He Shall Thunder in the Sky taps-12 Read online

  There was Mrs. Fortescue, clad as usual in black, surrounded as usual by admirers. Many of them were officers; many of them were highly placed. To judge from her encounter with Ramses, the lady (to give her the benefit of the doubt) was no better than she should be. Philippides, the corrupt head of the CID, was also among those present. Was he a traitor as well as a villain? Mrs. Pettigrew was staring at me, and so was her husband; the two round red faces were set in identical expressions of supercilious disapproval. No, surely not the Pettigrews; neither of them had the intelligence to be a spy. The swirl of a black cloak—Count de Sevigny, stalking like a stage villain toward the entrance of the hotel. He did bear a startling resemblance to another villain I had once known, but Kalenischeff was long dead, killed by the man he had attempted to betray.

  Ramses excused himself and rose. I watched him descend the stairs and plunge into the maelstrom of howling merchants who immediately surrounded him. Since he was a head taller than most of them, it was not difficult for me to follow his progress. He examined the wares of several flower sellers before approaching another man, bent and tremulous with age. As soon as Ramses had made his purchase, the fellow ducked his head and withdrew.

  The pretty little nosegays were rather wilted. Ramses presented one to me and the other to Nefret. She looked up at him with a particularly kindly expression; it was clear that she had taken the flowers as a tacit apology and that all was forgiven. Since she had been deep in conversation with young Mr. Pinckney, I felt sure she had not seen the exchange.

  Emerson was fidgeting. He had only agreed to come to Shepheard’s to enable Ramses to communicate with David; now that that was done, he allowed his boredom to show.

  “Time we went home,” he announced, interrupting Pinckney in the middle of a compliment.

  I had no objection. I had found the inspiration I sought.

  It is impossible to indulge in ratiocination while driving with Emerson. What with bracing oneself against sudden jolts, and warning him about camels and other impediments, and trying to prevent him from insulting operators of other motorcars, one’s attention is entirely engaged. I was therefore forced to wait until we reached the house before applying my mind to the idea that had come to me on the terrace of Shepheard’s. A long soothing bath provided the proper ambience.

  Sethos was in Cairo . I began with that assumption, for I did not doubt it was so. I have no formal training in Egyptology, but I have spent many years in that pursuit, and the peculiar circumstances surrounding the discovery of the statue had not escaped me. I am sure I need not explain my reasoning to the informed Reader (which includes the majority of my readers); she or he must have reached the same conclusion. The statue had been placed in the shaft within the past few days, and there was only one man alive who could have and would have done it.

  As for Sethos’s motives, they were equally transparent. He was taunting me: announcing his presence, defying me to stop him should he choose to rob the Museum or the storage magazines or the site itself. I had realized early on that the present confusion in the Antiquities Department and in Egypt would be irresistible to a man of Sethos’s profession. Some might wonder why he had announced himself by giving up one of his most valuable treasures. I felt confident it was one of Sethos’s little jokes. His sense of humor was decidedly peculiar. The joke would be on us if he managed to steal the statue back. What a slap in the face that would be for Emerson!

  I leaned back, watching the shimmer of reflected water on the tiled ceiling of the bath chamber. There was no doubt in my mind that Emerson had reached the same conclusion. Very little having to do with Egyptology escapes him. Of course the dear innocent man did not suppose I was clever enough to think of it. He had not told me for the same reason I had kept silent. The subject of Sethos was somewhat delicate. Emerson knew I had never given him cause to be jealous, but jealousy, dear Reader, is not under the control of the intellect. Had I not myself felt its poisonous fangs penetrate my heart?

