Tutankhamun Uncovered (25 page)

Carter got his shoulder to the door and pushed it open. The first sight their obviously excited state of inebriation, their rowdiness and generally irresponsible behaviour, their appearance as lay tourists with no real regard for the heritage of the monuments around them, their clearly disdainful attitude towards his Arab employees, and their Frenchness quickly filled Carter with unmitigated anger. He applied the full authority of his position clinically and forcefully.

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” he shouted. “Messieurs! Silence!” he bellowed in Norfolk French. “You must settle down before we can progress this matter. Who will speak for you?”

Above the din of ‘Francoslang’ issuing, it seemed, from every corner of the small room, Carter could hear one Frenchman threatening the terrified ticket collector with a list of unspeakable forms of retribution, not less than being diced by the guillotine, beginning at the feet, should he not refund their money in full and at once.

Carter was not of a mind to negotiate. Furious at the disrespect shown to his men, he took the unruly throng on full face and with both barrels. “You have no right to be in this place. You have no right to behave so despicably towards my men in the execution of their duty. Leave at once!”

The loudly exercised French word shouted back at him could have been loosely translated as ‘bollocks’.

Like a schoolmaster who has just entered a classroom full of rowdy teenagers, Carter roared, “I want all of your names! This nonsense shall be urgently and explicitly reported to the authorities. If you do not leave immediately I shall have you forcibly ejected.”

The mocking laughter continued.

Carter turned to the gaffirs close behind him and told them to manhandle the Frenchmen out one by one. But the Arabs were no match for the excited French who were not pulling their punches. The first Frenchman to be touched by the two gaffirs took the opportunity to display his boxing skills and planted a brick hard fist squarely on one gaffir’s nose. With a yelp of pain, the unfortunate Arab grabbed his nose and fell to the floor. Carter leapt over him to challenge the youth who immediately took up a classic boxing stance with both arms bent and his clenched fists jabbing within a whisker of Carter’s face.

“Come on. Come on,” he taunted. “Have a go if you’ve a mind to. Let me rearrange your features for you, Englishman!” But the young man was not wholly in control of his balance. Carter, dead sober, caught a flailing arm with his hand and easily pushed him off his feet and back into the crowd behind him.

It was clear that there were too few of the Service’s men present to control the situation. Carter called to his reis to run for help. He continued to shout above the noise of the swaying group. After a time it seemed that things were beginning to quieten. The churlish bunch appeared to be tiring.

Then the ‘cavalry’ arrived a dozen or so gaffirs ran in through the door opposite. All hell broke loose. As if ordered by Napoleon himself, each of the Frenchmen grabbed an item of furniture close at hand and laid into the unfortunate Arabs. Seeing his men accepting the blows without defending themselves, the inspector yelled at the gaffirs to fight back with all their might and force the offenders out. So authorised, the Arabs attacked with relish, wresting some of the weapons from their aggressors and hitting back with more than equal ferocity. They accomplished their task within two or three minutes.

The Frenchmen scrambled out of the house as fast as they could, picking up stones as they went and hurling them back towards the building. One of the group, more bruised by his beating than the others, stumbled at the doorway and fell, striking his head on the doorjamb and collapsing in a heap. Carter went over to take stock of his condition. Another Frenchman turned back to see what had happened.

It was Georges who had taken the fall. By the time Carter leaned down to touch him, he was showing signs of movement. Looking up, Georges saw his friend, Ferdinand, at the door.

“Georges! You all right?”

“Of course. I tripped. We showed them, didn’t we?” He turned his face towards Carter. “You, Monsieur, have not heard the last of this.”

‘The audacity!’ thought Carter. “Neither you, sir,” he spat back. “You and your friends have attempted fraud. You have viciously attacked the Service’s men in the course of their duty. You have trespassed. You have damaged government property. Not to mention your insulting behaviour towards me. All this shall be recorded and reported to the appropriate authorities. Your names, if you would do me that much courtesy?”

“Georges Fabre and Ferdinand Estienne, Monsieur. And your name and official capacity, if you please, is...?”

“Howard Carter, Chief Inspector of Antiquities for the Lower Nile. You people disgust me. Be gone before I do something I might later come to regret.” Carter was shaking with rage and close to losing what little was left of his customary self-control.

