Harriet gazed at the hieroglyphs for a few more moments and then, taking pen in hand, began to transcribe the figures onto the white paper on the clipboard. Her hand moved with a slow precision and her tongue insinuated its tip out of the side of her mouth as she concentrated. She seemed oblivious to the noise of screeching nails and splintering wood as Will Foster and Gus Rudd reduced another of the crates to kindling wood. She paused in her writing and glanced back and forth from the paper to the lid, as if to verify the accuracy of her transcription. Then she removed the paper and handed it to Sawhill. She placed another piece of paper onto the clipboard and began to transcribe another line of hieroglyphs.
Sawhill looked at the paper in his hand and read:
"Honey?" he asked.
"Hmmm?" She was busily transcribing the second line. "What does this say?"
"Hmmm?"
"What does this say? This first transcription."
She glanced at the page he held. "Sahu Sekhemibf ab 'Anpuf neter khen ua 'amth abu." His laughter distracted her from her transcription, and she asked irritably, "What's so funny?"
"I don't mean how does it read in Egyptian," he laughed. "I can read the vocalization myself. I mean, what does it mean, in English."
"Oh, Lord, I'm sorry," she said. She shook her head as if to clear it. "I wasn't paying attention to what you said. It means, 'The body, or mummy, of Sekhemib, the priest of the god Anubis, a prophet among the priests'."
He emitted a low whistle. "Sounds like an important fellow."
She nodded doubtfully. "Could be. But if he was, I can't understand why he was buried in a wooden sarcophagus."
"What does the rest of it say?"
"Patience, my dear, patience." She returned to her work as he watched her with interest and amusement. After a few moments she handed him the second piece of paper.
"And this line? What does it mean?"
She sighed. "It means, 'Homage to you, Anubis, lord of the gods."
Her tone of voice surprised him. "You don't sound happy with this text. What's wrong?"
She thought for a moment. "Let me put it this way. You've read some classical mythology, right?"
"Sure."
"I mean, you know something about the Greek and Roman gods, don't you?"
"Of course. Just general knowledge, of course, but—"
"Okay. Let's say that we were translating a text from what we thought was an ancient Greek hymn, and we came across the line 'Praise to you, Poseidon, king of the gods.' Would that strike you as strange?"
"Sure it would, because he was the god of the sea. Zeus was the king of the gods." He paused as what she was saying dawned on him. "You mean—"
"Right. Anubis was the god of the grave. Ra, or later Amon-Ra, was the chief deity in the Egyptian pantheon. I've read thousands of texts in graduate school, and never, not once, have I ever read anything which described Anubis as the lord of the gods."
Sawhill considered this for a moment. "What do you think it means?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure. You know I tend to be pessimistic."
"Well, what might it mean, then. Speculate."
Harriet thought for a moment. "It could mean an unauthentic sarcophagus. It might be an error made by the mason. It might be a special compliment given to Anubis by his priest, though I doubt it. Or . . ." She paused.
"Or what?"
Harriet glanced over at Roderick, who was trying to avoid flirting with Suzanne. Satisfied that he was out of earshot, she said, "Or this whole damn thing might be a fraud."
"You're kidding!" Sawhill was astounded. "Who would try such a gambit? I mean, they have to know that the exhibits would be examined by someone who could spot a fraud."
She nodded in agreement. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" She paused for a moment. "Look, I don't want to jump to conclusions here. Let me finish the transcriptions and then examine the contents. Even if the coffin is not authentic, that doesn't meant that the mummy isn't." She paused. "If there's a mummy in there, I mean."
He smiled. "I thought you weren't going to jump to conclusions!"
She shook her head. "I'm not, I'm not. Let me get back to this."
A few more increasingly tense moments passed. Then Harriet tossed the next piece of paper to him and said, "This is nuts!" He looked at the page and read:
"This is nuts!" she repeated.
"Why? What's it say?"
"It's a question and an answer. He says to Anubis, 'What is my duration, Anubis?' In other words, 'How long do I have to live?' The answer is 'Millions of years, a life of millions of years.'"
"And that's wrong? I mean, what makes you seem so upset by this? Is it an unusual prayer, or what?"
Harriet sighed. "This is a very famous quotation from the Papyrus of Ani, the Book of the Dead. But in the book it is the god Thoth who is asked this question, not Anubis. Anubis is a death god, not a life god." She shook her head again. "It’s a hodgepodge. Ra's titles, a prayer to Thoth, all recast to Anubis. "
"But he's a priest of Anubis, right? I mean, he was one, right? Isn't it reasonable to think that he would only have prayers and references to Anubis on his coffin?"
She was growing irritated. "I know you're trying to help, Tom, but don't speculate like that. Egyptian religion didn't work that way. It didn't make any difference whose priest or priestess someone was. You just don't shift things around like this. They just didn't operate that way. Believe me!" Her last few words were snapped out.
"I believe you, I believe you. Don't get mad at me, Harriet. I didn't write it!"
She rubbed her eyes and then scratched her forehead. "I'm sorry, Tommy. I really am. It's just that—" she sighed, "something just doesn't feel right about this."
