Carnarvon grinned broadly like the veritable Cheshire Cat. He was used to getting his way.
I felt a pressing need to lay down the law again. “Now... Before we investigate, some rules. Look before you take a step. We have only the one lamp. If the light be insufficient to show that the way is clear, do not take the step. Ask me to illuminate the area for you. Step only in areas where you can clearly see that the floor is clean even of debris. Touch nothing. Last, and most important take nothing. I must be allowed the time to accurately record everything we see in its original position.” Pointless my saying it, I know, but it had to be said.
I got down on my side and dragged myself through the low opening. Fragments of dried mud brushed onto my tweed clothing as I pulled myself through. I pushed the torch ahead of me.
As I looked ahead, the reflection from my torch temporarily blinded me. To my utter astonishment and delight, the illumination from the torchlight glared back from what appeared to be nothing less than a massive wall of beaten and engraved gold immediately in front of my face. I looked from side to side and up and down. The magnificent golden mural extended beyond my field of view in all directions. It was without question one of the outer walls of the shrine which should enclose the king’s sarcophagus and, hopefully still within it, his coffin set.
I was already in the burial chamber! I had Tutankhamen! The boy king lay within a foot or so of me! Can you imagine my excitement?
It suddenly dawned on me that I was forgetting my expectant colleagues. I pulled myself onward and inward only to discover I was about to fall. The floor of the burial chamber was deeper than that of the room I was entering from. I allowed myself to slide downward until I felt my outstretched fingers touch the chamber floor, and then walked along on my hands until the rest of my body was fully inside. This done, I sat upright and looked about myself to get my bearings.
There was a vessel just ahead on the floor and other objects beyond, but the area where I had settled was fortunately clear. I drew back a little and summoned the others to follow.
I could hear Carnarvon talking to Evelyn. “Never mind the dust, my dear. Frankly you are already pretty grubby. I will follow you directly.”
Evelyn was way beyond caring about her general appearance, never mind the state of her clothing. She prostrated herself, her hands grasping at the edges of the aperture, and began to drag herself through.
As her head appeared, I whispered to her, “We have already found the burial chamber. Mind the drop when you enter. There is precious little space between the wall and the shrine, and the floor of the room is about a yard below you.”
Since I had the torch pointed ahead of me, there was precious little light thrown behind my body, so on entering she must have found herself in almost total darkness. I moved on to the corner of the shrine and drew myself up to a standing position. With the torch held high above my head, I was able to illuminate the narrow passage Evelyn had been trying to negotiate in the darkness. While her skirt restricted her ability to manoeuvre, her more diminutive size permitted her much easier access than myself, and she was presently standing right beside me in the confined space.
Carnarvon’s head appeared at the aperture. “This is damned difficult for an infirm man, Howard. Give me a hand, will you?”
I must additionally confess that, in my state of euphoria at the time, I for once felt uncharitably disinclined to go to my patron’s aid. But I am glad to say that my inherent goodness triumphed over my bad side. I sidled along the wall until I was close to the earl and able to assist his lordship into the narrow gap between the flank of the golden shrine and the unyielding stone of the chamber wall. I helped Carnarvon to his feet.
“Where’s Callender?” said the earl, once he was vertical.
“Here! Stuck! Damnation!” The words came from the man himself, positioned about one quarter into the opening and with nowhere to go.
“Too damn fat! Sorry to have to admit it, old boy, but there it is. Can’t beat nature. Sins of gluttony have caught up with me at last, dammit. Too much beer and fish and chips!”
“Are you able to withdraw?” I called. It would have been more than embarrassing to
have been discovered here corked up, as it were, by my stuck fast colleague! “Of course, Howard. Don’t worry. I’ll keep watch with Adamson while you lot investigate. If I howl, you’d better come ascurrying.”
