Read Crocodile on the Sandbank Online
Authors: Elizabeth Peters
Tags: #Historical fiction, #Detective and mystery stories, #Mystery fiction, #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Historical, #Suspense, #Crime & mystery, #Political, #Women detectives - Egypt, #Peabody, #Amelia (Fictious character), #Crime & Thriller, #Mummies, #Peabody, #Amelia (Fictitious character), #Egyptology, #Cairo (Egypt), #Mystery, #Detective, #Women detectives, #Emerson, #Radcliffe (Fictitious character), #Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, #Archaeologists' spouses, #Mystery & Detective - General, #Egypt, #Fiction - Mystery
When I finally joined her outside, Evelyn's face was a sight to behold.
I raked my fingers through my disheveled hair and remarked, "It was
perfectly splendid, Evelyn. If you would like to go, I would be happy
to see it again ...."
"No," Evelyn said. "Not under any circumstances." We had been in Cairo
for a week by then, and I really had hopes of getting underway within
another fortnight. I had been to Boulaq several times, assisting Reis
Hassan— bullying him, as Evelyn quaintly put it. In recent days I had
not been able to find him on the boat, although once I saw a flutter of
striped petticoat that looked like his disappear over the stern as I
approached.
After Gizeh, Hassan was left in peace. I had a new interest— but to
call
it an interest is to understate my sentiments. I admired, I desired— I
lusted after pyramids! We went back to Gizeh. I visited the Second and
Third pyramids there. We went to Sakkarah to see the Step Pyramid.
There are other pyramids at Sakkarah. Being built of rubble within a
facing of stone, unlike the solid-stone pyramids of Gizeh, the smaller
Sakkarah pyramids are only heaps of debris now that outer facing stones
have been taken away for building purposes; but I
did not care. They were, or had been, pyramids, and pyramids were now
my passion. I was determined get into one of these smaller mounds,
whose burial chamber is beautifully inscribed with hieroglyphic picture
writing, and I would have done it, too, but for Evelyn. Her outcries,
when she saw the funnel-shaped well into which I proposed to lower
myself, were terrible to hear. I pointed out that with two men holding
the rope I should do quite nicely; but she was adamant. I had to yield
when she threatened to follow me down, for I saw that she was appalled
at the idea. Travers was
no more sympathetic to my pyramid inquiries.
She mourned aloud over the state of my clothes, some
of which had to be
given away as beyond repair, and she objected to the mementos of bats
which I inadvertently carried away from the interiors of the pyramids.
One morning, when I proposed a trip to Dahshoor, where there are
several splendid pyramids, Evelyn flatly refused. She suggested that
instead we visit the museum of Boulaq. I agreed. It was not far from
the wharves; I could go and assist Hassan after the museum.
I was looking forward to meeting M. Maspero, the French director of
antiquities. My father had been in correspondence with him, and I hoped
my name would be familiar. It was; and we were fortunate to find
Maspero at the museum. He was usually away, his assistant informed us,
digging for the treasures which had made him known throughout the
scholarly world.
This assistant, Herr Emil Brugsch, I knew by reputation, for it was he
who had been the first European to gaze upon the famous cache of royal
mummies that had been discovered a few years earlier. While we waited
for M. Maspero, Brugsch told us of the robber family of Thebes who had
discovered the hiding place of the mummies ten years before. The
discovered, a shifty character named Abd er-Rasool Ahmed, had been
searching for a missing goat amid the rocky cliffs near his village of
Gumah. The goat had fallen into a crevice, or shaft, forty feet deep;
upon descending, Ahmed made
an incredible discovery—the mummies of the great pharaohs of Egypt,
hidden in ancient times to keep their sacred bodies safe from the
thieves who had looted their original tombs!
His eyes never leaving my face, Herr Brugsch explained, with affected
modesty, that he was responsible for the detective work that had
eventually discovered the mummies. Collectors had sent him photographs
of objects bearing royal names, and he had realized that these must
have come from a tomb. Since the known royal tombs were in Thebes, he
had alerted the police to watch out for a peasant from that city who
had more money than he could have come by honestly. Thus suspicion was
focused on the Abd er-Rasool family; and, the thieves having fallen out
in the meantime over the disposition of the loot, one of them betrayed
the secret to Brugsch.
