Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters [15]
I was looking forward to meeting M. Maspero, the French director of antiquities. My father had been in correspondence with him, and I hoped my name would be familiar. It was; and we were fortunate to find Maspero at the museum. He was usually away, his assistant informed us, digging for the treasures which had made him known throughout the scholarly world.
This assistant, Herr Emil Brugsch, I knew by reputation, for it was he who had been the first European to gaze upon the famous cache of royal mummies that had been discovered a few years earlier. While we waited for M. Maspero, Brugsch told us of the robber family of Thebes who had discovered the hiding place of the mummies ten years before. The discovered, a shifty character named Abd er-Rasool Ahmed, had been searching for a missing goat amid the rocky cliffs near his village of Gurnah. The goat had fallen into a crevice, or shaft, forty feet deep; upon descending, Ahmed made an incredible discovery—the mummies of the great pharaohs of Egypt, hidden in ancient times to keep their sacred bodies safe from the thieves who had looted their original tombs!
His eyes never leaving my face, Herr Brugsch explained, with affected modesty, that he was responsible for the detective work that had eventually discovered the mummies. Collectors had sent him photographs of objects bearing royal names, and he had realized that these must have come from a tomb. Since the known royal tombs were in Thebes, he had alerted the police to watch out for a peasant from that city who had more money than he could have come by honestly. Thus suspicion was focused on the Abd er-Rasool family; and, the thieves having fallen out in the meantime over the disposition of the loot, one of them betrayed the secret to Brugsch.
I did not care for this gentleman. His brother is a respectable and well-known scholar, and Mr. Emil has been employed by Maspero and his predecessor, M. Mariette, for many years; but his bold stare and hard face affected me unpleasantly, as did his calloused description of the interrogation of the unfortunate Abd er-Rasool brothers. Not a muscle in his tanned face moved as he described beatings with palm rods, and heated pots being placed on the heads of the suspects. Yet I could not help but be fascinated by an eyewitness account of the incredible discovery. Brugsch admitted that his sensations, as he was lowered into the pit, were not wholly comfortable. He was armed, of course, but his weapons would not have availed against treachery, and all the inhabitants of the area hated the representatives of the government. And then his feelings, as he stood in the stifling gloom of the little cave, amid a jumble of royal dead… ! He knew the bodies must be moved at once, in order to prevent their being stolen, and he accomplished this difficult task in only eight days. He was describing the northward voyage of the barge—the banks of the river lined with mourning women, rending their garments and pouring dust on their heads as the bodies of the ancient kings floated by—when Maspero joined us.
The director of antiquities was a stout, genial man with twinkling eyes and a short black beard. A true Frenchman, he bowed over my hand and greeted Evelyn with admiration. He spoke of my father in the highest terms. Seeing how busy he was, we soon excused ourselves, and he begged pardon for not showing us over the museum himself. Perhaps he would join us later, he said, glancing at Evelyn.
“You have made another conquest,” I said softly to Evelyn, as we walked away. “M. Maspero could hardly keep his eyes away from you.”
“Nor Herr Brugsch his eyes from you,” Evelyn replied with a smile. “He was anxious to escort you; did you see his scowl when M. Maspero told him he had work for him to do?”
“Don’t try to give your admirers to me,” I retorted. “I am not in need of such mendacious flattery; and if I were, Herr Brugsch would not be my choice.”
I was glad the director was not with