Dead Men's Hearts

by Aaron Elkins

  He nodded. "It could be a thousand years ago."

  It could have been five thousand. Along a waterside path, perhaps a hundred yards from where they sat, walked a family group and its animals, slowly returning from its maize or bean plot to their village a quarter of a mile downstream. The galabiyaed father, head down, led a water buffalo on which a young boy sat. Behind it came a veiled woman on a donkey and a little girl on foot, holding on to its tail. Against a near background of date palms and tamarisks and a distant horizon of tawny desert hills, moving at the lolling, rhythmic pace of the animals, they made a picture that would have been familiar in the time of Abraham.

  And even then, thought Gideon, even then as it was now, the tomb complex at Saqqara, not far to the north along this same river, would have been the oldest man-made structure in the world.

  It had been like this all afternoon, ever since the crew had let loose the Menshiya's mooring lines and the big white ship had drifted to the middle of the river and begun to pull against the slow, steady Nile current, heading upstream toward Abydos, Dendera, and Luxor. Gideon and Julie had found an awninged, isolated corner of the upper deck, and there, a stack of untouched novels and guidebooks on the table beside them, they did what boatloads of Nile cruise passengers had been lazily and contentedly doing for centuries: they sat and watched the Nile slide by.

  Flocks of white egrets drowsed in brown, foam-flecked shallows and rose in great, wing-beating clouds when the boat came too near. Children shouted "Hello-hello!" from the banks and responded with glee to any hint of a friendly response while their more reserved mothers and sisters washed clothes in the river. They saw mud-brick village after mud-brick village, the next one coming into sight before the previous one was gone. Since el-Amarna, the only reminders that they were in the twentieth century had been the clattering, ramshackle diesel engines that pumped water up the low banks and into the fields every few hundred yards, replacing in a single generation the primitive, counterbalanced shadufs that had served since the time of the pharaohs.

  Whether the local inhabitants were pleased with the simplicity of their lives was open to question, but to a couple of tourists— and for the time being Gideon and Julie were working at being tourists—it was Egypt as Egypt was supposed to be. For over four hours they sat at the railing, hardly moving, speaking little except to point things out to each other. And even then they were sorry when it came time to leave.

  But at five o'clock everyone had been asked to gather in the Isis Lounge, a handsome, vaguely nautical room outfitted with polished brass and old, oiled teak. There, a slender, softly smiling Nubian, as black as obsidian, stood behind the bar in white jacket and black tie, serving cocktails, sherry and soft drinks, all courtesy of the Gustafsons, while excerpts from the day's takes were viewed on a television monitor set up on an overhead rack.

  "Posh is right," Gideon said to Julie, returning to a corner banquette with two glasses of single-malt Scotch on the rocks. He sank down into the chamois-soft leather and sipped gratefully. "You know, I could get used to this kind of life."

  "Don't," Julie said. "Not unless you're expecting the next edition of A Structuro-Functional Approach to Pleistocene Hominid Phytogeny to make the best-seller lists."

  "You never know. I've been talking to my editor about retitling it. What do you think of Forbidden Lusts of the Cave People?"

  * * *

  As Gideon had expected, Haddon's taped segment, shown last, was the hit of the cocktail hour, bringing great belly laughs from Bruno and Phil, and a smile or two even from TJ.

  Ensconced in a big wing chair, still in his White Hunter's bush jacket, Haddon preened happily. "So the old man still has it when he needs it, eh? Not quite ready to go tottering off to his well-earned rest, after all."

  He swirled his Manhattan while people smiled and murmured politely, and went on. "Oh, yes, that reminds me. I should also like to take this opportunity to reassure you, without qualification, that Clifford H. Haddon is not, after all, suffering from dementia praecox."

  "Do you know what he's talking about?" Gideon heard Jerry, sitting on Julie's other side, ask Arlo.

  "I never know what he's talking about," Arlo said.

  "Or non praecox either," Haddon continued from his seat. "I am quite aware that the prime topic of conversation at Horizon House for the last two days has been the existence or nonexistence of a certain statue head. Was it there or was it not there? Was the esteemed director imagining things, or was he not?" He paused for some further complacent swirling and another sip.

