The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [168]
I left my little assistant there (one of a rotating team of eight I assembled that afternoon for their discretion, instructed them in the basics of secret surveillance, and counted on them for their ability to know the streets and blend in). I stationed the boy discreetly in the post office, waiting for the mouse, December 28th, late in the afternoon. I then went to the riverboat office and disbursed more payments, billable to the Davies case, the O’Toole case, the Marlowe case, one and all of them: but the office had no riverboat reservations for a Trilipush or a Finneran on their records, and no one had travelled north to Cairo by that name today. I left my name and some money: any reservations under those names, please contact me at my hotel. I went to as many other Luxor hotels as I could find: no Finneran or Trilipush anywhere, and I scattered my clients’ money behind me: should those names appear on a register, I was to be contacted at my hotel at once. I was busy, all right, but I had nothing: Trilipush and Finneran hadn’t left and they weren’t there: what could be clearer than that? “Patience, Macy,” I urged. “Now more than ever.” I’d laid the only snares I had at my disposal. I continued my circuit: to the villa, to the excavation site, to the post office to check on my local boys. The 28th. The 29th (post office closed). The 30th.
Thursday, 28 December, 1922
This morning, CCF and I stepped out to take the air and saw a man some 200 yards down the path. I watched him for hours from behind the rocks. Orange-haired, even from this distance, with some lazy native boy. He paced and sat and wandered and sat. Do you know him, CCF? “Oh, indeed, Ralph, my boy, oh yes. He is hungry to intrude, destroy, confound. He devours what other men build. He is a scavenger of lives and survives on loose ends.”
It is certainly time to hurry along with our work. CCF sends me into town for food, check the post. No word from you, M. There is no need to continue pretending, my darling. Our “split” is quite forgotten.
Afternoon spent cleaning and analysing Chambers 8 and 9, copying illustrations and texts.
Friday, 29 December, 1922
There is in any scholarly effort a certain amount of guesswork, a clarification of ideas achieved only through the physical act of writing. By definition, a first draft is both inaccurate and necessary. One uses one’s pen to cut through impossibilities. Now I can throw out much of what has come before, and prepare the text with more accurate analysis.
To that end, CCF and I work on measuring Chamber 9, understanding the items in relation to each other. I must quickly copy down the last translations, History Chamber Wall Panel L and the walls of Chambers 8 and 9.
Most extraordinary find of course is the complete copy of the Admonitions of Atum-hadu. Spend hours reading it.
I realise also that I misunderstood Pillar 12: it is not an ally carrying the dead Atum-hadu; it is Atum-hadu carrying the dead Master of Largesse. CCF pointed this out to me. Brilliant insight on his part.
WALL PANEL L: THE LAST HOURS OF EGYPT
Atum-hadu was abandoned. He left Thebes and crossed life-giving Nile and walked. Alone, he carried his goods, his Admonitions, paint, reed, ink, brushes, his cat. And he carried the Master of Largesse.
Saturday, 30 December, 1922
Journal: CCF and I discuss next steps, and we are decided. We will return to this place of our glory, but later. Now it is time to go home, gather our forces and our money and our health, file new requests with the proper authorities, et cetera.
I have a few more notes to make in this journal before CCF and I return home, on Monday. All clear, simplest thing in the world: I will post these notes to my fiancée, to be sure of their safe publication should anything happen to CCF and me on our long crossing to Boston. A terrible risk to the written record of my extraordinary work otherwise, at the whim of the elements on a boat. Finneran and I will travel by boat to Cairo, stay