The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [61]
“Yes, yes,” said Emerson, who recognized the start of one of Ramses’s lectures. “I find it difficult to believe that Yussuf Mahmud would have the intestinal fortitude to break into the house. He’s a second-rater in every way.”
“He might have summoned up the intestinal fortitude if he feared someone else more than he did us,” Ramses said.
“Hmmm.” Emerson rubbed his chin. “The individual from whom he got the papyrus, you mean. He was sent here to retrieve it, with the promise that his worthless life would be spared if he succeeded? Possible. Curse it, Ramses, why didn’t you tell me this before we left Cairo? I can think of several people who deal in antiquities of exceptional quality and whose scruples are questionable.”
“So can I, Father. I saw no point in pursuing that line of inquiry, however. The guilty person would not admit anything, and questioning the others would only arouse speculation of the sort we want to avoid.”
“I suppose so.” The admission came grudgingly. Emerson would have preferred to call on all his suspects and bully one of them into a confession.
His eyes returned to the papyrus, which lay on the table in David’s ingeniously designed case. One of the charming little painted vignettes had been exposed; it showed the mummy case of the princess being drawn to the tomb by a pair of oxen. Emerson fingered the cleft in his chin, as was his habit when perplexed or in deep thought. Half to himself, he said, “It’s odd, though. The papyrus is very fine, no question of that; but I would not have believed any of the persons I had in mind would go to such lengths to get it back. Attacking a scruffy fellow swindler like Ali the Rat is one thing. Attempting to rob ME requires more audacity than I would have supposed them to possess.”
“Have you any ideas about who such an audacious person might be, sir?” Nefret inquired politely.
Emerson shot her a wary look. “No. How should I? The question of the origin of this object is equally mysterious. It came from Thebes, obviously, but where in Thebes?”
“It occurred to David,” Ramses said, “that this papyrus might have come from the Royal Cache. The Abd er Rassul brothers had been looting the tomb of small objects for years before they were—er—persuaded to lead Herr Brugsch to the site. Some things were sold to collectors—”
“And other things they concealed in their house in Gurneh,” said Abdullah. “There were papyri among those things.”
Emerson was smoking furiously. “There is another possibility. Brugsch could easily have overlooked something, he bundled everything out of the place in such a cursed hurry.”
“Surely it is unlikely that he and the Abd er Rassuls would both overlook something as valuable as this,” I mused. “However, a proper excavation might yield interesting results.”
Emerson gave me a critical look. “Bored with our tombs, are you, Peabody? Don’t suppose you can distract me from my duty with your tempting suggestions. What we are endeavoring to determine is how the papyrus got to Cairo and where it originated. I see four possibilities. The first, that it came from the undiscovered tomb of the princess, is cursed unlikely. Other objects from that tomb would have surfaced. The second, third, and fourth theories assume it was part of the Deir el Bahri cache. It was sold by the thieves either shortly after they discovered the tomb, or later, after having been concealed in their house for an undetermined number of years; or it was found and marketed only recently.”
I opened my mouth to speak. Emerson said in a loud voice, “Don’t begin theorizing, Peabody, I am having difficulty enough controlling my temper. We have not sufficient evidence to construct a theory as yet. Unless our dear dutiful children are concealing evidence from us?”
“We aren’t concealing anything,” Nefret said. “Ramses held nothing back. If I had been telling the story I would have been strongly tempted to omit a few of the more—um—interesting details.”
“I suppose I must give him that,” Emerson said. “Confound it, Ramses, for how