  People exchanged frowns and curious glances. TJ, who was drinking her third sherry and showed it in the red blotches on her cheeks, rolled her eyes but said nothing.

  "Well," Haddon continued, "I am happy to report that with the exception of one or two minor aspects, the enigma has been solved. The solution is quite simple. The fragment was there... and then it was not there." He smiled.

  People fidgeted some more. Gideon looked more closely at Haddon. How many Manhattans had he drunk?

  "The fragment in question," Haddon told his audience, "is from our own collection, a small, Amarna-style head of a young girl made of yellow jasper, approximately five inches from top of head to base of neck, attractive but not particularly distinguished—"

  "Clifford," Bea Gustafson interrupted with something like regal annoyance from the opposite corner of the room, "if you're under the impression that all of us know what you're talking about, you're dead wrong."

  "Really? That surprises me," Haddon said. "I would have thought people had been talking of nothing else."

  "Amazing," Jerry murmured to Arlo with something like wonder in his voice. "He really, truly thinks people spend all their time thinking about nothing but him. I mean, 'the prime topic of conversation'? Give me a break."

  "The nub of the matter is this," Haddon said. "The other night, when a skeleton appeared so unexpectedly in our storage enclosure—you do know about that amusing little contretemps, Mrs. Gustafson?"

  "Yes," Bea said patiently, "I know about that."

  "Very good. As it happened, I also observed, half-hidden by a rusting bed frame, a small Amarna head. Strangely enough, although there were four other people in the enclosure with me, no one else seemed to take notice of it."

  Out of the corner of his eye, Gideon saw TJ muttering into her sherry.

  "The fragment, as I say, is from our own collection," Haddon went smoothly on. "To be more precise, from the 1924 Western Valley excavations of Cordell Lambert. Apparently—"

  "How do you know that?" TJ blurted. "Do you mean you've found it?"

  "Oh, yes, I found it." Haddon finished his Manhattan and smiled at her.

  "But we looked all over the enclosure," TJ said. "It wasn't there."

  "No, Tiffany, it was not there. Why was it not there? It was not there because by then it was back where it belonged, back from whence it had been removed—presumably at the same time as our friend F4360 was so cruelly torn from his own humble abode."

  Gideon shifted his legs restlessly. He was starting to see what it was about Haddon that got on people's nerves.

  TJ put her sherry on a cocktail table and leaned forward over bony knees and gigantic sneakers. "You're telling us you found it back inside—in the annex?"

  "Exactly. The possibility of its being there occurred to me yesterday, belatedly, to be sure, and I went in search of it. And, lo, I did find it, reposing comfortably in a drawer, precisely where it belonged among its fellow sculptural oddments of the Amarna Period."

  It was sad, really. Haddon's manner, his scholarship, his interests, were all relics of another age. He was a man who had overstayed his welcome, who hadn't been perceptive enough or brave enough to get out when it was time, when his reputation was still intact. Don't let it happen to me, Gideon thought. When the handwriting's on the wall, let me recognize it.

  TJ sank back in her chair, patently doubtful. "That I'd like to see," she said under her breath, but in an other
wise silent moment it dropped into the void and Haddon picked it up.

  "And so you shall," he told her without apparent offense. "You and anyone else who cares to." He raised his arms. "All are invited."

  Gideon was starting to get uncomfortable. Haddon was tight. TJ was getting there. The evening was unlikely to improve and it was only 6:30.

  "Clifford," said Bea, who wasn't the least bit tight, "I'm still not sure I'm following you. Are you telling us that this fragment you saw outside with the bones the other night wasn't there the next morning because someone took it away and put it back in a drawer? During the night? Secretly?"

  "In a word," said Haddon, "yes."

  Julie leaned toward Gideon. "The plot thickens."

  "Thickens?" he said. "It's practically coagulated."

  "But—but who?" a frowning Arlo asked Haddon. "To what end?"

  Haddon smiled brilliantly at him. "And there, my dear Arlo, with your usual ready acumen—"

  Arlo's vague mustache twitched. His expression turned opaque. He looked at the floor.

