Chapter 10

I had decided to admit Nefret to my confidence—up to a point. We were finishing the last of the photographic plates when I explained my intentions, and for a moment I feared I had spoken too soon. Nefret managed to catch the plate before it broke, however.

“Sethos?” she exclaimed. “The Count? Aunt Amelia!”

“Put that down, my dear. That is right. Come into the other room and I will explain my reasoning.”

I was not surprised to find Emerson missing. I had known he would go after Ramses to guard him, since if he had not, I would have done it myself. Nefret did not comment on his absence; she assumed that he had also decided to visit the coffee shop.

I sat Nefret down in a chair and explained my deductions about the statue. I could see that the notion made sense to her; in fact, she tried to tell me she had thought of it herself. Emerson and Ramses do that sort of thing all the time, so I simply raised my voice and proceeded with the next stage of my deductions.

“I was struck, on the few occasions when I have glimpsed him, by the Count’s resemblance to a villain I once knew named Kalenischeff. He was a member of Sethos’s gang and a thoroughgoing scoundrel; when he attempted to betray his dread master, Sethos had him killed.”

“Yes, Aunt Amelia, I know.”

“Oh? I told you about him?”

“You told us about many of your adventures, and Ramses told David and me about others.” Her face softened in a reminiscent smile. “We would foregather in Ramses’s room or mine, smoking forbidden cigarettes and feeling like little devils, while we discussed your exploits. They were much more exciting than the popular romances.”

I was gratified, but I felt obliged to add, “With the additional advantage of being true.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Sethos has upon occasion mimicked the appearance of a real person,” I continued. “I believe he finds it amusing. The fact that the Count has consistently avoided me is also suspicious. Without wishing to boast, I believe I may claim that many newcomers to Cairo try to strike up an acquaintance with me or with Emerson.”

“He hasn’t avoided me,” Nefret murmured.

I gave her a sharp look. She was twisting a lock of hair round her finger; it gleamed like a ring of living gold. “Hmmm. Well, that makes my scheme all the more plausible. I would like you to ask the Count to take you to dine tomorrow night—at one of the hotels, naturally, you must not under any circumstances go off alone with him. You can think of some plausible excuse, such as… er…”

“I can think of an excuse,” Nefret said. “You are serious about this, aren’t you?”

“My dear, you can hardly suppose I would ask you to commit such a breach of good manners unless I were. It is not surprising that you should not have suspected the Count; you never met Sethos.”

Nefret’s lips curved. “I’ve always wanted to.”

That smile aroused certain forebodings, which I felt obliged to express. “You must abandon your girlish, romantic notions about Sethos. Don’t try to outwit him. Just get him there—I suggest Shepheard’s—so that I can have a good long look at him. Of course I will be disguised.”

“Ah,” said Nefret. “Disguised. How?”

“Leave that to me. I hear that wretched dog barking. It must be Emerson and Ramses. Are we agreed?”

“I will do anything you ask, Aunt Amelia. Anything. If this will help…” She let the sentence trail off into silence.

“I knew I could count on you. Pray do not mention our little scheme.”

“Aren’t you going to tell the Professor, at least?”

“That will depend on… Ah, there you are, my dears. Did you enjoy your evening out? We have accomplished a great deal of work while you were amusing yourselves.”

By rousting us out at the crack of dawn, Emerson managed to get in several hours at the site before he left to attend his meeting with General Maxwell. He had repeated to me what Ramses had told him about his conversation with David; nothing new had been learned, but at least I had the comfort of knowing that as of ten o’clock last night, David was still alive and well.

It was not comfort enough. Every passing day increased the danger, and I was all the more determined to put an end to the nasty business. Having worked out a course of action which I felt certain would achieve this goal, I was able to concentrate more or less successfully on our archaeological activities. With Emerson gone, I was the person in charge. I explained my intentions to Nefret, Ramses, and Selim. I never had to explain anything to Daoud, since he always did exactly what I told him to do.

“No one admires Emerson’s methodology more than I, but in my opinion we have been dawdling over this mastaba longer than we ought. Selim, I want that second chamber completely cleared today.”

Ramses said, “Mother—”

Selim said, “But, Sitt Hakim—”

Nefret grinned.

Her grin vanished when I went on, raising my voice loud enough to silence Ramses and Selim. “Nefret and I will both examine the fill. Ramses, you can help Selim label the baskets as they are filled. Make certain you identify the precise square and level from which each is taken. In that way—”

“I believe, Mother, that Selim and I are both familiar with the technique,” Ramses said. His eyebrows had taken on a remarkable angle.

Selim’s beard parted just a slit. “Yes, Sitt Hakim.”

I smiled at Daoud, whose large countenance bore its customary expression of placid affability. “Then let us get at it!”

I daresay my words spurred them all to even greater energy. Daoud kept the Deucaville cars moving. Nefret and I sifted basket after basket, finding very little. Since I wanted to impress Emerson with our efficiency, I kept everyone at it till long past the hour at which we ordinarily stopped for luncheon. Not until Ramses came to join us did a belated realization of other responsibilities strike me.

He had, of course, misplaced his hat. Though he feels the heat less than most, his luxuriant black locks had tightened into curls, and his wet shirt stuck rather too closely to his chest and shoulders. The well-developed muscles it molded were somewhat asymmetrical, despite my effort to reduce the size of the bandages. I could only hope Nefret’s eyes were not as keen as mine. She had not commented on Ramses’s recent habit of always wearing a shirt on the dig.

“We’ve come across something rather interesting,” he announced. “You will need to get photographs, Nefret.”

She jumped up, her face brightening, and Ramses offered me his hand to help me rise. I would have waved it away, but truth compels me to admit I was a trifle stiff. Sitting in the same position for several hours has that effect even on a woman in excellent physical condition.

The chamber had been emptied almost to floor level. There were some fine reliefs and another false door, but that was not what caught my eye. Beyond the south wall the men had exposed the walls of another, smaller chamber, whose existence none of us had suspected. I realized at once that it must be a serdab, a room containing a statue of the deceased. Through a narrow slit in the wall between the serdab and the chapel, the soul of the dead man or woman could communicate with the outer world and partake of offerings.

“How did you find it?” I asked, scrambling along the surface to a point where I could look down into the chamber. Enough of the fill had been removed to define the inner side of the walls. Only one of the original roofing stones remained. A scattering of chips on the surface of the rubble inside the room suggested that the others had fallen and shattered.

“I happened to notice that what had appeared to be only a crack in the wall was suspiciously regular, so I dug outside it and found stonework.” Running his fingers through his hair, he went on, “The plan of the mastaba is more complex than we realized; there is an extension of as yet indeterminate size to the south. As for the serdab, you can see why I want photographs before we continue emptying it.”