Silhouette In Scarlet by Elizabeth Peters

Author:Elizabeth Peters
Language: eng
Format: epub

Silhouette In Scarlet

Chapter Seven

I HAD BEEN wondering the same thing. Both men relapsed into moody silence. Leif's unblinking stare settled on John, and the latter began to show signs of strain. His face remained studiedly bland, but when he picked up the guitar he produced a series of chords so consistently off key that I suspect his fingers were none too steady.

I wandered toward the end of the field where the men were working. Georg was puttering away in his own little section. He had removed the topsoil from an area about a meter square. It was an academically neat excavation, with sharp right-angle corners and a level surface; at that rate it would take him about ten years to cover the entire field.

Max's haphazard digging was no more impressive. The areas of exposed subsoil looked pitifully small amid the rolling waves of stubble. It was a hopeless project; a whole crew working for three months might accomplish something. Might... Nobody knew how deep the treasure was buried, or how widely it was scatteredÑor even if it was there.

Max stood with his shoulders bowed as he watched the diggers. “Can I go back to the house?” I asked meekly. “I'm bored.”

“If you like.” He didn't look at me. I took that for a bad sign. As I turned away he added, “We will all be returning shortly.” And that was an even worse sign.

The sun was high and surprisingly hot. I headed for the shower. The cool water streaming over my body improved my physical state, but mentally I was in a grim mood. Max and his men, who had been engaging in strenuous physical activity most of the day, would be even hotter and dirtier and more discouraged than I. If Max had had any archaeological experience he would have seen at first glance that he couldn't hope to find what he was looking for in the space of a few days. Sitting in his city office, he had probably visualized the procedure with the mental eye of ignorant optimismÑa stretch of dirt about twenty feet square, with bits of gold sticking up out of the soil. He might be ignorant, but he wasn't stupid, nor was he the man to waste time on a hopeless project.

I cut my shower short. I wanted to search the house before they got back.

Max and his crew had taken over one wing, the one on the south, corresponding to the flanking wing in which my bedroom was located. All the doors along the corridor were locked. I figured there wasn't any point in trying to pick the locks. Max was not the man to leave weapons, or any other useful item, lying around.

On the second floor were more bedrooms, none of them in use. The curtains were drawn, the furniture draped with white dustcloths. One chamber, larger than the rest, with an adjoining bath and dressing room, was fancy enough to have been the master's quarters. Perhaps Gus had occupied it until his physical handicap made stairs difficult.

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