The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [87]
‘With a stick, I suppose,’ I said dryly.
‘It is how one learns.’ After a moment he added in quite a different voice, ‘I had thought it was how.’
‘And yet,’ said Ramses, who had been silent for longer than I had expected, ‘you found this, if Nefret’s account of the event is accurate –’
‘I am sure it was,’ I said quickly.
‘Certainly,’ said Ramses, almost as quickly. ‘I did not mean to suggest anything beyond the inevitable and unconscious inaccuracies that creep in when a story passes from one narrator to another. As I was saying, you found this hidden away with other antiquities that were genuine. Why do you believe this one is not?’
He was looking at David, not at me. I was about to translate, or at least provide a more intelligible version of Ramses’ comment, when Nefret said impatiently, ‘Ramses, don’t be silly. The original is in the British Museum, so this must be a copy.’
‘Then Hamed made it more than ten years ago,’ said Ramses. ‘Mr Budge bought the other in 1890, if I remember correctly.’
David understood the first sentence at least. He nodded eagerly. ‘Many years, yes. He cannot work for many years. When I came to him his hands were hurt. But he was the master, he taught me.’
Hamed’s tutelage could not have been so successful, though, if the boy had not had exceptional talent to begin with. The manufacture and sale of forgeries is the most common occupation of the residents of Luxor and the nearby villages; Hamed must have come upon the boy one day when he was trying his hand at producing a fake, and recognized his undeveloped abilities.
And who better than Hamed to see it? He had been a master, untrained and unscrupulous though he was; to deprive him of the ability to practise his craft was a punishment as cruel as any sadist could have contrived. Only his hands had been injured.
Emerson was back before I expected him. I knew what had prompted this departure from his usual habits, and when he burst into Ramses’ room, still in his wrinkled work clothing and dusty boots, he was quick to express his sentiments in characteristic fashion.
‘What the devil are you all doing here? Ramses should be resting. This looks like a – an orgy!’
David was the only one to retreat before Emerson’s blazing blue glare and lowering brows. Selim gazed at him admiringly and I said, ‘Come and change, my dear, and then we will all go up for tea. The doctor said Ramses could get out of bed for a while this evening if he is careful.’
Somewhat sheepishly Emerson accepted a biscuit from the plate Nefret offered him and allowed me to lead him from the room.
‘Well?’ I demanded.
‘Well what?’ Emerson closed our door and advanced upon me.
‘You smell terribly of bat, my dear,’ I said, evading his grasp.
‘Do I? Yes, I suppose I do. My apologies, Peabody; one becomes accustomed to the odour, you know.’ Standing before the basin he began to remedy this difficulty, and as he proceeded with his ablutions I answered his questions about the doctor’s visit and told him what David had said about the Tetisheri statue.
‘Doesn’t add much to what we already know,’ Emerson grunted. ‘I would like to ask that young man a few questions. You recall the statue we found yesterday in the antechamber – the hippopotamus goddess?’
‘I could hardly forget it. Have you found out how it got there?’
‘I have a theory or two, but I have not had the chance to investigate any of them. It has been a deuced unproductive . . . Where the devil are my clean shirts?’
They were where they always were, in the top drawer of the bureau. I got one out and as he turned to take it I let out a gasp. ‘Unproductive, you say? What happened?’
‘Very little. As I said . . . Oh, that.’ He glanced down at the darkening bruise on his chest. ‘I am sorry to disappoint you, my dear Peabody, but nobody tried