The Golden One

by Elizabeth Peters

  “You just now complained that you hadn’t enough to do,” I retorted. “I have it all worked out. Mrs. Vandergelt has kindly offered to tutor you in the basic subjects – history (of England, that is), English grammar and composition, mathematics, and botany.”

  “Flowers?” Sennia’s pretty little mouth drew up in a good imitation of Emerson’s sneer. “I don’t want to learn about boring flowers, Aunt Amelia, I want to learn about animals and mummies and bones.”

  “Biology,” I said. “Hmmm. Well, that will have to wait. Mrs. Vandergelt prefers not to discuss mummies and bones.”

  “What about Aunt Nefret? She knows all about them.” She fluttered her long lashes at Nefret, who grinned at this transparent flattery.

  “I don’t know how good a teacher I might be, Sennia, but I could try. Two or three lessons a week, perhaps.”

  “And when shall I take my lessons in hieroglyphs with Ramses?” was the next question. The little witch had the entire curriculum worked out in her head and knew exactly how to get her way. Emerson cravenly agreed to tutor her in ancient Egyptian history, and having settled the essentials to her satisfaction, Sennia kindly agreed to go to Katherine three days a week for the less important subjects. She then settled down to make serious inroads on the tea cakes.

  Jumana did not return. After Fatima announced that dinner was ready, I went looking for the girl. I found her in her room, her sleek black head bent over a book.

  “I am glad to see you applying yourself to your studies,” I said, for I had observed that the book was the fourth volume of Emerson’s History of Egypt. “But you must not be late to meals. Dinner will be served in a few minutes.”

  Her long lashes veiled her eyes. “If you don’t mind, I would rather eat with Fatima and the others.”

  “I do mind, though,” I said pleasantly but firmly. “You are a member of our archaeological staff. Do you wish to resign from that position?”

  “No. It is a privilege, an honor, to work with Ramses and the Father of Curses… and you,” she added hastily.

  “Come along, then.”

  “Yes, Sitt Hakim. I will come at once.”

  Naturally we did not discuss the body at dinner. Deteriorating corpses are not a suitable subject for conversation at the dinner table in any case, and Jumana’s behavior reinforced my doubts about her. She spoke only when she was spoken to, and she kept her eyes fixed on her plate. Even if she had not eavesdropped on our discussion – and I wouldn’t have put it past her – she was too intelligent to miss the implications of our discovery. Jamil had more or less admitted to her that he had been involved with the looting of the princesses’ tomb, and he had accused the others of cheating him. I considered asking her directly whether she and Jamil had arranged to meet again, but decided to wait and give her an opportunity to confess. Assuming, that is, that she had anything to confess.

  And, with any luck, Jamil would do something that would open her eyes – another murder, perhaps, or an attack on one of us.

  The children excused themselves immediately after dinner, and I said I would go with them, since there were a few domestic matters with regard to the new house that I wanted to discuss with them.

  “You haven’t had time to settle in or decide what additional furnishings you need,” I pointed out. “And if I know Emerson, he won’t give you a chance. If I can help in any way -”

  “That is very kind of you, Mother,” Nefret said.

  Ramses said, “Thank you, Mother.”

  We went through the house room by room. I took copious notes and made a few little suggestions. I had not expected Ramses would be of much assistance, nor was he.

  “Now then,” I said, referring to my list. “What about household help? Fatima ’s girls have been doing the cleaning, but in my opinion it would be advisable for you to select two of them to work for you on a regular basis. If you prefer to take certain of your meals alone, a cook -”

  “We’ll worry about a cook later, shall we?” Nefret glanced at her husband, who was staring off into space. “As for the maids, I will leave that to Fatima. One of the girls who’s been working here asked me yesterday if she could continue doing so; she is very hardworking, if a little shy, so I told her that would be fine. Her name is Najia.”

  “Ah, yes, Mohammed Hammad’s niece. Or is she his stepdaughter? Never mind. The poor girl is somewhat self-conscious; it is that liver birthmark, I suppose.”

