The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters [137]
It was my turn to speak. “Hamid probably took the other objects he had stolen from the baroness directly to his leader as proof of his loyalty; but the leader, who is no fool, was bound to wonder what he had done with the mummy case and why he had stolen it in the first place. Hamid could invent some lie to explain the latter question—he had been mistaken about its value, he had believed it contained valuable jewels—that sort of thing. But he had to account for its disappearance. His tricks with the mummy cases coming and going were designed to confuse his leader as well as us.”
“It was clever of him to conceal his prize among others of the same sort,” Emerson said grudgingly. “The old ‘Purloined Letter’ device. He put it in our storeroom and carried one of our coffins into the desert. Later, after Ezekiel had agreed to buy it, he removed it from the storeroom. Ezekiel had no intention of paying him; he had no more money, but he had his murderous hands. The rope around Hamid’s neck was a symbolic gesture. Ezekiel could hardly hang the man from the roofbeam of his own house.”
“He was still clinging to the rags of sanity then,” I remarked.
“You are mixing your metaphors, Peabody, I believe. His hold on reality was weakening every day. But he had sense enough to know he could not hide the mummy case indefinitely. He destroyed it by fire a few days later. That was his real aim, after all—to destroy the manuscript. That,” Emerson added nonchalantly, “was one of the vital clues. The Master Criminal—curse it, I mean the leader of the gang—would have no reason to steal an antiquity only to destroy it.”
De Morgan could contain himself no longer. “But what was it?” he cried. “What was this terrible manuscript that drove a man to murder?”
There was a brief pause, fraught with drama. Then Emerson turned to Ramses, who had been an interested spectator. “Very well, my boy; not even your mama can deny that you have a right to speak. What was in the manuscript?”
Ramses cleared his throat. “You understand dat I can only t’eorize, since de fragments remaining are only a small fraction of de whole. However—”
“Ramses,” I said gently.
“Yes, Mama, I will be brief. I t’ink dat de manuscript is a copy of a lost gospel, written by Didymus Thomas, one of de apostles. Dat much could be surmised from de first fragment. It is de second fragment, found by Mama later, dat may provide an explanation for de madness of Brudder Ezekiel.”
“Ramses,” said Emerson.
“Yes, Papa. It contained t’ree words. Dey are: ‘de son of Jesus.’”
“Nom de Dieu,” de Morgan gasped.
“You are quick, monsieur,” I said. “You see the significance of those words.”
“They may not mean what we think,” de Morgan muttered, passing a trembling hand across his brow. “They cannot mean what we think.”
“But we may reasonably conclude from the actions of Brother Ezekiel that the lost gospel contained matter he would consider blasphemous and heretical—matter that must never come to light. It is not unheard of even for supposedly sane scholars to suppress data that does not agree with their pet theories. Imagine the effect of such information on a man whose brain was already reeling; who suffered from incipient megalomania.”
“You must be right,” said de Morgan. “There is no other explanation that fits the facts. Mais, quel mélodrame! You are a true heroine, madame; the murderer seized, the thieves routed…. I congratulate you from my heart.”
I stretched out a hand to Emerson. “Congratulate us both, monsieur. We work together.”
“Admirable,” said the Frenchman politely. “Well,