  Yes, I had. As for Sethos, he had made no secret of his feelings. Early in our acquaintance he had tried on several occasions to remove his rival, as he considered Emerson, once before my very eyes. Later he had sworn to me that he would never harm anyone who was dear to me. Obviously that included Emerson, and I sincerely hoped that Sethos agreed. Just to be on the safe side, I decided I had better find him before Emerson did. I had no doubt I could succeed. Emerson had not my intimate knowledge of the man. Emerson would not recognize him in any disguise, as I could do… as I had done… as I believed I had…

  I must have a closer and longer look at the man I suspected. The Reader may well ask why, if I believe Sethos to be guilty of nothing worse than stealing antiquities, I should try to find him instead of concentrating on the viler villain, the enemy agent, who might also be a traitor to his country. I will answer that query. In his day, Sethos’s web of intrigue had infiltrated every part of the criminal underworld of Egypt . He knew every assassin, every thief, every purveyor of drugs and depravity in Cairo . He could draw upon that knowledge to identify the man I was after—and by heaven, he would, for I would force him to do so! I raised my clenched fist toward the tiled ceiling to reinforce that vow, narrowly missing the nose of Emerson, who had crept up on me unobserved and unheard, owing to the intensity of my concentration.

  “Good Gad, Peabody,” he remarked, starting back. “If you want privacy you need only say so.”

  “I beg your pardon, my dear,” I replied. “I did not know you were there. What do you want?”

  “You, of course. You have been in here for almost an hour. And,” Emerson added, studying my toes, “you are as wrinkled as a raisin. What were you brooding about?”

  “I was enjoying the cool water and lost track of the time. Would you care to help me out?”

  I knew he would, and hoped that the ensuing distraction might prevent him from asking further questions. I was correct.

  It was rather late by the time we were dressed and ready to go down. I assumed the others had already done so, but I stopped at Ramses’s door to listen. The door opened so suddenly, I was caught with my head tilted and my ear toward the opening.

  “Eavesdropping, Mother?” Ramses inquired.

  “It is a shameful habit, but cursed useful,” I said, quoting something he had once said, and was rewarded by one of his rare and rather engaging smiles. “Are you ready to go down to dinner?”

  Ramses nodded. “I was waiting for you. I wanted to have a word with you.”

  “And I with you,” said Emerson. “You had no opportunity to write a note. What did you tell David?”

  “To meet me later this evening. We need to discuss this latest development.”

  “Bring him here,” I urged. “I yearn to see him.”

  “Not a good idea,” Emerson said.

  “No.” Ramses gestured for us to proceed. “There is a coffee shop in Giza Village where I go from time to time. They are accustomed to see me and would not be surprised if I got into conversation with a stranger.”

  The scheme was certainly the lesser of several evils. Meditating on possible methods of lessening the danger still more, I led the way to the drawing room.

  Nefret had been writing letters. “How slow you all are tonight!” she exclaimed, putting down her pen. “ Fatima has been in twice to say dinner is ready.”

  “We had better go straight in, then,” I said. “Mahmud always burns the food when we are late.”

  We got to the table just in time to save the soup. I thought I detected a slight undertaste of scorching, but none of the others appeared to notice.

  “Good to have a quiet evening,” Emerson declared. “You aren’t going to the hospital, Nefret?”

  “I rang Sophia earlier, and she said I am not needed at present.” Nefret had changed, but not into evening attire; her frock was an old one, of blue muslin sprigged with green and white flowers. It might have been for sentimental reasons that she had kept it; Emerson had once commented on how pretty sh
e looked in it.

  “I planned to develop some of the plates this evening,” she went on. “I’ve got rather behind. Will you give me a hand, Ramses?”

  “I am going out,” Ramses replied rather brusquely.

  “For the entire evening?” She raised candid blue eyes, eyes the same shade as her gown.

  The innocent question had an odd effect on Ramses. I knew that enigmatic countenance well enough to observe the scarcely perceptible hardening of his mouth. “Just to the village for a bit. I want to hear what the locals have to say about the statue.”

  “Do you think they are planning to steal it?” Nefret asked, laughing.

  “I am sure some of them would like to,” Ramses replied. “I won’t be late. If you would like to wait a few hours I will be happy to assist.”