  "—you have put your metaphorical finger on those res gestae of the case that are so extraordinarily intriguing." He swirled his glass absently and drank down melted ice. "In fact, I do have some thoughts on the matter, some rather obvious thoughts, really, but I suspect it would be a bit premature to discuss them."

  At which convenient point one of the staff entered, smilingly raised a miniature xylophone to shoulder height, and beat a tattoo that made up in enthusiasm for what it lacked in musicality.

  Dinner was served.

  * * *

  Bruno and Bea caught up with them on the way to the dining room. "Are things getting interesting or what?" Bruno asked. "What do you think is going on? I know the way I figure it—" He glanced around. Behind them, TJ and Jerry were deep in their own conversation, but he lowered his voice anyway.

  "The way I figure it, only four people besides Haddon could have known that head was sitting there, right? Arlo, Jerry, TJ, and the Arab guy. So one of them must have snuck back and put it in the drawer. It has to be. The question is, why?"

  "No, I don't think that's necessarily right," Julie said. "Any of them could have told other people about it. So could Dr. Haddon, for that matter."

  Bruno considered this briefly. "True. But the question still remains: why? I mean, I could see if somebody came back and stole it, but what's the point of putting it back in the drawer? That's where it would have wound up the next morning anyway, right?"

  "Actually—" said Gideon.

  "Wrong," Bea said. "Bruno, I will never in my life figure out how a meathead like you ever managed to make three separate fortunes."

  The way he beamed at her, it might have been a compliment. "Don't forget, I managed to blow two of 'em too."

  The small, tidy Nefertiti Restaurant had been set with places for four at each table: three glasses, multitudinous silverware, thick, spotless linen. They went to a table near a window. Outside, here and there in the growing dusk, the neon signs atop minarets began to flicker on in red and green.

  "Now," Bea said to Bruno once they'd sat down, "how many years have we been coming to Horizon House? Don't you know Clifford Haddon yet? He thinks all we've been doing for the last three days is wondering if he's cuckoo or not, and it's been driving him bonkers."

  Julie smiled. "You don't like him very much."

  Bea seemed surprised. "I don't dislike him. I admire him very much. But I also know the way the man's mind works. He can't stand to look foolish, and the fact that he saw something that wasn't there, and that everybody knows it—or so he thought—has been preying on his mind. So, being Clifford, he has to make up this fairy story that's supposed to prove it was really there, only some tricky devil came skulking back in the dead of night and put it back where it belongs. It's ridiculous, but how can anyone prove it didn't happen?"

  Bruno looked doubtful. "I don't know, hon ..."

  "Gideon agrees with me. I can tell from that pensive, furrowed brow. That's what I like about Gideon. The man's an open book."

  "Well, I'm not sure about it." Gideon looked up from the water goblet he'd been turning in slow circles. "What doesn't quite ring true to me is his recognizing the head when he saw it in the drawer. As I understand it, he only got a glimpse of it the night before, in the dark, with all that commotion over the bones. And he said himself it wasn't that distinctive—"

  "So how can he be so positive it was the very same one he saw the night before in the enclosure?" Bea finished for him. "You're absolutely right."

  Gideon himself was less sure. "Maybe."

  The waiter approached to pour glasses of red wine for them, then set the bottle on the table: Omar Khayyám Grand Vin Rouge. "Most good wine of Egypt," he told them. "Very tasty."

  Julie pointed out that they now had a chance to fulfill the promise they'd made to themselves to share a bottle of wine while watching the sun set over the Nile, and wouldn't it be nice to find a more pleasant subject?

  This idea was endorsed by all parties, and they spent a congenial hour and a half over several more glasses of Egypt's finest and a praiseworthy meal of chiche kabab à la broche and riz au sauce de tomates.

  While Bruno related to them the startling experience of G. Patrick Flanagan of California, whose dog converted permanently to vegetarianism after exposure to the healthful rays of pyramid power.

  It was, said Bruno, a known fact.

  Chapter Twelve

  "Gideon!"

  He started, deep in some queer, muddled dream about working on an assembly line, trying to nail something together to the beat of tom-toms. The tom-toms were keeping time, like drums on a slave galley, but he couldn't quite find the beat and his hammer kept going soft on him. And somewhere in the distance someone was calling his name—

  "Gideon!"

