by David Case
“Something, yes.”
“Grimm nearly had a stroke over it.” He chuckled again. “Got the gout, too, has Grimm. Mortified by the fact. I’ve tried to explain that it’s just an inflammation caused by metabolic imbalance, but he won’t listen. He’s certain God gave him gout as penance for his sins, but on the other hand he’s equally certain that he’s never sinned. Terribly frustrating for the man, a paradox of that magnitude. ‘What,’ he said, ‘what would my flock think, were it known I suffered from the drunkard’s disease?’ ”
I laughed. Then, on sudden impulse, asked, “Where is the vicarage?”
“Why, just up the road here.”
“I wonder, would you be so kind as to introduce me to Grimm?”
“Surely. You’re not aiming to argue Christianity with him, are you?” he asked, eyes bright, as if he would not be averse to such disputation.
“Certainly not.”
Plum drew his watch from his waistcoat, a laborious process. The gold chain reflected in the tips of his shoes. “I have time in hand,” he said—I wondered if he meant it literally, for he seemed to be balancing the watch in his palm, perhaps suddenly doubting the weight of gold. “We can stop there now, if you like.”
“If it’s no imposition.”
“Not at all.”
And so, uncertain why I was going or what I would ask, I accompanied Plum to the vicarage.
The vicarage was a white house with green gables, and the vicar was a pale man with ginger hair who quite openly welcomed company. I could see how he would pride himself on his garden parties. He ushered us into a small room overlooking the garden and served us sherry, a trifle too sweet. Plum weighed his watch again and exchanged a few civilities. Then, seeming most casual with his eyes twinkling, he informed Grimm that I had come to visit Mallory. The vicar choked on his sherry and turned red, a remarkable process, as if the pigment of his hair were running down to tint his face.
“Am I to assume that Mr. Mallory is a friend or a colleague?” he asked.
“Neither, really. I’m interested in some ancient writings he has.”
“Ah.” He regarded me more kindly. “Is that so? He actually does have some knowledge of the past, then? I must confess I’d thought the man an utter charlatan.”
“He may well be.”
Grimm was pleased.
“I’ve heard you had a disagreement with him?”
“I most certainly did.” He looked out the window, probably visualizing the scene. “A most unpleasant man. I had to ask him to depart.”
“I was curious about that. I don’t mean to pry, but I’ve argued with Mallory myself, you see.”
Grimm saw. He beamed. He leaned toward me like a conspiring anarchist.
“Was he talking about the ancient Egyptian religions?” I inquired.
“Indeed he was. Absolute nonsense. Predates Christianity, of course, so you can’t very well blame the old Egyptians for their ignorance. I’m a charitable man, I don’t hold their unenlightened and barbaric religion against them. Who am I to judge them? Poor souls, they have long since been judged—severely, no doubt—by God. So, as I say, I suppose it was all right for them—better than no religion at all, eh? Even if they had foul practices. But for a man to champion such beliefs in this day and age, anno Domini—well, I ask you! I’m not well versed on the topic, naturally. I’d be interested to hear a rational Christian discuss it.”
I had no desire to enter into a theological disquisition, and explained briefly, “Well, their entire existence was a preparation for their deaths. It went deeper than a religion of the afterlife; virtually all their daily procedures were concerned with their ultimate demise. That explains their great concern with mummification and tombs, you see. The Egyptians believed that the soul wandered about after death and that it needed a body to which, from time to time, it could return.”
“How remarkable,” he said, smiling tolerantly. “Poor children, groping blindly for truth denied them by their age.”
I understood why he’d rubbed Mallory across the grain.
“It isn’t really so far removed from your—our—beliefs, is it?” I said, causing him to frown. “I mean, an afterlife by any other name—”
“Nonsense.”
Plum grinned back and forth between us, ready to be entertained. I overcame the argumentative urge.
“What, specifically, did Mallory claim?” I asked.
“Well, I paid little attention, of course. But there is something—a Book of the Dead!”
“Yes.”
“What is that, exactly?”
“A set of instructions on how the soul could successfully meet Osiris, the judge of ethical deeds committed in the flesh.” I paused, but Grimm looked blank, waiting. “You see, the Egyptians were very materialistic in their concept of death. They simply couldn’t conceive of life as other than a physical existence. Therefore they preserved the body and built great fortresses to protect it for eternity. Originally the sarcophagus was inscribed with magic incantations and formulas along with maps of the underworld to guide the deceased. But as the mass of magical knowledge increased, soon they found there was no room left in the sarcophagus and on the scarabs. So all such incantations were gathered together and recorded on rolls of papyrus which could be placed in the tombs. These rolls were the Book of the Dead and the Sarcophagus Texts.”
“I see,” Grimm said. “But to what purpose?”
“Why, for the afterlife. To a people pathetically unable to recognize physical death, it was logical. As they supplied food and furniture and ornaments and even slaves for the use of the dead man, so they provided a ritual by which he could be found virtuous when his deeds were weighed.”
“They actually thought a soul needed food?”
I smiled.
“They even included toilets in the tomb.”
