The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [160]
The night was overcast and a damp wind tugged at my skirts. Emerson did not appear to be in any hurry; his pipe in one hand, my hand in the other, he strolled in a leisurely fashion; and when we reached the house he gestured at the mastaba bench outside the door. “Sit down for a moment, Peabody. I want to discuss something with you.”
“A fitting punishment for Mr. Thomas Russell? Honestly, Emerson, when I think of his going behind my back to—”
“Peabody, Peabody! Ramses does not need your permission to accept a position. Nor mine,” Emerson added gloomily. “I don’t like this any better than you do, but for pity’s sake don’t embarrass Ramses by scolding Russell as if they were naughty schoolboys and Russell had led him into mischief. That isn’t what I want to discuss.”
“The photograph.”
“Yes. I’ve got a theory, Peabody.”
“About the forgeries?”
“In a way.”
“Really, Emerson, there are times when I would like to murder you,” I exclaimed, so loudly that the grille in the door creaked open and the alarmed face of Ali peered out. At my urgent request he closed the grille again, and I returned to my grievance.
“Are you going to tell me your theory, or are you just going to go on dropping enigmatic hints until I lose my temper?”
“Enigmatic hints, of course,” said Emerson with a chuckle. “See what you can make of them, eh? I will play fair, though, and tell you what the objects in the photograph remind me of. Couches, both domestic and funerary, were often mounted on carved animal legs. Obviously only the well-to-do could afford such things, and the materials used in this set are rare and expensive. A set of such ivory legs was found at Abydos, in one of the Second Dynasty royal tombs.”
He paused invitingly. I said nothing. An idea had come to me, too, but I was cursed if I was going to share it with him. Emerson always makes fun of my theories—until I am proved correct.
“Enigmatic hint number two,” said Emerson. “I believe that Vandergelt had the right idea. There’s something at Zawaiet we are not meant to find. Things have been suspiciously quiet lately—”
“Because we are digging in the wrong place!” The words popped into my head and straight out my mouth before I could stop them. I clapped my hand over my lips. Emerson let out a roar of laughter and put one arm round my shoulders.
“That is a possibility,” he said. “Would you care to go on, or shall we have another of our little competitions in crime? Sealed envelopes and all the rest?”
“Are you telling me that you know the name of the person who is responsible for the accidents?”
“And for murdering Maude Reynolds? No, I don’t. And if you have the confounded audacity to claim that you do—”
“No,” I admitted. “I see a few rays of light I had not seen earlier; they explain some of what has happened, but I am still in the dark as to the identity of the criminal.”
“All the same, Peabody, I think I will put a message in one of those little envelopes. Just in case.”
I turned to him, taking hold of his coat. The lighted lamp beside the door cast enough illumination to show his smiling lips and firm chin. “In case something happens to you? What are you planning to do?”
“Why, I am going to dig at various other places all round the site, that’s all.”
“What, play hot and cold like the children’s game, with a murderous attack as a sign you are getting warmer? You mustn’t, Emerson, at least not until we have mustered our forces.”
“Ramses, you mean? He has enough on his mind without worrying about me. What the devil, Peabody, we’ve always managed quite nicely by ourselves, you and I. Well—almost always.”
“I do not doubt for a moment that we can manage,” I said stoutly. “It is Ramses and David I am concerned about. Ramses is always taking foolish chances, and David cannot control him.”
“Any more than I can control you.” Emerson gave my shoulder a hearty squeeze. “People who live in glass houses, Peabody! The only way we can help