (6 page)

Reisner chuckled. “That little byplay, pretending not to recognize you? She knew, all right. She asked for you.”

“You’re joking.”

“Well, not by name. But she asked if my ‘youthful assistant’ could show her around. How would she know I had one if she didn’t know who it was?”

“Don’t distinguished archaeologists always have youthful assistants hanging about?” Ramses inquired.

“Hmm. Well, back to work. You can start the men on that next section.”

Ramses went back to the dig in a thoughtful mood. Reisner had enjoyed teasing him, but his syllogism made a certain amount of sense. And Madame had known who his parents were.

Later that afternoon, Ramses took a short stroll toward the stream. He didn’t venture close to the camp, but from what he could see from a distance there was no indication that a move next day was contemplated. There was no sign of the lady. The tent flap was still closed.

The sun was setting as he went back. Passing the mosque on his way to the village, he was moved by a sudden impulse. He stopped and looked into the courtyard. It was almost time for evening prayers, but the number of worshippers who were assembling was larger than the usual crowd. As far as he could remember, this was not a particular holy day; it wasn’t even Friday.

When he reached the dig house he found the others already there. He expected a reprimand—he’d been ordered not to wander off alone—but Reisner greeted him with a cheerful announcement. “The mail’s just come. Several for you.”

The arrival of mail was a cause for celebration, since its delivery was spasmodic at best. After arriving at Jaffa, the nearest port, it sat around until someone, for reasons known only to himself, decided to send it on. Ramses’s pleasure was muted by the recollection that he hadn’t responded to the last batch of letters. In fact, he couldn’t even remember what he had done with them. Anticipating a forcible rebuke, he was about to open the first of several from Nefret when Reisner let out a loud groan. The envelope he had just ripped open was directed in a hand with which Ramses was only too familiar.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, expecting the worst.

“He wants,” Reisner said in hollow tones. “He says…”

His voice faded out. Wordlessly he handed over the piece of paper.

As Ramses had expected, his father didn’t waste words. “Will arrive Sebaste shortly to take Ramses with me to assist my forthcoming excavations in Jerusalem. Regards, R. Emerson.”

“It can’t be true,” Ramses gasped. “What excavations, where? Are there any others letters from him?”

He began looking through his own accumulation. A few frenzied moments later they had managed to sort the letters into sequence. Finally Reisner let out a gusty sigh of relief. “This one from your mother seems to be the most recent. She says instead of coming here to collect you, they want you to meet them in Jaffa on…Good Lord, that’s less than a week away.”

“She’s written the same to me,” Ramses said. “At least she had the decency to apologize, and gave us more information than Father deigned to do. Have you ever heard of this fellow Morley?”

“No, but he wouldn’t be the first to follow some biblical will-o’-the-wisp and rip an archaeological site to shreds,” Reisner replied. “Your father will make certain that doesn’t happen, at any rate.”

He had resorted to his pipe early in the procedure, jaws clenched on the stem. Now he leaned back in his chair and gave Ramses a friendly grin. “You’d better start getting your gear together.”

Ramses finished reading Nefret’s latest—it wasn’t so much reproachful as threatening—and handed it to Fisher, who had been collecting them. “I won’t simply walk out on you, sir. They have no right to expect it.”

“That’s quite all right,” Reisner said, looking off into space.

“You mean you want me to go?”

“I don’t want you to go. But if you don’t…” Had he only imagined it, Ramses wondered, or had Reisner’s tanned countenance paled? “If you don’t, they’ll come here.”

G
ARGERY IS SECRETLY THRILLED
at the prospect of “another of our criminal investigations,” as he deems them, but he feels it his duty as our butler to be offended by the presence of vulgar policemen in our home. (I would not like to imply that we frequently entertain police officers, vulgar or otherwise, but it has occurred on a number of occasions.) In this case his snobbishness was particularly obnoxious, since the police person in question turned out to be our local constable, George Goodbody. Gargery had left him standing in the hall, and one would never have supposed from Gargery’s frozen stare that he and George often enjoyed a convivial glass of ale in the bar of the White Boar. Observing poor George’s hurt expression, I put myself out to be agreeable.

