The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur - Страница 22
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the abrupt change of subject disconcerting. "However, let's give some
thought to the second attempt in Cairo. The hand grenade.
Who knew you were going to the Ministry that afternoon, apart from the
minister himself?"
She reflected as she chewed and swallowed a mouthful of egg. "I am not
sure. I think I told Duraid's secretary, maybe one of the other research
assistants."
He frowned and shook his head. "So half the museum staff knew about your
appointment?"
"That is about it, yes. Sorry."
He pondered a moment, "All right. Who knew you were leaving Cairo? Who
knew you were staying at your mother's cottage?"
"One of the clerks from administration brought my slides out to the
airport."
"Did you tell him what flight you were leaving on?"
"No, definitely not."
"Did you tell anybody at all?"
"No. That is.-'she hesitated.
"Yes?"
"I told the minister himself during our interview, when I asked for
leave of absence. Not him surely not?" her expression. reflected her
horror at the thought.
Nicholas shrugged, "Some funny things happen. Of course, the minister
knew all about the work that you and Duraid were doing on the seventh
scroll?"
"Not all the details, but - yes - in general terms he knew what we were
up to.
"All right. Next question, tea or coffee?" He poured coffee into her
cup, and then went on, "You said that nso Duraid had a list of possible
sponsors for an expedition.
Might give us some ideas as to a short-list of suspects?"
"The Getty Museum," she said, and he' smiled.
"Cross one from the list. They don't go around tossing grenades in the
streets of Cairo. Who else was there on the list?, "Gotthold Ernst von
Schiller."
"Hamburg. Heavy industry. Metal and alloy refineries.
Base mineral production."Nicholas nodded. "Who was the third name on the
list?"
"Peter Walsh," she said. "The Texan."
"That's the one," he nodded. "Lives in Fort Worth.
Fast-food'franchising. Mail order retail." There were very few
collectors with the substance to compete with the major institutions
when it came to making significant of antiquities or to financing
archaeological acquisitions exploration. Nicholas knew them all, for it
was a mutually antagonistic circle of no more than a couple of dozen
men.
He had competed with each of them at one time or ano& on the auction
floors of Sotheby's and Christie's, not to mention other less salubrious
venues where "fresh' antiquities were sold. The adjective "fresh' was
used in the context of "fresh out of the ground'.
"Those are two beady-eyed bandits. They would probably eat their own
children if they felt peckish. What would they do if they thought you
stood in their way to the tomb of Mamose? Do you know if either of them
contacted Duraid after the book was published, the way I did?"
"I don't know. They may have."
"I cannot imagine that either of those beauties would have missed such
an easy trick. We must believe that they both know that Duraid had
something going on. We will put their names on our list of suspects."
Then he inspected her plate. "Enough? Another spoonful of egg? No? Very
well, let's go down to the museum and see what Mrs. Street has found for
us to work on."
When they walked into his study, she was impressed by the amount of
organization that he had accomplished in such a short time. He must have
been busy at it all last night, turning the room into a military-type
headquarters.
In the centre of the room stood a large easel and blackboard which were
pinned a set of overlapping satellite photographs. She went across to
study them, and then glanced at the other material pinned on the board.
Along with a large-scale map covering the same area of southwestern
Ethiopia as the satellite photographs there were lists of names and
addresses, lists of equipment and stores which he had obviously used on
previous African expeditions, sheets of calculations of distance and
what looked like a preliminary financial budget. At the top of the board
was a schedule headed "Ethiopia - General Information'. There were five
closely typed sheets, so she did not read through the entire schedule,
but she was impressed by his thoroughness in preparation.
Royan determined to study all this material at the earliest opportunity,
but now she crossed to one of the two chairs he had set up at a table
facing the board. He stood at the board and picked up a silver-topped
swagger stick from the table, brandishing it like a schoolmaster's
pointer.
"Class will come to order." He rapped on the board.
"The first thing you have to do is convince me that we will be able to
pick up the spoor of Taita again after it has had several thousand years
to cool. Let us first consider the geographical features of the Abbay
gorge."
Nicholas described the course of the river on the satellite photograph
with his pointer. "Along this section the river has cut its way through
the flood basalt plateaux.
In places the cliff of the sub-gorge are sheer, as high as four or five
hundred feet on each side. Where there are intrusive strata of harder
igneous schists the river has not been able to erode them. They form a
series of gigantic steps in the course of the river. I think you are
correct in your assumption that Taita's "steps" are actually waterp
falls."
He came to the table and picked out a photograph from amongst the
bundles of papers that covered it. "I took this in the gorge during the
Armed Forces Expedition in 1976. It will give you an idea of what some
of those falls are like."
He passed her a black and white riverscape of towering cliffs on either
hand and a cascade of water that seemed to fall from the heavens to
dwarf the tiny figures of half-naked men and boats in the foreground.
"I had no idea it was. like thad' She stared at it in awe.
"Doesn't do justice to the splendid desolation down he told her. "From a
photographer's there in the gorge, gra point of view there. is no place
to stand from which you can get it all into perspective. But at least
you can see how that waterfall would halt a party of Egyptians coming
upriver on foot, or at least with pack horses. There is usually some
sort of path alongside the cataracts made by elephant and other wild
game over the ages. However, there is simply no way to bypass waterfalls
such as this one, and to get around those cliffs."
She nodded, and he went on, "Even coming downstream we had to lower the
boats and all our equipment down each set of waterfalls on ropes. It
wasn't easy."
"Let us agree that it was a waterfall that stopped them going further -
the second waterfall from the westerly approaches," she conceded.
Nicholas picked up the swagger stick and on the satellite photograph
traced the course of the river up from the dark wedge shape of the
Roseires dam in central Sudan.
"The escarpment, rises on the Ethiopian side of the border, that is
where the gorge proper begins. No roads or towns in there, and only two
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