The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  Ankh-Wadjet had been returned to it the previous night, and now lay inside with only the lid left to replace. Those present murmured in approval at the scenes on the sides of the coffin depicting the deceased making offerings to various deities. Every scene was brightly coloured in reds and blues on a yellow background. At the foot of the coffin, facing everyone, were depictions of the Gods Amun, Tefnut, Nefertem and Bennu. All providing the protection of magic for the Day of Judgment to the body within. Harkhuf fervently prayed for the same sort of protection for himself.

  Wephopte intoned the final incantation, as Harkhuf anointed the bandaged body with a mixture of myrrh, cassia, gelatine and resin.

  “If you love life, O Horus, upon his life staff of truth,

  Do not lock the gates of heaven,

  Do not bolt its bars,

  After you have taken Ankh-Wadjet’s ka into heaven,

  Clad in red linen,

  Living on figs,

  Drinking wine,

  Anointed with unguent,

  That it may speak for her to the great god

  Let Ankh-Wadjet ascend to the great god!”

  The two Nubians were induced to lift the heavy lid into place, which they did with rippling muscles and stunning ease. Suddenly, the ceremony was over, and for Harkhuf, expecting the killer to give himself – or herself – away, all was anticlimax. Wephopte left first with Sekhmet simpering on his arm. Metjen was deep in conversation with the beautiful Bener, who still had time to cast a languid look over Metjen’s shoulder at Harkhuf. She looked bored stiff by the physician’s droning conversation. And her eyes made it clear she was keen to seek out the company of Harkhuf. His heart thumped a little faster in his chest. He was on the verge of going over to save her from a conversation about cures for constipation – a favourite of Metjen’s – when he felt a hand on his own shoulder. It was Shemai.

  “I will arrange for the medjoi – the Nubians – to return the coffin to the vault now your work is complete.”

  Harkhuf nodded, and agreed with Shemai a time for the coffin to be removed on its sled. He noted that the vizier was getting very pernickety about the detail of the coffin’s return to its sarcophagus. Almost over-anxious to get the job done. Did he have good reason to want everything sorted out, and returned to the state it was before? It seemed very much like it. Unfortunately, when Shemai had finished with him, Harkhuf turned to see that Bener had left, and Shemai was also hurrying away with his Nubian escort, before Metjen could trap him. Unfortunately Harkhuf could not escape.

  “Ah, Harkhuf. You look pale and I can see the strain on your face. I diagnose constipation. I recommend that you take half an onion in the froth of beer. It is an excellent specific, and is also a remedy against death.”

  Before Harkhuf could construe whether the comment was another threat, Metjen turned on his heels and left. Harkhuf was alone, and still uncertain as to the identity of the murderer. Though he now had his suspicions. As darkness fell outside, he began to tidy up his workshop. By the light of the flickering oil lamps, he carefully transferred the four canopic jars with their contents on to the sled next to the coffin.

  *

  “It’s no good. I give in, Doll.”

  “The pickle jars! That’s where I would have put the heart.”

  “Pickle? Oh, you mean the canopic jars. On the basis that hiding one organ amongst a load of other organs makes it disappear. You may well be right.”

  Malinferno began to grope his way forwards in the now darkened ballroom. Now, where were the four jars when last he saw them? On the end of the rosewood table, wasn’t it?

  “Wait for me,” hissed Doll, and grabbed his arm. Together they moved cautiously ahead, hoping not to bump into anything. A ghastly, groaning sound brought Malinferno’s progress to an abrupt halt. He felt Doll’s pneumatic breasts squashing against his back.

  “Oi! Next time, tell me when you’re going to stop.”

  “Sorry.” Another groan rent the air.

  “Joe, what is that noise?” Her grip on his arm tightened. He tried to sound calm, but feared his voice was trembling as much as he was.

  “Just the old house creaking as it cools down. That heating system will ruin the timbers. I don’t doubt that in a few years it will come crashing down around the Countess’ ears.”

  They took a few more steps forwards when a double groan echoed round the room.

  “That didn’t sound like wood creaking, Joe. It was positively ghostly – inhuman even. You don’t reckon the old queen has come to life, do you?”