"Well, the mummies are the important things, right? Why don't you just skip the transcriptions and examine the mummy?"
She smiled. "Because there are proper procedures in archeology, just like medicine. Besides, the lid of this particular sarcophagus is unusually sparse, and there's nothing on the sides. There's some sort of circular design on the lid I want to copy. I've never seen anything like it."
"Is it another problem?"
She laughed. "I hope not. I don't think so. Let me copy it, and then we can open the sarcophagus and see what we have."
Sawhill looked over her shoulder and watched as she drew. Harriet was muttering unintelligibly to herself all the while, shaking her head, with a look of the utmost concern on her face. She carefully drew a circle, as it stood on the lid, and copied in the hieroglyphs.
"Well? Problem?" Sawhill asked.
"Not exactly," Harriet replied. "I just don't understand the meaning of this particular series of figures."
"You mean you're unfamiliar with them?"
"Well, the top three, Anpu ankh Anpu, literally mean Anubis life Anubis.' But that doesn't mean anything, syntactically or logically."
"Could be a prayer, or a bit of praise. No?"
"Possible. I don't know."
"What about the bottom figure?"
She shook her head. "It looks familiar, but I can't quite place it. I'll have to look it up in my copy of Gardiner's Grammar. It must not appear in the standard texts with any great frequency." She sighed. "Oh, well, we'll see." She looked up. "Are you ready for the unveiling?"
Sawhill nodded enthusiastically. "I sure am. Your fascination with this stuff is contagious. I'm dying to see what's inside."
Harriet turned from the sarcophagus to the other people in the room. Will and Gus had just finished tearing down the wooden planks which made up the third of the crates. Four more remained in the truck. Suzanne and Roderick were off in a corner, he attempting to amuse himself by examining the other exhibits in the museum, she trying desperately to awaken some spark of interest in him. Sam Goldhaber, having used up a roll of film, was reloading his camera. "Folks," Harriet said in a low voice, "we're going to open the first sarcophagus now, if any of you are interested."
They gathered around her immediately, Rode
rick with somewhat less alacrity than the others. Having already opened this particular coffin, he was less than eager to review its contents. But the inbred dictates of class and social station demanded politeness, and he feigned interest.
"Now, I'm not sure what we'll find in here," Harriet began. "I think we can assume that the body is in a state of decay. I'm pretty sure that this sarcophagus is made of some sort of wood, not stone, and a conclusion we can draw from this is that the mummification procedure used here was either inferior or rushed. Couple that with at least a century of storage in a climate much more damp and cold than Egypt, and we have a situation not at all conducive to preservation." As he listened to her speak, Sawhill got the impression that she was speaking pessimistically so as to dim her own hopes. The lower you are, the less far you have to fall, he thought.
The doubts she had expressed on the basis of the inscriptions disturbed him. He had no particular interest in Egypt or archeology, but he had a deep and abiding interest in Harriet Langly. He knew that she had built up her hopes regarding this purchase, that it represented to her a major opportunity in the career she had always wanted but never really been able to have. If the sarcophagus is empty, if the mummy decayed, if there is fraud or even innocent misrepresentation—if any of these conditions exist, the disappointment will crush her. He found himself holding his breath.
"Will, Gus, will you lift the lid?" Harriet asked. "Be careful. It's heavy." Roderick knew that it was not, but he held his tongue. Will Foster and Gus Rudd moved to either side of the sarcophagus and, bracing themselves, pushed in and up against the lid. It sprang up into the air and fell, clattering loudly, onto the floor.
"Hey, Dr. Langly, I'm sorry," Gus said.
"Yeah. Shit, that was as light as balsa wood," Will added. "We're sorry, ma'am." Harriet did not reply. "Ma'am?" She seemed not to hear him.
She was staring at the mummy.
It was perfect.
Sekhemib, the priest of Anubis, "a prophet among the priests," was just a shade over six feet tall. He was wrapped in the traditional burial linen, which was yellowed, faded, rotting, but his body appeared to be completely intact. The linen had adhered to his face and hands, and the contours of his countenance were clearly visible through the thin, decaying cloth. His brow was high and his nose hawklike. His lips were thin and wide, his shoulders broad and regal. His powerful-looking arms were folded across his muscular chest. In life, Harriet thought, he must have been an impressive man, majestic and lordly.
She allowed her eyes to drift over her exhibit from head to foot, and then she noticed a yellow disc resting on the floor of the coffin just beside the mummy's head. She reached in carefully, not wishing to touch the exhibit or in any way disturb it until it had been properly photographed. She knew from her studies that while the complex embalming methods of the ancients preserved the body, the linen in which it was wrapped became very delicate and prone to disintegration over the millennia. So as she reached in and grasped the yellow disc, she took care not to allow her hand to brush against the head of the long dead priest.
She held up the yellow disc. It was a medallion upon which had been engraved the same four hieroglyphs which were enclosed in the circle upon the lid. Everyone in the room had the same unspoken thought. Gold. It must be gold.
