A River in the Sky (7 page)

The attacker must have entered through the door, since the room was on the second floor and the window was inaccessible from below.

(Emerson: “Ladder.” Myself: “How would he know where to find one? How could he ascend without being observed, or climb in through a window without arousing the suspicions of his victim?” Emerson: “Hmph.”)

It would not have been difficult for the assassin to gain entry to the room. He had only to wait until Mrs. Finney left the desk to attend to her other duties, inspect the register to determine Papagopolous’s room number, and knock at the appropriate door. Papagopolous would probably have assumed it was the maid. Turning to flee when he recognized his enemy, he had been struck down by a blunt instrument.

(Emerson: “What blunt instrument?” Myself: “For pity’s sake, Emerson, will you stop making irrelevant objections? A pistol butt, a rock, a stocking filled with sand.”)

“Damnation,” said Emerson morosely. “Very well, Peabody, let us not drag this discussion out. I have not the slightest hope of winning it anyhow. Your hypothetical assailant then removed all means of identification, overlooking only the scrap of paper naming me, and put the body onto the bed in the hope that a cursory examination would conclude Panalopagus—Panepororous—curse it, I cannot be expected to remember such a ridiculous name—that he had suffered a stroke or heart attack?”

“Well done, Emerson.”

“It is good of you to say so. Have you concluded your investigations?”

“Almost.” I had searched the reverend’s small valise, which contained only toilet articles, a change of clothing, nightclothes, and a well-thumbed Bible. Turning back to the bed in order to make another examination, I was surprised—and, of course, relieved—to find that my patient’s breathing had strengthened and that some color had returned to his face.

“He appears to be regaining consciousness,” I exclaimed, and removed the bottle of sal volatile from my medical bag. Waving it under his nose, I was rewarded by a sneeze so violent that Panagopolous’s lower limbs jerked up and his head jerked forward. His eyes opened.

“Excellent,” I exclaimed. “How do you feel?”

“Feel,” the reverend repeated dreamily. “I feel, therefore I am. But who, kind lady, am I? Who are you? And who is this Panagopolous to whom you refer?”

“Hell and damnation!” cried Emerson. Hands clapped to her ears, Mrs. Finney fled.

T
HE REVEREND’S PHYSICAL CONDITION
being sufficiently improved, we called for our own carriage and dismissed the ambulance (a nice hay wagon belonging to Mrs. Finney’s cousin). He came with us willingly, having concluded—as he informed us—that I must be a dear acquaintance from one of his former lives. Emerson’s attempts to correct this misapprehension were met with a shake of the head and an amiable smile. “Perhaps it was in Athens, when I was preaching to the heathen,” he mused. “‘Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you…’ They mocked me, but some believed…Were you by chance the woman Damaris?”

“I doubt that very much,” I said gently but firmly. To Emerson I remarked, “Apparently in that life he was the apostle Paul. Do not argue with him, Emerson, I feel sure his amnesia is temporary and that he will come out of it in due time and with the proper treatment.”

“One of the kindly women in Bordeaux who sewed the crosses on our surplices when I proclaimed the great crusade?”

“Peter the Hermit?” asked Emerson, increasingly intrigued. “He doesn’t suffer from excessive humility, does he?”

Panagopolous ignored this as he had ignored our other comments, and I said, “People who believe they have lived past lives were seldom anonymous commoners in those lives. Napoleon is a favorite, I believe, and so is Ramses the Second.”

“I must admit,” said Emerson, over the mumbling of Panagopolous, “that the fellow is rather entertaining. I give you three days, Peabody. If you haven’t got him back to 1910 by then, I will inform Captain Morley and request he remove his demented friend from our premises.”

Nefret had returned from her ride during our absence and, having been informed of our mission by Gargery, was waiting impatiently to hear what had ensued. She agreed with me that the reverend should rest, so we handed him over to John, our large and dependable footman, who helped him to his room and into bed. I told Rose to ask Cook to make chicken soup. Panagopolous submitted to Nefret’s examination without protest; indeed he seemed quite pleased to be with us, though he was still trying to decide who we were. When he saw Horus, who had pushed his way into the room in pursuit of Nefret, his face flushed with pleasure. “One of the sacred cats of Bastet,” he exclaimed. “Her worship was proscribed after I brought Pharaoh Akhenaton to the knowledge of the One God, but do you know, I missed having the cats about.”

