waved away the winking waiter, wondering if he was trying to deliver some message. “Can’t make it. I told you I have a function.”
“Sorry, I’d forgotten. Tomorrow, then,” Marley persisted. “You’ll have to come to my home.”
Rosie was surprised by her wariness of him. A kind of careful take-care instinct—one that didn’t fool her often. “I can’t believe you’ll do the cooking?”
“Come after dinner,” he said. “I think you’ll be particularly interested in a certain piece of jewelry,” he said, as if intoxicated by his mental picture. “It would look marvelous around your throat. Some women can’t wear important jewelry, but you…you just exude presence.”
Rosie gave him a deadpan look. “I got it from my dad. He’s a Supreme Court judge.” No harm in going back to the good doctor’s abode, she supposed. She didn’t anticipate any sexual overtures, although from the odd flash here and there she couldn’t entirely rule it out. Anyway, she had insurance; her mother, who played a wonderful game of golf and tennis, had insisted she learn karate her first year of living away from home. Like her mother, she was the kind of woman who preferred to excel. Weekly classes eventually culminated in a black belt.
Marley put out his hand, clinging to her answer like a drowning man to a raft. “Well?”
“I’m intrigued, as you well know.” Rosie looked at him with her clear moss-green eyes. “But what really mystifies me, given that you know Porter Banfield, is why the man who must have reared his nephew can’t use his influence on your behalf. How could I possibly be more effective than Chase Banfield’s uncle? Surely he would be your best ally?”
“It’s amazing to me that he’s not.” Marley’s expression clouded over. “But by all accounts they’re not close.”
Rosie sipped from her Coke. “Well, that tells us a lot. What kind of men are the Banfields? Both brushed with the same coldness?” she speculated. “Is it a family trait? Or are they victims of the past? One would have thought they’d become very close—unless they were both too terribly scarred.”
Marley waved away Rosie’s musings as womanly affectation. “I really don’t know,” he said, suggesting he didn’t care, either, “but there’s been a whole legacy of strife. Apparently, as soon as he turned twenty-one, Banfield turfed his uncle out.”
“Maybe Chase Banfield had a reason,” she said. “I feel we ought to be fair. Either that, or he’s an ungrateful so-and-so. I can easily do some research on the Banfields. They’re landed gentry. There’s got to be a story, and it doesn’t sound like a fairy tale.”
Marley rolled his eyes. “There’s always a story. Unfortunately it doesn’t help me. Chase Banfield doesn’t share his uncle’s interests. Not in the least. In fact, he derides them. The problem is, if I can’t get to Chase Banfield, I can’t get onto Three Moons.”
“Where this cache was found.” Rosie phrased it as a statement, not a question.
“I didn’t exactly say that, Roslyn.”
“I think you did. If you want my help, there shouldn’t be secrets between us. Presumably Porter Banfield unearthed the scarab and the rest of the stuff on the station and approached you as an eminent archaeologist. What’s in it for him?”
Marley sighed, as though he wished he didn’t have to choose her as his partner in this enterprise. “The thrill of the find, Roslyn.” He reverted to testiness. “I told you he’s an Egyptologist.”
“And nothing would please him more than sharing the limelight with you,” she said, a touch sarcastically. “Perhaps the two of you going on a lecture tour. As I remember, he was very conscious of his own importance.”
“He’s a scholar, Roslyn,” Marley muttered. “Don’t lose sight of that. Antiquities are his passion.”
“As long as he can explain where he got them.”
“That’s not our business, my dear.”
Rosie rested both elbows on the table, trying to think it out. “And he was exploring Three Moons back when his nephew was a boy? He sounds like a man obsessed.”
“Why not?” Marley stared at her with that strange look in his eyes. “Are you trying to tell me, my dear, that you don’t care?”
Rosie stroked her forehead. “I’m fascinated, Dr. Marley—if it’s all genuine.”
He blinked hard. “Surely you don’t think I’d be party to a hoax.”
“Oh, no.” Rosie emphasized the no. “There’s your integrity, your reputation. I don’t mean that the objects aren’t genuine. After all, finds of ancient Egyptian origin have been turning up for many, many decades. They’ve been reported in newspapers and magazines from the turn of the century. The big question is, where did these objects come from? Can Porter Banfield be telling the truth about where he acquired his treasure trove? Obviously, if his interest is antiquities, he knows all the dealers. One or two are probably shady.”
“Dear God!” Marley shook his head in disbelief. “Allow me to judge the man’s qualifications. With all due respect, I think I’m a better judge than you. I wouldn’t have set up this meeting if I didn’t think we were really onto something big. Banfield claims he knows the site of the ancient Egyptian village. He said his brother knew. Their father before them. They knew the site of the pyramid.”
“And Chase Banfield doesn’t? I refuse to believe it.”
“Hell, why?” Marley looked rattled. “He was only ten when his parents died. For years he was pretty traumatized.”
“His father and uncle never shared the family secret? I think he has to know. You’ve got to admit, Doctor, this is fairly hard to buy.”
“Does everything have to make perfect sense?” Marley quivered in outrage. “There are many things out there one can’t explain.”
“True,” Rosie acknowledged. “Particularly if the bait you’re dangling is such a marvelous scoop.”
Marley nodded. “It is marvelous, and it’s real. And you’re the only person I could think of who might get through to Banfield. A combination of skill and charm. Porter swears that what he says is true. The cache he left in my keeping was unearthed on Three Moons. As to how it got there? Banfield believes with every particle of faith in him that there was an ancient Egyptian village on the station. For one thing, rock paintings on the property depict papyrus, two-stem and three-stem. Papyrus was the swamp plant of ancient Egypt, as I’m sure you know. It’s not indigenous to Australia. As well, there are Egyptian-like figures and glyphs depicted. I haven’t seen these caves. I can’t get onto the property to see them, which is enormously frustrating to someone in my position. They’re almost inaccessible, so I’m told, but until I study the paintings, I can’t give a definite answer as to their date or their origin. Banfield says they’re very old Aboriginal drawings.”
“And who’s going to brave the crocodiles?” Rosie asked, stirring abruptly as though one was hiding under the table.
Marley rubbed his shapely hands together. “I don’t think they’re going to attack us if we don’t attack them.”
“Maybe