  I offered my services instead and Nefret accepted them. It was an odd conversation altogether; we talked, as we usually did, of our work and our future plans, but I could see that even Emerson had to force himself to take an interest. Not so odd, perhaps, considering that three of the four of us were concealing something from the fourth.

  After dinner we went to the parlor for coffee. Several letters had been delivered while we were out; despite the general reliability of the post, many of our acquaintances clung to the old habit of sending messages by hand. There was one for me from Katherine Vandergelt, which I read with a renewed sense of guilt.

  “We have seen so little of the Vandergelts,” I said. “Katherine writes to remind us of our promise to visit them at Abusir.”

  Emerson started as if he had been stung. “Damnation!”

  “What is it, Emerson?” I cried in alarm. “Something in that letter?”

  “No. Er—yes.” Emerson crumpled the missive and shoved it in his pocket. “In part. It is from Maxwell, asking me to be present at a meeting tomorrow—another example of the cursed distractions that have plagued this season! I meant to go to Abusir several days ago.”

  “A war is something of a distraction,” Nefret said dryly. “You are probably the only man on that committee who knows what he is talking about, Professor; you are doing Egypt a great service.”

  Emerson said, “Hmph,” and Nefret added, “This can’t last forever. Someday…”

  “Quite right,” I said. “You will do your duty, Emerson, and so will we all; and someday…”

  Nefret and I spent several hours in the darkroom. When we emerged, both Emerson and Ramses were gone.

  From Manuscript H

  Ramses could remember a time when carriages and camels and donkeys transported tourists to the pyramids along a dusty road bordered by green fields. Now taxis and private motorcars made pedestrian traffic hazardous and the once isolated village of Giza had been almost swallowed up by new houses and villas. Baedeker, the Bible of the tourist, dismissed it as uninteresting, but every visitor to the pyramids passed through it along the road or on the train, and the inhabitants preyed on them as they had always done, selling fake antiquities and hiring out donkeys. The town relapsed into somnolence after nightfall. Its amenities were somewhat limited: a few shops, a few coffee shops, a few brothels.

  The coffee shop Ramses favored was a few hundred yards west of the station. It was not as pretentious as the Cairene equivalents: a beaten earth floor instead of tile or brick, a simple support of wooden beams framing the open front. As he approached Ramses heard a single voice rising and falling in trained cadences, which were broken at intervals by appreciative laughter or exclamations. A reciter, or storyteller, was providing entertainment. He must have been there for some time, for he was deep in the intricacies of an interminable romance entitled “The Life of Abu-Zayd.”

  A few lamps, hanging from the wooden beams, showed the Sha’er perched on a stool placed on the mastaba bench in front of the coffee shop. He was a man of middle age with a neatly trimmed black beard; his hands held the single-stringed viol and bow with which he accompanied his narrative. His audience sat round him, on the mastaba or on stools, smoking their pipes as they listened with rapt attention.

  The narrative, part in prose, part in verse, described the adventures of Abu-Zayd, more commonly known as Barakat, the son of an emir who cast him off because his dark skin cast certain doubts on the honor of his mother. The emir did his wife an injustice; Barakat’s coloring had been bestowed on him by a literal-minded god, in response to the lady’s prayer:

  “Soon, from the vault of heaven descending

  A black-plumaged bird of enormous weight

  Pounced on the other birds and killed them all.

  To God I cried—O Compassionate!

  Give me a son like this noble bird.”

  Waiting in the shadows, Ramses listened appreciatively to the flexible, melodic voice. It was quite a story, as picaresque and bloodthirsty as any Western epic, and it was conveniently divided into sections or chapters, each of which ended in a prayer. When the narrator reached the end of the current section Ramses stepped forward and joined the audience in reciting the concluding prayer.

  He and his father were among the few Europeans whom Egyptians addressed as they would a fellow Moslem—probably because Emerson’s religious views, or lack thereof, made it difficult to classify him. “At least,” one philosophical speaker had remarked, “he is not a dog of a Christian.”

