"Oh, it's you." She should have been flattered that he remembered her from so fleeting a contact, but there was that flash of something in his eyes again that offended her.
Nevertheless, she could not refuse the hand he offered her.
"Nick Quenton-Harper," he introduced himself. "You must be Percival Dixon's old student. I think I saw you at the shoot last Thursday. Weren't you beating for us?"
His manner was friendly and forthright, so she felt her hackles subsiding as she responded, "Yes. I am Royan Al Simma. I think you knew my husband, Duraid Al Simma."
"Duraid! Of course, I know him. Grand old fellow. We spent a lot of time in the desert together. One of the very best. How is he?"
"He's dead." She had not meant it to sound so bald and heartless, but then there was no other reply she could think of.
"I am so terribly sorry. I didn't know. When and how did it happen?"
"Very recently, three weeks ago. He was murdered.
"Oh, my God." She saw the sympathy in his eyes, and she remembered that he also had suffered. "I telephoned him in Cairo not more than four months ago. He was his old charming self Have they found the person who did it?"
She shook her head and looked around the hall to avoid having to -face him and let him see that her eyes were wet. "You have an extraordinary collection here."
He accepted the change of subject at once. Thanks mostly to my grandfather. He was on the staff of Evelyn Baring - Over Bearing, as his numerous enemies called him. He was the British man in . Cairo during-'
She cut him short. "Yes, I have heard of Evelyn Baring, the first Earl of Cromer, British Consul-General of Egypt from 1883 to 1907. With his plenipotentiary powers he was the unchallenged dictator of my country for all that period. Numerous enemies, as you say."
Nicholas's eyes narrowed slightly. "Percival warned me you were one of his best students. He didn't, however, warn me of your strong nationalistic feelings. It is clear that you didn't need me to translate the Ramesses inscription for you."
"My own father was on the staff of Gama! Abdel Nasser," she murmured. Nasser was the man who had toppled the puppet King Farouk and finally broken the British power in Egypt. As president he had nationalized the Suez Canal in the face of British outrage.
"HaV he chuckled. "Different sides of the track. But things have changed. I hope we don't have to be enemies?"
"Not at all," she agreed. "Duraid held you in the highest esteem."
"As I did him." He changed the subject again. "We ar very proud of our collection of royal ushabd Examples from the tomb of every pharaoh from the old Kingdom onwards, right up to the last of the Ptolemys. Please let me show it to you." She followed him to the huge display case that occupied one complete wall of the hall. It was lined with shelf after shelf of the doll-like figures which had been placed in the tombs to act as servants and slaves for the dead kings in the shadow world.
With his own key Nicholas opened the glazed doors of the case and reached up to bring down the most interesting of the exhibits. "This is the ushabd of Maya who served under three pharaohs, Tutankhamen, Ay and Horemheb.
It is from the -tomb of Ay who died in 1343 Bc."
He handed the doll to her and she read aloud the three thousand-year-old hieroglyphics as easily as though they had been the headlines of that morning's newspaper.
"I am Maya, Treasurer of the two Kingdoms. I will answer for the divine Pharaoh Ay. May he live for ever!" She spoke in Arabic to test him, and his reply in the same language was fluent and colloquial, "It seems that Percival Dixon told me the truth. You must have been an exceptional student."
Engrossed now in their common interest, speaking alternately Arabic and English, the initial sharp prickles.of antagonism between them were dulled. They moved slowly round the hall, lingering before each display case to handle and examine minutely each object that it contained.
It was as though they were transported back over the millennia. Hours and days seemed of no consequence in the face of such antiquity, and so it startled both of them when Mrs. Street returned to interrupt them, "I am off now, Sir Nicholas. Can I leave it to you to lock up and set the alarm? The security guards are on duty already."
"What time is it?"Nicholas answered his own question by glancing at the stainless steel Rolex Submariner on his wrist. "Five-forty already, what on earth happened to the day?" He sighed theatrically. "Off you go, Mrs. Street. Sorry we kept you so long."
"Don't forget to set the alarm," she warned him, and then to Royan, "He can be so absent-minded when he is off on one of his hobby-horses." Her fondness towards her employer was obviously that of an indulgent aunt.
