The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [144]
“It’s in god damned legal writing!” bellows Kovacs, flecking saliva everywhere, the only six words he spoke the whole meeting.
“First, Mr. Ferrell,” continues O’Toole, unaffected, “you’ll discover with precision what amount our friend Mr. Finneran has already received by way of proceeds from the professor’s digging and you’ll report it to me discreetly. You’ll let me know by cable where Mr. Finneran is, and where the gold is, and you’ll await my instructions, which will be explicit.”
This I hadn’t seen coming, had almost forgotten the possibility: O’Toole and Kovacs were entirely convinced by Trilipush’s cables reporting great finds and their share in them. They were sure there was treasure all right, and Finneran had already pocketed his dividends from it, which he should’ve used to pay back his debts, not to mention O’Toole’s and Kovacs’s dividends as well. But instead Finneran had run off to steal it all for himself, they thought. Until this moment, I’d been rather undecided on the question of an actual treasure: either Trilipush had found it and was planning to run off with it, or he’d never found it and had just taken Finneran’s money to burnish his appearance to find some new victim to steal more money from in turn, to pay for his deprivations and his English estates. The question of actual treasure hardly mattered to my murder case, but O’Toole and Kovacs were believers. Did they think Trilipush was in on it with Finneran, the two of them were off stealing the gold together? “Don’t be daft,” O’Toole said. “Why would Trilipush wire us the news if he means to cheat us? No, the professor’s on the up and up.” O’Toole and Kovacs feared worse than that: either Finneran had already received money he’d no right to and now had sailed off with it never to be seen again, or he’d gone to Egypt to steal even more of O’Toole and Kovacs’s winnings by ambushing Trilipush and lifting the whole load. “We don’t care one way or the other what becomes of the Englishman,” admitted O’Toole. “However, if as a result of anything untoward happening to him, then the number of partners is reduced by one, and our percentage of the final haul grows accordingly. But, to give our Chester the benefit of the doubt, he may be going over to secure the entire pie in some fashion that should not offend us silent partners. I could certainly understand this in his situation, and so be it, since this would mean he could acquit more of his responsibilities to us. And if that’s the man’s honourable intent, then that’s cheering and fine with us, and he can come home in perfect confidence. Tell him that from me, detective.”
We’d a peculiar brief, Macy, and things unsaid hovered, thick-like.
I set off to New York on the 3rd and caught the steamer for Alexandria on the 12th. I felt refreshed and daily stronger. Leaving America was just the ticket, and I remember standing on the deck, despite the swirling snow in New York Harbour, looking out to sea and knowing that we were coming to the end now, the end of ambiguity, the end of lies and hidden truths, of wealth protecting evil.
Finneran had taken his partners’ money into his own accounts to send to Egypt. What had happened to it? He told me he never sent it. Did he lie? Either he’d wired that money to Trilipush or he hadn’t. Meanwhile, either Trilipush had found his treasure or he hadn’t. If he had, either Finneran was going to steal it or Trilipush already had and Finneran was trying to stop him. Either way, Trilipush was in immediate lethal danger from none other than Finneran, and ironically, I was Trilipush’s best hope for protection. I hoped I wouldn’t be too late. Finneran wanted revenge or treasure or both—I’d seen that clear enough. But I didn’t want any more death in the desert, Macy, not I. Your aunt deserved better, and besides, the murders of Hugo Marlowe and Paul Caldwell, murders of which I no longer had the slightest doubt, were still to be accounted for, and I would not be thwarted. Justice and truth in the person of an Australian detective and his young American