“How nice to see you, Constable. I trust your family is well?”

George whipped off his helmet and clasped it to his large breast,
like a mother cradling a baby. “Yes, ma’am, thank you. Them pills you gave Mariah for her catarrh worked just fine.”

“Good Gad,” Emerson burst out. “Have you been dosing the local population, Peabody? You might at least confine your dubious medical experiments to Egypt.”

“They worked just fine, sir,” George insisted. “Mariah said—”

“Never mind, never mind.” Emerson waved a dismissive hand. “What do you want, Goodbody?”

Emerson makes George very nervous. (He has that effect on most people.) The constable maintained a convulsive grip on his helmet, and began to stutter. “Well, sir, it’s a peculiar sort of thing, to tell the truth, and I am sorry, sir, indeed, to bother you, but I couldn’t see what else to do, since there was nothing on the body except your—”

“Body!” Emerson and Gargery cried in an unmelodious duet. Emerson’s tone was one of outrage, Gargery’s of delight.

“Stop it at once,” I said, observing that George was about to lose his grip on his helmet. “Let him speak. Or rather, let me direct the course of the discussion. Just answer my questions, Constable. Is it a dead body of which you speak? A corpse?”

“Well, as it turned out, ma’am—”

“Yes or no?”

“No. Uh…as it turned out. But we thought at first—”

It required considerable skill to extract the requisite information, so I will spare the reader Goodbody’s ramblings. To summarize: the unconscious body of an unknown individual had been found in a bedchamber of our local inn (the aforementioned White Boar). He had arrived the night before. When the chambermaid brought his morning tea, she found him stiff and stark (I quote Goodbody) on his bed. He was fully dressed except for his coat, which was hanging over a chair. Goodbody, summoned by the agitated owner, had sent for Dr. Membrane, our local medical man, who had examined the
body and declared the individual was alive. He had applied a few obvious methods of resuscitation without result and had then taken himself off, remarking that the victim had probably suffered a seizure and that there was nothing he could do. (This diagnosis came after a hasty search of the unknown’s garments and luggage had failed to find any money except a few crumpled pound notes.) Nor was there any means of identification except…

“This bit of paper,” said Goodbody, extracting it from his breast pocket. “All crumpled and pushed down in one of his trouser pockets, sir. With your name on it, sir.”

Emerson snatched the scrap from him. “Curse it,” he remarked.

“So we thought…” Goodbody resumed.

“Yes, quite,” I said. “Very sensible. We will go round at once.”

It is only a short walk from the gates of the estate to the village and the White Boar. I took advantage of the time to point out to Emerson facts he knew quite well but was too irritated to admit. “It is our duty to inquire into this matter, Emerson; we are obliged, by custom and by our position in this little community, to assume responsibility. Surely it struck you as highly suspicious that there should be no identification on the fellow, not even a pocketbook. Someone must have removed that identification after drugging or attempting to poison—”

Stamping along beside me, Emerson let out a growl like that of an angry bear. I knew what he was about to say, so I raised my voice and went on.

“It is an assumption, I know, but one that fits the known facts. The man was robbed and left for dead. Dr. Membrane would not recognize a case of arsenical poisoning unless the victim held a sign with the word ‘arsenic’ on it. Once he learned the fellow had no means of payment, he left.”

“So now,” said Emerson resignedly, “we have progressed from poisoning in general to a specific poison. I despair of you, Peabody. I
refuse to discuss the situation further until you—er—we have examined the individual.”

The village of Camberwell St. Anne’s Underhill consists of a few houses, a forge, a small general store and post office, and the White Boar. It is a picturesque edifice whose main fabric dates from the fifteenth century. Additions and renovations over the years have given it a sprawling look, and the original building has sagged so that the half-timbering slants and the roof appear to be in imminent peril of collapse. However, it is a comfortable hostelry and the bar is the social center for many residents of the area.

Mrs. Finney, the proprietress, was waiting for us at the door, bouncing up and down and wringing her hands. The moment we appeared she burst into agitated speech. Nothing like this had ever happened in the White Boar. (Most unlikely, in my opinion, since the inn had seen the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War, to mention only a few.) What was she to do with the poor gentleman? She could not keep him here. He required nursing. She would not dare go in the room for fear of finding he had passed on. Perhaps he was an escaped murderer! What other sort of person would travel without papers or money?

