The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [81]
Emerson stormed through the house kicking over furniture and ripping down the curtains that served in lieu of doors. He even invaded the harîm – if one may use that word to distinguish a small room inhabited by two cowering females. A single glance showed him, and me, that neither could be Hamed; one was a wrinkled old crone and the other a black-eyed girl who could not have been more than thirteen.
They had neglected to veil themselves and they cowered only because it was expected of them. Both faces contemplated Emerson without alarm and with considerable interest. Saluting them respectfully, he looked under the divan and behind a curtain, and backed out.
‘This is a waste of time, Emerson,’ I said. ‘He is not here. You have searched –’
‘My dear Peabody, I have only just begun.’
We returned to Abdullah, who was in the main room. Knife in hand, he was jabbing it randomly into the floor. ‘Nothing,’ he said, straightening.
‘It will be in the master bedchamber, I expect,’ said Emerson, with a sardonic curl of his lip.
One room was certainly furnished more comfortably and garishly than the rest of the house. Rugs covered the floor. A divan was piled with cushions; beside it stood a water pipe and a tray with a bottle and glass. The glass was half full. Emerson picked it up and sniffed the contents.
‘Brandy. He violates not only the commandment against spirits but the laws of Ramadan. Very well, Abdullah, let’s get at it.’
They did not bother to roll the rugs back. After a few stabs Abdullah grunted with satisfaction. ‘Wood. It is here, Emerson.’
The trapdoor had been covered with a thin layer of dirt to make it look like the rest of the earthen floor. Emerson heaved it up.
Instead of the huddled figure of a fugitive I saw a pile of odd-shaped bundles wrapped in rags. The first one Emerson took out proved to be an exquisitely shaped alabaster (more properly, calcite) vase. The incised hieroglyphs on one side of it had been filled with blue paste.
‘Ahmose Nefertari,’ Emerson muttered. ‘Royal wife, royal daughter, royal mother. Not our queen, Peabody. How many royal tombs have these bastards located?’
He put it carefully aside and reached again into the hole. The objects piled up: part of a finely carved wooden ushebti, royal by the headdress, but uninscribed; a heart scarab in green feldspar; several other ushebtis of glazed blue faience; a handful of turquoise and gold beads carefully wrapped in a cloth – and a small statue, ten inches high, that looked strangely familiar.
‘Tetisheri!’ I exclaimed. ‘There was a pair of statues, then. Or a trio.’
‘More likely an entire chorus. This is one of Hamed’s copies, Peabody. I wonder how many others he made before he disposed of the original.’ Emerson rose to his feet and handed the statuette to Abdullah, who slipped it into the breast of his robe.
‘Aren’t you going to – er – confiscate the other antiquities?’ I inquired.
‘At the moment I don’t want them, I want Hamed. Where the devil could the bastard have got to? I will search every confounded house in the cursed village if I must, but there should be an easier way of locating him. Perhaps if I inquired of the ladies . . .’
‘They may fear him too much to betray him, Emerson. But that girl – she is so young, hardly more than a child. Can’t we take her away?’
‘I doubt she would come, Peabody. Oh, I share your abhorrence of the custom, but if you are in a reforming mood you might start closer to home. The laws of civilized England allow females to marry at the age of twelve.’
For once my well-honed instincts and my understanding of female psychology were in error. The ladies were only too eager to cooperate. They responded to Emerson’s questions with rolling eyes and shrugs, but one of them – the elder of the two – mentioned, in a studiedly casual tone,