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to start up again. He also informed the other investors that everything was on track, and they’d made a spectacular investment. He was decided: Trilipush was on the up and up, Oxford was a misunderstanding, not worth talking about, Margaret was pleased, and so Finneran was planning to release the investors’ monthly payments, funds he’d been holding in his own accounts. But on the 27th, he realised his mistake—Carter and Trilipush were working on different projects—and Finneran hesitated again. On the 28th, he received another cable from his man. Finneran threw it at me. It read, SEND ME NO MORE MONEY. HAVE FOUND NEW, RELIABLE SUPPORT. CARTER’S BACKERS HAVE PLEADED WITH ME TO ACCEPT THEIR INVESTMENT. I can’t say I was surprised by this: Trilipush had used Finneran to find his desert hole full of gold, and now, having found it, why would he need the Finnerans ever again? He’d moved up in the world to a better sort of people, cutting off his Boston crowd. I told Finneran this in no uncertain terms. He goggled at me. “You think he’s not coming back? But I needed that money,” he stammered. How much had he sent? Not so much, just that one small credit, because the original protection for the investors had been that Trilipush agreed to spend his own money in the opening weeks, as a proof of his confidence. “So what’s the problem?” I asked. “You’ve lost hardly a penny.” No, he wasn’t upset about the money he’d spent, Macy, he was actually worried about his share of the purported treasure, if I understood him correctly, which he was now going to lose. “What am I going to tell—” he began, but I interrupted him, told him to relax, said I’d tell Margaret, not to worry. He looked at me amazed. “You idiot. O’Toole and Kovacs, O’Toole and Kovacs—what am I going to tell them?”

I looked at Finneran’s face, and now, Macy, now I finally understood. I’d seen that face before and I’ve seen it since, the twisted mouth of the man who realises he won’t be able to pay his dangerous creditors.

“That I don’t know, Finneran, but I know this. Cable Trilipush over Margaret’s signature, breaking the engagement. Trilipush is washing his hands of you fast, so save Margaret first. Do that for her good name as soon as possible: she has to break with him before he does it to her. You owe her that. And if he has any feeling for her, which I doubt, she’s your only hope to keep any control over him, now that he doesn’t need your purse.”

The doorbell rang. Julius Padraig O’Toole entered and nodded to me coldly. I was dismissed while Finneran welcomed O’Toole into the study with an expert display of boot licking. I waited in the parlour. There was no shouting, no guns went off. The study door opened a quarter of an hour later, and O’Toole strode calmly down the hall and out of the house. Finneran sat at his desk, thumping his humidor with his fingertips. I asked him what O’Toole had wanted. “Shut the goddamn door,” he replied. I left. Margaret was nowhere to be found then or that night.

Mr. Trilish. I am needing rent money for the next six months, right this moment, yes surely a necessity minor on you. Quick quick! And here also an issue of bony contention. For if it is different, yes, than we discussed through the agent, this is necessary now to increase times 5× the amount for each month of renting the house. And this is obvious, yes, because of the interest in the Tut things. So many people all influxing! Happy circumstances! Thank you heroic Mr. Carter! And with a house beautiful like this one! Ho boy! So at least ten people have asked the agent if my house is available and it is unless rent is paid by you now for six months more at once, on this new price. Yours very seriously, Mr. Gamil.

Wednesday, 29 November, 1922

Journal: A message was slipped under my door during the night that puts the expedition’s finances under new strain. Heroic concentration on the issues at hand is now the key. Feed the cats and set off into the rising dawn, to work.

Amr meets me on the Nile’s west bank with plaster, and with the sun rising behind us I show him the correct