  “It won’t bother us,” Nefret said.

  “Of course not. Now, concerning the garden…”

  Finally Nefret said, “I think that’s everything, Mother. We will probably have to run up to Cairo to find some things, but I will talk with Abdul Hadi about making a few chairs and tables. He is the best woodworker in Luxor.”

  “And the slowest,” I said.

  Nefret smiled. “I can hurry him up.”

  I observed that Ramses was yawning, and took the hint. He insisted on walking back with me, despite my objections.

  “Nothing can possibly happen to me between your door and mine,” I declared.

  “Ah, but you don’t have your parasol,” Ramses said.

  I took Gargery into our confidence next morning at breakfast, while Sennia was dawdling over her preparations for departure. He and Fatima took it in turn to serve meals; it had been a compromise proposed by me, to prevent them from quarreling over which of them had that right. It was his turn that morning, and he followed my well-organized account with such interest that I was forced several times to remind him to serve the food. He then straightened to his full height – five feet six inches or thereabouts – and stood at attention. It would have required more than that to make him appear impressive; his frame was meager, his face lined, and he had taken to combing his hair across his forehead in an unconvincing attempt to conceal a receding hairline. He looked like a butler, which is what he was, but he possessed a number of qualities that are not often found in persons of that position. At the moment he was a very happy butler. As he had once observed to me, “If there’s got to be a murder, madam, it might as well be us that gets the use of it.”

  “I depend on you, Gargery, to keep a close eye out when you take Miss Sennia to the Castle for her lessons with Mrs. Vandergelt. I doubt there is any reason for concern, but it would be foolish to take chances.”

  “I agree, madam,” said Gargery, standing stiff as a wooden soldier and smiling broadly.

  “How good of you to say so, Gargery. Where the devil is that girl? Gargery, please go and… Ah, there you are, Jumana. Sit down and eat something and be quick about it.”

  We were to meet Daoud and Selim at Gurneh and go on from there to the Cemetery of the Monkeys, taking with us the necessary equipment for the ghoulish task that lay ahead. Since no one was keen on carrying the dreadful burden any farther than they had to, we planned to go the long way round, by way of the road which would enable us to bring a donkey-drawn cart part of the distance.

  The cart was ready when we arrived at Selim’s house, to find him and Daoud and Hassan, another of our fellows, waiting. I could see by their faces that they had been warned of what they were supposed to do, and I didn’t blame them for looking gloomy.

  “I have everything we will need,” Selim announced. “But before we go, I think you will wish to talk with Mohammed Hammad. He is here.”

  “Ah,” said Emerson. “The disappointed bridegroom. Have you told him of our discovery yesterday?”

  “No, Father of Curses,” said Selim, looking as demure as a husky young man with a large black beard can look.

  Emerson laughed aloud and clapped him on the back. “Good. It will be an even greater shock coming from me.”

  Mohammed Hammad was a wiry little man with a face as wrinkled as a raisin and a graying beard. Like most Egyptians of the fellahin class, he was probably younger than he looked. Inadequate diet, insanitary living conditions, and an absence of proper medical care can age an individual rapidly. Now there, I thought, is a cause that mi
ght attract Nefret, and allow her to use her medical skills in the place where I intended she should be – a clinic on the West Bank, to treat common ailments such as parasites and infections. Not a stimulating practice, perhaps, for a trained surgeon, but one thing might lead to another…

  I put the matter aside for the moment, so that I could concentrate on our suspect. Expecting to be lectured by Emerson about the tomb, and prepared to deny everything, he greeted us with a certain reserve. Emerson did not beat around the bush.

  “We found one of your friends yesterday, in the tomb you robbed. Dead. Murdered.”

  It was an effective, if somewhat brutal, method of shocking Mohammed into an admission. I thought for a moment the poor man would have a stroke or a heart attack. He finally managed to gasp out a word. “Who…”

  “You would know better than we,” Emerson said. “Selim tells me that Abdul Hassan has not been seen for a week. He was one of your… Damnation,” he went on, in English. “He’s about to have a fit. Give him some brandy, Peabody.”