I did not care for this gentleman. His brother is a respectable and
well-known scholar, and Mr. Emil has been employed by Maspero and his
predecessor, M. Mariette, for many years; but his bold stare and hard
face affected me unpleasantly, as did his calloused description of the
interrogation of the unfortunate Abd er-Rasool brothers. Not a muscle
in his tanned face moved as he described beatings with palm rods, and
heated pots being placed on the heads of the suspects. Yet I could not
help but be fascinated by an eyewitness account of the incredible
discovery. Brugsch admitted that his sensations, as he was lowered into
the pit, were not wholly comfortable. He was armed, of course, but his
weapons would not have availed against treachery, and all the
inhabitants of the area hated the representatives of the government.
And then his feelings, as he stood in the stifling gloom of the little
cave, amid a jumble of royal dead...! He knew the bodies must be moved
at once, in order to prevent their being stolen, and he accomplished
this difficult task in only eight days. He was describing the northward
voyage of the barge—the banks of the river lined with mourning women,
rending their garments and pouring dust on their heads
as the bodies of the ancient kings floated by— when Maspero joined us.
The director of antiquities was a stout, genial man with twinkling eyes
and a short black beard. A true Frenchman, he bowed over my hand and
greeted Evelyn with admiration. He spoke of my father in the highest
terms. Seeing how busy he was, we soon excused ourselves, and he begged
pardon for not showing us over the museum himself. Perhaps he would
join us later, he said, glancing at Evelyn.
"You have made another conquest," I said softly to Evelyn, as we walked
away. "M. Maspero could hardly keep his eyes away from you."
"Nor Herr Brugsch his eyes from you," Evelyn replied with a smile. "He
was anxious to escort you; did you see his scowl when M. Maspero told
him he had work for him to do?"
"Don't try to give your admirers to me," I retorted. "I am not in need
of such mendacious flattery; and
if I were, Herr Brugsch would not be
my choice."
I was glad the director was not with us when we began our tour.
Courtesy must have prevented me from telling him what I thought of his
museum. Not that the place wasn't fascinating; it contained many
marvelous things. But the dust! And the clutter! My housewifely and
scholarly instincts were equally offended.
"Perhaps you are not being fair," Evelyn said mildly, when I expressed
my feelings. "There are so many objects; new ones are discovered daily;
and the museum is still too small, despite the recent enlargement."
"All the more reason for nearness and order. In the early days, when
European adventurers took away what they discovered in Egypt, there was
no need for a national museum. Then M. Mariette, Maspero's predecessor,
insisted that Egypt should keep some of its national treasures. The
cooperation between Great Britain and France, to regulate and assist
this unfortunate country, has resulted in the French being given
control over the antiquities department. I suppose they
must have something; after all, we control finance, education, foreign
affairs, and other matters. But we could do with a little English
neatness here, instead of French nonchalance."
We had penetrated into a back room filled with objects that seemed to
be leftovers from the more impressive exhibits in the front halls of
the museum— vases, bead necklaces, little carved ushebti figures, flung
helter-skelter onto shelves and into cases. There were several other
people in the room. I paid them little heed; in mounting indignation, I
went on, "They might at least dust! Look at this!"
And, picking up a blue-green statuette from a shelf, I rubbed it with
my handkerchief and showed Evelyn the dusty smudge that resulted.
A howl— a veritable animal howl— shook the quiet of the room. Before I
could collect myself to search for its source, a whirlwind descended
upon me. A sinewy, sun-bronzed hand snatched the statuette from me. A
voice boomed in my ear.
"Madam! Do me the favor of leaving those priceless relics alone. It is
bad enough to see that incompetent ass, Maspero, jumble them about;
will you complete his idiocy by destroying the fragments he has left?"
Evelyn had retreated. I stood alone. Gathering my dignity, I turned to
face my attacker.
He was a tall man with shoulders like a bull's and a black beard cut
square like those of the statues of ancient Assyrian kings. From a face
tanned almost to the shade of an Egyptian, vivid blue eyes blazed at
me. His voice, as I had good cause to know, was a deep, reverberating
bass. The accents were those of a gentleman. The sentiments were not.
"Sir," I said, looking him up and down. "I do not know you— "
"But I know you, madam! I have met your kind too often — the rampageous
British female at her clumsiest and most arrogant. Ye gods! The breed
covers the earth like mosquitoes, and is as maddening. The depths of
the pyramids, the heights of
the Himalayas— no spot on earth is safe from you!"
He had to pause for bream at this point, which gave me the opportunity
I had been waiting for.