"You've given me enough orders for one day. Off you go," Nicholas grinned, as he turned back to Royan. "Can't let you go without showing you something that Duraid."was in on with me. Can you stay for a few minutes longer?" She nodded and he reached out as if to take her arm, and then dropped his hand. In the Arab world it is insulting to touch a woman, even in such a casual manner. She was aware of the courtesy, and she warmed to his good manners and easy style a little more. He led her out of the exhibition halls through a door marked "Private. Staff Only', and down a long corridor to the room at the end.
The inner sanctum." He ushered her in. "Excuse the mess'. I must really get around to tidying up in here one of these years. My wife used to-' He broke off abruptly, and he glanced at the silver-framed photograph of a family group on his desk. Nicholas and a beautiful dark-haired woman sat on a picnic rug under the spreading branches of an oak. There were two little girls with them and the family resemblance to the mother was strong in both of them. The youngest child sat on Nicholas's lap while the elder girl stood behind them, holding the reins of her Shetland pony. Royan glanced sideways at him and saw the devastating sorrow in his eyes. So as not to embarrass him she looked around the rest of the room, which was obviously his study and workshop.
It was spacious and comfortable, a man's room, but it illustrated the contradictions of his character - the bookish scholar set against the man of action. Amongst the muddle of books and museum specimens lay fishing reels and a Hardy split cane salmon rod. On a row of wall hooks hung a Barbour jacket, a canvas shotgun slip and a leather cartridge bag embossed with the initials ..-.
She recognized some of the framed pictures on the walls. They were original nineteenth-century watercolours by the Scottish traveller David Roberts, and others by Vivant Denon who had accompanied Napoleon's L'armie de I'Orient to Egypt. They were fascinating views of the monuments drawn before the excavations and restorations of more modern times.
Nicholas went to the fireplace and threw a log on the fading coals. He kicked it until it flared up brightly and then beckoned her to stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling curtains that covered half of one wall. With a conjuror's flourish he pulled the tasselled cord that opened the curtains and exclaimed with satisfaction, "
"What do you make of that, then?"
She studied the magnificent has-relief frieze that was mounted on the wall. The detail was beautiful and the rendition magnificent, but she did not let her admiration show. Instead she gave her opinion in offhand tones.
"Sixth King of the Amorite dynasty, Hammurabi, about 1780 Bc," she said, pretending to study the finely chiselled features of the ancient monarch before she went on, "Yes, probably from his palace site south-west of the ziggurat at Ashur. There should have been a pair of these friezes. They are worth in the region of five million US dollars each. My guess is that they were stolen from the saintly ruler of modern Mesopotamia, Saddam Hussein, by two unprincipled rogues. I hear that the other one of the pair is at present in the collection of a certain Mr Peter Walsh in Texas." He stared at her in astonishment, and then burst out laughing. "Damn it! I swore'Duraid to secrecy but he must have told you about our naughty little escapade." It was the first time she had heard him laugh. It seemed to come naturally to his lips and she -liked the sound of it, hearty and unaffected.
"You are right about the present owner of the second frieze," he told her, still laughing. "But the price was six million, not five."
"Duraid also told me about your visit to the Tibesti Massif in Chad and southern Libya," she remarked, and he shook his head in mock contrition.
'it seems I have no secrets from you." He went to a tall armoire against the opposite wall. It was a magnificent piece of marquetry furniture, probably seventeenth-century French. He opened the double doors and said, "This is what Duraid and I brought back from Libya, without the consent of Colonel Muammar al Gadaffi."He took down one of the exquisite little bronzes and handed it to her. It was the figure of a mother nursing her infant, and it had a green patina of age.
"Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca," he said, "about 203 BC. These were found by a band of Tuareg at one of his old camps on the Bagradas river in North Africa.
Hannibal must have cached them there before his defeat by the Roman general Scipio. There were over two hundred bronzes in the hoard, and I still have fifty of the best of them."
"You sold the rest of them?" she asked, as she admired the statuette. There was disapproval in her tone as she went on, "How could you bear to part with something so beautiful?"
