The Seventh Scroll

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 fu

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 ca

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

pi

study them, and then glanced at the other material pi

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