Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [133]
“I certainly would.” She sounded quite her old self. “She had told me his name, or rather, his sobriquet, so I spent several days finding out everything I could about him. You’d be surprised how many sources I uncovered. And of course I remembered that outrageous letter he wrote, and the subsequent investigation; Kevin O’Connell gloated over me unmercifully because he got the story first.”
She took another sip of brandy. “So?” Ramses prompted impatiently.
“So I began to wonder whether your mother had lied to me. Her attempt to discourage me from coming on to Luxor was also suspicious. I decided to investigate. At worst I’d get the material for an interesting feature story. I did, too!” she added, with almost her old complacency. “I had little difficulty in extracting information. People like to see their names in the newspaper. The police weren’t very forthcoming, but your Egyptological friends saw no reason why they shouldn’t tell me what they knew. Howard Carter was a mine of information, after I had plied him with drinks and convinced him that his friends the Emersons wouldn’t mind his talking to me. They hadn’t sworn him to silence, had they? Everybody who was anybody already knew the stories, didn’t they?
“Well, yes, they did, he admitted. The Emersons had spoken freely about their bête noire. Had I heard about the time he took on the identity of a Coptic priest while his men were excavating illegally at a nearby site? I also got an earful about the recent increase in illegal excavations and theft. Most of it centered around the Luxor area, and Amelia’s attempt to dissuade me from coming here made me all the more determined to investigate. What did I have to lose, after all?
“It was Sayid who gave me the final clue. Ninety percent of what he told me was pure fabrication, and I had to spend a long tedious day listening to his fantastic stories about the Master—whose right-hand man he claimed to have been—before I got what I wanted out of him. Is there anything that man won’t sell?”
“No one’s found it yet,” Ramses said. “That’s why those who know his habits make certain he won’t be tempted to betray them. He told you where to find Sethos? How did he know?”
“It is known in Luxor that the Master has returned.” She sounded as if she were quoting. “His whereabouts no man knows. His true appearance no man knows. He has a thousand faces and ten thousand names.”
The night was very silent. There was no sign of life, no sound of movement outside, on the deck or on the dock. Nevertheless, Ramses’s scalp was prickling.
“Never mind the picturesque details,” he said somewhat brusquely. “Just tell me what happened.”
From Manuscript Collection M
(The Editor has determined to substitute for the hurried account given Ramses by Miss Minton, and repeated by him, one must suppose, in even more abbreviated form, the version written by Miss Minton herself at a somewhat later time. It is much more interesting.)
I might have known that when I encountered him again, it would be under circumstances as wildly theatrical as before. This time he didn’t do it deliberately. Like certain other people of my acquaintance, he moves in melodrama, drawing it about him like a villain’s black cloak.
I looked up Ramses and Nefret Emerson as soon as I got to Luxor. They weren’t awfully pleased to see me. I couldn’t take that as confirmation of my suspicions (or hopes), but I could tell I wasn’t going to get any help from them. I went the rounds of the Egyptologists in Luxor. M. Legrain amiably admitted that it would have taken a lot of skill and knowledge to loot his storage magazines; Mr. MacKay informed me that the whole thing was poppycock and that the Emersons were known for inventing wild stories; Kuentz had a wonderful time telling me even wilder stories. He thought he was being clever, but the things he told me confirmed my suspicions. Someone was behind the recent rash of thefts here in Luxor. Someone had been using the German House for illegal purposes. I carefully wrote it all down, lies and all.
I had been besieged by hopeful dragomen