Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters [124]
“It is some distance away, but it has several advantages, including a large open area in front. To judge from what I’ve seen thus far, Lucas is going to need a bit of fresh air; the chemicals he uses for conservation can be pervasive.”
“I trust he knows about paraffin wax,” I said. “Do have another slice of plum cake, Mr. Burton.”
“Paraffin wax has always been your mainstay, hasn’t it?” Burton accepted the offering with a smiling nod at Sennia.
“There is nothing like it,” I declared. “Especially for beads and loose bits of inlay.”
Burton was ready to take the hint. “There’s plenty of that sort of thing. Most of the storage chests are packed full of everything from jewelry to clothing. Sandals, beaded robes, wadded up and jammed in.”
No one interrupted him as he went on with his description. Howard had applied numbers to each object in the first room, which he had termed the Antechamber. These were large enough to show in the photographs and would be listed and described in Howard’s official index. The objects were to be removed one by one, working from north to south. The huge funerary couches would have to be taken apart, since they were too large to pass through the entrance corridor; they must have been assembled inside the tomb, after having been brought in piece by piece. The chariot parts would be left until last; they presented a particularly difficult job, since they were all in a jumble and bits of the gold and inlay were precariously attached. In the meantime, Mr. Lucas would unpack the storage chests. I knew—who better?—what a formidable task lay before him. According to Mr. Burton (and our own observations, which of course I did not mention), the contents of the chests were not in their original order. Tomb robbers are not noted for neatness; working in haste and fear of discovery, they had emptied the chests looking for gold, and when the priests entered to put things in order, they had acted in equal haste, tossing scattered objects into the nearest container and forcing the lid down.
Sethos listened with the same absorbed expression as the rest of us. I knew he was thinking of his “restorer,” a member of his criminal organization, who had assisted us so ably with the fragile objects found in the tomb of the God’s Wives before he was murdered. People who assist us often meet that fate, but Signor Martinelli had only himself to blame; he had allowed himself to be lured away by a female on whom he had designs of an improper nature.
Mr. Lucas had no such weakness. I could only hope he was as good at his job. It is a sad fact of life that honest persons sometimes lack the experience of the more unprincipled.
Mr. Burton accepted a third slice of plum cake before declaring he must be getting back to Metropolitan House. “By the way,” he added, “Breasted has read the cartouches and confirmed that they are those of Tutankhamon.”
“Reread them, you mean,” snapped Emerson.
“Ah,” Burton said. “I wondered about that.”
He said no more, but shook the hand of Ramses with particular warmth.
“At least one person recognizes our contributions,” I said.
“Oh, I expect there will be others,” Sethos said, with an evil smile. “Carter doesn’t work and play well with others. Mark my words, before he’s through he’ll have a good many people furious with him, from journalists and the Antiquities Department to certain of his colleagues.”
I will confess, in the pages of this private journal, that I was not charitable enough to hope Sethos was wrong. We were among the few—the only ones, except for Cyrus—who had not received a formal invitation to view the tomb. The Breasteds, including their son Charles, Mrs. Burton, and even one of Winlock’s children had been allowed to putter about in the Antechamber. It was small consolation to know that we had had a private look of our own, since we couldn’t tell anyone about it. I felt for David, who would have had a keen appreciation of the wonderful artifacts. How he was going to carry out his assignment for the Illustrated London News I could not imagine. Howard was guarding the photographic