The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [55]
“Very well,” I said. “Thank you. Where are you on your way to this morning?”
“Just out for a little ride,” said Mr. Albion. He took out a large white handkerchief and mopped his face. “Say, you folks couldn’t introduce me to a few tomb robbers, could you?”
Emerson had begun backing away. This remarkable request stopped him dead. “What did you say?”
“Well, we’re collectors,” Albion said calmly. “Especially Sebastian here. He’s just crazy about ancient Egypt.”
If I understood the meaning of that slang word, it did not suit young Mr. Albion. He did not look like a man who would go “crazy” over anything. His eyes were wide-set and somewhat protuberant, and as cool as ice-clouded water, whose color they matched.
“Yessir,” his father went on cheerfully. “We’ve been collecting for quite a while. That’s why we came out this winter, looking for more good stuff.”
Emerson was staring, his astonishment now mitigated by amusement. I feared annoyance would soon mitigate the amusement, when he realized, as had I, that Albion was absolutely serious.
“The usual method of collecting antiquities,” I said somewhat sarcastically, “is to buy from dealers. Mohassib in Luxor—”
“Been to see him already,” said Albion. “ ’Scuse me for interrupting, ma’am, but I didn’t want to waste your time.”
“Thank you,” I said, taken aback.
“You’re welcome, ma’am. Now Mohassib has some fine things, but he’s playing the dealer on me, trying to raise the price. I figure the best way is to go straight to the people he gets his stuff from. Cut out the middleman, eh?”
I looked at Mrs. Albion, wondering if she would display embarrassment at her husband’s outrageous speech. She had loosened her veils. There was no doubt which side of the family her son favored. She had the same long face and thin lips and pale gray eyes. They were fixed on Mr. Albion with a look of fatuous admiration.
“Well?” said Mr. Albion hopefully. “You’d get your cut, of course.”
“We are not dealers,” Emerson said. “And I must warn you, Mr. Albion, that what you have proposed—in all innocence, I trust—is not only illegal but dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Mrs. Albion transferred her stare to Emerson. Her lips straightened out and her eyes lost their warmth. “What possible danger could there be for us? We are American citizens.”
“The danger,” said Emerson, “is me. If you have not heard enough about me to understand my meaning, ask your guides. Let us go, Peabody.”
I thought it best to take his advice. Emerson had kept his temper remarkably well—though I was unable to say the same about his grammar—but he was bound to lose it if the Albions went on in the same way. We went on, leaving three people gaping at us and six others concealing their grins behind rather dirty hands.
“Very good, Emerson!” I exclaimed. “You did not use bad language—and under considerable provocation, too.”
“Don’t talk to me as if I were Sennia,” Emerson grumbled. His well-shaped lips twitched, and after a moment he began to laugh. “One can’t become angry with people like that. Introduce him to a few tomb robbers! I would be tempted to cultivate him for comic relief, if we didn’t already have enough of it in this family.”
“The boy didn’t utter a word,” I said.
Emerson was still in an amazingly good humor. “He isn’t a boy. He appears to be about the same age as Ramses. I suppose you find his reticence suspicious?”
He began to chuckle again, and I joined in; not for worlds would I have taken umbrage at his little joke. I did find the younger Mr. Albion suspicious, however. Either he was completely cowed by his father or he did not deign to express his own ideas, whatever they might be. And what had brought that oddly assorted trio to the difficult path? Where had they come from, and why? It was possible, if nerve-racking, to ride a donkey up the steep path from the Valley of the Kings, but I would not have supposed that Mr. Albion or his elegant wife would be up to it. The downward