Necropolis

in…"
    The man began to walk toward the house. At the same time, Richard went over to the cabinet and reached inside. There was another gun there. He wasn't taking any chances.
    The man came into the main room, Professor Chambers following him with the rifle. Now that he was inside, Matt could see that he was a few years older than Richard, with the dark hair and olive skin of a native Peruvian. He had obviously been on the road for a while. He was dusty and unshaven, and his clothes were crumpled, with sweat patches under the arms. There was a haunted look in his eyes. From the look of him, he didn't seem to be a threat.
    The first thing he did was to take a pair of spectacles out of his top pocket and put them on. Now he looked like a schoolteacher or perhaps an accountant working in a small, local office. He had a cheap watch on his wrist, and his shoes were scuffed and down-at-heel. He looked straight at Matt. "Are you Matthew Freeman?" He blinked. "I did not think I would find you here."
    "Sit down," Richard said.
    The man sat on the sofa with his back to the French windows. Richard pressed the button that turned off the garden lights, and everything outside the room disappeared into blackness again. It had clouded over during the night. The moon and the stars had disappeared. Richard came back over to the sofa and sat down on one of the arms. He hadn't reset the security system. But then the visitor wouldn't be staying very long. Scott and Jamie perched on the edge of the coffee table. Professor Chambers sat in a chair with the rifle between her knees.
    "So what do you want?" she demanded.

    "I will tell you everything you want to know," Ramon said. "But can I first ask you for a drink? I have been traveling all day and I had to wait until night before coming here. Believe me — if I had been seen, I would have been killed."
    "I'll get it," Pedro said. He went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a glass of water. The man took it in both hands and gulped greedily.
    "How do you know about me?" Matt asked.
    "I know a great deal about you, Matthew. May I call you that? I know how you came to Peru and I think I know what you have been doing since you arrived here. I was present, also, the night you came to the hacienda at Ica, although perhaps you did not see me. I was there because I was hired to work for Diego Salamanda."
    Ramon must have known the effect the name would have on everyone in the room. Salamanda had been the chairman and owner of a huge news corporation in South America. Deliberately deformed as a child
    — his head had been grotesquely stretched — he had used his power and wealth to bring back the Old Ones. Matt and Pedro had gone to his hacienda searching for Richard, and later on Matt and Salamanda had confronted each other in the Nazca Desert. Matt had killed him, turning back the bullets fired from his own gun.
    "Please — do not think of me as your enemy," Ramon continued, hastily. "I swear to you that I was not part of his plans." He paused. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. "I am not even in business. I am a lecturer at Lima University and Se Salamanda paid me to help him with a special project. I should explain that my specialty is ancient history." He bowed in the direction of Professor Chambers. "I have heard you speak many times, Se. I was there, for example, last April when you gave the presentation at the Museo Nacional de Antropolog. I thought it was a brilliant talk."
    Professor Chambers thought for a moment. "It's true that I was there," she said. "But anyone could know that."
    "Se Salamanda told me that he was in possession of a diary that he wanted me to interpret on his behalf,"
    Ramon went on. "The diary had been written in the sixteenth century by a man called Joseph of Cordoba. This man traveled here to Peru with the Spanish conquistadors.
    Salamanda told me that he bought the diary from a bookseller in London, a man called William Morton."
    "He didn't buy it," Matt said. "He stole it. He killed William Morton to get it." Matt knew because he had been there at the time. Morton had been demanding two million pounds, but all he had got was a knife in the back.
    "I did not know these things," Ramon exclaimed. "I was innocent. My job was to work only on the text, to unlock its secrets, and I spent many, many hours in his office and also at his home in lea. The diary was never allowed to leave his side. He made it clear to me from the start that it was the