The Serpent on the Crown (22 page)

I rewarded the observant gardener according to his merits, adding a few extra coins to console him for his mutilated vine. “I can give you some ointment for your knees,” I said in a kindly manner. “Have you had these pains in the joints long?”

“No, Sitt Hakim, only since yesterday. A donkey kicked me.”

We made our way into the hotel. When I asked for Miss Petherick, I was told she expected me. She and her brother had rooms on the third floor, on the opposite side of the hotel from their stepmother’s suite. My knock on Miss Petherick’s door was answered without delay.

I had not expected the lady to show signs of distress. Only her furrowed brow and slight pallor betrayed concern, and that, I thought, was for her brother, who sat huddled in an armchair with his hands covering his face. Miss Petherick was as well groomed as if she had spent hours at her toilet, high-piled hair held by tortoiseshell combs, shirtwaist and skirt without a crease. I introduced Sethos by his most recent name, explaining that he was a close friend and confidant.

“And anxious to serve you, ma’am, in any way,” said Sethos, bowing.

Miss Petherick acknowledged this courtesy with a slight nod, and gestured us to come in. The room was large enough to contain not only a bed and wardrobe but a small sitting area, with a table and several chairs in front of the fireplace.

“What, Mrs. Emerson, no floral offering?” inquired Miss Petherick, indicating several vases on the mantel and table. “We have already received them from the manager and a few dear friends whose names I did not recognize.”

“I hope I can offer more practical forms of sympathy,” I replied, taking the chair she indicated. “You must realize that the poor lady’s burial should not, cannot be long delayed. Before she is laid to rest we must know the cause of death.”

Adrian Petherick, who had not up till then moved a fingertip, lowered his hands and gave me a wild-eyed look. “I will not have her carved like a piece of beef,” he muttered. “They were all carved and torn, bloody, dismembered…”

I was too shocked and distressed to respond. Not Sethos. He placed a firm hand on the young man’s shoulder and said, in his most syrupy voice, “They are now among the blessed in the mansions of Paradise. As is she.”

“The mansions of Paradise,” Adrian echoed. “Are you—are you a clergyman, sir?”

“Only a humble believer,” said Sethos.

He had not specified
what
he believed in, but the sheer force of the personality he could exhibit when he chose had a comforting effect. Adrian smiled faintly. Taking advantage of his softened mood, I said, “Would it help you to accept the idea of a postmortem if my daughter-in-law were to perform it? You have met her. You know she would act with due reverence and respect.”

“Good heavens,” said Miss Petherick. “That delicate young woman?”

“She is a qualified surgeon,” I retorted. “And has assisted the local police on several occasions.”

“She has small, pretty hands,” Adrian murmured. “Harriet, what do you think?”

“As I told you, it is in our own interests to cooperate fully with the authorities.” She looked at me. “It was Adrian who objected. If his mind is now at ease, we will proceed as you suggested.”

She accompanied us to the door, where I paused long enough to discuss, out of Adrian’s hearing, certain even more practical arrangements. Miss Petherick accepted my offer to arrange for the burial, which, if matters went as I expected, would take place the following day, but shook her head when I said I would ask the pastor of the local Anglican church to call on her.

“Mrs. Petherick was a Roman Catholic, I have asked Mr. Salt to speak to the priest of that church here.” She glanced over her shoulder at the motionless form of her brother. “Perhaps he will be able to offer further consolation.”

She added a few appropriate words of thanks to both of us. The sanctimonious expression on Sethos’s face was almost too much for me.

FROM MANUSCRIPT H

For once Ramses was in full agreement with his mother. Like it or not, they had become involved with the Petherick affair, and the sooner it was settled, the better for them. It was too coincidental that Mrs. Petherick could have died a natural death under such bizarre circumstances. Either she had committed suicide—an extreme and unsatisfactory method of substantiating her wild story—or she had been murdered. And they were still in possession of the statuette that had started the whole business.

They took the horses that morning, approaching the site from the north, instead of going on foot along the mountain path. It was a long walk from Deir el Medina back to the Valley of the Kings. Selim was on the lookout for them. A fine horseman himself, he greeted their mounts with almost as much courtesy as he greeted them. With the head of Nefret’s mare Moonlight resting heavily and affectionately on his shoulder, he said, “Emerson, I think I know what is wrong with the motorcar. If we take off the other back wheel—”

“No time for that now,” Emerson said with a sigh. “Everything going all right here?”