“Incredible.”
“How did these formulas supposedly work?” Plum asked.
“Well, the dead man studied them, and then when he faced Osiris, king of the dead, he was able to recite all the sins he had not committed.”
“Had not committed?” Plum echoed.
“Barbaric,” Grimm muttered.
“Is it? What of the Ten Commandments?”
Grimm stared at me.
“Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, and so on. Well, in the Book of the Dead, it reads—freely translated—I have known no worthless folk, I have not filched the property of the lowly man, I have not carried off the cakes of the dead, I have not snared geese in the preserves of the gods, and suchlike.”
“Both negative confessions, eh?” Plum said.
“Don’t know quite what you mean by that, exactly,” said Grimm. He frowned ponderously. “One doesn’t necessarily have to believe in the Bible word for word—lot of it written by Jews, come to that—but one doesn’t necessarily care to have it derided, either. Especially at a garden party, with my flock present. That’s what this Mallory chap did. Compared the Bible unfavorably with the Book of the Dead.” He sniffed. Plum was grinning.
“So they recited these incantations to appease Osiris, eh?” Plum said.
“To deceive him, actually.”
“To deceive him? To deceive him!” Grimm roared.
“Oh, yes.”
“These heathens actually believed they could deceive their god? Good heavens! Even a false deity is wiser than a man!”
Plum and I regarded Grimm.
Grimm glared back contentiously. Then he realized what he had said and lowered his face, scowling. Plum was rocking with silent laughter; he concealed a snort with his handkerchief. Grimm muttered, “Well, that’s as may be. We are at least rational men here. This Mallory made fouler claims, too. Insults, animadversions. He called Christianity the magic of the Western world. But what was really offen
sive was when he told the women—why on earth they paid the slightest attention to a visibly mad heretic is beyond me—told them that it wasn’t necessary to die, that man had the potential for immortality in the flesh. The flesh, not the spirit. Can you imagine telling them such trash? As if heaven wasn’t good enough for anyone!”
“Seems like it ought to be,” Plum responded wickedly.
“Exactly. Thank God I had the sense to drive him out when I did. He’d already warped that poor Cunningham girl’s mind. Why, who knows, had he stayed he might have caused my entire flock to stray!”
“It was this talk of immortality that impressed Arabella, did it?” I asked, thinking of John’s comment that she had left because she feared her life was passing her by.
“Certainly. What else? There is no lust like the lust of the mind. This man tempted her with ideas just as the serpent tempted the innocent Eve with the apple—as Mephisto tempted Faustus with power. We all have our weaknesses. What beautiful young woman would not be enchanted—bedeviled—by the concept of eternal youth?”
Grimm had a point there.
We left soon afterward.
Once more at the Red Lion, I checked in on John. He was still sleeping, lying on his back. One hand moved spasmodically at the edge of the bed, but he appeared peaceful enough. I retired to my own room and prepared to undertake the translation from the photographic copy. It is strange—or perhaps not strange—how one becomes accustomed to a certain procedure. At the cottage I had my desk at the window, and it didn’t seem proper to work in a different position. I pulled the table over to the crooked window overlooking the high street. This was curious also, gazing out over a peaceful English village with the hieroglyphs before me. One felt thrust between two disparate dimensions.
Once, in Egypt, walking along the cliff at dusk, I’d thought myself lost. A sudden wind had risen, and the landscape darkened with sand. The sky directly overhead was clear, but the air around me was enveloped in a cloudy grey turbulence. I’d undergone a moment of panic, thinking I should never find my way back to the camp. Then the panic had subsided. It no longer seemed to matter very much. A sense of eternity fell over me in that timeless wasteland, and I felt a part of the changing sands, at one with ancient Egypt. I sat down and filled my pipe, offering smoke to the powdered sand. Presently a trick of air currents opened a corridor through the storm, disclosing the encampment below me. On all sides the air was black, impenetrable, but looking down that solitary passage I could see clearly. Sir Harold was standing before his tent, a fire had been started. That scene, drawn closer than it was by the optical quirk that revealed it, seemed to have no relation to me. I had the sensation of looking, not through space, but through time; I felt myself of the past, granted a gift of viewing the future. I watched with great interest and objective dispassion, content to remain there in the sands forever. Then the air closed in again and cast me down the ages until, with a click, I was wrenched once more into my niche in time.
Something of that odd sensation came over me now, seated at the crooked window between two worlds. I mused over the feeling for a while, then lighted my pipe and prepared to work. The sky had begun to cloud over, and soft diffused light lay shadowless on the table. I arranged my papers and loosened my necktie. Coots left the Red Lion, and Constable Chive sauntered down the street. They stopped to exchange a few words, and Coots was grinning, two antagonists in a moment of armistice.
The translation wasn’t particularly difficult, although I saw why Mallory, with his limited learning, had not been able to manage it. He likely was versed only in a single period, and language evolves through the long ages. The great duration of the Egyptian Empire extended over many such modifications in the symbolism of the script, and the hieroglyphs before me were, to the more common examples, as Middle English is to modern English. As the translation began to emerge, I wondered why Mallory had been concerned that I kept it confidential. There was nothing new or startling in the text, yet it was the content which interested him. After several hours of labor the translation was complete. It was a description of the embalming process, written by a physician—or priest, the two were synonymous in that time when physical death was unimaginable—and the methods described were similar to those already known about the art of mummification.
