The Golden One: A Novel of Suspense Read Online Free PDF Page A

“However . . . Good Gad, what with the intelligence services and my devious brother, Cairo is no place for a family of harmless archaeologists. But you are worrying unnecessarily, my love. There is no way on earth Ramses could be persuaded to take on another assignment.” Emerson’s tender affection did not miss the slight shiver that ran through my limbs. “Damnation, Peabody,” he snarled, “if you are having one of your famous forebodings, I don’t want to hear about it! Come to bed at once.”
    While we breakfasted in our rooms, Emerson looked through the post (distractions of various kinds having prevented him from doing so earlier) and came upon a letter from Cyrus Vandergelt that aroused such indignation he leaped to his feet, rushed to the door, and would have bolted out in his dressing gown had I not caught hold of him. “For pity’s sake, Emerson, where are you going?” Emerson waved the close-written pages at me. “They’re at it again. Another tomb. Looted. The artifacts already at the Luxor dealers. Damnation! Ramses —” “If you want to share this with Ramses,” I said, interpreting his incoherent comments with the skill of long experience, “I will send the sufragi to invite him and Nefret to join us. Sit down, Emerson, or, if you prefer, put on your clothes. A few more minutes’ delay cannot worsen a situation which —” “Curse it,” said Emerson, heading for the dressing room. He took the letter with him. Being accustomed to my husband’s impetuous behavior, I dispatched the sufragi on his errand and went on with my breakfast. The children must have been already up and dressed, for they came almost at once. “Is something wrong?” Ramses asked. “Why should you suppose that?” I replied, over the cries of outrage from the adjoining room. Some of them had to do with his inability to find his shirts, whose location (in the second drawer of the bureau) I had pointed out to him the previous night. “A summons at such an early hour —” Emerson came charging out of the dressing room, attired in trousers and shirt. “Ah, there you are. Good. Just listen to this.” “Finish your breakfast, Emerson,” I said, deftly removing the crumpled pages from his clenched fist and handing them to Ramses. I will summarize the account, which Ramses, at my request, read aloud. A few months earlier, rumors had spread that a hitherto unknown tomb had been discovered by the indefatigable thieves of Luxor. It had contained objects of rare value and distinction: royal diadems, vessels of stone and precious metal, and jewelry of all kinds. For once, the rumors were correct. Cyrus, who had heard the tales shortly after he arrived on the scene in November, had gone straight to the shop of our old acquaintance Mohammed Mohassib, who had been dealing in antiquities for thirty years. The canny old scoundrel, looking as pious as only a Luxor dealer can, had denied any knowledge of the reputed treasure. He always did, though it was well known that he had handled many of the big finds. There was nothing anybody could do about it, since he never kept the valuables in his own house, but distributed them among his various relations, and when he was in the process of marketing the goods he conducted private negotiations with interested parties who were not inclined to turn him in because they wanted the artifacts themselves. Knowing this habit of dear old Mohassib’s, Cyrus had persisted until Mohassib finally remarked that he had just happened to have acquired an interesting object — not from a tomb robber, of course! It proved to be a heavy gold bar approximately two inches long, set with five small figures of reclining cats, two of which were missing; the surviving three were of gold and carnelian. Cyrus knew his antiquities too well to remain long in doubt as to the meaning of what he saw. “The gold spacer was part of a woman’s armlet,” he had written. “Had to be a female’s because of the cats.