Silhouette in Scarlet - Elizabeth Peters [48]
At one time the pasture had been cultivated. Nobody had ploughed it recently, though. It had been allowed to revert to grass, weeds, and wild flowers. The growth seemed unusually luxuriant for the climate and the season. Perhaps Gus’s grandpa’s experiments had involved a lavish use of fertilizer.
Leif pushed gallantly ahead, trampling down the grass and muttering about snakes. I doubted there were any, but I stored the idea away for the purposes of harassment. City slickers, who take muggers, traffic, and pollution for granted, tend to panic when faced with rural perils.
Never had I seen so obvious a collection of urbanites. Georg was the only one who wasn’t staring uneasily at the wide-open spaces. The false euphoria of the drug he used was at its peak; he was talking animatedly, punctuating his speech with expansive gestures. As we drew closer I heard him say:
‘It will take at least a month. With only six men, and no proper tools perhaps longer. Surely you must have more specific information.’ Max must have seen us – singly, Leif and I were hard to miss, and as a pair we were outstanding – but since he paid me no attention, I saw no reason why I should favour him with a ‘Good morning.’ I sat down on a boulder and watched with malicious pleasure as Max helplessly surveyed the sea of grass stretching out all around. If you have ever tried to dig a garden – a moderate-sized plot, thirty feet on a side – you can understand the little man’s distress.
‘The pasture behind the house,’ he said finally. ‘That is all I know.’
‘But you have nothing!’ Georg waved his arms. ‘Not the most rudimentary equipment for a dig.’
Max indicated a wheelbarrow. ‘Picks, shovels, hoes – ’
‘And a metal detector.’ Georg lifted the instrument off the wheelbarrow and sneered at it. ‘Excellent for finding tin cans on beaches. Hopeless for your purpose. Now if you had brought a proton magnetometer, or an electrical resistivity instrument . . .’
‘I can get them,’ Max said eagerly. ‘I will send Hans – ’
‘No use.’ Georg waved the offer aside. ‘Oh, perhaps if the circumstances were different . . . But you have no trained personnel. I cannot do everything myself.’
Max’s eyes wandered in my direction. I waved a casual hand. ‘Count me out, Max. I’m no archaeologist. I wouldn’t know a proton whatchamacallit from a toaster.’
‘Also,’ Georg went on, ‘in such a stony soil, and an area of heavy rainfall . . .’
Max gritted his teeth. ‘How long would such a survey take, with these instruments?’
‘Hmmm.’ Georg fondled his beard. ‘We would need a source of electricity, naturally. The probes of the resistivity meter should be placed no more than one metre apart – ’
A bleat of fury came from Max. ‘One metre? Do you know the size of this field?’
‘About three acres, I would suppose,’ was the calm reply.
‘We dig,’ Max said shortly. ‘All of us.’
‘Very well,’ Georg said. ‘First we must mow the field.’
It would take too long and serve no useful purpose to report Max’s comments. Eventually one of the men was sent to the house to fetch scythes, and the work began.
Leif wandered off, perhaps fearing that Max would put him to work. He needn’t have worried; Max wasn’t naive enough to put a large cutting instrument into Leif’s hands. He missed a treat. Watching those inept goons trying to cut grass made my morning. Nobody got decapitated, but Pierre almost lost his left foot to a wild swipe from Hans.
When the slapstick palled, I got up and strolled around, giving the mowers a wide berth. To the northwest, almost hidden by the trees, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the roof of a building. When I sauntered to that side of the pasture, a sharp command from Max sent one of the boys after me, waving his gun. So I went back to my rock.
Towards midday John appeared, picking a delicate path through the weeds. His attire was country-casual: old tweeds, a cashmere sweater, and a tie with the insignia of some institution – possibly Sing-Sing or Wormwood Scrubbs.
After a leisurely survey of the proceedings he joined me