The Serpent on the Crown - Elizabeth Peters [95]
FROM MANUSCRIPT H
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Emerson was reverting to his old habits. He sent them all off to the Valley of the Kings before he and his wife left for Luxor, with instructions to continue clearing the tomb, keeping copious notes and taking photographs of every stage. Ramses went without protest. His father’s new schedule meant he would have from midmorning until late afternoon for his own work, which was fair enough. His mother didn’t protest either; she was suffering from a severe case of detective fever and couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
There was only room for a few people to work inside the burial chamber, and dirty work it was. The floor was covered with a layer of hardened mud, some of which had to be removed with dental picks. So far the results had been meager: scraps of broken pottery and stone vessels, bits of gold foil, and a few seals. Examining one of these, Ramses said in disgust, “Unreadable. This looks like a neb sign, but that’s all I can make out.”
“What part of the tomb did the seal come from, do you suppose?” David asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine. The outer entrance was closed and the seals of the necropolis applied to the stones, but the tomb was entered at least once after the burial. Davis’s lot demolished the blocking they found and apparently destroyed or lost any remaining seals.”
“Do you think the Professor will want a photograph?” David asked, eyeing the unintelligible scrap.
“Doesn’t he always? Take it upstairs with the rest of this rubbish.” Ramses put the seal carefully into a tray with the few other objects that had come from the square on which they were working.
A short time later Hassan came down. “There are many, many tourists,” he announced. “Two of them ask to see you.”
“Tell them to go to blazes.” Ramses got stiffly to his feet.
“They say they are the son and daughter of the lady who died.”
“The Pethericks?”
Nefret, who had been diligently scraping away at the brick-hard mud, straightened.
“You had better talk to them, Ramses.”
“Oh, hell, I suppose I had. We may as well leave off work for now, Hassan. Find anything, Nefret?”
She held out her hand. Cupped in her dusty, scratched palm were several small golden beads. She tipped them into the box Hassan held out and Ramses took advantage of the young man’s departure to kiss her scraped fingers. “Not much to show for all that effort.”
She smiled and stroked his cheek. “But, darling, it’s such a romantic ambience. Here alone, with you…”
She sneezed. Ramses laughed and helped her up the three-foot drop between the corridor and the burial chamber. “Here you go, darling. We’ll find more romantic surroundings later.”
Tourist cameras clicked as they emerged into daylight. “One of the most discouraging aspects of this job,” said Nefret resignedly, “is that my dusty, dirty, crumpled image will appear in thousands of photo albums all over the world.”
“It will be the most beautiful image in the album,” her husband said gallantly. “Damn it, Hassan, get those idiots back from the edge.”
Nefret scrambled nimbly up the ladder. Ramses followed, after ordering Hassan to remove the ladder, and joined Nefret, who was talking to Adrian and Harriet. “I’m sorry we have to be so strict about visitors,” Nefret was saying. “It isn’t only tourists we have to worry about; some of the local people refuse to believe we aren’t looking for gold.”
“Have you found anything?” Adrian asked eagerly. One wouldn’t have known there was anything wrong with him, Ramses thought; he was smiling and at ease, his hat in his hand as he addressed Nefret.
She smiled back at him and indicated one of the boxes of scraps. “As you see.”
Harriet Petherick offered her hand. Ramses shook his head and spread his own filthy hands out for her inspection. “It’s dirty work, Miss Petherick.”
“And unproductive,” she said. “What are you hoping to find?”
He couldn’t think of any reason for refusing to answer. “Some evidence that the statue came originally from this