  Mohammed accepted the brandy (one of the little items I always carry attached to my belt) with an eagerness unbecoming a good Moslem (which I had never thought he was). He was ready to talk; the words poured out of him, and a disturbing story it was.

  Of the original thieves, two were now dead. The other death had been attributed to accident; the body had been found at the base of the cliffs and it was assumed he had fallen.

  “The curse of the pharaohs,” said Emerson, unable to resist. “Death to those who defile the tombs.”

  The brandy had restored Mohammed’s nerve. He gave Emerson a cynical look. “It took the pharaohs a long time to act, Father of Curses. Abdul has been robbing tombs since he was a boy.”

  “He won’t rob any more,” Emerson pointed out. “Who were the others?”

  Mohammed rattled the names off without hesitating. Everyone in the village knew, including his rivals in the business, so there was no profit in reticence. He demanded extralarge baksheesh for his candor, of course. “That is all I can tell you, Father of Curses. Can I go now?”

  “You have not told me everything,” Emerson said. “You gave me six names. There was a seventh man, wasn’t there?”

  “He was not one of us,” Mohammed muttered.

  “I know who he was.”

  “The Father of Curses knows all,” Daoud intoned.

  Emerson acknowledged this tribute with a gracious nod, and went on, “Was it Jamil who found the tomb?”

  “We all found it! We shared with him – we were generous.”

  Mohammed’s voice was shrill with unconvincing indignation. The falsity of his claim was obvious. Jamil was not a regular member of their little gang; they would never have shared the treasure with him unless he had been the one responsible for discovering it.

  “Have you seen or heard from him since you divided the money?” Emerson persisted.

  A look of calculation, not unmixed with fear, sharpened Mohammed’s features. “No, Father of Curses.” He clutched his chest and rolled his eyes. “Ah! The pain!”

  He was not too feeble to hold out his hand. Emerson dropped a few coins into it. “There will be more for you, Mohammed, if you bring us news of Jamil. Tell the others the same – and warn them to watch out for accidents.”

  “Hmmmm.” Mohammed scratched his neck. “Accidents.”

  “You should have asked him to break the news to Abdul’s family, Emerson,” I said, after Mohammed had scuttled off.

  “He will anyhow,” said Emerson. “Let’s go before the bereaved relatives descend on us.”

  After all, there is nothing like an early-morning ride in the brisk desert air to raise the spirits. We were taking the horses as far as they could safely go, and even the thought of the nasty job ahead of us faded as we went on. Admittedly, the worst part of the business was not something I had to tackle. I wondered what Abdullah would have thought of it. He would probably have remarked that it served the fellow right, and that we should leave it to his family to have the body out; but if he had been asked to take the responsibility he would have carried it out with his usual efficiency.

  I had not dreamed of him for a long time. They were strange dreams, unlike most others – as vivid and consistent as a real-life encounter would have been. I am not at all superstitious, but I had come to believe that in some way the profound affection Abdullah and I had felt for one another transcended the barrier of death, and I looked forward to those dreams as I would have anticipated another meeting with a distant friend. Perhaps now that I was back in Luxor, where we had shared so many unforgettable experiences, Abdullah would come to me again.

  After we passed Medinet Habu the road narrowed to a path and then to a track as it turned toward the hills. It was Ramses who halted our caravan and Ramses who was the first to dismount, swinging himself off Risha’s back in a single smooth movement. The rest of us followed his lead.

  It was over a mile to the end of the wadi. Leaving the cart and the horses there, we proceeded on foot for a few hundred yards, to the place where the wide mouth of the canyon narrowed and the hills began to rise, dividing the southern branch of the wadi from another tongue that ran off to the north. Ramses stripped off his coat and took one of the coils of knotted rope.

  We had discussed the best method of proceeding the night before, and had agreed, or so I believed; Emerson had not liked it then and he did not like it now.

  “My turn,” he insisted. “You’ve been in the stinking place already. Once was enough.”