  The groans became louder, and more regular. Suddenly, Doll stifled a snigger, and edged over to the wooden bier on which lay the massive sarcophagus of Ankh-Wadjet. She peered in, then beckoned Malinferno over, a finger to her lips. Fearfully, he boosted himself up, and peeped over the broken edge of the sarcophagus.

  A pair of naked, white male buttocks rose and fell on to a froth of red silk and white lace from which protruded two scrawny, white legs. Malinferno recognized the dress the Countess had been wearing an hour or two earlier. But from the section of anatomy on display, he was temporarily at a loss to recognize the gentleman rogering her Ladyship. He felt a tugging at his long white robe, and dropped down to sit on the floor next to Doll.

  “Leave them to it, Joe. We’ve got a murder to solve.”

  “But . . . in the queen’s sarcophagus?”

  “It’s the closest either of them will get to romping with royalty, I suppose. Look, there are the jars. On the table.”

  They crawled on their hands and knees towards the table, and sat staring at the four jars. They were all sealed, and the animal heads on the stoppers stared enigmatically back at them.

  “Hapi, Imsety, Duamutef, or Kebehsenuef?”

  “My money’s on the jackal, Joe. Though the baboon face does put me in mind of you.”

  “It looks more like that arse we saw in the coffin.”

  Doll began to titter uncontrollably, and pressed her face into Malinferno’s chest to stifle her laughter. Malinferno liked the sensation.

  “Doll, do you think there’s something in this?”

  “In what?”

  “Congress in the presence of a queen.”

  “Geroff!” Doll swatted away Malinferno’s groping hands, and he toppled backwards. Reaching behind to save himself, his arm swept across the table top. One of the jars slid across the polished surface, and teetered on the edge. Malinferno fumbled for it, but it slipped through his fingers, and fell towards the floor. He noticed it was the jackal-headed one – Duamutef. The one that was a slightly different shape to the others.

  *

  “Harkhuf.”

  The embalmer spun round in alarm. The priest, Wephopte, stood in the doorway to the Pure Place.

  “Thank goodness it’s only you, Wephopte. I thought it was someone else.”

  “Shemai, you mean?”

  Harkhuf looked at him with curiosity. “Or Metjen, or Bener . . . or Sekhmet, come back for some reason. Why did you specifically mention Shemai?”

  The priest cast his eyes to the floor. “The papyrus. I didn’t deliver it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I read it. Do you realize you accuse virtually everyone at court of potentially being a murderer? It would have been a scandal. And Shemai would have got his hands on it first, anyway. He reads everything that is presented for Merayakare’s attention. And that would have been the end of you.”

  “You think it was Shemai killed the queen?”

  “Who else? Meryathor was hopelessly enamoured of Bener, and wanted her for his Great Wife. Bener wasn’t content to remain secondary to some scrawny old witch who would have made her life a misery, if she had been set aside.”

  “And Meryathor asked Shemai to get rid of Ankh-Wadjet?”

  “The King, or Bener – does it matter who? You know how protective Shemai is of the family, preventing outsiders worming their way in.” Harkhuf thought of himself and Sekhmet, and blushed. It was true that
the vizier’s Nubians had tossed him out of the palace with hardly a by-your-leave when he was found naked with Sekhmet. Wephopte stared him in the eye, and went on. “Here’s the papyrus. Destroy it, for the gods’ sake. Look, I’ll tear the bottom off myself. Where you name names. I’ll make sure it’s burned.”

  Harkhuf took the ripped papyrus from Wephopte’s outstretched hand, and tossed it on the sled.

  *

  The jackal-headed jar landed in Doll Pucket’s ample lap, saving it from being smashed on the ballroom floor. But the lid, whose seal had been tampered with at some point, popped open. A blackened lump the size of an orange rolled out and dropped on to the floor. Doll grabbed it before it rolled away under the table, and turned it around in her palm. She hissed at Malinferno.

  “Look, it’s the queen’s heart. And there’s the wound. No more than a pin prick.” She paused. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  Doll’s voice was rising with excitement.

  “No. What?” Malinferno did not follow Doll’s idiot-savant logic at the best of times.

  “It was the priest, you idiot,” she yelled.

