He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [122]
“No!” Emerson said loudly.
“How did you know what I was going to ask?”
“I know you only too well, Peabody,” said my husband, scowling. “You were about to ask him to fit that little gun of yours with a similar spring. I strictly forbid it. You are already armed and dangerous.”
“Speaking of that, Emerson, I am having problems with my sword parasol. Jamal claimed he had repaired it, but the release keeps sticking.”
“I’ll have a look at it if you like, Mother,” Ramses said. His momentary animation had faded, leaving him looking deathly tired.
“Never mind, my dear, I will let Jamal have another try. Go to bed. As for David, let him hope a little longer. All is not lost; we may yet receive a message.”
I spoke confidently and encouragingly, but I was conscious of a growing sense of discouragement that troubled my slumber and shadowed my thoughts all the next day. Blighted hope is harder to bear than no hope at all.
At breakfast next morning Emerson asked Nefret to take photographs of the statue. I stayed to help her with the lighting. We employed the same mirror reflectors we were accustomed to using in the tombs; they gave a subtler and more controlled light than flash powder or magnesium wire. It took us quite some time, since of course long exposures were necessary.
When we had finished and were on our way to join the others at Giza, Nefret remarked, “I am surprised the Professor has not stationed armed guards all round the statue, by night and by day.”
“My dear girl, how could a thief make off with something so heavy? It required forty of our sturdiest workmen to lift the thing!”
Nefret chuckled. “It is rather a ludicrous image, I admit: forty thieves, just as in ‘Ali Baba,’ staggering along the road with the statue on their shoulders, trying to appear inconspicuous.”
“Yes,” I said, chuckling. It echoed somewhat hollowly. At that time the statue was the least of my concerns.
Before we parted for the night, we had agreed on certain steps to be taken the following day. Ramses, who was still inclined to impart information in dribbles, explained that he and David had arranged several means of communication. He had on one occasion actually passed a message to David when I was present, for one of David’s roles was that of a flower vendor, outside Shepheard’s hotel. I remembered the occasion well; the flowers had been rather wilted. If we had not heard from Farouk by mid-afternoon we would go to Shepheard’s for tea, and after Ramses had seen David, Ramses would try to locate Farouk. He refused to emit even a dribble of information explaining how he meant to go about it, but I assumed that the conspirators had ways of contacting one another in case of an emergency.
None of this information could be imparted to Nefret. If she went with us to Shepheard’s I would have to find some means of distracting her while Ramses approached the flower vendor; David’s disguise had been good enough to fool me, but her keen eyes might not be so easily deceived.
As it turned out, my scheming was unnecessary. Shortly after midday we received a message that threw all our plans into disarray.
Instead of using basket carriers, as we had done in the past, Emerson had caused to be laid down between the tomb and the dump site a set of tracks along which wheeled carts could run. As I stood watching one of the filled carts being pushed toward the dump, a man on horseback approached. I was about to shout at him to go away when I realized that he was in the uniform of the Cairo Police. I hastened to meet him. At my insistence he handed over the letter he carried, which was in fact directed to Emerson.
This would not have prevented me from opening the envelope had not Emerson himself joined us. He too had recognized the uniform; he too realized that something serious must have occurred. Thomas Russell might as well have sent along a town crier to announce in stentorian tones that the messenger was from him. The uniform was well known to all Cairenes.
“I was told to wait for an answer, sir,” said the man, saluting. “It is urgent.”
“Oh? Hmph.