Mummy Dearest

by Joan Hess

  I stepped out of plucking range. “You found something in Nabil’s pocket?”

  “It may prove to be of the greatest importance,” she said. “It will have to be verified, of course, but if it’s authentic …” Overwhelmed by well-disguised emotion, she took a sip of sherry. “It’s known as a shabti or shawabti, a small servant statue buried with a deceased person of importance. It’s in the shape of a mummiform coffin, with the arms folded over the chest, and made of a paste called faience that’s glazed and fired. This one is missing the head, but the cartouches on the front appear to bear the nomen and prenomen of Ramses VIII. His tomb has never been discovered.”

  “You know a lot about Egyptology,” I said.

  “My aunt made sure of that. There were days in my childhood when I was not allowed out of my room until I deciphered pages and pages of hieroglyphs. I kept a packet of biscuits in my wardrobe to tide me over.” Her short laugh held such bitterness that I flinched. “None of us has a perfect childhood, but enough of that. We Scots are a sturdy, uncomplaining lot. Would you like to see the shabti?”

  “Yes,” I said, unnerved by her rapid transitions.

  I followed her to the group still huddled around the coffee table. The object of their attention, placed reverently on a pristine handkerchief, was about four inches long. A few patches of color beneath the grime indicated it had been blue. It was chipped and worn, and headless. Lady Emerson accepted a magnifying glass from Lord Bledrock and leaned forward, her mouth tight with concentration.

  “Yes, Neville,” she murmured. “Definitely Akhenamon’s name in the cartouche. This must be from the tomb of Ramses VIII. His prenomen is unique.”

  Shannon grabbed the magnifying glass. “My lovely shabti,” she cooed. “This little man, this treasure, will bring us all the financial backing we’ll ever need to continue the excavation. My articles will be the lead story in all the prestigious journals, and I’ll be in demand to do presentations at conferences worldwide.”

  “Your lovely shabti?” Magritta said from behind Lord Bledrock’s chair. “The Egyptian authorities may disagree. It won’t end up in your college’s collection.”

  Shannon sneered at her. “I wasn’t planning to steal it, Magritta. I, for one, have a reputation to uphold.”

  “And I don’t?”

  “Well,” murmured Shannon, feigning tactfulness, “you know how important it is to maintain a daily log and document the progress. Your reports are, shall we say, sporadic and uninformative. MacLeod College has a lot at stake here. I believe it’s time for me to take charge of the concession. You’ll still handle the daily, manual aspects of the excavation, naturally. Wallace can continue to take photographs in the old-fashioned manner, but newspapers and journals require digital photographs these days. Jess will handle that.”

  “As you wish,” Wallace said, his face sagging. “I’m too old to learn how to use these newfangled gizmos. Can’t figure out all those buttons. You and I are dinosaurs, Magritta, a species on the edge of extinction. Just as well Oskar’s not here to share our fate.”

  Magritta stomped to the bar. After a moment, Wallace went out to the balcony, where I dearly hoped he was not considering an unobtrusive descent. Those remaining around the coffee table resumed fighting for the magnifying glass. Mrs. McHaver ordered Miriam to fetch a book from their room. Lord Bledrock started to pick up the shabti, but Lady Emerson rapped his knuckles. There was definitely a squabble brewing, and it had potential to escalate into a brawl.

  I returned to the bar and poured myself a glass of water. “Where’s Samuel?” I asked Peter. “I saw him coming here earlier.”

  “He stayed for a few minutes, then left. He had the right idea. I think I’d better go to the hospital. The doctor seemed to think Nabil will survive, although he may not regain consciousness immediately. The blood work will show if he has amphetamines in his system. As you said, it’s peculiar that he would take something on his way here.”

  “Nabil would never take drugs,” Magritta inserted coldly. “Oskar hired him when we first came out here, and promoted him to head of the crew twenty years ago. We had meals at his home and attended his daughters’ weddings. Over the years, Nabil has dismissed workers for even the smallest infractions. Excavations are dangerous sites. Sloppiness can result in bad falls or dislodge stones on those in the bottom of the pit. There is no workmen’s compensation in this country. If these men are unable to work, they cannot support their families.”

