The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters [10]
Investigation showed that the space beyond the door was completely filled with rubble. This was not surprising, since the Egyptians commonly used such devices to discourage tomb robbers; but the effect was distinctly anticlimactic, and the audience dispersed with disappointed murmurs, leaving Sir Henry to nurse his barked knuckles and contemplate a long, tedious job. If this tomb followed the plans of those already known, a passageway of unknown length would have to be cleared before the burial chamber was reached. Some tombs had entrance passages over a hundred feet long.
Yet the fact that the corridor was blocked made the discovery appear even more promising than before. The Times gave the story a full column, on page three. The next dispatch to come from Luxor, however, rated front-page headlines.
Sir Henry Baskerville was dead. He had retired in perfect health (except for his thumb and his knuckles). He was found next morning stiff and stark in his bed. On his face was a look of ghastly horror. On his high brow, inscribed in what appeared to be dried blood, was a crudely drawn uraeus serpent, the symbol of the divine pharaoh.
The “blood” turned out to be red paint. Even so, the news was sensational, and it became even more sensational after a medical examination failed to discover the cause of Sir Henry’s death.
Cases of seemingly healthy persons who succumb to the sudden failure of a vital organ are certainly not unknown, nor, contrary to writers of thrillers, are they always due to the administration of mysterious poisons. If Sir Henry had died in his bed at Baskerville Hall, the physicians would have stroked their beards and concealed their ignorance in meaningless medical mumbo-jumbo. Even under these circumstances the story would have died a natural death (as Sir Henry was presumed to have done) had not an enterprising reporter from one of our less reputable newspapers remembered the unknown prophet’s curse. The story in the Times was what one might expect of that dignified journal, but the other newspapers were less restrained. Their columns bristled with references to avenging spirits, cryptic antique curses, and unholy rites. But this sensation paled into insignificance two days later, when it was discovered that Mr. Alan Armadale, Sir Henry’s assistant, had disappeared— vanished, as the Daily Yell put it, off the face of the earth!
By this time I was snatching the newspapers from Emerson each evening when he came home. Naturally I did not believe for an instant in the absurd tales of curses or supernatural doom, and when the news of young Armadale’s disappearance became known I felt sure I had the answer to the mystery.
“Armadale is the murderer,” I exclaimed to Emerson, who was on his hands and knees playing horsie with Ramses.
Emerson let out a grunt as his son’s heels dug into his ribs. When he got his breath back he said irritably, “What do you mean, talking about ‘the murderer’ in that self-assured way? No murder was committed. Baskerville died of a heart condition or some such thing; he was always a feeble sort of fellow. Armadale is probably forgetting his troubles in a tavern. He has lost his position and will not easily find another patron so late in the season.”
I made no reply to this ridiculous suggestion. Time, I knew, would prove me right, and until it did I saw no sense in wasting my breath arguing with Emerson, who is the stubbornest of men.
During the following week one of the gentlemen who had been present at the official opening of the tomb came down with a bad attack of fever, and a workman fell off a pylon at Karnak, breaking his neck. “The Curse is still operating,” exclaimed the Daily Yell. “Who will be next?”
After the demise of the man who tumbled off the pylon (where he had been chiseling out a section of carving to sell to the illicit antiquities dealers), his fellows refused to go near