“Yes, Emerson. I have followed your instructions to the letter. Daoud has been sifting the fill.”

“He doesn’t miss much,” Emerson agreed. “You said you had found something.”

“It is there.” Selim led them to an area west of the Ptolemaic temple. They had excavated part of it several years earlier, but it was a complex site, with the foundations of earlier temples intermingled and overlapping. An untrained eye would have seen only tumbled stones and hollows and hillocks.

“Here,” Selim said, pointing. “Someone has been digging.”

“Damnation.” Emerson leaned over the hole. “When?”

“Last night. It was not there yesterday.”

“Bastards,” said Emerson.

“If you are referring to our friends the local looters, they’ve been prying around this site for years,” Ramses said.

“Why now?” Emerson demanded.

“I wondered too,” said Selim, arms folded. “But I think the fools believe our possession of a golden statue has something to do with our work here.”

“Bloody idiots,” Emerson grunted. “Haven’t they heard the true story?”

“They have heard it but they do not believe it. Some people believe what they want to believe.”

“It’s understandable,” David said. “Didn’t the original rumors report an entire hoard of gold and jewels? The poor devils are under the impression that you’ve found a cache, or even a tomb. You can talk yourself blue in the face but you won’t convince them they’re wrong.”

“Try to convince them,” Emerson said to Selim. “You and Daoud. Otherwise the whole area will be torn to pieces.”

“We will do our best, Emerson, but David is in the right. Shall I have one of the men stay here at night?”

“Hmmm.” Emerson stroked his chin. “Yes. And fill in this hole.”

He spent an hour going over the notes Selim had taken, while the latter watched him nervously. His nod of approval and curt word of commendation brought a relieved smile to Selim’s face.

“I have taken photographs at every stage, Emerson,” he said.

“Good,” Emerson repeated. “I’ll send Bertie over tomorrow or next day to make plans.”

Leaving Selim to get on with the job, they started back along the long road to the Valley. It struck Ramses that his father had seemed a trifle subdued that morning—he hadn’t even cursed the vandals as eloquently as usual. “Is something bothering you, Father?” he asked.

Emerson gave him a blank look. “I thought you were going back to the house to get on with your translations.”

“Mikhail isn’t coming until after midday. I thought, since Mother isn’t with you today—”

“Oh. Good of you, my boy. I neglected to thank you for your sterling performance at the exorcism.”

“I enjoyed it,” Ramses admitted. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes. Er…yes—curse it!” Emerson burst out. “It was a joke, you know. Never meant anyone to take it seriously. Now the poor woman is dead, and I feel…well, I feel as if I had made a mockery of her and her fears.”

“No one else thinks that, Father.”

“I am not concerned about the opinions of others.” It was a characteristic response, but Ramses knew he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. His father left the lectures on morality to his wife, but he had his own standards and he tried harder than most men to live up to them.

“I’ll catch the bastard who killed her,” Emerson muttered. “Er—don’t repeat what I said to your mother. She’ll think me a sentimental fool.”

Ramses ventured to put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “She thinks you’re a great man. So do I.”

Emerson cleared his throat noisily. “I want to get that grid in the burial chamber today. See to it, my boy, will you?”

As the morning went on, more and more tourists arrived, and the majority of them stopped to watch, blocking the path and getting in everyone’s way. The news of Mrs. Petherick’s death had spread; several journalists were among the watchers, shouting questions and leaning over the parapet to point their cameras whenever anyone emerged from the tomb. Finally the inevitable happened; one of them leaned too far and toppled over the wall.

Emerson came running, took one look at the prostrate form, and began to swear. “Nefret!” he bellowed.

Ramses recognized the man as the same photographer who had been talking to Carla. He had fallen on his back, and his camera, by a strange piece of luck, appeared to be undamaged. Ramses stood by watching while Nefret examined the fellow.

“Nothing seems to be broken,” she announced. “Try to sit up, Mr.——?”

“Anderson.
The Daily Yell.
Professor, would you care to give me your theory—”

Emerson interrupted with a roar of fury. “One of Kevin O’Connell’s henchmen! I might have known. Is there no limit to what you people will do to get an interview?”

