The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [70]
Three tugs followed, and then Emerson’s voice, weirdly distorted. ‘Come ahead, Peabody.’
Once I had got through the opening–quite ample in size for me, though it must have been a tight squeeze for my stalwart spouse – I was surprised to find a sloping surface instead of a perpendicular drop. Emerson had lit a candle and placed it on a ledge. His hands were waiting to grasp me by the waist and set me on my feet.
While we waited for Selim to join us I lit my own candle and looked around. The space was only a few feet in extent, and it looked as if it might collapse in on itself at any second: boulders of various sizes bulged from either side and from overhead. If I had not known there must be a way out I doubt I could have found it, for it was necessary to squeeze past one rock and around the jutting corner of another, until one final squeeze brought us out into the cool night air. We were on the slopes of Drah Abu’l Naga, only a few hundred yards from Deir el Bahri. Its colonnades glimmered pale in the starlight.
‘No wonder the place has gone undiscovered so long,’ I gasped. ‘The tomb entrance cannot be seen from above or below. Who would suppose this pile of rocks concealed an opening?’
‘I suspect there was no opening until recently,’ Emerson said thoughtfully. ‘But let us save speculation of that sort for a more leisured moment. We had better collect the children and get back to the dahabeeyah.’
Leaving Selim to mark the spot, we went off arm in arm, Emerson matching his longer strides to mine.
‘Cold, my dear?’ he inquired, as a shiver ran through my frame.
‘On such a beautiful night? Only look at the stars! It is excitement that moves me. What a discovery! What courage and what brilliance you displayed in locating it! I wonder you are not skipping with happiness.’
‘A pretty sight that would be. Never mind the flattery, Peabody; luck had as much to do with our success as my talents. And this evening’s adventure has had several odd aspects. When I arrived in the tomb I fell into the middle of a small war.’
‘Please elaborate, Emerson.’
‘The men we saw descend into the tomb were members of an illustrious family of Gurnawi thieves. I recognized several of them. But they were not the men you saw, for by the time you arrived on the scene, the Gurnawis had been taken prisoner by another group of individuals who must have arrived sometime earlier via the lower entrance. When I emerged into the antechamber, one of the second group was waiting for me, pistol in hand, and I saw no reason to object when they bundled the Gurnawis out through the tunnel. Evidently the latter were persuaded to descend the lower rope while you were descending the upper.’
‘That seems a logical deduction. But how extraordinary, Emerson! You did not identify any of the second – first? – you know who I mean, the men who were waiting for me.’
‘How could I?They were wrapped to the eyebrows, and careful to say as little as possible. Which makes one wonder –’
‘– if we might have recognized an acquaintance had they been less cautious. Yes, Emerson! Sir Edward –’
‘What the devil are you talking about? I met him last year; he is a typical, annoying young aristocrat, but so far as I know, perfectly respectable. Nor,’ Emerson added with a chuckle, ‘was Miss Marmaduke one of them. (You were about to suggest her, were you not?) What I intended to say before you interrupted me was that I wonder if some or all of them were not Egyptians.’
‘That would explain their disguises and their reticence,’ I said. ‘At least we can be certain that none of them was Signor Riccetti.’
‘Impossible to disguise that bulk,’ Emerson agreed. ‘But he is in this up to his fat neck, I have no doubt of it.’
‘He may be as dishonest as he is obese, Emerson, but does not the encounter of this evening substantiate the statement he made – that there are those who would aid us if they could? No, my dear, please don’t bellow’ – for I knew the signs that preceded that exercise – ‘just listen. The second group of individuals meant us no harm. They did not