The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [15]
Their approach was not silent, but Emerson could cover ground quite rapidly when he had to. They arrived on the scene in time to see several men fleeing in all directions. Emerson leaped on one of them and Ramses collared a second. Ramses knew him—Deib ibn Simsah. The nearby village of Gurneh housed many of the most skilled tomb robbers in Egypt. The ibn Simsahs had proudly assumed the sobriquet of an accomplished predecessor in the business; they were second only to the Abd er Rassul family when it came to finding and looting new tombs. After a halfhearted attempt to wriggle free of the grip on his arm, Deib subsided and gave Ramses an ingratiating smile.
“We were doing nothing wrong, Brother of Demons. You know me; you know my brother Aguil.”
“I know you only too well,” Ramses said, his eyes fixed on the figure of the third man, who was climbing with the agility of a goat. “But who is that?”
Deib shrugged and rolled his eyes. Emerson let out an inventive oath and started scrambling up the cliff face after the fugitive. Ramses caught hold of him. “No, Father! He’s got—”
The crack of a pistol shot made it unnecessary for him to finish the sentence.
TWO
Emerson’s abrupt volte-face took me by surprise, but only briefly. I hastened after them, with the others following. The sound of a shot lent wings to my heels. Arriving upon the scene, I found Emerson interrogating two of Gurneh’s most notorious citizens. He interrupted his shouted accusations and glared at me. “Curse it, Peabody, I told you to go on!”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Who fired that shot? And at whom? And why?”
Hands on hips, head thrown back, Ramses was staring up at the top of the cliff. “There was a third man. Father was about to go after him when I noticed the fellow had a weapon.”
“Good Gad,” I exclaimed. “Emerson, my dear, are you injured?”
“No, no. He wasn’t trying to hit anyone, just give himself time to get away. Which,” Emerson added in vexation, “he has done. Who was it, Deib? Speak up!”
Deib and his brother had gone pale with terror. They knew the penalties for injuring a foreigner. Deib wrung his hands and burst into incoherent protestations. They had never seen the man before. They did not know he had a pistol. They were only looking for a scarab one of them had lost the day before. As the Father of Curses knew, they sold such things to tourists, but they had come by this one honestly, purchasing it from a fellow Gurnawi and hoping to make a small profit—
Emerson cut him short. “I don’t believe a word of it. You were watching us, and when you saw us digging here you decided to have a look for yourself.”
“And what is the harm in that?” Deib asked, contradicting himself without shame. “We would have told you, Father of Curses, if we had found a tomb.”
“Oh, bah,” said Emerson. “Describe this man whom you never saw before.”
It would have been hard to say whether the vagueness of the description was due to Deib’s inadequate powers of observation or to calculated caution—or to a sizable bribe. The man was dressed like a howadji (that is to say, he wore European clothing). He was neither tall nor short, thin nor fat. A hat hid his hair, tinted glasses his eyes, and a large beard covered the lower half of his face. They could not describe his voice, since he had not uttered a word, only stood watching.
Finally Emerson dismissed the brothers with a stern warning and they made a hasty departure. He had let them off more easily than they deserved, and his expression had a hint of complacency that made me wonder what he was up to. When I informed him we must return to the house, he went along without complaint—another highly suspicious sign.
We arrived at the Winter Palace in good time. Tourism was back to prewar levels, and the lobby was filled with people returning from their morning tours and waiting