Completed, the translation read:
A crooked piece of iron, of design suited to the deed, was inserted up the nostrils and hooked into the brain. The brain was then drawn out through the nose. Next, using a sharpened Ethiopian stone, a cut was made along the flank and the intestines were extracted and, as is fitting, were purified with palm wine and pounded spices. The body cavity was filled with finely powdered myrrh, cinnamon, and spices but for frankincense which was not used. It was then sewn up again, and placed in natron for seventy days. It must be left no longer. When the seventy days have ended, the body must be washed carefully and bound in strips of fine linen, smeared with gum. The relatives will then have fashioned a wooden coffin to fit the body, and shutting the man up in this coffin, they will place it upright in the sepulchral chamber which will be its home. Above the ground will be made a brickwork structure, gaily painted and adorned to suggest the palace of the man in this life and by which his wandering soul will know and recognize the place and by which he will not by error enter into the body of another man, which blunder would cause calamity in his world.
That was all.
I reviewed the translation and entered several minor emendations before I was satisfied, then wondered if Mallory would be pleased or if he had expected more of the content. I was looking forward to examining the tablet itself, for the translation made it clear that it was old; that it antedated the royal pyramids which came to replace the brick simulation of the deceased man’s home. No matter what curious theories Mallory entertained, or how mistakenly he assigned his values, he obviously had come to possess some treasures of the past.
I stood and stretched.
A knock sounded at the door.
I opened it.
“Good evening, sir,” Inspector Peal announced in funereal tones.
Peal entered my quarters, a big beefy man with a rather wrinkled suit. “What can I do for you, Inspector?” I asked. He didn’t immediately reply, but looked around the room and ambled over to the window, where he stood silently contemplating my papers while rubbing the back of his neck. He picked up my translation and glanced at it.
“Gruesome sort of business, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, no worse than present-day funerals, I daresay.”
“Yes, yes. Probably right there. When you come to think of it, I guess maybe I’d rather be stuffed full of spices than pumped full of formaldehyde.” He smiled and put the paper down. “This, I take it, is the work you’re doing for Mr. Mallory?”
“I’m doing nothing for Mallory,” I replied. “I’m doing it for myself. But, yes, that’s a translation of one of his clay tablets.”
“Valuable?”
“Rather. I haven’t seen it. This translation was made from a copy.”
“Um. He does have these objects, though?”
“Certainly.”
“I was under the impression that you’d be staying at his house.”
“I shall be. Apparently he wasn’t ready for me.”
“But you are going out there?”
I nodded.
Peal walked over to the bed, then came back.
“Mr. Ashley, this is all rather irregular, but I intend to ask your help.” I raised my eyebrows as he continued, “I’d like you to look around The Croft while you’re there and report to me later.”
“Look around? For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“A rather imprecise request.”
“I realize that, sir. But it’s just possible you might notice something, well, out of the usual.”
“He’s an unusual fell
ow.”
“I take it you have no fondness for him?”
“I have no desire for playing the spy, either.”
Peal appeared pained.
“Why not obtain a search warrant and look for yourself? I don’t even know what you’re looking for.”
“We really have no reason to apply for a warrant. Just a few coincidences. And a formal search—believe me, sir, it would be better to avoid that.”
“More convenient for you, you mean?”
“Better in all ways.”
“Do you actually suspect Mallory?”
“No, sir, I don’t,” he said, but there was a slight hesitation before his reply. He stared at me, waiting for my response. I thought for several moments.
“If I’m going to spy on the man, I feel entitled to know your reasons, Inspector.”
“Curiosity? Or justification?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“Um. Not particularly ethical, but I guess there’s no harm in it. You’ll keep this confidential, of course?”
“Of course.”
“Well, sit down.”
I sat at the table. Peal drew up another chair and crossed his legs. His shoes were muddy. “There isn’t much, actually. A set of minor coincidences, a couple of facts that don’t quite jibe. You don’t mind if I smoke? Right. Well, first off, the initial murder victim had been a houseguest at The Croft.”
“Mallory admitted that.”
“Did he? Yes, he told us as much. Snow, the man’s name was. Apparently a well-known brain surgeon. Once we’d identified the body we had to trace him back to London before we’d any idea what he was doing down here. No one in the village knew him or had seen him. We learned from his office that he’d been at Mallory’s for several weeks.”
“Weeks?”
Peal glanced up sharply.
“Yes, several weeks,” he repeated. “Nothing suspicious about that. But London gave us to believe that Snow had been here to see about some new developments or methods related to brain surgery. We assumed that Mallory was a doctor or scientist. However, when we checked this out at The Croft, Mallory claimed that Snow had come to examine a man—his servant—who’d suffered some brain damage in an accident. Is that in accord with what he told you?”