  I felt as though I’d been accused of failing to provide health care and fair labor practices. “Yes, I can understand the importance of keeping a clear head on the job. May I ask you about this step that was uncovered in the last few days? I was told it might suggest a link to King Tut’s tomb.”

  “Ah, that,” she said, refilling her glass with gin and taking a gulp. “There are some similarities, but it’s far from conclusive. I have seen steps like this before, and they have led to nothing more than a room filled with debris. It is typical even at construction sites in this day for the builders to dispose of the waste near the primary site. The shabti is a different matter. It would never have been discarded.”

  “And it’s from a royal tomb,” said Peter, who clearly had been doing more than observing the scene. I felt a wave of wifely pride at his ability to eavesdrop and quite possibly read lips in such an unobtrusive manner. If that sort of thing was taught at spy camp, I was sure he must have earned the highest grade in the class.

  “They were put in the tombs,” Magritta said, as though speaking to a class of first-grade children, “often dozens of them, to aid the pharaoh in the next life.”

  My pride was replaced with annoyance at her tone. I held back a sudden urge to shake her and point out that although she and the others might be well versed in ancient Egyptian funerary rituals, none of them could decipher an ISBN number or track down an out-of-print book for a valued customer. Peter could interpret blood splatters with his eyes closed. They would be lost if confronted with a corpse that had not been dead for less than three thousand years.

  Peter grimaced at me as he left. I stuck a piece of pita in my mouth and chewed it intently. Magritta took the opportunity to slosh more gin in her glass. “What puzzles me,” she went on, as though she still had an enthralled audience, “is… well, it’s hard to say. Even with the rubble, the workmen have keen eyesight. This afternoon was chaotic, though. The people in this room, colleagues from nearby sites, and an underling from the Supreme Council of Antiquities—in and out of the pit to observe the step. We must have served tea to three dozen people. That horrid Sittermann stomped around, making ignorant remarks. Miss Cordelia had too much sun and had to be carried back to the guardhouse amidst great flutter. Lady Emerson claimed the step was meaningless, that she’d seen countless of them over the years. The workmen had to squirm past an endless stream of gawkers to get up to the top with their carriers.”

  “You’re wondering why nobody saw the shabti?”

  “We’re lucky nobody stepped on it. The obvious explanation is that Nabil found it after we quit work this afternoon. He often lingers in order to tidy up the day’s progress and make sure that the equipment is stored safely. Some of the workmen are too eager to leave and forget to put away their tools. The canvas barriers are meant only to keep back tourists during the day. Some of them have been known to come right up to the edge of the pit to take photographs, endangering themselves as well as those of us below.”

  “If Nabil did a last-minute inspection, he must have uncovered the shabti and raced here to show it to you. He was so excited that his blood pressure shot up. By the time he reached this suite, he was probably already having a heart attack.”

  She was still frowning. “Yes, that makes sense. It would take him some time to walk to the main road and catch a bus to the pier. The ferries are crowded late in the afternoon, and Nabil is too courteous to push others aside. He also might have had trouble when he finally arrived at the hotel. He would not have been al
lowed to go through the lobby and take the elevator. He must have been beside himself by the time he found the service entrance and made it up here to the third floor. All that while he had the shabti in his pocket, glowing like an ember.” She brushed away a tear. “Such a devoted friend, so fierce and loyal.”

  “How did he know you were here?” I asked.

  “This afternoon Lord Bledrock invited all of us, and I didn’t feel as though I could decline. He and Mrs. McHaver have provided most of the financing for the last several years. One doesn’t bite the proverbial hand.”

  “Mrs. McHaver? I thought she was… less than wealthy.”

  Magritta glanced over my shoulder. “She pretends to have a limited income, but a lot of antiquities leave the country in crates that arrived full of bottles of scotch. Expensive baubles, some with proper papers and others without.”

