The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters [104]
I began to agree with Emerson, that I would rather not hear those words again.
Nine
The following day saw the moment I had awaited so long—the beginning of work on our pyramids (or, to be precise, our pyramid, Emerson having selected the northernmost of the two). Dare I confess the truth? I believe I do dare. Though a measurable improvement over Roman mummies and Christian bones, the pitiful excuse for a pyramid I saw before me held little charm. Too late, alas, I knew I should not have yielded to the temptation to explore the Bent Pyramid, well-nigh irresistible as that temptation had been.
Nor was Emerson his usual cheerful self. Something was troubling him—my affectionate perception told me that—but it was not until that evening, when we set to work recording the activities of the day, that he deigned to confide in me.
We worked in silence for some time, at opposite ends of the long table, with the lamp shedding a pool of brightness between us. From time to time I glanced at Emerson, but always found him writing busily. All at once my labors were interrupted by a loud “Curse it!” and the whiz of a missile through the air. The pen hit the wall with a spattering of ink, and fell to the floor.
I looked up. Emerson’s elbows were on the table. His hands clutched his hair. “What is wrong, Emerson?” I asked.
“I cannot concentrate, Peabody. Something is nagging at my mind. I felt sure you would sense my distraction, but every time I looked at you you were busy writing, and I did not want to interrupt.”
“But I felt the same,” I cried eagerly. “Our mental communication is truly remarkable, Emerson. I have noticed it often. What is troubling you?”
“Do you remember the intrusive mummy we found a few days after the robbery of the dahabeeyah?”
I had to think for a few moments before the memory returned. “I believe I do. On the edge of the Christian cemetery, was it not?”
“Yes. I wondered at the time….” Emerson leaped to his feet. “Do you recall where you put it?”
“Certainly. Nothing is stored away in my expedition house without my having a distinct…Emerson! I believe I know what you are thinking.”
We collided in the doorway. “Just a moment,” I said breathlessly. “Let us not be precipitate. Fetch a light and I will call John; we will need to move a few objects to reach the mummy.”
With John’s assistance we removed the mummy from its shelf and carried it back to the parlor. Emerson cleared the table by the simple expedient of sweeping his papers onto the floor, and the mummy was placed on its surface.
“Now,” said Emerson. “Look at it, Peabody.”
There was nothing out of the ordinary about the mummy, except for the arrangement of the wrappings. Instead of being wound haphazardly around the body, the strips of linen were arranged in complex patterns of intersecting lozenges. It was this technique, among other factors, that had enabled Emerson to date it. So ornate were some of the designs I had sometimes wondered whether there were pattern books to which the embalmers might refer. Some mummies of that period had cartonnage masks. Others had painted panels with a portrait of the deceased laid over the bandaged head. In the case of our mummy there was neither mask nor portrait panel, only a shapeless expanse of bandages.
“It has been removed,” said Emerson, as I ran an inquiring hand over this part of the mummy.
“I believe you are right, Emerson. There are streaks of glue, or some other adhesive, remaining, and the bandages seem to have been disturbed.”
“And,” Emerson concluded, “here it is.”
Over the featureless head he laid the portrait panel he had rescued from Abd el Atti’s shop.
John gasped. The painting, which was remarkably lifelike, animated the whole anonymous bundle and changed its character. A woman lay before us, swathed in grave clothes. Her great liquid dark eyes seemed to return our curious stares with