After he had eaten a hot bowl of chicken soup, Panagopolous
declared he would sleep awhile. Once outside the room, I asked Nefret for her diagnosis. It agreed, of course, with mine. Temporary loss of memory is not uncommon following such a blow on the head. It is usually only a matter of time. Panagopolous’s belief in reincarnation probably would not pass off, but I doubted there was anything I could do about it.

Emerson was mightily entertained by the reverend’s comments about the so-called heretic pharaoh. “So he was Moses, was he? Who will be next? I wonder. Abraham? Pope Leo?”

“He knows his history, at any rate,” I replied thoughtfully. “Few people are familiar with the short-lived religious revolution of Akhenaton, or the theory that he learned of the sole god from Hebrews dwelling in Egypt.”

“Far-fetched theory, you mean,” said Emerson.

Panagopolous’s recovery was slow but sure. On the following day he remembered my name, and the day after, his own—his present name, that is to say. His vital signs were normal and his appetite was excellent. On the third day I deemed him well enough to join us for tea, and the plate of chocolate-iced biscuits proved, as I had hoped, the catalyst.

“I have been here before,” he exclaimed (taking a biscuit). “Or have I been here all along? What has happened?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” I replied. I proceeded to recount the circumstances that had led to his present whereabouts. “Do you remember arriving at the inn?”

Stimulated by my questions (and the consumption of a number of biscuits) Panagopolous was able to recall his arrival, and being shown to a room. He was engaged in prayer (Emerson smirked at me) when a knock at the door interrupted him. Here he paused, his brow furrowed.

“Who was it at the door?” I asked.

Panagopolous shook his head. “I remember nothing more.”

“Don’t distress yourself,” Nefret said, patting his hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

“The devil it doesn’t,” said Emerson. “Well, well. Of equal importance, sir, is the question of what you were doing at the inn. Were you coming to see us? And if so, for what reason?”

“You,” Panagopolous repeated. The lines across his brow were perfectly parallel, like those of a musical staff. In mounting excitement he went on, “For what reason? Why, to show you the scroll. To give it into your keeping. Is it safe? Is it secret? You must not let him have it!”

The news that no scroll had been found—blurted out by Emerson before I could stop him—brought the reverend to his feet in a fit of incoherent agitation. We put him back to bed and after Nefret had administered a sedative we returned to the parlor for a council of war.

“All is now made clear,” I said. “Someone was after the famous scroll, the manuscript that describes the location of the treasure. And he found it.”

“Clear as a foggy day,” said Emerson. “We have no proof that any such scroll exists. This may be a plot designed to convince us that Morley’s project is worth supporting.”

“Forgive me, sir, but that is rather far-fetched,” Nefret exclaimed. “His injury was genuine. Would he go to such an extreme to persuade you?”

“Hmph,” said Emerson, rubbing his chin.

“Neither have we proof that such a manuscript did not exist,” I said. “When the reverend is coherent again, we can ask him whether he has reason to suspect that any particular individuals wished to gain possession of the scroll.”

“It all depends on his word,” Emerson protested. “The word of a man who is not in full possession of his senses.”

“Not entirely,” I said. “Emerson, did you ever bother to look at that brochure Major Morley brought with him?”

“Why should I have done so? It was pure fiction.”

“What did you do with it?”

After excavating in the pile of papers on his desk, Emerson located the pamphlet. We perused it together. A good deal of it did sound like pure fiction—for instance, Morley’s grandiose claim that he knew the precise location, within ten feet, of the temple treasure.

“Why ten feet, I wonder?” I said.

“It is a good round random number,” said Emerson, with a curl of his lip. “He does not supply precise information.”

“One could hardly expect him to disclose the location,” I said fairly.

“You are leaning over backward to be reasonable, Peabody. Look at this photograph, which purports to be that of the notorious scroll. It looks to me like a large knockwurst which has been chewed by mice.”

“The photograph is somewhat unfocused,” I admitted.

“And here,” said Emerson, reading on, “are the comments of the so-called experts Morley mentioned. Do you recognize any of the names or organizations?”