She fixed trusting brown eyes upon me. Mrs. Finney is shaped like a cottage loaf, very tight around the middle and very full above and below. I patted her shoulder.

“Leave it to me, Mrs. Finney.”

“She will, she will,” muttered Emerson. “Curse it.”

“Tell me—did not the gentleman sign the register last night?”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Emerson, ma’am. I will show you.”

The signature was a scrawl, totally unreadable except for an initial letter that might have been a
B
. Or a
P
.

“So much for that means of identification,” I said, returning the register. “Very well, let us go upstairs.”

The unknown had a small chamber at the back, on the second
floor, where the ceiling slanted down at a steep angle. The furnishings were simple but adequate: a blue-and-white-braided rug, a wardrobe, a narrow brass bed, and a set of the usual china necessities, painted with bright red roses. Some of the paint had chipped off.

Emerson came to a halt in the center of the room, the only place where he could stand without hitting his head on a beam, folded his arms, and stared fixedly at the individual lying on the bed.

Someone, presumably the doctor, had loosened his cravat and opened his shirt. The rise and fall of his breast was so slight as to be almost imperceptible. His countenance was pale, but not deathly white, and his lips were curved in a faint enigmatic smile. Beard and hair framed his face like a fallen halo.

“Damnation,” said Emerson.

I had, of course, anticipated that it would be he.

T
HE REVEREND’S HEARTBEAT WAS
faint but steady, his respiration slow but regular. His temperature was normal. There were no needle marks on his arms. When I delicately raised one eyelid, I found myself staring into a placid blue orb, the pupil neither dilated nor shrunken. He lay limp and acquiescent as a stuffed doll as I moved him about.

Mrs. Finney watched the proceedings in pleasurable horror. No doubt she hoped for a convulsion or a death rattle. Two of the maids peeked in through the door, which I had left ajar.

“No smell of prussic acid?” inquired Emerson. “No gaping wounds? Broken bones? Pools of blood?”

I had proceeded to the next stage of the examination. “Not a pool,” I said, withdrawing the hand I had inserted between the pillow and the back of the reverend’s skull. “I doubt there was much blood to begin with, and it will have dried by now. Emerson, stop
swearing—there are ladies present—and help me turn his head. Carefully, if you please.”

The injury was on the side of the head, above and behind the right ear. Mrs. Finney clapped her hands to her mouth when she saw the small stain on the pillow. “Cold water and lemon juice,” I said over my shoulder and then addressed Emerson. “There appears to be no damage to the skull and only a small abrasion. The blow was hard enough to have resulted in a concussion, but the symptoms are not—”

“He may have fallen,” said Emerson desperately. “Hit his head and—”

“Hit it on what, while he was doing what? Banging his head against the mantel, which is of wood? Washing his hands in a china basin which is at waist height? There is nothing in the room hard enough or blunt enough to have caused such trauma.”

“Curse it,” said Emerson.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” lamented Mrs. Finney.

I
N MY OPINION WE
had no choice but to remove Papagopolous to Amarna House. Emerson did not share in this opinion but gave in, simmering silently, when I pointed out that we could not leave him on Mrs. Finney’s hands, and that the nearest hospital was a good twenty miles distant. I also wanted Nefret’s opinion, for though my experience is extensive, her training was more up-to-date. While we awaited the arrival of the makeshift ambulance, I questioned the good landlady and made a thorough search of the room, announcing my deductions aloud and countering Emerson’s objections as he made them. (I have found this saves time in the long run.)

According to Mrs. Finney, the gentleman had arrived at six the previous night. He had refused her offer of refreshment and asked not to be disturbed until morning. Therefore the assailant had not
waited for darkness, which was not complete until approximately ten o’clock, before entering the room…

(Emerson: “Jumping to conclusions again, Peabody.” Myself: “He had not unpacked nor prepared to retire. What was he doing for three or four hours?” Emerson: “Taking a nap, praying, scratching his…” Myself: “Never mind, Emerson.”)