Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4

AMELIA PEABODY, born in 1852, found her life’s work and life partner in 1884, when on a trip to Egypt she married Egyptologist, Radcliffe Emerson. Their son Walter ‘Ramses’ Emerson was born three years later, and their adopted daughter, Nefret, joined the family in 1898. Other important members of the family include several generations of Egyptian cats.

Although the Emersons own a handsome Queen Anne mansion in Kent, they spend half of each year digging in Egypt and fighting off criminals of all varieties. Amelia is planning to draw her last breath holding a trowel in one hand and her deadly parasol in the other.

The love of my beloved is on yonder side
A width of water is between us
And a crocodile waiteth on the sandbank.

A
LTHOUGH
my major characters are wholly fictitious, certain historic personages make brief appearances in these pages. Maspero, Brugsch and Grebaut were associated with the Egyptian Department of Antiquities in the 1880’s, and William Flinders Petrie was then beginning his great career in Egyptology. Petrie was the first professional archaeologist to excavate at Tell el Amarna and I have taken the liberty of attributing some of his discoveries – and his ‘advanced’ ideas about methodology – to my fictitious archaeologists. The painted pavement found by Petrie was given the treatment I have described by Petrie himself. Except for discrepancies of this nature I have attempted to depict the Egypt of that era, and the state of archaeological research in the late nineteenth century, as accurately as possible, relying on contemporary travel books for details. In order to add verisimilitude to the narrative, I have used the contemporary spelling of names of places and pharaohs, as well as certain words like ‘dahabeeyah.’ For example, the name of the heretic pharaoh was formerly read as ‘Khuenaten.’ Modern scholars prefer the reading ‘Akhenaten.’ Similarly, ‘Usertsen’ is the modern ‘Senusert.’

W
HEN
I first set eyes on Evelyn Barton-Forbes she was walking the streets of Rome –

(I am informed, by the self-appointed Critic who reads over my shoulder as I write, that I have already committed an error. If those seemingly simple English words do indeed imply that which I am told they imply to the vulgar, I must in justice to Evelyn find other phrasing.)

In justice to myself, however, I must insist that Evelyn was doing precisely what I have said she was doing, but with no ulterior purpose in mind. Indeed, the poor girl had no purpose and no means of carrying it out if she had. Our meeting was fortuitous, but fortunate. I had, as I have always had, purpose enough for two.

I had left my hotel that morning in considerable irritation of spirits. My plans had gone awry. I am not accustomed to having my plans go awry. Sensing my mood, my small Italian guide trailed behind me in silence. Piero was not silent when I first encountered him, in the lobby of the hotel, where, in common with others of his kind, he awaited the arrival of helpless foreign visitors in need of a translator and guide. I selected him from amid the throng because his appearance was a trifle less villainous than that of the others.