Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [53]
“It would be extremely difficult as well as thoroughly unethical,” Ramses said, alarmed by the look of dawning speculation on his father’s face. “We would have to alter all the records—there are dozens of references to those pieces, all methodically cross-indexed. Your reputation would be seriously damaged, Cyrus, if we were caught trying to play a trick like that. As it is, you have preserved for Egypt and the world a spectacular find, giving unstintingly of your energy and your wealth. Not even Lacau can hold you accountable for the venality of an employee. That sort of thing happens all the time.” He added, “Mother was making one of her little jokes. Weren’t you, Mother?”
She met his accusatory look with a bland smile. “A little joke is never out of place. You have put the case very nicely, my dear.”
“Do you think Lacau will see it that way?” Cyrus asked, looking a little less tragic.
“If he does not,” said Emerson, “I will point out a few embarrassing incidents involving the Service des Antiquités. Good Gad, their own storage magazines have been robbed, and as for the Museum—”
“Yes, Father, we know what you think of the Museum,” Nefret said.
Emerson was not to be repressed. “Our mummy,” he growled. “The one we found in Tetisheri’s tomb. They lost it, you know. Lost it!”
“We do know, Emerson,” said his wife. “You have presented an excellent argument, and I feel sure it will make an impression upon M. Lacau. Anyhow . . .” She paused to nibble daintily on a slice of tomato. “Anyhow, he won’t be back for several weeks. Something may yet turn up!”
After dinner they went upstairs to view the collection. It took Cyrus several minutes to open the door; there were two new locks, one of them a padlock heavy enough to have anchored a small boat. Meeting Ramses’s quizzical eye, Cyrus smiled sheepishly.
“Locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen, I reckon.”
“Not at all, sir. Martinelli had the key to the other lock. One must presume he still has it.”
“Wherever the son of a . . . gun is.”
“How many other people have been let in?”
“Not as many as wanted in,” Cyrus replied, tugging at his goatee. “You know what it’s like when you’ve found something unusual. For a while I was getting requests from every tourist who arrived in Luxor, all claiming to be old friends of mine or friends of my old friends, or of some important person. I turned most of ’em down. There were a few I couldn’t refuse, though—those that had letters of introduction from Lacau, and colleagues like Howard Carter . . . Say. You aren’t suggesting that one of them had a hand in the theft?”
“I don’t see how,” Ramses admitted.
A question from Lia called Cyrus away, leaving Ramses to wonder what had prompted him to ask about visitors. Even if one of them had yielded to temptation, he (or she) wouldn’t have found it easy to pocket an object under Cyrus’s very nose, and the timing made Martinelli’s guilt certain. Yet the limited extent of the theft was more in line with an attack of kleptomania than the work of a professional thief who had had access to the entire collection and plenty of time in which to operate. A good many of the smaller items could be safely transported, including the rest of the jewelry, and they wouldn’t take up much space if properly packed.
But if a lucky amateur had been responsible, then what had become of the Italian?
Cyrus expanded with pride as the newcomers exclaimed over the dazzling exhibition. Perhaps David was the only one who fully appreciated the effort that had gone into preserving the pieces. He had helped with the clearance of Tetisheri’s tomb and been actively involved in restoring many of the artifacts. Walter inspected the other objects appreciatively but casually before gravitating to the inlaid coffins.
“The standard inscriptions,” he said to Ramses. “No papyri except the Books of the Dead?”
“No, sir, but there’s plenty of inscribed material from the village itself—ostraca and scraps of papyrus. A few weeks ago we came across an astonishing