  “From the black market?” I said, flabbergasted. “That prim Scottish lady? I can picture her striding across the moors or having a row with the vicar about the sinful ways of the village youth, but …” I forced myself not to turn around and stare at Mrs. McHaver as if she’d been exposed as a serial killer. “She’s an avid collector, like Lord Bledrock?”

  “No,” Magritta said. “She’s a dealer with an international reputation—in certain circles, that is. Nabil has told me that she is very generous with workmen at many excavations, giving them regular payments to keep her informed. Sometimes smaller artifacts have vanished from these very sites before they were cataloged. I do my best to stay next to her when she comes to my site, and Nabil has instructions to keep my crew away from her.”

  “Does Shannon know this?”

  “I suspect she’s heard rumors, but Mrs. McHaver donates a goodly amount of money every year. Without private funding, most colleges would have to give up their concessions. The Egyptian government doesn’t have the financial resources to protect all the present and future sites, much less the current inventory. Most of what is sent to the Cairo Museum ends up in warehouses, which are systematically looted by thieves. Who knows what would have happened to the Rosetta Stone had it not been sent to the British Museum? The Egyptians are still irate over the matter. I am not entirely unsympathetic to either side’s position.”

  I was hoping I was not doomed to argue the merits of colonialism when an obstreperous argument broke out around the table. It seemed to concern whether the shabti should technically be called a ushabati or a shawabti. I nodded at Magritta and slipped out the door.

  When I arrived at the Presidential Suite, I made sure the door from the girls’ bedroom to the hallway was locked. I glumly noted the clothes strewn on the floor and the half-emptied suitcases. Dresser drawers were open, their contents jumbled. Plastic shopping bags were piled on the dresser and on chairs, along with books, magazines, water bottles, and empty candy boxes. Inez’s stack of books was daunting, but I found The Savage Sheik next to the bed and took it with me. It had not been in good condition when Inez had chanced across it in a used-book store, and the yellowed pages were likely to come loose from the binding before we’d all finished reading it. I smiled as I imagined countless repressed English ladies gasping as they savored every word of it, then hiding it in a cupboard whenever proper company arrived.

  I was curled on the sofa, engrossed in the sheik’s sardonic smirk as he recaptured his victim at an oasis for the third or fourth time, when Caron and Inez returned. Inez took immediate refuge in their bedroom.

  “I have never been so humiliated in my life!” Caron said, staring at me. “When’s the next flight home? I don’t care if I have to wait all night at the airport. Tell Bakr I’ll be packed and ready to leave in an hour.”

  “Because I was in the lobby earlier?” I said. “I didn’t go there to check on you, dear. It’s complicated, but—”

  “You could have danced through the lobby with a flower in your navel, for all I care. That Is Not what I’m talking about.”

  “Would you care to tell me what you are talking about?”

  “Just forget it—okay?” She flounced into the bedroom. Seconds later, the bathroom door slammed. Seventeen, going on seven.

  Peter showed up just as I was ready to give up on him and call room service. Neither Caron nor Inez voiced interest in dinner, so Peter and I went across the corniche to the row of cafés alongside the Nile.

  Once we’d ordered, I asked him about Nabil.

  “Still alive, but in intensive care,” he said, “and his heart attack was brought on by an overdose of a methamphetamine. Mahmoud sent some of his officers to locate the other workmen on the crew and find out if that sort of thing has been going on behind Magritta’s back. It’s a hard job, loading the carriers and hauling up the rocks to be screened. Six days a week, for a meager salary. Most of them sleep in a makeshift camp outside Gurna and only go home to their villages when they have a couple of days off.”

  “Maybe the younger men use drugs, but it’s hard to imagine someone like Nabil risking it, or even condoning it.”

  Peter waited as our food was served. “Have I eaten today? I don’t remember.”

  “Not since breakfast on the boat,” I said, watching him attack the chicken and couscous. I ate a few bites, then gazed at the feluccas as they glided by, their sails catching the last rays as the sun disappeared behind the mountains. The metal ships at the pier had not yet begun to glitter with party lights. The café patrons were muted, too weary from an arduous day of sightseeing to bestir themselves to make idle chatter. Since we were below street level, the noise from the traffic was less bothersome.