  Ramses’s mouth tightened with annoyance. I knew how he felt; when there is a dirty job to be done, one wishes to get it over. He wanted to spare his father, who wanted to spare him, and neither of them would give in without a struggle. Then Bertie, who stood a little to one side, said suddenly, “I’ll go.”

  Taken by surprise, all of us turned to stare at him. Meeting my doubtful eye, he smiled. “I’ve almost certainly seen worse, you know.”

  It was almost certainly true. He had been in the trenches in France for almost two years before he suffered the wounds that sent him home, ill and embittered. I had heard stories…

  “You are not a good climber,” said Jumana, arms folded. “Ramses is much better.”

  I could have shaken the girl. Bertie flushed painfully, and I believe Cyrus was about to express his fatherly concern when Ramses cut him off.

  “Right, then. Here you go.” He handed Bertie the rope and gave Daoud an almost imperceptible nod. They started off, Daoud sticking close to Bertie, Hassan trailing at a slight distance.

  “Ramses,” I said. “Was that wise?”

  “He’ll be all right, Mother.” Hands on hips, he watched the men climb up out of sight.

  “He’s got that bad leg,” Cyrus said anxiously.

  “What’s needed for this job is strength in the arms and shoulders,” Ramses said. “And nerve. He’s got them. Daoud knows what to do.”

  We went on to the end of the valley and the cliff in which the tomb lay hidden. The rope Ramses had descended the previous day was still there, but we had concluded it would be safer for the men to approach from above rather than climb the sheer face. They would then lower the remains down, and descend themselves.

  The first part of the procedure went as planned. His white handkerchief pressed to his face, Cyrus watched every move made by the small forms atop the cliff with a concern he was not unwilling to express. He had taken Katherine’s children for his own, and Bertie had repaid his affection, even adopting Cyrus’s name. “Have they got something to cover their faces?” he demanded, his voice muffled by the linen. “And gloves? And -”

  “Daoud knows what to do,” Ramses said again. He was watching, too, his brow furrowed. Jumana was the least concerned; having found a rock on which to sit, she was refreshing herself from a water bottle and humming under her breath.

  Bertie was the first to descend, and I was relieved to observe that he was being lowered by Daoud instead of going down
hand over hand as Ramses had done. He disappeared into the cleft and was followed by Hassan, who was carrying a folded piece of canvas and a length of rope.

  I suppose it did not take more than ten minutes for them to finish what they had come to do, but it seemed longer. The first thing I saw was the neat white turban of Hassan. Emerging with some haste, he caught hold of the rope and slid to the ground.

  “Hell and damnation,” Emerson remarked, in a voice that echoed between the cliffs. “Did you leave him alone up there?”

  “It’s all right,” Bertie called. “Look out below.”

  The canvas-wrapped bundle swung as he lowered it, and kept banging against the rock face in a grisly fashion. The stench was really quite horrid, but not even Cyrus backed away. He was watching Bertie, who stood with feet braced, paying out the rope. Ramses’s assessment had been correct; he had strength enough for this. The bundle was not very large.

  It settled onto the rock-strewn ground with a flexibility I prefer not to describe, and Bertie immediately began to descend. Drawing his knife, Ramses cut the rope and would have lifted the body out of Bertie’s way had not Selim intervened. Hassan hastened to help him lift it onto a rough litter and carry it away.

  “Well!” I said, drawing the first deep breath I had taken for several minutes. “Thank goodness that is safely accomplished. Now let us… Nefret? Nefret, where are you going?”

  She had followed after Selim and Hassan and stopped them, far enough away so that the horrible smell did not reach us.

  “Hell and damnation,” Emerson ejaculated. “She isn’t… She surely won’t…”

  The men lowered the litter to the ground. Emerson emitted an even more blistering oath and started toward them.

  “No, Father,” Ramses said.

  “But – did she tell you she – aren’t you going to stop her?”

  Ramses shook his head. “She didn’t tell me, but I suspected she would, and no, I am not going to stop her. I played the masterful husband before. I ought not have done so. It is her decision and her right. Please don’t interfere.”