  Emerson had found that highly amusing.

  Ramses exchanged greetings with the patrons and politely saluted the reciter, whom he had encountered before. Refreshing himself with the coffee an admirer had presented to him, the Sha’er nodded in acknowledgment.

  Ramses edged gradually away from the attentive audience and into the single, dirt-floored room. Only two creatures had resisted the lure of the narrator; one was a dog, sound asleep and twitching, under a bench. The other was stretched out on another bench and he too appeared to be asleep. Ramses shoved his feet rudely off the bench and sat down.

  “Have you no poetry in your soul?” he inquired.

  “Not at the moment.” David pulled himself to a sitting position. “I heard.”

  “I feared you would.” He told David what had happened, or failed to happen, the night before. “How they got wind of his intentions I don’t know, unless he tried to blackmail them.”

  David nodded. “So that’s the end of that. What do we do now?”

  “Back to the original plan. What else can we do?”

  There was no answer from David, who was leaning forward, his head bowed.

  “I’m sorry,” Ramses said. He decided they could risk speaking English; the narrator’s voice was sonorous and no one was paying attention to them.

  “Don’t be an ass.”

  “Never mind the compliments. There’s one thing we haven’t tried.”

  “Trailing the Turk?”

  “Yes. The first time I encountered him I was—er—prevented from doing so. The second time, you were prevented by your concern for me. There will be at least one more opportunity, and this time we’ll have to do more than follow him. As you cogently pointed out, we need to learn not where he’s going but where he came from. He’s only a hired driver and he is probably amenable to bribery or persuasion. But that means we’ll have to take him alive, which won’t be easy.”

  “The Professor would be delighted to lend a hand,” David murmured. “Are you going to let him in on it?”

  “Not if I can help it. You and I can manage him.”

  “One more delivery.”

  “So I was told. It has to be soon, you know. At least Farouk is out of the picture. If they try to replace him we’ll know who the spy is.”

  “Are you trying to cheer me up?”

  “Apparently I’m not succeeding.”

  “One can’t help wondering,” David said evenly, “what he told them. The kurbash is a potent inducement to confession.”

  “What could he tell them, except that the great and powerful Father of Curses had tried to bribe him? He didn’t know about you or—or the rest of it.”

&nbs
p; “He knew about the house in Maadi.”

  Ramses swore under his breath. It had been a forlorn hope, that David’s quick mind would overlook that interesting fact—a fact whose significance had apparently eluded his father. Not that one could ever be sure, with Emerson…

  “Listen to me,” he said urgently. “Father’s private arrangement with Farouk was a diversion that had nothing to do with our purpose. We didn’t sign on to smash a spy apparatus, we’re only trying to prevent an ugly little revolution. If we can do that and come out of it with whole skins, we’ll be damned lucky. I refuse to get involved in anything else. They can’t expect it of us.”

  “You had better lower your voice.”

  Ramses took a long, steadying breath. “And you had better go. I meant what I said, David.”

  “Of course.” David rose and moved noiselessly toward the doorway. Then he pulled back with a muffled exclamation.

  Ramses joined him and looked out. There was no mistaking the massive form that occupied a seat of honor in the center of the audience. Emerson was smoking his pipe and listening attentively.

  “What’s he doing here?” David whispered.

  “Playing nursemaid,” Ramses muttered. “I wish he wouldn’t treat me like—”

  “You did the same for him last night.”

  “Oh.”

  David let out a soundless breath of laughter. “He’s saved me the trouble of following you home. Till tomorrow.”

  Bowing his head to conceal his height, he began working his way slowly through the men who stood nearby. Ramses moved forward a step and leaned against the wooden frame, as if he had been standing there all along.

  He knew his father had seen him. Emerson had probably spotted David too, but he made no move to intercept him. He waited politely until the wail of the viol indicated the end of another chapter, and then rose and went to meet Ramses. They took their leave of the other patrons and started on the homeward path.