I think it was then that it finally dawned on Carnarvon. In his excitement, he hadn’t heeded the possibilities. What if we had been discovered in the act of opening the holy sepulchre? I, however, had already considered the consequences and discounted the risks. No one in authority was likely to venture into The Valley that evening. And Adamson would make sure that any casual passersby did just that, pass by.
“You shouldn’t concern yourself, m’lord,” I comforted. “I wouldn’t have made any attempt at this were there any risk of discovery. You need not worry... I am making my way toward the east end of the shrine. That is where the doors should be. We shall be able to see whether they remain sealed. Take the greatest care. I implore you... Do not to touch anything,” I repeated.
My two followers squeezed around the southeast corner, taking care not to brush against the painted wall and the side of the shrine, and to avoid some objects stacked against the wall. They were obliged to keep as close to me as they could. I held all the light they had to see by.
I could see another opening. “There is another low doorway around this corner, ahead and to our right. This one’s totally open. High enough to walk through as long as y’ stoop. Can’t quite see what might be in there yet but...” Just then I saw it. “Damn! Damn and blast!”
I knelt down and placed the torch upright on the floor. Hyperboles of light reflected brightly off the embossed gold sheeting covering the doors to the outer shrine. As I turned to my expectant colleagues, the golden light threw eerie, rippling shadows across their faces.
“Possibly bad news. No seals! There are no seals! Someone has opened the shrine in antiquity.” “Why don’t you withdraw the bolts and take a look inside, Howard?” Lady Evelyn, also crouching, was peering around her father’s flank.
“No, Lady Evelyn. We are taking sufficient risk as it is. I do not want to leave indelible marks that could betray our early entry. Let us just leave everything as we find it. We shall know these answers soon enough.”
I was more cross that things might be disturbed inside the shrine. But the body had to be there, unless the shrine had been built over an empty space. I recalled the empty coffin in the ‘Tomb of the Horse’. I shook my head in disbelief. This just could not happen to me again!
“Besides, whoever it was can’t have taken anything of any size through that small opening. Even we had trouble squeezing through it. Tutankhamen will be whole. I am certain of it. Providing he was put here in the first place!”
I began to find the old, stale atmosphere in the chamber uncomfortable to breathe and started coughing again. The noise echoed, it seemed to me, from everywhere. It startled my colleagues so much that Carnarvon jumped and Evelyn fell back onto her bottom, luckily onto nothing more than the dusty stone floor. I picked up the torch which Carnarvon had just kicked over and, bending down so I could see better, turned to look behind him into the additional room.
It was my turn to be startled. Right in front of me, no more than a yard from my face, and confronting me directly, was a somewhat larger than life-size black Anubis jackal covered in a dull, dusty and insect eaten shawl. Its head was in the style of the period erect and alert with enormous, gold tinted ears pointing vertically upward. The torchlight picked out the dark, obsidian eyes. They seemed to flash sternly back at me. I must have stood there transfixed for some seconds.
My impatient friends had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.
“Whatever is it, Howard?” Evelyn, heavily intoxicated with excitement, giggled in the darkness behind me.
“Come and look, Lady Evelyn, your lords
hip. We are confronted by the king’s guardian, Anubis. What a magnificent beast. His like I have only seen in a damaged and parlous state before that recovered from the tomb of Horemheb.”
Our eyes were by now well accustomed to the pale light thrown by the single torch, and we all could see quite plainly that in the room ahead of us the dog, lying prone on a shrine of its own, sat in guard on a host of objects of all shapes and sizes placed in orderly, serried ranks about the room. The most commanding object lay behind the dog the most beautiful creation I had ever set eyes on a large golden box framed within a gilded portico which rose almost to the ceiling. On its roof was a frieze of brightly coloured cobras, and facing each of the visible walls the slight, golden figure of a goddess with her arms outstretched in a gesture of protection. In front of this shrine stood the golden head of a bull with tall, upright, ebonised horns. Boxes and boats were stacked everywhere in profusion.
A truly fabulous treasure trove! We adventurous three stood in silent amazement.