“They all appear to be foreign. ‘Le Société Biblique, Marseilles…’”

“He made them up,” said Emerson. “They might impress possible donors who are unfamiliar with the field and who wouldn’t bother investigating them. Good Gad, the gullibility of the human race never ceases to astound me. Look at some of the names on this list of contributors. Hardheaded businessmen, some of them, who ought to know better.”

“When emotion supersedes reason, my dear, gullibility must follow. The subject is dear to the hearts of many true believers.”

“Bah,” said Emerson, dismissing the subject. “What are we going to do about Papapagopolous?”

“Our obvious course is to communicate with Major Morley. In my opinion we ought to have done so before this.”

At my suggestion we dispatched telegrams both to his flat in Mayfair and his club. Not until the next day did we receive a reply from the latter source. “Major Morley sailed on Tuesday last. Forwarding address, the Augusta Victoria Hospice, Jerusalem.”

Pacing up and down the drawing room, waving the telegram, Emerson ranted and cursed until I interrupted his tirade with a timely reminder.

“Why should the War Office inform you of Morley’s departure? They would have no excuse for detaining him, and you had already informed them that he was not a German agent.”

“I had also informed them that I was prepared to follow the bastard to Palestine, sacrificing my own plans—”

“What plans? You didn’t have any.”

Emerson’s response was to snatch up his coat and dash out of the room, leaving the door ajar. Seconds later I heard the front door slam.

I knew where he was going—straight up to London by the first train—and why he had departed so precipitately—in order to prevent me from accompanying him. I could only hope that by the time he arrived he would have calmed down enough to be sensible.

I would not have wished to go in any case. Shouting at General Spencer would be a waste of time and breath, and I had too many other things to think about.

We hadn’t heard a word from Ramses, though I had sent a series of letters to him and Reisner, each more emphatic than the last. I tried to tell myself that my son’s dilatory habits and the uncertain state of postal delivery in the region were probably responsible for his silence, but in my heart of hearts, doubt lingered. I knew my son only too well.

The reverend was an additional source of concern. What were we to do with him? He appeared to be quite happy to remain with us; when I asked, in my tactful fashion, if his family and friends might not be worrying about him, he had replied he had no family, few friends, and no plans whatsoever. I felt about him as I might feel about a friendly, dimwitted stray dog that had decided to move in with us. He could not be cast out onto the street, but he was shedding all over the furniture. (I speak metaphorically.) I found an ally in Nefret, who had taken him under her wing, as she might have done with any other stray.

We had been unable to settle on final plans for our forthcoming expedition (forthcoming, that is, unless Emerson infuriated the War Office into canceling its support altogether). I wanted to arrange for our men to meet us in Jaffa instead of “stopping off in Egypt to pick them up,” as Emerson had nonchalantly suggested. I had managed to persuade him that going out of our way to remove Ramses in person from the dig at Samaria would be an additional waste of time. He too could meet us in Jaffa. Emerson put up a stiff fight about that, since he had been looking forward to inspecting Reisner’s excavations and telling him what he had done wrong, but eventually I prevailed—as I generally do. I had taken the precaution of writing to Reisner myself, putting the matter as a request instead of an order, as Emerson would have done. I felt sure Reisner would oblige me, espe
cially since the alternative would have been to have Emerson descend upon him.

Another little matter Emerson had blandly refused to discuss was the question of additional staff. What we lacked, in my opinion, was an individual acquainted with pottery. To an untrained eye there is nothing more boring than undecorated, broken pieces of pottery. I am inclined to share this view, since I have seen too many of the cursed things. Unlike most of his predecessors, who were primarily interested in impressive architectural features and attractive grave goods, Emerson considered that every scrap of material from a site had potential value and must be noted and preserved. When inscriptional material was lacking, the comparative development of pottery types was sometimes the only way a tomb or occupation level could be dated. I could not argue with this principle, but since I was generally the one in charge of sifting the debris and finding such fragments, my feelings about them were less than enthusiastic. I did not look forward to continuing that labor in an area where the pottery was likely to be even less interesting than in Egypt. However, my inquiries (made without Emerson’s knowledge) failed to locate a suitable person. Our staff, therefore, consisted of Nefret, David, and Ramses in addition to our two selves.