  His eyes opened. The room was black and silent. Beneath him the bed vibrated with the steady throbbing of the ship's engines. The tom-toms started again.

  "Someone's at the door," Julie murmured beside him.

  "Right," Gideon said, more or less coming awake. "Door."

  "Gideon, wake up, will you?" It was Phil. "There's been an accident. It's Haddon."

  God. Not the kind of words to bring one gently from sleep. Gideon pressed his fingers to his eyes, rolled out of bed, and stumbled to the door, barking his shin on a corner of the refrigerator in the unfamiliar room. He edged the door open and squinted into the bright light of the corridor.

  "Phil—what happened? What time is it?"

  "It's five-thirty. He fell overboard. Last night. He must have been wandering around by himself—"

  "Last night? You don't mean he's—"

  * * *

  "As a doornail. They found his body half an hour ago, and Wahab's tearing his hair out."

  "Wahab."

  "The boat manager. Come on, wake up. We've already called the police, but Wahab's screaming for a doctor at the scene and you're the closest thing we've got, so let's get going." He pushed the door open further. Oh, Lord, you don't even have any clothes on. Get dressed, will you?"

  "Okay, all right, I'll be right out." He closed the door, leaving Phil in the hallway, and flicked on the lights.

  "You heard?" he said to Julie as he slipped quickly into a shirt and trousers.

  She nodded thoughtfully, sitting up in bed under the covering sheet, her arms around her knees. "Gideon, you don't suppose ..." She stopped, looking hard at him.

  He glanced up from tying the laces on his deck moccasins. "Suppose what?"

  "You don't suppose that... that someone ..."

  But he did suppose. Haddon had tracked down the "missing" head, or so he'd said. He'd made a public fuss about it, he'd offered to show it to one and all, he'd brayed about having "thoughts" on who had done it and why. That had all been less than twelve hours ago, and now he was dead. As a result of falling overboard. In the middle of the night. With no witnesses.

  Wasn't it just a little too con
venient, too timely, too... tidy? Wasn't it possible that he'd touched on something that someone wanted to keep secret so badly that—

  No, this wasn't even conjecture, not even surmise. It was no more than a mechanical reaction, a kind of conditioned paranoia. There were a thousand other possible explanations, why leap to this one? Damn it, this was what came of taking on more forensic cases than were good for him. He was starting to see murder behind every door, under every freshly spaded garden plot.

  And now he even had Julie doing it. "No, I don't suppose," he said gruffly. "You know what? You think about murder too much."

  Her lips curved in the palest of smiles. "Gee, why do you suppose that is?"

  * * *

  Apparently, Haddon had fallen from a rear corner of the upper deck, Phil told him as they hurried down the corridor and went below by way of a musty, enclosed stairway that was ordinarily used only by the crew. He had not, as Gideon had supposed, fallen directly into the water, but had struck a one-by-two-foot wooden platform, or step, that projected from the side of the lower deck near the stern to make boarding easier for the men who delivered food and supplies in heavy sacks and boxes. He had evidently landed on his head, then toppled into the water, but one of the epaulets from his jacket had caught on a metal rod that was part of the platform's support, and he had been dragged along beside the ship since a little after midnight.

  "How do you know the time?" Gideon asked.

  "One of the crewmen was taking soundings and he heard a thump in the rear, and then a splash. He had a look but didn't see anything. But then he didn't think to look straight down almost under the platform; he was looking behind the ship, in the wake. Then this morning one of the cooks saw him while he was dumping garbage overboard. They came and got me. I went and had a look and turned right around and came and got you."

  He pushed open a dented metal door. "Here we are, ground floor."

  The Menshiya was a sort of floating "Upstairs, Downstairs." Above, on the passenger deck, all was comfortable chairs, lounges, picture-windowed staterooms, and sparkling cleanliness. It was like a roomy, floating palace, seemingly self-maintaining except for the pleasant, cordial Mr. Wahab, and an occasional silent, smartly groomed waiter to bring drinks or serve food. But here at water level, it was a different world, dingy, scuffed, smelly, and cramped. Passengers did not come down here. Crew members, except for the waiters and stewards, never left.