  *

  A voice in Harkhuf’s ear made him flinch, and he felt a stinging sensation in his left arm. Ridiculously, he thought at first he had been bitten by a marsh fly, and swatted at the offending insect. A metal clasp with a long, long pin clattered on to the coffin that he was leaning over. He gazed in stupefaction, wondering how the fly had turned itself into a glittering, gold scarab. A scarab like the one that held the edges of Wephopte’s leopard-skin together at his shoulder.

  Then he knew he had been right, and his blood ran cold as he realized he had flushed the murderer out after all. He wasn’t so glad now that he had succeeded. He felt something heavy make contact with the back of his head. There was the sound of something shattering - his skull, no doubt. Harkhuf uttered a prayer for a swift, and painless journey to the next life.

  *

  “It’s the priest,” repeated Doll in triumph, dancing around the ballroom floor.

  The Reverend Sparling’s head popped up over the edge of the sarcophagus. He looked red and startled. He saw Doll dancing, and Malinferno sitting on the floor amidst the spilled contents of a jar, and disappeared below the lip again. Only to reappear hoisting his breeches up, and attempting to button their flap as he scrambled over the broken edge of the sarcophagus.

  “No, no. You have the wrong impression. We were examining the tomb for . . . er . . . evidence.”

  He stood for a moment in his stocking feet, transfixed. Then Reverend Sparling offered up a wild prayer to the heavens, and fled. From the depths of the coffin came a hollow and desperate wailing.

  “Reverend . . . reverend . . . where are you? Don’t stop now, I pray you.”

  *

  Harkhuf awoke to the sweet scent of coriander, juniper and honey. Better still he could feel the soft hand of a woman spreading unguents on his forehead. But for a splitting headache, he would have thought he had crossed over to the afterlife.

  “I prepared the concoction for a headache – equal parts of the berry of the coriander, the berry of the poppy-plant, wormwood, berry of the sames-plant, berry of the juniper-plant, and honey. I hope it works.”

  “Just keep rubbing my brow, Nefre, and it will work.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I should have used the remedy against death, the state you were in last night.”

  Harkhuf grimaced, and prised open his eyes. The bright, morning sunlight lanced through his brain, and he twisted away from it. He wished he hadn’t. His neck screamed as though he had been carrying the whole weight of the great pyramid of Khufu on it He remembered what had happened to him.

  “How did I get here? The last thing I remember was being smitten to death.”

  “Some gorgeous Nubian keeper of the peace carried you in. Over his shoulder, as if you weighed nothing.”

  Harkhuf didn’t like the faraway look in his young wife’s eyes. How could she drool over a dark-skinned medjoi – a Nubian as dark as the night – when her husband was near to death? He struggled to sit up.

  “I was attacked. Nearly killed.”

  “Pianki – the Nubian – said you were never in danger. That he and his companion had been following you wherever you went for days.”

  Pianki. So now she had his name as well. He would have to watch his young wife.

  “They have arrested Wephopte, and Shemai will pass judgement on him soon. Pianki apologized that they didn’t reach the priest before he had broken one of the canopic jars over your head.”

  “So that’s why I kept seeing dark shapes always disappearing out of sight. The medjoi were following me. Who told them to?” He thought he knew, even as he said it.

  “Why, their boss, of course. Shemai. Pianki said he knew about Ankh-Wadjet’s murder all along, but no one would listen to him. When the tomb was damaged, he arranged for you to do the work on the queen, because he wanted someone independent to find the signs of murder. He knew you would see them, because they were so obvious, and because . . .”

  Nefre looked at the floor, a smirk on her face. Harkhuf stared at her with what he fondly imagined was a stern gaze.

  “And because?”

  “Oh, Shemai knows you so well. He said it was because he could guarantee that you would get drunk when you found the wound, and blab in your cups to all and sundry. That way he would draw out the killer.”

  Harkhuf sat up, his sore head forgotten in his indignation.

  “Shemai and Meryakare used me as a sacrificial lamb to winkle out his mother’s killer. I might have been killed, myself.”

  Nefre nodded, more solemn of a sudden.

  “Pianki also passed on the message that, if you were inclined to complain, you were to be reminded you deserved it. Something to do with the King’s sister. What did he mean, Harkhuf?”