Well, we had managed with as few persons before, particularly since our primary purpose was not excavation but preventing Morley from doing the same. The site we had fixed on was on a rocky slope south of the Old City of Jerusalem. The modern name of the village there was Silwan, and there was general agreement that it derived from the biblical Siloam. According to Second Chronicles, King Hezekiah, anticipating an attack by the Assyrians, had dug a tunnel from a spring outside the walls in order to bring its waters directly into the city. The actual tunnel had been found in 1838, thereby confirming the accuracy of the biblical account, and thirty years later a British engineer named Robinson had traversed its entire length,
despite the silt that had accumulated over the years. I hoped we would have an opportunity to explore the tunnel, since Robinson’s description of crawling on his stomach through its dark, dank, constricted length was quite intriguing. When I mentioned this possibility to Emerson, his response was so profane that I decided not to pursue the matter…For the present.

Emerson returned in time for tea, his arrival heralded by his usual slam of the front door and his hearty halloo: “Peabody, where are you? I am back. Peabody!” I was reading in the drawing room, but I had no difficulty in hearing him.

“Well!” I said, returning his friendly embrace. “You are in a much better frame of mind than you were when you left. I take it all went well at the War Office?”

“I cannot imagine why you should assume otherwise.” Emerson removed his coat and tossed it in Gargery’s general direction. “Why isn’t tea ready, Gargery? I am famished.”

“I suppose you didn’t take time to eat lunch,” I said, after Gargery had stalked off and Emerson and I had returned to the drawing room.

“Lunch? Oh.” Emerson pondered. “No, I can’t recall having done so. That bastard Spencer kept me cooling my heels for a good half hour, and then persisted in arguing with me.”

“What about?”

“It was more or less along the lines you had suggested,” Emerson admitted. He took a seat next to me on the sofa and put his arm round my shoulders. “The bloody idiot said that since we had already agreed we would follow Morley to Jerusalem, he couldn’t see that it made any difference when we went, so long as we were there in good time. So I told him—”

“That he was a bloody idiot?”

“More or less. He took it quite well,” Emerson said in mild surprise.

“He was trying to get you out of his office, I expect. Did you ask about the firman?”

“It hasn’t arrived yet, but he promised we would have it by the time we reach Jaffa. Ah, there you are, Nefret. And—er—Papadalopous. He follows her about like a puppy,” he added, in what he probably believed to be a whisper.

“He has been telling me about the fall of Jericho,” Nefret said, giving Emerson a reproachful look.

“Ah,” said Emerson, perking up. “He was Joshua?”

“He explained that it didn’t happen quite as the Bible describes it,” Nefret said.

“It didn’t happen at all,” said Emerson, his mood improving even more at the prospect of argumentation, and the sound of the tea cart rattling along the hall. “The excavators of 1907 concluded that the latest remains dated from 1800
B.C
., a thousand years, give or take a century, before your apocryphal Joshua.”

The reverend paid no attention to any of this. His attention was fixed on the tea cakes which Gargery placed on the table.

“I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at Jericho myself,” Emerson went on. “But the Germans still hold the concession, and we must be nearer Jerusalem.”

Panagopolous looked up. “When shall we depart?”

B
Y DINT OF
H
ERCULEAN
efforts on my part we were ready to depart in less than a week. I was busy from morning till night telegraphing Selim, sending final orders to Ramses, purchasing supplies, packing, and of course making lists. Emerson offered to make our travel arrangements, which I accepted because I didn’t suppose he could locate a disreputable old friend in London who happened to own a steamer. He had perpetrated that indignity several times before, but
that was in Egypt and the Sudan, where Emerson had only too many disreputable old friends. I took comfort in the fact that he could not have many old friends in Palestine.

The reverend had come to us with only the contents of a single valise, so another of my chores was to outfit him for a prolonged stay in the Middle East. My inquiries as to where he had left the rest of his luggage were met with a blank stare and a murmured reference to the House of David. Sometimes I got quite impatient with him, but Nefret always leaped to his defense. Amnesia was unpredictable. An individual’s memory might return, or it might not. Certain parts of it might be lost forever.

Emerson’s continual mispronunciation of his surname didn’t seem to bother Panagopolous, but Nefret began to find it unacceptable. “It suggests you don’t care enough about him to remember his name,” she complained to Emerson.

“I don’t,” said Emerson, surprised that she should have thought otherwise.

“Call him ‘Reverend,’” I suggested.

“If he is a reverend of any recognized church, I am Attila the Hun,” said Emerson. “I refuse to give him a title to which he is not—er—entitled.”