"And you, sir, are the lordly British male at his loudest and most
bad-mannered. If the English gentlewoman is covering the earth, it is
in the hope of counteracting some of the mischief her lord and master
has perpetrated. Swaggering, loud, certain of his own superiority..."
My adversary was maddened, as I had hoped he would be. Little flecks of
foam appeared on the blackness of his beard. His subsequent comments
were incomprehensible, but several fragile objects vibrated dangerously
on their shelves.
I stepped back a pace, taking a firm grip on my parasol. I am not
easily cowed, nor am I a small woman; but this man towered over me, and
the reddening face he had thrust into mine was suggestive of violence.
He had very large, very white teeth, and I felt sure I had gotten a
glimpse of most of them.
A hand fell on his shoulder. Looking up, I saw Evelyn with a young man
who was a slighter, beardless copy of my adversary—dark-haired,
blue-eyed, tall, but not so bulky.
"Radcliffe," he said urgently. "You are alarming this lady. I beg you— "
"I am not at all alarmed," I said calmly. "Except for your friend's
health. He seems about to have a fit.
Is he commonly subject to
weakness of the brain?"
The younger man now had both hands on his companion's shoulders. He did
not seem concerned; indeed, he was smiling broadly. He was an
attractive young fellow; from the way Evelyn looked at him I suspected
she shared my opinion.
"My brother, madam, not my friend," he said cheerfully. "You must
forgive him— now Radcliffe, calm yourself. The museum always has this
effect on him," he explained, looking at me.
"You must not blame yourself for upsetting him."
"I certainly should
not blame myself if my harmless behavior brought on such a violent,
inexcusable breach of common courtesy— "
"Amelia!" Evelyn caught my arm as a roar of rage burst from the bearded
person. "Let us all be calm,
and not provoke one another."
"I am not provoking anyone," I said coolly. Evelyn exchanged a glance
with the young man. As if some message had passed between them, they
both moved, the young fellow tugging at his agitated brother, Evelyn
using a gentler but equally firm grip to pull me away. The other
visitors were watching us with ill-bred curiosity. One lady pulled her
companion out of the room. Another couple followed, leaving a single
spectator, an Arab in flowing robes, headcloth, and bright-green
goggles, who continued to watch the antics of the incomprehensible
foreigners with amused contempt.
Rapid footsteps in the hall heralded the arrival of M. Maspero, who
had apparently been alarmed by the uproar. When he saw us his pace
slowed, and a smile spread over his face.
"
Ah, c'est le bon
Emerson. I
should have known. You have met one
another? You are acquainted?"
"We are not acquainted," said the person called Emerson, in a slightly
modified shout. "And if you make any attempt to introduce us, Maspero,
I shall fell you to the ground!"
M. Maspero chuckled. "Then I will not risk it. Come, ladies, and let me
show you some of our finer objects. These are unimportant— a miscellany
only."
"But they are most interesting," Evelyn said in her gentle voice. "I
admire the soft colors of the jewelry."
"Ah, but these trinkets are not valuable— no gold, only beads and
amulets, made of faience, common as sand. We find such bracelets and
necklaces by the hundreds."
"Faience?" Evelyn repeated. "Then the
lovely coral, the delicate blue-green which resembles turquoise, are
not the real stones?"
The black-bearded male person had turned his back on us and was
pretending to sneer at a collection of ushebtis; I knew he was
eavesdropping, however. His brother was not so rude. The young fellow
stood looking shyly at Evelyn, and when she asked about the jewelry he
started to answer. The ebullient Maspero anticipated him.
"
Mais non
,
mademoiselle
, they are imitations
of coral, turqoise, lapis
lazuli, made from a colored paste common in ancient Egypt."
"They are lovely, all the same," I said. "And the very age of them
staggers the imagination. To think that these beads adorned the slim
brown wrist of an Egyptian maiden four thousand years before our
Saviour was born!"
Blackboard whirled around. "Three thousand years," he corrected.
"Maspero's chronology, like all his work, is inexcusably inaccurate!"
Maspero smiled, but I think his next act was prompted to some extent by
the annoyance he was too courteous to express directly. Lifting a
necklace of tiny blue and coral beads, he handed it to Evelyn with a
courtly bow.
"Keep it as a memento of your visit, if you treasure such things. No,
no"—he waved away Evelyn's protests—"it is of no consequence; I only
regret I have nothing finer for such a charming lady. For you, too,