The two Frenchmen were not so insensible that they could fail to recognise the seriousness of Carter’s mood. They had indulged themselves enough for one day and felt not a little physically uncomfortable to boot. Helped up by his friend and silently suffering his pain, Georges limped away towards his group who had reassembled beside their donkeys. Without another word, the party quietly beat a respectable retreat. As their dust tumbled in the distance, a relative peace once more settled on the desert.

That evening, Carter kept his appointment with Weigall and the ladies at the Hotel Royal in Cairo. He marched out to the terrace and plopped himself down in the soft cushions of a wicker sofa. His earlier angry confrontation had left him physically tired and mentally exhausted. No sooner was he seated than a neatly waist coated and befezzed waiter appeared beside him. Carter spoke in Arabic. “Gin and tonic, Effendi. Big one!” The man nodded and left.

Carter gazed out through the palm trees in the hotel gardens towards the silhouetted pyramids on the skyline. He contemplated the future. He sighed. He didn’t relish the thought of the list of unpleasant duties now facing him, but he must ensure that those careless Frenchmen were adequately punished for their disrespectful misdemeanours.

He was jerked out of his preoccupation by the arrival of Arthur Weigall.

“Good evening, Howard. How’d it go today after you left us?”

“A most unpleasant experience, Weigall. And one I hope never to be repeated. Alas, it’s not over yet.”

Weigall took the seat opposite.

“Ah, ladies. Good evening to you.” The two men rose.

“Good evening, Mr Carter. Such a pleasant temperature at this time of the evening.”

Weigall pulled up another chair. One of the ladies positioned herself quickly on Carter’s couch and the other sat in the chair, and the two men retook their seats. The waiter reappeared.

“May I offer you some refreshment, ladies?” asked Carter lemonade for one; champagne for the other, whisky soda for Weigall; a second ‘G and T’ for Carter.

All settled themselves cosily on the terrace. Carter broke the silence. “My apologies for leaving all of you so abruptly this afternoon. As things turned out, I should have stayed with you! I am sure the remainder of your day was far more pleasant than mine.”

“As you arrived, ladies, Mr Carter was about to relate the goings-on of this afternoon,” said Weigall.

“Oh, please continue, Mr Carter,” said the smaller and younger lady sitting beside him. “We are intrigued.”

Carter recounted and relived the afternoon’s activity in clinical detail as if dictating his report. For the ladies’ sake he moderated some of the abusive language he had heard, but did not hold back in painting a vivid picture of his disgust for the French. At the conclusion of his story he felt suddenly lightened almost exorcised.

“You were lucky you were not hurt, Mr Carter,” observed the lady at his side.

“Yes,” agreed the other. “You were extremely brave to stand up to such a rowdy crowd singlehanded.”

“I had the assistance of my gaffirs, ladies. Without their loyalty, strength and bravery we would not have won the day.”

‘That day is not won yet; not the last we shall hear of this.’ Weigall kept his thoughts to himself. “Yes, well done, Howard. A man to be confronted at one’s peril, I’ll be bound! To y’ health.”

All raised their glasses in acknowledgement.

Carter’s embarrassment was eased when the younger lady turned the conversation to the pleasures of what they had seen on the west bank to this point in their trip. She enquired of Carter what he would recommend she and her sister should see henceforward. He was only too happy to oblige and, reinvigorated dually by her charm and curiosity, along with the influence of his second gin now busily coursing through his veins, he launched himself into a lengthy description of a suggested itinerary. As the two ladies became, more apparently than really, absorbed in this monologue, Carter responded alike with yet more enthusiasm, embellishing his talk with sketches and maps quickly executed in pencil on the pages of his notebook.

The second lady could easily recognise where all this was leading and as the discourse continued, she turned nervously to Weigall and made a brief, quivering smile.

Weigall was quick to pick up on the signal and, speaking more softly than Carter for fear of interrupting his intensity, he said, “Miss Dalgliesh, have you enjoyed your trip thus far as much as your sister?” And so these two began their own conversation.

Carter was by now in full cry and oblivious of the sideshow. “Miss Dalgliesh...” he continued.

She held up her hand. “Dot, Mr Carter. Please call me Dot. Otherwise we will not know which of us you are addressing.”

“In that case... Howard,” returned Carter.

