The Seventh Scroll - Smith Wilbur (бесплатные полные книги .TXT) 📗

built up my expectations so high that I was bitterly disappointed."

"It's not bunkum," she contradicted him, and then corrected herself

quickly, "well, at least not all of it."

"I see. Duraid was lying to me, was he?"

"Not lying," she defended him hotly. "Just delaying the truth a little.

He wasn't ready to tell you the whole story then. He didn't have the

answers to all the questions that he knew you would ask. He was going to

come to you when he was ready. Your name was at the top of the list of

potential sponsors that he had drawn up."

"Duraid did not have the answers, but I suppose you do?" He was smiling

sceptically.  was caught once. I am not likely to fall for the same cock

and bull a second time."

"The scrolls exist. Nine of them are still in the, vaults at the Cairo

museum. I was the one who discovered them in the tomb of Queen Lostris."

Royan opened her leather sling bag and rummaged around in it until she

brought out a thin sheaf of glossy 6  4 colour photographs. She selected

one and passed it to him. That is a shot of the rear wall of the tomb.

You can just make out the alabaster jars in the niche. That was taken

before we removed them."

"Nice picture, but it could have been taken anywhere." She ignored the

remark and passed him another photograph. The ten scrolls in Duraid's

workroom at the museum. You recognize the two men standing behind the

bench?"

He nodded. "Duraid and Wilbur Smith." His sceptical expression had

turned to one of doubt and bemusement.

"What the hell are you trying to tell me?"

"What the hell I am trying to tell you is that, apart from a wide poetic

licence that the author took unto himself, all that he- wrote in the

book has at least some foundation in the truth. However, the scroll that

most concerns us is the seventh, the one that was stolen by the men who

murdered my husband."

Nicholas stood up and went to the fireplace. He threw on another log and

bashed it viciously with the poker, as if to give release to his

emotions. He spoke without "turning "What was the significance of that

particular scroll around, as opposed to the other nine?"

"It was the one that contained the account of Pharaoh Mamose's burial

and, we believe, directions that might enable us to find the site of the

tomb."

"You believe, but you aren't certain?" He swung around to face her with

the poker gripped like a weapon. In this mood he was frightening. His

mouth was set in a tight hard line and his eyes glittered.

"Large parts of the seventh scroll are written in some sort of code, a

series of cryptic verses. Duraid and I were in the process of

deciphering these when-' she broke off and drew a long breath, "when he

was murdered."

"You must have a copy of something so valuable?" He glared at her, so

that she felt intimidated. She shook her head.

"All the microfilm, all our notes, all of it was stolen along with the

original scroll. Then whoever killed Duraid went back to our flat in

Cairo and destroyed my PC on to which I had transposed all our

research."

He threw the poker into the coal scuttle with a clatter, and came back

to the desk. "So you have no evidence at all? Nothing to prove that any

of this is true?"

"Nothing," she agreed, "except what I have here." With a long slim

forefinger she tapped her forehead. "I have a good memory."

He frowned and ran his fingers through his thick curling hair. "And so

why did you come to me?"

"I have come to give you a shot at the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose, she told

him simply. "Do you want it?"

Suddenly his mood changed. He grinned like a naughty schoolboy. "At this

moment I cannot think of anything I want more."

Then you and I will have to draw up some sort of working agreement," she

told him, and she leaned forward in a businesslike manner. "First, let

me tell you what I want, and then you can do the same."

It was hard bargaining, and it was one in the morning when Royan

admitted her exhaustion. "I can't think straight any more. Can we start

again tomorrow morning?" They still had not reached an agreement.

"It's tomorrow morning already," he told her. "But you are right.

Thoughtless of me. You can sleep here. After all, we do have

twenty-seven bedrooms here."

"No, thanks." She stood up. "I'll go on home."

"The road will be icy," he warned her. Then he saw her determined

expression and held up his hands in capitulation. "All right, I won't

insist. What time tomorrow? I have a meeting with my lawyers at ten, but

we should be finished by noon. Why don't you and I have a working lunch

here? I was supposed to be shooting at Ganton in the afternoon, but I

will cancel that. That way I will have the afternoon and evening clear

for you."

Nicholas's meeting with the lawyers took place the next morning in the

library of Quenton Park. It was not an easy nor a pleasant session, but

then he never expected it to be. This had been the year in which his

world began to fall to pieces around his head. He gritted his teeth as

he remembered how the year had opened with that fatal moment of fatigue

and inattention at midnight on the icy motorway, and the blinding

headlights of the truck bearing down on them.

He had not recovered from that before the next brutal blow had fallen.

This was the financial report of the Lloyd's insurance syndicate on

which Nicholas, like his father and grandfather before him, was a

"Name'. For half a century the family had enjoyed a regular and

substantial income from their share of the syndicate profits. Of

course,'Nicholas had been aware that liability for his share of any

losses that the syndicate suffered was unlimited. The enormity of that

responsibility had weighed lightly; for there had never been serious

losses to account for, not for fifty years, not until this year.

With the California earthquake and environmental pollution claims

awarded against one of the multinational chemical companies, the

syndicate's losses had amounted to over twenty-six million pounds

sterling. Nicholas's share of that loss was two and a half million

pounds - some of which had been settled, but the rest was due for

payment in a little over eight months' time - together with whatever

nasty surprises next year might hold.

Almost immediately after that the Quenton Park estate's crop of sugar

beet, almost a thousand acres in total, had been hit by rhizomania, the

mad root disease. They had lost the lot.

"We will need to find at least two and a half million," said one of the

lawyers. "That should be no problem - the Hall is filled with valuable

items, and what about the museum? What could we reasonably expect from

the sale of some of the exhibits?"

Nicholas winced at the thought of selling the Ramesses statue, the

bronzes, the Hammurabi frieze or any item of his cherished collection at

the Hall or the museum. He acknowledged that their sale would cover his

debts, but he doubted that he could live without them. Almost anything

was preferable to parting with them.

"Hell, no," Nicholas cut in, and the lawyer looked across at him coldly.