“Don’t you think I’m entitled to one?” Anderson remained recumbent. His smug smile reminded Ramses of O’Connell’s. “Your exorcism didn’t do the trick, did it? The black afrit has claimed another victim.”

For a moment Ramses was afraid he would have to restrain his father by main force. Emerson was only too accustomed to journalistic tricks, though. With an effort that left him shaking, he said, “No comment. Get up that ladder and make yourself scarce.”

Anderson lived up to the honored traditions of the profession; they had to pull him to his feet and shove him up the ladder into the grip of Hassan. His final shot was worthy of O’Connell himself. “I won’t sue, Professor, if you’ll give me ten minutes of your—ouch!”

“This is too bloody much,” Emerson declared. “From now on we work from six to nine in the morning and again in the late afternoon. Hassan, I want this pit roofed over. Now.”

“Are we going back to the house?” Nefret asked.

“May as well,” Emerson grumbled. “We’ll be followed by the horde if we go anywhere else. Ahmet, hop on over to the West Valley and tell Vandergelt Effendi I want to see him immediately.”

“Tell him we’d be delighted to have him come to the house for luncheon,” Nefret corrected.

“Oh. Yes,” said Emerson, rubbing his chin. “David, bring along that tray of odds and ends we found this morning. You can photograph and sketch them at the house.”

So far they hadn’t found much in the debris of the burial chamber, only a few beads and rotten scraps of wood, and a broken seal. A few of the spectators trailed them as far as the donkey park, but abandoned the chase when they mounted and urged the horses to a canter.

It was not long before Cyrus and his staff turned up. Emerson had been pacing up and down the veranda, hands behind his back, pausing every now and then to look out. He didn’t say so, but Ramses knew he was watching for his wife. The Petherick affair had touched his conscience and aroused his detectival instincts. He had been sincere when he swore he would find Mrs. Petherick’s killer.

“We met Ahmet at the entrance to the Valley,” Cyrus explained. “I was just about to send one of our fellows with a note. Seems there’s been a change in our plans.”

“Not at all,” said Emerson, accepting a cup of coffee from Fatima. “Er—somewhat. Too damned many people in the East Valley. A cursed journalist fell over the wall this morning.”

“Was he hurt?” Bertie asked.

“It was a stunt,” Emerson said disgustedly. “If he had really fallen he’d have landed on his head, not his backside. I can’t concentrate on work under those conditions.”

“It isn’t easy to concentrate with all these rumors flying around,” Cyrus said. “Is it true that the poor woman is dead?”

“That much at least is not rumor,” Emerson admitted. “How she died is as yet unknown. Peabody is in Luxor, harassing the police.”

“I figured she would be,” Cyrus said, suppressing a smile which would have been out of place. “There’ll have to be an autopsy, I suppose.”

“I have offered to perform it, if the authorities agree,” Nefret said.

Bertie let out a little murmur of protest.

“It’s my job, Bertie,” Nefret said. “Honestly, it doesn’t bother me.”

“No,” Jumana declared. “You do your job as a man would do it. Like me.”

“Go and do it, then,” said Emerson. He stood up and began pacing.

“You couldn’t move me with a block and tackle,” Cyrus said, leaning back in his chair. “I want to hear what Amelia has to say. Don’t try and tell me you aren’t as distracted as we are.”

“Bah,” said Emerson. He stared out along the road. “What the devil is keeping her?”

Knowing his mother, Ramses expected it would take her some time to finish “harassing” all and sundry. The sun had passed the zenith and Fatima was setting out a cold luncheon when she and Sethos arrived.

“Let’s have it, Amelia,” Cyrus demanded. “What’s the latest?”

“Let me see. Where to begin?”

“With the matter of greatest urgency, perhaps?” Nefret suggested. “The postmortem.”

Her mother-in-law patted her hand. “Of course, my dear. The Pethericks have agreed to it. After persuading them I stopped at the station and informed Inspector Ayyid. He would like you to do it this afternoon, so that she can be buried tomorrow.”

Nefret nodded and selected a cheese sandwich. Ramses swallowed and averted his eyes. He was accustomed to corpses, ancient and modern, but he would never get used to the idea of his beautiful elegant wife up to her wrists in blood and even more unpleasant fluids.