The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [166]
We left for the south on a boat the next day, reaching Luxor on the 27th. By the way, Macy, feel free to add any local colour you think helps: hot weather, camels, natives, all that. No feeling for it myself, but I think it does draw a certain class of readership, and film people eat it right up.
On the 27th, I made my way to the suburban address Trilipush had given his Cairo hotel for forwarding messages. Instead of Trilipush, two American journalists were sharing the rent on this villa, their headquarters for sending dispatches on the King Tut dig. They’d taken it on the 10th of December. And had they ever heard of an archaeologist named Trilipush? One of them laughed, sarcastic: “Popular fellow.” Another gentleman had come last week asking the same question. What did they tell him? “We said that if he’s an archaeologist, then Howard Carter would know him, but I’ve never heard of your boy, chief.” They told me how to find Carter’s site and were happy enough to take some money: if they caught wind of Trilipush or Finneran again, they’d contact me at once at my hotel in Luxor. “Yes, boss, we sho’nuff will!”
Off I went to the big show: the mob of workmen and tourists that marked the excavation of the tomb of King Tutankhamun. Now, one of the great benefits of my career, Macy, is the wide variety of fascinating humanity it’s been my happy lot to encounter. Howard Carter was a fellow of about fifty when I met him, and admirable. You know anything about him? He wasn’t a toff, wasn’t born into wealth and privilege like Trilipush and Marlowe, wasn’t even rich. No, Carter was a gamekeeper’s grandson who’d worked hard, studied hard, taught himself what he needed to excel at his field, and through intelligence, persistence, and good luck had made this quite winning discovery that the whole world knows all about now, and justifiably so. Now all the mummy voodoo and the broken furniture and the necklaces and whatnot, well that stuff doesn’t interest me much, and the little bit of it that Carter showed me that day was fine, but a little goes a long way. No, what interested me was Carter himself. He was my sort of man, a self-made, honest man. And he was an Englishman, but not the type who couldn’t forgive you for not being English. I could see the respect his Gippos had for him. Not to mention the mobs of journalists and photographers and tourists and would-be assistants and admirers, although none of it distracted him. As I asked my questions about his work and about Trilipush, I couldn’t help but think: Here’s a poor boy made good, not some toff criminal, and it’s a pity that the scandal about to erupt all around here is going to pull the world’s attention from Mr. Carter’s work, and place it on mine instead.
Well, Carter had indeed met Trilipush several times, and in fact, Trilipush was hard at work on something, working on a shoestring budget but just on the other side of those cliffs, Carter said, pointing to a monstrous wall of this hellish valley. So even more of Trilipush’s story had been true. And, Carter says, about a week earlier, another bloke, an American, had been looking for Trilipush, and Carter’d told him where to go as well, and off he’d gone with one of Carter’s men showing him the way. When had Carter himself last seen Trilipush? That same day, a week earlier. That morning, a letter for Trilipush had inadvertently been included in the post one of Carter’s boys had fetched, and as he was curious to see what Trilipush had found, Carter had taken the letter over to Deir el Bahari personally. And? And Trilipush was filthy, limping from an injury to his leg, a little unwell perhaps, but “wildly excited about his find.” He absolutely wouldn’t let Carter peek inside, and that was that. Carter returned to his own camp and a few hours later was found by an American, Mr. Finneran, asking for Trilipush. “I began to feel like the man’s social secretary, and I am, after all, rather busy here with my own work.