The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [49]
“A sweet experience to share,” Emerson growled. “Well, curse it, I can do no less. I will just go and—”
“No, Emerson. What about a spot of lunch while we are waiting? Bertie, I neglected to commend you on a task well done. Would you care for a cheese sandwich?”
Bertie had removed the cloth that had covered his mouth and nose. “Good Lord, Mrs. Emerson, I . . . Well, yes, thank you, if it isn’t too much trouble, but she—Nefret—it is quite a horrible object, you know, and the sight of food—”
“Don’t worry about her,” I said.
Cyrus only shook his head. He had known Nefret longer than Bertie had.
Though I am accustomed to corpses in all stages, from newly slain to long mummified, I was not particularly anxious to examine this one, or even to watch from a distance. I kept my eyes averted until Selim and Hassan rewrapped the bundle and replaced it on the litter. When Nefret and Ramses came back I observed that her hands and forearms were red, not with blood, but from the gritty sand with which she had cleaned them. She was perfectly composed—more so than Ramses, whose features were not so controlled as they usually were. At my suggestion he got out the bottle of alcohol and poured it over her hands. She then seated herself and asked for a sandwich.
The others watched her with varying degrees of admiration and consternation. Jumana’s eyes were enormous in a face that had lost its healthy color. “How could you?” she quavered.
“It’s my profession,” Nefret said calmly. “Not an enjoyable profession at times like this one, but I’m used to it. I knew the family wouldn’t allow a proper autopsy, so this was my only chance to determine how the poor man died.”
“Well?” Emerson demanded. “Did you?”
Nefret drank deeply from the water bottle before replying. “Fractured skull. The back of his head was . . . I won’t go into detail.”
“Thank you,” Cyrus muttered, eyeing his sandwich with distaste.
“There were a number of broken bones,” Nefret went on. “I looked for a bullet or knife wound, but it wasn’t easy to . . . Well, I won’t go into that either. The head injury was enough to have killed him.”
“Fall or blunt instrument?” I inquired.
Nefret shrugged. “Impossible to determine. I did the best I could, but without the proper instruments—”
“Yes, quite,” said Emerson.
Selim returned to announce that Hassan had gone on with the cart and its burden, and we continued with our lunch. Daoud soon joined us. He had come round the long way, since he was not fond of climbing ropes, up or down.
“Are there more tombs in these cliffs?” Bertie asked, accepting another sandwich.
“Unquestionably,” Ramses replied. “If this area was used for the burials of royal females during the Eighteenth Dynasty, which seems likely, there are a number of known queens whose mummies have never been found, and Heaven knows how many unknown princesses and kings’ lesser wives.”
“Not to mention princes,” Nefret added, her eyes shining with archaeological fervor. “And royal mothers and sisters and—”
“Cousins and aunts,” I said, with a chuckle, reminded of one of my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan arias.
The others acknowledged my little joke with smiles and nods, except for Emerson, who sat like a boulder, staring off into space, and Selim, who was growing restless.
“The horses will not run away,” he said. “Not our horses. But we should not leave them there too long.”
Emerson jumped up. “Quite right, quite right. I will—er—this will only take a minute.”
I had expected Emerson would want to get into the cursed tomb. I was not the only one who attempted to make him see reason, but he waved all objections aside. “I only want to have a look.”
“Put on your pith helmet, Emerson,” I called after him.
“Yes, yes,” said Emerson, not doing so.
He started to climb the rope, moving with an agility remarkable in so heavy a man. He had not got very far when the quiet air was rent by a prolonged, high-pitched scream. It was not an animal. No creature in Egypt made a sound like that. Emerson lost his grip on the rope and dropped down, staggering a bit before he got his