  When Peter finished and sat back, I said, “Any news about Buffy?”

  “Sittermann was right about the information on her passport. She had to show a birth certificate to get the passport, and she has a Social Security number, but her home address is bogus. By tomorrow, we’ll know if she’s ever been enrolled in any of the colleges or universities in California. None of the study-abroad programs in Rome have heard of her.”

  “There might be some clues in her suitcases in the hotel basement,” I volunteered virtuously. “Like, say, postcards that had to have been sent to an address somewhere, and possibly a letter that refers to a hotel in Paris.”

  His expression iced over. “And you know this because …?”

  A reasonable question. “Shall we have coffee?” I said.

  “You went through her suitcases in the basement of the hotel?”

  “The ice cream is supposed to be quite good. Why don’t you catch the waiter’s eye? I’d like to see a dessert menu.”

  “When did you do this?” He looked away for a moment. “After you went to call Mahmoud. Now why would you think her suitcases were there?” He held up his hand before I could reply. To my relief, the waiter noticed and appeared at the table. He gathered up our dishes, then put menus on the table and waited.

  “Pistachio mint,” I said after a moment, “and coffee.”

  “Nothing,” growled the love of my life. He looked so perturbed that I was afraid one of us might end up treading water shortly. “Did Samuel tell you this?”

  “It was a logical deduction. When Salima showed up and asked about Buffy, I told her. She suggested that we go have a look, but I could have refused. I was only trying to be helpful, Peter. You had to stay in Lord Bledrock’s suite to make sure they didn’t heave the body off the balcony because it was inconveniently located. If we hadn’t gotten locked in, I would have gone back up to the front desk and called you.” And I would have, sooner or later, I thought, avoiding his cold stare.

  “Locked in.” It wasn’t even a question.

  “Not with evil intent. An employee walked by, saw the padlock, and snapped it closed.”

  “That must have been a challenge for the renowned Miss Marple of Farberville. Am I to expect a charge for damages to the door when we check out?”

  I laughed gaily. “Heavens no. I may be more curious than the average citizen, but I am opposed to vandalism. There’s no excuse f
or it, under any circumstances. Those who destroy private property deserved to be prosecuted and forced to make full reparations. Do you remember when some criminal sprayed an obscenity on the side of the Book Depot? I demanded a full investigation, but the officer—”

  “How did you get out?”

  His single-mindedness was beginning to exasperate me. However, after noting that his hands were throttling the armrests of the chair, I said, “Sittermann. He must have been following us. We all agreed it was prudent to go up to the lobby before more employees arrived, but while I was calling you, he vanished. I had no idea he was back in Luxor. There’s something very screwy about him, Peter. He could be watching us through binoculars from his hotel room right this minute. I think you should have Mahmoud take him into custody and interrogate him.”

  “He’s not staying at the Winter Palace,” Peter said wryly, “nor was he before the cruise. Mahmoud has already queried all the hotels in and around Luxor. He must be holed up in a private residence.”

  “Or under a rock. There are a lot of rocks around here, in case you haven’t noticed.” I spooned up a bite of ice cream. “He behaved as if he were staying at the hotel. When he took it upon himself to throw the party in our suite, he arranged for the food and alcohol …” I watched the ice cream dribble back into the dish. “And it’ll be on our bill. He didn’t sign the tab in the bar earlier, either. What an arrogant toad he is.”

  “With access to the room where Buffy’s suitcases are stored.”

  “He either has a key or knows how to pick locks,” I said. “Not only an arrogant toad, but a sneaky one as well.”

  Peter pushed back his chair and put a thick stack of pound notes on the table. “You can order coffee when we get back to the suite. I need to have Mahmoud send someone to stand outside that door in the basement the rest of the night. You might have mentioned this earlier, Claire.”

  I followed him to the street. Rather than gallantly offer his arm to assist me, he left me on the curb and dodged cabs across the corniche. It was, I thought with a sigh, better than being left at the altar.