  Harkhuf looked sheepish, and clutched his head.

  “I feel giddy, darling. Maybe some more of that ointment?”

  *

  Malinferno hugged Doll with pure delight at the sight of the Reverend’s discomfiture.

  “So, priests both ancient and modern were guilty of social climbing. I suppose Wephopte had eyes for Sekhmet, and for founding a new dynasty. Do you think he would have murdered Meryakare too?”

  “I don’t know, Joe. And I don’t care. I’m freezing, and I fancy a bit more than a dish of chocolate to warm me up.”

  Malinferno glowed at the ravenous look in Madam Nefre’s eyes.

  *

  Harkhuf turned to his wife as they lay together on the old couch.

  “I want to thank you for shouting out that warning. It saved my life.”

  “What warning? I was still at my parents’ when Shemai told me you had been hurt.”

  Harkhuf frowned, then sighed. He must have imagined Nefre’s voice calling out a warning about the priest. Maybe the bang on the head had been more severe than he thought.

  “Goat.”

  “What?”

  Nefre smiled knowingly. “I think of you more as a sacrificial goat than a lamb.”

  Harkhuf grinned, and yanked at Nefre’s robe. “I’ll show you what sort of goat I am.”

  As he plunged on to the naked, pliant body of his young wife, he made sure her brooch pin was well out of the way.

  HEART SCARAB

  Gillian Linscott

  We have now reached the start of the 20th century during the heyday of the British Egypt Exploration Society. This had been founded in 1882 (as the Egypt Exploration Fund) mostly due to the enthusiasm of writer Amelia B. Edwards. It helped finance the work of Flinders Petrie, one of the most important of Victorian and Edwardian Egyptologists, but it also helped preserve and protect Egyptian antiquities. Thanks to the Society the science of Egyptology moved forward significantly.

  Gillian Linscott is the author of the award-winning series about Nell Bray, suffragette and occasional amateur sleuth, whose adventures began in Sister Beneath the Sheet (1991).
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br />   It was like being inside a one-eyed skull, a dark dome above, rock floor where the jawbone would be, one round opening with a little light coming through. The air in the tomb smelled mostly of old resinous dust, with a tang of something acrid underneath. There were five men to breathe it. Three of them were Arab workmen, waiting near the entrance with a plate camera, measuring rods, sketch pads, impassive because this was their work, like any other work. The other two were Europeans. The younger one stood back a little from the stone sarcophagus, holding a paraffin lamp. He was so nervous that the light from it swung up and down the rock walls and the face of his older companion was sometimes in shadow, sometimes flooded with light like a character in a pantomime. Even without the lighting effect the older man had a striking face, like a philosophical pirate with a beak of a nose, bright eyes, grizzled beard and jutting eyebrows. Some of the more conventional members of the British Egypt Exploration Society even called him The Buccaneer because of his disdain for all rules but those of scholarship. His real name was Professor Brightsea.

  “Well, Thomas, we know what we’re going to find inside, don’t we?”

  His deep voice rolled round the cave. His assistant made a pleading gesture that set the lamp swinging more wildly. The professor laughed.

  “Not sure? Well, in that case, you may have the honour of discovery.”

  Looking sick, Thomas put the lamp down on the floor and advanced to the head end of the sarcophagus. It was already open, the stone lid lodged against the rock wall. As he got nearer, the acrid smell increased and his nose wrinkled.

  Brightsea laughed harshly. “You should be used to it by now.”

  Thomas made a choking sound and fell on his knees, arms hooked over the stone rim. Brightsea strolled over, reached into the sarcophagus and straightened up with something white and cylindrical between his fingers.

  “Just as I predicted. See?”

  He waited while his assistant got to his feet and came, shoulders hunched, into the circle of lamplight.

  “So, Thomas, would you care to put a date to this artefact?” Thomas wouldn’t or couldn’t speak. “Well, then, hazard a scholarly guess. This year’s, would you say, or possibly last year’s? The fifth year or the sixth of the reign of Pharaoh Edward the Seventh?” Then, impatiently, tiring of his bitter joke, wafting the smell of it under his nose, “Come on, man, is this a cigarette butt from 1906 or 1907?”