“Howard,” she repeated softly.

“Dot, it is then!” acknowledged Carter with a smile. He noticed that the other two were engaged in their own dialogue and asked, “Would you like to take a turn with me in the gardens, Dot? We can continue our discussion on the wing, so to speak.”

“I’d be delighted, Howard.” She turned to her sister. “Sorry to interrupt, Sally, but Howard and I are going for a quick perambulatory. We’ll join you in the dining room, say, in fifteen minutes?”

“Fine, Dorothy. See you then.”

Carter took the girl’s arm in his and the two left the terrace.

Sally turned to Weigall, a broad smile on her face. “ ‘Howard and I’ is it?” And they both chuckled.

The drinks, the talk, the walk and this sweetly interesting young lady, not necessarily in that order, were entirely therapeutic for Carter. By dinnertime he’d lost his earlier seriousness and was freely joking in the relaxed company of Weigall and the two sisters.

When he retired to his quarters that night he reflected that he had not enjoyed himself so much in others’ company since the early days with his brother at Deir el Bahri. And it’s not over yet, he thought. I do believe I was forward enough to offer my services as guide tomorrow.

His usual uneasiness in the presence of ladies, particularly young and pretty ones, was totally absent in the company of the sisters. Dorothy made him feel relaxed perhaps too relaxed for what was normally a tightly controlled and ordered personality. He grinned contentedly. He was on the rebound from a severely taxing experience and he relished the moment.

The following day he was up before the sun broke the horizon. He had had a totally restful, dreamless sleep. The Frenchmen had gone from his mind and were replaced by a figure in flowing gossamer. He had nothing but expectation for a day filled with lecture in the delightful company of Miss Dorothy Dalgliesh.

Miss Dalgliesh herself had also risen early and was busy within the bowels of her travelling trunk, attempting to find appropriate attire for the day’s forthcoming activities. She held a striped shirt up to her bosom and turned. “What do you think, Sally?”

Her sister was sitting up in bed reading. She looked up from her book and glanced over her spectacles. “It looks fine, Dorothy, but then so did the other two blouses. I don’t know why you are dithering so much over your appearance. Why all this trouble for a boring little man? You amaze me sometimes, you really do.”

“I don’t find him boring. He has a passion for his trade, that is all. I find his singular preoccupation fascinating. And he’s lonely. He needs our company.”

“Your company, you mean. You’re not expecting me to come, surely?”

“No. I’d rather be by myself,” she smiled. “I fancy it may be I who holds the key that will unlock...”

Sally broke in. “You’d better be careful. If you are right you could end up with more than you can cope with. At best a bruised back! The floors in those tombs don’t compare with the bluebell woods of your last adventure.”

“That’s unkind,” Dorothy chided. “I have no other intention than to enjoy his conversation and get to know him a little better. Besides, you do him a great disservice. He is too much a gentleman, and too shy, to venture to make inappropriate advances. And you know very well there has been no previous ‘adventure’. That is a jealous accusation. In any case, you liked the man in question more than I. I am glad you are not coming. Stay in this stuffy hotel with your book and that nice Mr Weigall. We’ll soon see who will have had the most boring day.”

Dorothy pulled on the shirt, quickly buttoned it down the front and tucked it into her skirt. She took a tie from the pile of clothing she had by now accumulated on the floor and hurried into the bathroom to preen. Neither sister spoke again that morning but for the courtesy of bidding each other farewell.

Carter was waiting for Dorothy at the front steps of the hotel. As she emerged from the doorway flanked by two doormen he smiled, removed his Homburg and, with a swashbuckling gesture, bowed in greeting.

Standing at the top of the steps, she took a moment to absorb the picture. He was dressed in a loosely fitting, light brown, striped, single-breasted three-piece suit. The cuffs of a crisply starched white shirt extended some distance from beneath the sleeves of the jacket and the collar was attached at the neck by a crookedly knotted bow tie. His straight hair, slicked back over his head, had now been partially displaced by removal of his hat. His face was long and sun burned with a strong chin and a pronounced nose. His smile was reflected in his sensitive eyes and beamed under the carefully manicured moustache. His light suede shoes, although they’d been cleaned that morning, were already dusty from the few steps he had taken in the street. To Dorothy Dalgliesh he looked every bit the archaeologist.