The Golden One: A Novel of Suspense by Elizabeth Peters Page B

How was the tomb found, has it been investigated, why hasn’t the Service des Antiquités taken steps?” That ought to keep Emerson quiet for a while, I thought complacently. Nothing loath, Cyrus launched into a tale that was even more bizarre than the usual stories of such discoveries — and that, I assure you, Reader, is saying a good deal. It does not often rain in Luxor, but when it does, the storms are severe. One such storm had struck the previous summer, washing away houses and cutting deep channels through the land. The canny thieves of Luxor knew that such downpours were more effective than excavation in removing accumulated debris and, perhaps, exposing tomb entrances. Scrambling around the cliffs, they had found a place where a stream of falling water disappeared into a crevice and then came out again, forty feet away. What they saw when they squirmed through the choked passageway into the tomb chamber must have left even those hardened thieves speechless. Unrobbed tombs aren’t found every day, and this one was spectacularly rich. Astonishment did not render them less efficient; within a few hours the treasure had been removed and deposited with Mohassib, who paid them in gold coins. The money was divided among the miscreants, who immediately began to spend it. “That old fool Mohammed Hammad bought himself a young wife,” Cyrus said. “It turned out to be a mistake. The news of the tomb got around, as it always does, and a few weeks later the local mamur and his lads descended on the village. Mohammed had time to hide the rest of his money in a basket of grain, and sent the girl off with it, but she hung around flirting with the guards, and one of them knocked the basket off her head. Well, folks, you can imagine what happened after that. There was a free-for-all, villagers and police rolling around the ground fighting each other for the gold pieces. Mohammed ended up with nothing, not even the girl. She went off with the mamur.” “Disgusting,” Katherine murmured. “Poetic justice,” said Emerson with an evil grin. “Mohammed must be feeling hard done by. He may be persuaded to show me the location of the tomb. They can’t have done a complete clearance.” “Oh, it’s been located,” Cyrus said. “In the Wadi Gabbanat el-Qirud — the Cemetery of the Monkeys. I’ve been thinking I might spend a little time out there looking for more tombs.” “You are supposed to be working at Medinet Habu,” Emerson said with a severe look at his friend. “Not going off on wild-goose chases.” “It’s all very well for you to talk,” Cyrus said indignantly. “You’ve had your big finds, but how about me? All those years in the Valley of the Kings and not a durned tomb for my trouble! There’s got to be more of them in the southwest wadis. With Carter’s find that makes two tombs of royal females in those wadis. What I figure is that that area could have been a kind of early queens’ cemetery.” “It is a strong possibility,” Ramses agreed. Cyrus’s eye brightened, but Emerson said firmly, “You’d be wasting your time, Vandergelt. Carter didn’t find that tomb of Hatshepsut’s, he trailed a group of the locals who had discovered it. You had better stop chasing rainbows and get to work, as I intend to do. You have the firman for Medinet Habu, and you were damned lucky to get it. It is one of the best-preserved temples on the West Bank.” “At least there are some tombs at Deir el Medina,” Cyrus muttered. “Private tombs,” Emerson pointed out. “And I will not be searching for more. I mean to finish excavating that settlement in its entirety. In archaeological terms it is far more important than any cursed royal tomb. Town sites are rare, and we will gain valuable information about the daily life, occupations, and amusements of the working classes . . .” There are few aspects of Egyptology that do not interest Emerson, but in this case he was bravely disguising a certain degree