He sighed unhappily, "Had to, I am afraid. Very sad, but the expedition to retrieve them cost me a fortune. Had to cover expenses by selling some of the booty."
He went to his desk and brought out a bottle of Laphroaig malt whisky from the bottom drawer. He placed the bottle on the desk top and set two glasses beside it.
"Can I tempt you?" he asked, but she shook her head.
"Don't blame you. Even the Scots themselves admit that this brew should only be drunk in sub-zeiro weather on The Hill, in a forty-knot gale, after stalking and shooting a ten-point stag. May I offer you something a little more ladylike?"
Do you have a Coke?" she suggested.
Yes, but that is really bad for you, even worse than Laphroaig. It's all that sugar. Absolute poison."
She took the glass he brought to her and returned his toast with it.
"To life!" she agreed, and then she went on, "You are right. Duraid did tell me about these." She replaced the Punic bronze in the armoire, then came to face him at the desk. "It was also Duraid who sent me to see you. It was his dying instruction to me."
"Aha! So none of this is coincidence then. It seems I am the unwitting pawn in some deep and nefarious plot." He pointed to the chair facing his desk. "Sit!" he ordered "Tell!'
He perched above her on the corner of the desk, with the whisky glass in his right hand and with one long, denim-clad leg swinging lazily as the tail of a resting leopard. Though he was smiling quizzically, he watched her face with a penetrating green gaze. She thought that it would be difficult to lie to this man.
She took a deep breath, "Have you heard of an ancient Egyptian queen called Lostris, of the second intermediate period, coexistent with the first Hyksos invasions?"
He laughed a little derisively and stood up, "Oh! Now we are talking about the book River God, are we?" He went to the bookcase and brought down a copy. Although well thumbed, it was still in its dust-jacket, and the cover illustration was a dreamy surrealistic view in pastel shades of green and rose purple of the pyramids seen over water.
He dropped it on the desk in front of her.
"Have you read it?" she asked.
"Yes," he nodded. "I read most of Wilbur Smith's stuff. He amuses me. He has shot here at Quenton Park a couple of times."
"You like lots of sex and violence in your reading, obviously?" She pulled a face. "What did you think of this particular book?"
"I must admit that he had me fooled. Whilst I was reading it, I sort of wished that it might be based on fact.
That was why I phoned Duraid." Nicholas picked up the book again and flipped to the end of it. "The author's note was convincing, but what I couldn't get out of my mind was the last sentence." He read it aloud.
"'Sanwwhere in the Abyssinian mountains near the source of the Blue Nile, the mummy of Tenus still lies in the unviolated tomb of Pharaoh Mamose.
Almost angrily Nicholas threw the book down on the desk. "My God! You will never know how much I wanted it to be true. You will never know how much I wanted a shot at Pharaoh Mamose's tomb. I had to speak to Duraid.
When he assured me it was all a load of bunkum, I felt cheated. I had built up my expectations so high that I was bitterly disappointed."
"It's not bunkum," she contradicted him, and then corrected herself quickly,
"well, at least not all of it."
"I see. Duraid was lying to me, was he?"
"Not lying," she defended him hotly. "Just delaying the truth a little. He wasn't ready to tell you the whole story then. He didn't have the answers to all the questions that he knew you would ask. He was going to come to you when he was ready. Your name was at the top of the list of potential sponsors that he had drawn up."
"Duraid did not have the answers, but I suppose you do?" He was smiling sceptically. was caught once. I am not likely to fall for the same cock and bull a second time."
"The scrolls exist. Nine of them are still in the, vaults at the Cairo museum. I was the one who discovered them in the tomb of Queen Lostris." Royan opened her leather sling bag and rummaged around in it until she brought out a thin sheaf of glossy 6 4 colour photographs. She selected one and passed it to him. That is a shot of the rear wall of the tomb. You can just make out the alabaster jars in the niche. That was taken before we removed them."
"Nice picture, but it could have been taken anywhere." She ignored the remark and passed him another photograph. The ten scrolls in Duraid's workroom at the museum. You recognize the two men standing behind the bench?"
He nodded. "Duraid and Wilbur Smith." His sceptical expression had turned to one of doubt and bemusement.