“Use his first name, then,” said Nefret, losing patience. “He wouldn’t mind.”

Emerson shook his head. “How can I contemplate that vacant countenance and address it by the name of one of the greatest of the Greeks? Impossible.”

“It strikes me as an excellent solution,” I said.

Emerson, of course, dismissed this solution with a few ill-chosen words and from then on tried to avoid addressing Mr. Plato directly. However, he accepted Plato’s accompanying us with more grace than I had expected. He had managed to have a talk with him, and found him “uncharacteristically coherent,” to quote Emerson himself. “He
claims to have memorized the information on the notorious scroll,” Emerson explained. “Not that I believe for a moment that it has any value, but the fellow does seem to be familiar with the former excavations near the Temple Mount, including those of Warren and Bliss.”

“Doesn’t that indicate that there is some basis for his claims?”

“Are you determined to provoke me, Peabody?” Emerson inquired with perfect good humor. “It indicates that he took the trouble to read up on the subject, as any clever charlatan would do. However, I don’t see that we have any choice in the matter. We can’t expect Gargery and Rose to be responsible for him, and if we abandoned him on a street corner in London, he would only find his way back here.”

So Mr. Plato was at the rail with us the day we set sail from London. Our family had come to see us off, as they always did. The weather was fine, and the sun, only slightly dimmed by the perpetual haze of smoke, illumined the beloved faces: Emerson’s brother Walter and his wife, my dear friend Evelyn; their eldest son Raddie; and their daughter, my namesake. Lia’s pretty face was set in a forced smile as she blew kisses to David, who stood next to me at the rail of the steamer. His expression was scarcely more cheerful, though he strove as valiantly to smile.

They had been engaged for two years. Her parents had been opposed to the match initially. Their objections were based solely on prejudice of a nature that is unfortunately only too common in our society, for David was the grandson of our late and greatly lamented foreman Abdullah. He was also a fine young man and a talented artist. I had pointed out the illogic and injustice of their position to Walter and Evelyn, and naturally my arguments had prevailed. The young people had several more years to wait, since Lia was only just nineteen and David was determined to establish himself in his career before marrying. This brief interruption of that career, as Emerson insisted, would not be a serious impediment, since archaeological
copying was one of David’s specialties, and we were certain—said Emerson—to make important discoveries. I had serious doubts about this. We weren’t likely to discover exquisitely painted tombs like those in Egypt, or monumental temples covered with carved reliefs. Nothing of the sort had ever been found in Palestine.

There had been no letter from Ramses. I could only hope that he had received ours, and that he would act upon our instructions.

F
ROM
M
ANUSCRIPT
H

Ramses wasn’t surprised that Reisner wanted to be rid of him as quickly as possible. Not only did he face the dire alternative of Emerson’s critical presence, but the rock-throwing incidents had never been explained. There had been no further attacks, but that might be accounted for by the fact that Ramses had obeyed orders and avoided nocturnal strolls. Mme von Eine’s visit might be regarded as another untoward occurrence. Reisner didn’t like untoward occurrences interrupting his work, and Ramses really couldn’t blame him for suspecting his assistant was somehow responsible for all of them.

However, he was damned if he was going to sneak away before he had tried to find explanations for certain questions, or at least made an attempt to do so. He knew better than to mention this to Reisner; instead he pointed out that he could reach Jaffa in a day and that he would feel less guilty if he could finish his work.

A few furtive forays over the following twenty-four hours told him that Madame was still encamped, with no signs of imminent departure. She kept to her tent, at least during the times when he was watching. On his third trip he narrowly escaped discovery by one of the Turkish guards, who had taken to prowling the perimeter armed with rifles.

Though he was increasingly curious as to what the lady found so fascinating about Samaria, he was just as curious about the nocturnal attacks. They made no sense. He hadn’t responded to the languishing glances of certain village maidens, or failed to respect the hours of prayer. As for old enemies, anyone who was really after his blood would have been more persistent.

There was one obvious way of proceeding, and it was something his father would have done long before: Confront someone in authority, and demand an explanation. Sebaste boasted a mayor, of sorts; he was Turkish, and when he wasn’t lounging around his ramshackle villa he was extorting extra taxes from the locals. A more likely source was the imam. Ramses had encountered him a number of times but had never spoken at length with him.