The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [27]
Feigning disinterest, he turned away from the table. “It is too perfect,” he said. “My buyer is a man of learning. He will know it is a fake. I could get, perhaps, twenty English pounds . . .”
When he and David left after another hour of bargaining, they did not have the papyrus. Ramses had not expected they would. No dealer or thief would part with the merchandise until the payment was in his hand. But they had come to an agreement. They were to meet again the following night.
David had not spoken at all during the discussion. He was not skilled at disguising his voice, so his role was to look large, loyal, and threatening. He was fairly bursting with excitement, however, and as soon as the door of the house closed behind them he exclaimed, “Good God! Did you—”
Ramses cut him off with a curt Arabic expletive, and neither of them spoke again until they reached the river. The small skiff was moored where they had left it. David took first turn at the oars. They were some distance from the shore, hidden by darkness, before Ramses had finished the process that transformed him from a shady-looking Cairene to a comparatively well-groomed young Englishman.
“Your turn,” he said. They changed places. David peeled off his beard and removed his turban.
“Sorry,” he said. “I should not have spoken when I did.”
“Speaking educated English in that part of Cairo at that hour is not a sensible thing to do,” Ramses said dryly. “There’s more to this than meets the eye, David. Yussuf Mahmud doesn’t deal in antiquities of that quality. Either he is acting as middle man for someone who doesn’t want his identity known, or he stole the papyrus from a bigger thief. The original owner may be after him.”
“Ah,” David said. “I thought he was uncommonly edgy.”
“I think you thought right. Marketing stolen antiquities is against the law, but it wasn’t fear of the police that made the sweat pour off him.”
David bundled up his disguise and tucked it away under the seat, then bent over the side to splash water on his face. “The papyrus was genuine, Ramses. I’ve never seen one as beautiful.”
“I thought so too, but I’m glad to have you confirm my opinion. You know more of these things than I. You missed a wart.”
“Where? Oh.” David’s fingers found the protuberance. Softened by water, it peeled off. “The Egyptians are right when they say you can see in the dark, like a cat,” he remarked. “Are you going to tell the Professor about the papyrus?”
“You know how he feels about buying from dealers. I admire his principles, just as I admire the principles of pacificism, but I fear they are equally impractical. In the one case you end up dead. In the other, you lose valuable historical documents to idle collectors who take them home and forget about them. How can the trade be stopped when even the Service des Antiquités buys from such people?”
The little boat came gently to rest against the muddy bank. Ramses shipped the oars and went on, “In this case I can’t see any other way out of what my mother would call a moral dilemma. I want that damned papyrus, and I want to know how Yussuf Mahmud got hold of it. How much money have you?”
“I—er—I’m a bit short,” David admitted.
“So am I. As usual.”
“What about the Professor?”
Ramses shifted uncomfortably. “There’s no use asking him for the money, he wouldn’t give it to me. He’d give me a fatherly lecture instead. I can’t stand it when he does that.”
“Then you’ll have to ask Nefret.”
“Damned if I will.”
“That’s stupid,” David said. “She has more money than she knows what to do with, and she’s eager to share. If she were as good a friend and a man, you wouldn’t hesitate.”
“It isn’t that,” Ramses said, knowing he was a liar and knowing that David knew