As I carefully observed the entire room, I remained speechless. Eventually I drew breath to steady myself and gestured with my finger. “The canopic chest... A true treasury... Everything looks complete, if not a little rearranged... And no exit... I believe... Yes... This could be all there is.”
Carnarvon interjected curtly, “Just listen to yourself, Howard. That last comment of yours must go down in the history books as the greatest understatement of all time!”
“Bless my soul, sir! Well. Yes. That it probably is!” I quickly responded smiling.
Then, after a brief pause, I said, “My friends. Take the time to drink in this moment. You will never experience its like again.”
I was deadly serious. Surely they must have shared the sheer intensity of it discovery of this sacred place, its violation, the silent, illicit entry, sharing the stale air of millennia, the enormity of intimate contact with so distant and uncorrupted a past in recent times at least.
“Have a good, long look,” I continued, “at what it is you are seeing, your lordship, Lady Evelyn. Commit it to indelible memory. Remember for ever this first view. We shall not see this repeated within our lifetime... perhaps anybody’s lifetime.” I truly believed that, and still do.
So saying, with all the drama that this moment so excellently afforded, I raised the torch above my shoulder and behind my two craning companions so that its jaundiced light brushed the interior of the room before us.
There we surreptitious explorers stood, in absolute silence, viewing and reviewing the inventory of objects laid out before us. While Evelyn and her father individually picked out a few pieces of special interest and examined them in detail from a distance, I methodically registered each piece presented within my field of view.
There on the left, behind the figure of Anubis, stood rows of boxes probably containing jewellery and personal items of clothing and toilet. Many of the boxes appeared to have been opened at one time and hurriedly repacked the contents partially spilling from beneath the lids. Some lay open, their lids missing.
In the corner was a large model boat and, on the right of the canopic chest, multiple rows of wooden shrine caskets. There had to be figures inside. And stacked above them I could count eight, maybe nine more model boats. Then my eyes fell back on the chest and the gentle golden figures holding it in the protective embrace of their slender, extended arms. There were two figures visible, each facing inwards on the two visible walls of the shrine, each looking towards one corner. From where I was standing, they looked like they were both about three or four feet high. By the insignia on their heads, I could tell they represented the goddesses of the south and of the west. Their counterparts would stand likewise against the sides which were as yet hidden from us.
Our silence was broken by a distant, anxious voice. “Carter! Carnarvon! Lady Evelyn! Can anybody hear me?”
It was Callender.
“Of course, Pecky!” I yelled back with some irritation. I found the interruption irreverent. “What is it?” “Oh... nothing... Just wondered where the hell you’d all got to. It has been so quiet for so long. Thought you could have fallen down a well or something.”
I turned to my colleagues smiling. They all laughed. It was a blessed release to the tension that had gripped us all since we had first scrambled through that tiny opening into the king’s chamber. Callender’s concern was understandable.
“The tomb is small, Pecky. But the wonderful bounty continues! We’re on our way back. Be with you and relate what we have seen in a moment.”
I turned to his lordship. “We must not overstay our trespass, your lordship for trespass it surely is. I believe we have seen enough to be able to plan our investigation with some degree of accuracy. That is something which we should now set our minds to diligently and with some urgency these next few days. I can already see that our good fortune is to become an enormous duty. We are charged with the responsibility to complete our excavations here correctly, as befits the bounty so fortunately bestowed on us... If you both now would be good enough to return the way we came, I shall try to negotiate my way around the other side of the king’s shrine to see if there is another chamber. I’d rather you did not come with me, if you don’t mind. There are a lot of objects on the floor and more feet will only increase the risk of damage or dislodgement. I will meet you on the other side.”
Carnarvon and Evelyn reluctantly left me to rejoin Callender. I shone the way for them with my torch until both had disappeared through the robbers’ hole.
