The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [171]
“Departing Egypt? To points unknown?”
“If you consider Boston unknown.”
“You’re returning to Boston? What of Mr. Finneran’s outstanding debts?”
“Everything Mr. Finneran does is outstanding, and in this case he has invested wisely, as have his partners.”
“Oh, then congratulations are in order. You’ve had good luck on your excavation?”
“Unparalleled. You will read about it all someday and tell your grandchildren that you met me once, and they will weep with wonder. They may even love you for it.”
“Where’s the treasure now?”
“ ‘Treasure’? That’s a charming term, you colonial imbecile. The artefacts and obzhaydarr and furniture and manuscripts and mummies are in the tomb, undergoing preservation.”
“Might I have a tour of that tomb?”
“You might, yes, as soon as it is opened to the public.”
To draw him out of his defensive posture, I provoked with a lie, although very near the truth: “Beverly Quint says you and Marlowe were lovers.”
He stared at me a moment, then continued unfazed. “I do not know Miss Quint, though she sounds charming, so I cannot imagine what would motivate her to make such a statement. I am beginning to have the impression that you are confusing me with someone else, Mr. Ferrell. Are we nearly finished?”
Unfazed, yes, but you’ll admit that this is a peculiar response: he pretends not to know his old fancy friend Quint, when there is no reason to hide that. Don’t let it shake you: this sort of confusion appears often in climactic interrogations with holdout liars. They grow confused themselves, cannot remember which lies they’ve told to which people, so like children, they begin to throw dust all about. It’s crucial here that the detective hold tight to what he knows to be true. With Trilipush’s lies biting their own tails, I pressed harder: “Why’s there no mention of you at Oxford, Professor?”
“I’ve no idea. I can only presume that you, like any number of easily impressed primitive peoples, smell great conspiracies in clerical errors.”
“I see. Of course. Then can you explain to this primitive why Captain Marlowe’s parents, family of your dearest friend, say they’ve never met you?”
And at last he was silenced. “They said that?”
“They did, Mr. Trilipush. You even know their names?”
“Of course. Priapus and Sappho. Are the old dears well?”
“Yes. No. They’re named Hector and Regina.”
“Are they? How odd.”
“Why hasn’t the British War Office got a record on your military career?”
“Haven’t they? Absentminded of them.”
“Not at all, Trilipush. I believe your military record was expunged by the authorities, desperate to cover over yet another Wartime English crime.”
“Crime?”
He was infuriating even in his reduced and battered state, everything that is to be despised in the English. He was as visibly horrified by my presence as Marlowe’s father had been; he mocked me with his voice and accent as easily as Quint had; he was as uninterested in the harm he’d done in his life as old Barnabas Davies. I wanted to crush him, squeeze his throat. I was supposed to be impressed by him? By a stinking, matted beggar with one boot? They’re just men, Macy: killers, Englishmen, the rich: they’re just men.
I approached from a different angle. “Who’s Paul Caldwell?”
“I’ve never heard the name.”
“He was an Australian soldier lost with Captain Marlowe.”
“I have never quite understood the policeman’s tendency to ask questions only to answer them himself a moment later.”
And then, Macy, I played my ace. I showed him, simply as a spur to conversation, Tailor HQ’s transcribed report from British military records (I believe I already sent you a copy of this, but reproduce it again for our readers):
Captain Hugo St. John Marlowe left base camp at Cairo on 12 November, 1918, on four-day pass. Did not return on 16 November. Searches initiated 18 November revealed nothing. Interviews with officers, men, revealed nothing of significance. March 1919, natives appeared asking for reward, having found Capt. Marlowe’s identity disks