The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters [84]
“I favor the first of your hypotheses, Emerson,” I said. “It was necessary to find a hiding place for the baroness’s mummy case. What better place than among others of the same? I believe the thief put her mummy case in the storage room and took one of ours. Last night he broke in again and removed the first mummy case.”
“I have a feeling,” said Emerson conversationally, “that if I hear the words ‘mummy case’ again, a blood vessel will burst in my brain. Peabody, your theory is perfectly reasonable, except for one small point. There is no reason why anyone with an ounce of sense would steal the baroness’s mum—property in the first place, much less go through these fantastic convolutions with it.”
We stared bemusedly at one another. John scratched his head. Finally Ramses said thoughtfully, “I can t’ink of several possibilities, Papa. But it is a capital mistake to t’eorize wit’ insufficient data.”
“Well put, Ramses,” Emerson said approvingly.
“De statement is not original, Papa.”
“Never mind. Let us forsake theories and take action. Peabody, I have come around to your way of thinking. Hamid is the only suspicious character hereabouts. Let us question Hamid.”
But Hamid was not on the dig. He had not reported for work that morning, and all the men denied having seen him.
“What did I tell you?” I cried. “He has flown. Does not that prove his guilt?”
“It proves nothing except that he is not here,” Emerson replied waspishly. “Perhaps he has accomplished his purpose, whatever the devil that might have been, and has departed. So much the better. I can get on with my work in peace.”
“But, Emerson—”
Emerson rounded on me and wagged his finger under my nose. “Work, Peabody—work! Is the word familiar to you? I know you find our activities tedious; I know you yearn for pyramids and sneer at cemeteries—”
“Emerson, I never said—”
“You thought it. I saw you thinking it.”
“I was not alone if I did.”
Emerson threw his arm around my shoulders, careless of the men working nearby. A low murmur of amusement rose from them. “Right as always, Peabody. I find our present excavations boring too. I am taking out my bad humor on you.”
“Couldn’t we start work on the pyramids here, Emerson? They are poor things, but our own.”
“You know my methods, Peabody. One thing at a time. I will not be distracted from duty by the siren call of—er—pyramids.”
iii
For the next few days it appeared that Emerson’s hopes regarding Hamid were justified. There were no further attacks on the missionaries or on our property, and one evening, when I inadvertently used the phrase “mummy case,” Emerson scarcely flinched. I let him enjoy his illusory sense of tranquillity, but I knew, with that intuitive intelligence upon which I have often been commended, that the peace could not last—that the calm was only a thin surface over a seething caldron of passions that must eventually erupt.
Our decision to allow Ramses his own excavation had been a success. He was gone all day, taking his noon meal with him, and always returned in time for tea. One evening he was late, however, and I was about to send someone out to look for him when I caught a glimpse of a small form scuttling with an odd crablike motion along the shaded cloister. He was carrying something, wrapped in his shirt. I knew the cloth enclosing the bundle was his shirt because he was not wearing the garment.
“Ramses!” I called.
Ramses ducked into his room, but promptly reappeared.
“How many times have I told you not to remove any of your outer garments without sufficient cause?” I inquired.
“Very many times, Mama.”
“What have you got there?”
“Some t’ings I found when I was excavating, Mama.”
“May I see them?”
“I would radder you did not, Mama, at present.”
I was about to insist when Emerson, who had joined me, said softly, “A moment, Peabody.”
He drew me aside. “Ramses wants to keep his discoveries for a surprise,” he explained. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint the dear little chap, would you?”
This was not a question I could answer fully, under the circumstances, so I remained