The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [116]
Clearing the antechamber took less time than I had expected. The modern thieves had been busy there, shovelling the debris aside in their search for marketable objects, and disturbing the stratigraphy to such an extent that even Emerson admitted there was no hope of reconstructing the original arrangement. Most of the remaining objects were much later in date than the time of Tetisheri, and of poor quality. The tomb robbers had left very little of them, dismembering the mummies in search of amulets and smashing the flimsy wooden coffins. They had come from the burials of a priestly family of the Twenty-First Dynasty, who had used Tetisheri’s antechamber as their family tomb before an avalanche or earthquake concealed the entrance.
We found the work fascinating, but the journalists did not. After an interval during which no mummies, jewels or golden vessels emerged from the tomb, they retired to the Luxor hotels, where they spent most of their time drinking and listening to the fabrications of the local inhabitants. Our archaeological friends also dispersed; they had responsibilities of their own, and as Mr Quibell remarked, with a rueful smile, it took Emerson even longer than it did Petrie to clear a tomb.
Not even to our archaeological colleagues did Emerson admit we had gone beyond the antechamber. He had closed the opening in the doorway and refused to open it again even at the direct request of the Director of Antiquities.
It was amusing to see how M. Maspero’s face brightened when he saw our nice wooden stairs. Like Hamlet, he was somewhat stout and scant of breath. After inspecting the reliefs, he interrupted Emerson’s lecture on the artefacts we had found thus far.
‘Mon cher colleague, I am confident that you are carrying out your excavations in a manner of the most irreproachable. But what of the queen’s mummy?’
Emerson’s face took on the expression that often preceded a tactless remark, and I said soothingly, ‘We have not yet investigated the burial chamber, monsieur. You know my husband’s methods.’
Maspero nodded and mopped his perspiring brow. With any other excavator he might have insisted on having the passage cleared, but he knew Emerson well. ‘You will notify me before you enter the burial chamber?’ he said wistfully.
‘Certainly, monsieur,’ Emerson replied in his fluent but vilely accented French. ‘How could you suppose I would do otherwise?’
‘Hmmmm,’ said Maspero, and went puffing down the stairs.
The only visitor who persisted was Cyrus. His offer of assistance having been firmly rejected by Emerson, he began his own excavations in the Valley of the Kings; but since his Luxor home was located near the entrance to the Valley, he was able to ‘keep after us day and night,’ as Emerson sourly expressed it. The house, which the local residents referred to as the Castle, was a large, elegant residence equipped with every modern comfort. Cyrus invited us to tea, breakfast, luncheon and dinner, and offered to put any or all of us up.
‘Mr and Mrs Walter Emerson, at least,’ he insisted. ‘They aren’t used to roughing it like us old hands, Mrs Amelia, and the dahabeeyah must be a mite crowded with six of you.’
I refused the invitation, but kept it in mind. The Castle was fully staffed and stout-walled as a fortress. There might come a time . . .
We were dining with Cyrus at the Luxor Hotel on the evening when the deceptive tranquility of our existence was broken by the first ominous ripple that indicated the presence of inimical life below the surface. Emerson had grudgingly agreed to dine, moved more by the fact that the following day was Friday, and hence a holiday for the men, than by my insistence that we all needed a change of scene. I thought Evelyn was looking tired, and even Nefret seemed more silent and preoccupied than usual.
With his customary generosity Cyrus had invited our entire staff as well as the young Egyptologist he had hired to supervise his own work. We made quite a large party, and Cyrus’ lined face broke into a smile as he surveyed the table from his position