The Hippopotamus Pool Read Online Free PDF

which tell me to throw you out the door before you can utter a word, Mrs. Emerson would insist on hearing you out. She dotes on melodrama. If you have adjusted that mask to your satisfaction, Mr. Whoever-You-Are, sit down and start talking. I am a patient man, but my time is valuable and I strongly suspect that this will be—"
    "He can't start talking until you stop, Emerson," I said. "Take that chair, Mr.—er—Saleh. May I offer you something to drink? Tea, coffee, brandy, whiskey?"
    "Whiskey. Thank you."
    Mumbling to himself, Emerson waved me toward the sofa and went to the sideboard. Ignoring his complaints, I seated myself and studied the stranger curiously. The black cloak had fallen back; under it he wore ordinary European clothing. The name he had given was Egyptian, but the fact that he had accepted an alcoholic beverage meant he was not a Muslim—or at least not a very good one. I was unable to make out his features, since the mask of black silk covered his entire face and was fastened, in some manner I could not ascertain, under his chin. An orifice roughly oval in shape exposed his lips, and I assumed there were other openings to permit vision, though not even a gleam of eyeballs was visible under the brim of his hat.
    Emerson handed me a glass and offered another to our visitor. He put out a hand to take it.
    He must have been watching me as closely as I had examined him; seeing me stiffen, he let out a little coughing sound that might have been a laugh. "You are quick, Mrs. Emerson. Was that why you offered me refreshment?"
    "It was an outside chance," I said calmly. "But it is more difficult to disguise one's hands than one's face. The spots of old age can be covered, but not the protruding veins that are equally distinctive. Scars, calluses, birthmarks, the very shape of palm and fingers—or, as in this case, adistinctive article of jewelry. ... Since you did not take the precaution of removing your ring before you came here, may I take it that you would not object if I asked to examine it more closely?"
    "I had intended to let you do so, in confirmation of the story I am about to tell you." He removed it from his finger and placed it on the palm I had extended.
    Even an uneducated tourist would have recognized the basic design. In pharaonic times, scarabs were popular amulets, which carried a hieroglyphic inscription or a name on the flat undersurface. Replicas, some honestly proclaimed as such, some purporting to be ancient, were sold to tourists by the hundreds. In this case the scarab was not of the common faience or stone; it was, or appeared to be, solid gold. It had been fastened to the shank of the ring in a manner familiar to me from ancient examples: twisted gold wires on either side of the scarab-shaped bezel allowed it to pivot. When I turned it over I was not surprised to see the hieroglyphic signs that spelled a name. I recognized the name, but it was not one of the ones commonly found on such trinkets.
    I handed the ring to Emerson, who studied it with a scowl as Mr. Saleh began to speak.
    "This jewel has been handed down from generation to generation for over three thousand years. It is the symbol of the office of High Priest of the ka of Queen Tetisheri, whose name you see on the scarab. Only the body perishes; the immortal spirit, the ka of the Egyptians, passes on from one fleshly tenement to another. It has been my sacred duty over the long centuries to ensure the survival and the rebirth of that great queen. In my first incarnation, as Heriamon of Thebes, I was her faithful—"
    Emerson's roar made the window glass rattle. "Hell and damnation!"
    "Emerson!" I exclaimed. "Do calm yourself. And be careful of the ring, it is twenty-two-carat gold and quite fragile."
    "Peabody, I will be damned if I will put up with this sort of thing." The blood that had rushed to his tanned face turned it a pretty shade of mahogany, but he put the ring carefully into my hand before clenching his own hand