Harriet Langly leaned slowly, almost reverently forward and gazed down at the priest of Anubis. She stared enraptured into the dusty face and whispered, "My God! He's beautiful!" No one laughed at the statement, for it seemed in some strange way to be true.
A loud voice broke into the silence. "GET AWAY FROM THERE!"
They spun around toward the voice and saw a small olive-skinned man walking quickly into the room. Harriet, startled, stepped away from the sarcophagus, and the man positioned himself between it and her, his stance and aspect bespeaking protectiveness and possession. He turned to Roderick. "Are you the Earl of Selwyn?"
Roderick seemed taken aback. "Yes. Who the devil are you?"
He inclined his head in a curt bow. "I am Ahmed Hadji, Your Lordship. You cannot sell these mummies. There has been a terrible mistake!"
CHAPTER 4
Jasper Rudd leaned tiredly against the side of the truck and glanced at his watch. Where the hell are Will and Gus? he thought irritably. They have four more of these damn things to unload before we can get out of here. He had no objection to lending an element of security to the delivery—indeed, he rightly regarded it as part of his job—but he abhorred time wasted. He shook his head sadly as he considered his younger brother. Nice kid, but never able to do anything right. God only knows what Gus would have done if Jasper had not been able to get him a job as his deputy. The town council had not been too pleased with the idea when Jasper suggested it, especially considering Gus's dishonorable discharge from the Navy and the fact that he had washed out of the StatePoliceAcademy, but Jasper's highly satisfactory tenure as police chief had made them willing to wink at their doubts and the obvious nepotism. Ever since he had been hired, Gus had knocked himself out to do a great job, but his performance was only passable. Jasper shook his head again. Where the hell is he?
The sound of a gunshot answered his question. Drawing his service revolver, Jasper ran to the museum, his adrenaline pumping. He had seen the diminutive stranger enter a few minutes earlier and had given it no thought. Perhaps he should have questioned him. This was but a passing thought, for all of Jasper's years of combat and law enforcement experience had taught him the futility of hindsight. He was, as if a switch had been thrown, now the consummate professional responding to the sound of the gunshot as a race horse would to the sound of the bell.
He rushed into the museum, ready for anything, and found the eight people standing as if in shock amid the dust of floating plaster. Gus was standing in the midst of them, smiling with self-satisfaction. "What's going on here?" Jasper demanded, breathing heavily, his gun still drawn.
"Everything's under control, Chief," Gus said. "These folks were getting into a pretty heavy argument here, and I decided I had better settle them down before things got out of hand."
Jasper looked up at the hole in the ceiling, and down at the rubble of plaster and paint on the floor right beneath it. "So you took a shot in the air?"
"Yup." Gus grinned.
"You fucking asshole!" Jasper bellowed. "Where the hell do you think you are, in a goddamned Western?!" The grin departed from Gus's mouth immediately. "You discharged a firearm in an enclosed room filled with unarmed civilians just to stop an argument?! What the hell's the matter with you?"
Gus was crushed. "Gee, Jasper, I just thought—"
"Shut up!" he snapped. Turning to Sam Goldhaber, he asked, in a more civil, though authoritative, tone, "What's the problem here?"
Goldhaber pointed to the small man facing him. "This person says he has a legal claim on the exhibits."
"It is true," Hadji replied. "I am Ahmed Hadji, of the Egyptian National Institute of Reclamation. I contacted Lord Selwyn's solicitor in London and concluded an agreement for the repossession of these mummies on behalf of the institute."
"But that's impossible," Suzanne countered. "I worked out the details of the sale with Mr. Pearson myself, not one week ago. He never said anything about a Mr. Hadji or any institute!"
"Nevertheless, I am here to claim rightful possession of these exhibits, as you call them. I was unable to reach HeathrowAirport in time to stop their removal from England, but I was able to get here before any damage was done to them. I now demand that they be turned over to me." He drew himself up haughtily.
Jasper suppressed a laugh. "What do you plan on doing, carrying them out of here?"
Hadji flushed at the sarcasm. "I shall make arrangements for their return to Egypt as soon as this matter is settled. You are obviously a law enforcement official. I demand that you assist me in claiming my property."
"Uh-huh," Jasper said, not at all impressed with the imperious manner of the stranger. "You know this guy, Earl?" he asked Roder
ick.
He shrugged. "No I don't, actually."
"Uh-huh," Jasper repeated. "You got a bill of sale?" he asked Hadji.
"Well, no," Hadji replied. "The documents were to be signed by His Lordship once the negotiations were completed."
"The negotiations have been completed!" Harriet said loudly and with great agitation, tinged with fear that she would lose possession of the exhibits. "I completed negotiations with Mr. Pearson myself, on the phone."
"The phone!" Hadji laughed derisively. "You don't even know if you spoke with Mr. Pearson. You don't even know the man."
"Well, His Lordship knows him," Suzanne said. "Why would he be here, if we hadn't completed a deal with his lawyer?"
"Beside the point," Hadji waved his hand in dismissal. "How much did these people offer you for the mummies?"
"Well, I'm not certain. I don't quite remember," Roderick replied.
"We have a firm agreement of thirty-five thousand dollars for the entire group," Suzanne reminded him.
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