In picking my way carefully around the walls of the shrine, I found no evidence of further openings. For a moment I felt disappointment, but soon pulled myself together in rationalising my extreme good fortune. My lack of perspective was almost comical.
I returned to my colleagues by way of the small opening in the burial chamber wall.
“Nothing else. Just the one room.
“Come, help me, I have to replace the bricks. Gather up some straw, Lady Evelyn. We must cover up evidence of the breach. The place has to appear undisturbed. Pecky, pass me that raffia basket lid, please.”
I placed the raffia lid over the hole and piled some dried reeds around it. After making a quick note of their position, I pushed some small alabaster vessels in amongst the straw to give the illusion of original chaos. We removed all traces of our footprints by brushing the floor of the chamber with our hands and, one by one, we clambered through the hole in the antechamber doorway and back into the entrance corridor.
I felt much like a naughty boy exiting the apple orchard with my hoard. I daresay the others felt much the same. The illicit intrusion had been wonderful but, I confess, emotionally exhausting. There was the added physical fatigue. The sense of relief at being once more outside... It was overwhelming.
He tightened his grip on the little horse and raised his eyes to stare up at the ceiling. The room had darkened about him. It had become almost ebony black. He felt heavy, as heavy as that brick on the mantelpiece, but at the same time warm, comfortably warm. A sense of peaceful satisfaction descended on him. His eyelids fluttered for a moment and then closed.
Then, in the darkness, like diamonds, a few bright stars began to sparkle. There was a pattern to them. He recognised it immediately. It was the constellation of Orion. As he watched, the envelope of the seven stars loomed above him... ever larger... ever brighter. As they grew nearer, he began to make out a figure standing within the central star. The figure was dressed in brilliant white linen which tightly conformed to the shape of its body. On its head it wore a tall, white crown. In its clasped hands, crossed against its chest, it held the emblems of kingship. Gradually it grew closer, finally enclosing him in its comforting celestial embrace...
Putney Vale Cemetery, 19th April, 1939...
It is a fresh, sunbathed April day. New growth pushes up through the ground everywhere. Blossoms fill the trees. Flowers of all colours line the cultivated borders of the parks. The air is filled with birdsong. It is one of those
days when, no matter what your troubles, it feels good to be a part of the boundless energy all about you.
She had returned to plant some more permanent blossoms on his grave. The remains of the bouquets, limp and curled in on themselves by a late frost, lie in tatters over the low mound. She clears away the dead material and, using a trowel she had brought in a carrier bag, she makes a number of holes in the earth. She plants the bulbs, carefully pressing them into the soft soil and thinly covering them. She weeds the remainder of the area and stands back to regard her accomplishment. ‘Next year, it will look much nicer,’ she thought.
“Miss Dalgliesh!”
The call is from her left, within the walls of the graveyard. Startled to hear her name called out, she turns in the direction of the sound.
Two gentlemen emerge from beneath the low hanging branches of a mature copper beech.
“H’it is Miss Dalgliesh, is it not?”
She is a little apprehensive at first but her face soon lights up with a broad smile of recognition. “Bless my soul, Sergeant Adamson! It is so good to see you. What a most pleasant surprise. He will be so happy you are here.” She looks in the direction of the grave.
The two walk up to her.
“Miss Dalgliesh, may h’I introduce Father Seamus. A h’old acquaintance of poor Mr Carter.”
“Father Seamus,” she acknowledges. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure...”
“Oi’m most pleased t’ meet you after all this toime, Miss Dalgliesh. Howard spoke of you so often. Oi ’ave come to know y’ well Oi t’ink.”
Dorothy expresses her embarrassment with a nervous nod.
“Happy he may be to see us, Miss Dalgliesh, t’ be sure, but Oi’m unhappy in meself for not being d’ one t’ administer his last roights, as ’twere.”
“Frankly, Father, I don’t think he needed them. I hope I don’t offend by saying so but perhaps, knowing him as you did, you will understand my meaning.”
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