Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [37]
“You may not be able to measure the shift enough for it to matter, but yes. First, you are unconvinced, sceptical. Second, it would take more time than I believe you would care to give it.”
Kray chuckled again. “You probably need to do better than that, Mr. Trenton. That’s the refrain of mystics and charlatans the world over. You must believe! You must allow time! Have the correct discipline. Oh, and a small donation will help to purchase paraffin for the lamps during such a vigil. Your support will be ever so greatly appreciated.”
I made sure that I smiled before pressing my subject again. “I ask my question because the rage and anguish, the despair and agony felt by Unknown Man E waking in his coffin could have been enough to change the imprisoning darkness, if you follow my drift. That darkness would have been the intensely considered kind, I suggest.”
“Doubtless true, old fellow. We can only wonder what Maspero and his assistants must have felt when that particular coffin was opened. The pharaoh’s curse of the melodramas!”
I turned my glass in my hands. “Or simply sufficiently changed darkness. Nothing more.”
“Well, let’s pray that fellow behind you had a peaceful and easy time of it.”
“On the contrary, Dr. Kray. I have it on good authority that the fellow within was definitely buried alive. Unlike Pentewere, or whoever Unknown Man E happens to be, this mummy had an accompanying papyrus telling his story.”
Kray’s eyes widened. “You have this papyrus?”
“I do, and had it translated some years ago. Best of all, it is that rarity amongst Egyptian funerary texts, not the usual fragments of the Amduat, not a list of personal accomplishments, but an actual account of a nonroyal burial.”
“Nonroyal?”
“And of a desperate reckoning. His name is Panuhe, Dr. Kray, a luckless courtier who murdered the lesser princess with whom he was smitten when he could not have her for himself. Her slighted husband was high vizier and dealt with him accordingly, had him sealed up in a rough-hewn annexe in her own modest tomb. All very sordid, I know, the very stuff of melodrama in any age!”
Suddenly the clock in the hall began chiming. At the same time, the bells of St. Paul’s started sounding across the river. Bendeck’s knock came mere moments later.
Kray’s relief was palpable, yet quickly replaced by a natural concern. “There were other things in the annexe, did you say?”
I heard Mrs. Danvers answering the door, heard voices in the hall. “You are being mischievous, Dr. Kray. I deliberately did not say.”
Kray grinned. “Of course. Of course. Look, old man, about this three o’clock thing. Do you think—?”
I anticipated him. “Best we say that you arrived just a few minutes ago. The keen enthusiast arriving a tad early.”
Kray nodded. “Splendid. Greatly appreciated.”
Mrs. Danvers showed Elleston Bendeck into the room and left us, closing the door behind her. It was her final duty for me. Her salary was paid; I would never see her again.
Bendeck was a portly man in his late fifties with grey eyes and steel grey hair and as well turned out as Kray was, though wearing one of the new American suits that had become all the fashion lately. Again the pleasantries were hardly started before he was crying out in astonishment and delight as Ramose repeated his earlier performance, stilting over to fetch the final port tray.
Then, with both men seated before the fire holding their glasses, sharing first in the bewildering eccentricity of my toast to the King, then to the success of our negotiations, I prepared to enter our final phase. This time the port contained a strong-enough sedative, though one sufficient to cause mere muscular debilitation rather than unconsciousness. I wanted my guests awake.
“Dr. Bendeck, while awaiting your arrival I was just now showing your colleague that casket behind you and suggesting that it is quite likely the handiwork of the reburial commissions of the Twentieth Dynasty.”
“Indeed. Twentieth Dynasty, you say?” Bendeck craned his neck to see, pointedly ignoring any social impropriety in our apparently