The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [3]
He took the box from me and was about to lift the lid when I exclaimed, “No, Emerson. Not now. Put it away.”
Seeing that our visitor had departed, Fatima opened the door to the house and the juvenile avalanche descended. There were only two of them, and they were only four years old, but they made enough noise for a dozen and moved so rapidly that they gave the impression of having been multiplied. As usual, they dashed at their grandfather, who tried to hide the painted box behind his back. He was not quick enough.
“It is a present!” Carla shouted. Her black eyes, so like those of her father, shone with anticipation. “Is it for me?”
Her brother, David John, who had his mother’s fair hair and blue eyes, shook his head. “The assumption is without foundation, Carla. Grandpapa would not have a present for only one of us.”
“Quite right,” said Emerson. “Er—this is a present for me.”
“Did the lady give it to you?” Carla demanded.
“Yes,” said Emerson.
“Why?”
“Because—er—because she is a kind person.”
“Can we see what is inside?”
David John, whose methods were less direct than those of his sister, had already headed for the tea table, where Fatima had placed a plate of biscuits.
“Don’t you want a biscuit?” Emerson asked Carla.
Carla hesitated only for a moment. Insatiable curiosity won over greed. “I want to see what is inside the box.”
Emerson tried to look severe. He did not succeed. He dotes on his grandchildren, and they know it. “I told you, Carla, that it is not for you.”
“But it might be something I would want,” Carla explained coolly.
“It is something you may not have,” said Ramses, drawing himself up to his full height of six feet and fixing his small daughter with a stern look. Not one whit intimidated, Carla stared back at him from her full height of three feet and a bit. She was comically like her father, with the same black curls and dark eyes, and downy black brows that were now drawn into a miniature version of his frown.
I said, “David John is eating all the biscuits.”
My understanding of juvenile psychology had the effect Ramses’s attempt at discipline had not. Carla ran to get her share and Nefret informed her son he had had as many biscuits as he was allowed. A discussion ensued, for David John had inherited his father’s Jesuitical skill at debate, and Nefret had to counter several arguments about the needs of growing children for sugarcoated biscuits. While they were thus engaged, I gestured to Emerson.
“Now you have aroused my curiosity,” I admitted. “Open the box, Emerson.”
The object inside the box was roughly cylindrical in shape and approximately thirty centimeters long. That was all we could make out at first, since it was swathed in silken wrappings tied at intervals with tightly knotted gold cords.
“She was taking no chances, was she?” Ramses said, while his father picked at the knots and swore under his breath. “It could be an ushebti, it’s the right shape.”
“Surely nothing so ordinary,” I objected. The little servant statues, placed in the tomb to serve the dead man in the afterlife, had been found in the thousands; most were of crude workmanship and cheap materials such as faience.
“Why not?” Ramses inquired. “The notion of a curse is pure superstition; it can be attached to any object, however humble.”
“Petherick wouldn’t have owned anything humble,” said Emerson.
But his wife might have purchased something of the sort to add verisimilitude to her sensational account. I did not voice this sentiment, since Emerson would not have accepted it. Anyhow, I told myself, it would do no harm to have a look.
Since neither Emerson nor Ramses carried even a small penknife (David John was an accomplished pickpocket and particularly interested in sharp objects), Emerson had to go into the house to get a knife with which to cut the cords,