Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters [48]
Nefret, half asleep against his shoulder, stirred and spoke. “I think the newcomers are going to work out well.”
“Hmmm,” said her mother-in-law, seated across from them. “I confess to having some misgivings.”
“You were the one who wanted to take them on,” Ramses said.
“Professionally they suit admirably. But I did not consider fully the social ramifications.”
Nefret chuckled. “Bertie was only flirting with Suzanne to make Jumana jealous.”
“Jumana is jealous, but not of Bertie,” Ramses said. “She’s afraid she will take second place to Suzanne. Cyrus really ought to give her an official title and position. She’s earned it.”
“I agree,” his mother said. “You must speak to him about it, Emerson.”
“What?”
It was still early when they reached the house, to find Selim on the veranda drinking coffee. “A bit late for a call, isn’t it?” said Emerson.
“Don’t be rude,” said his wife. “It isn’t late. I suggested we leave the Castle early because we have an important matter to settle tonight.”
“What?” said Emerson.
For a moment Ramses thought his mother was going to fly at her oblivious husband. “Sethos,” she hissed through her teeth. It was a name made for hissing.
“Oh,” said Emerson, fingering his chin.
Selim, who usually enjoyed their exchanges, remained grave. “I have news, Sitt Hakim,” he said.
“I knew something had happened,” she exclaimed. “What?”
“The old man is dead. The beggar.”
Emerson sat up straighter. “What beggar? How? When?”
The old man’s body had been found that evening, behind a wall of the cemetery. How long it had been there no one knew; the spot was not often visited. Selim had been among the first to hear of it. He had gone at once to examine the body.
“There was no mark of violence, no wound. I could tell because he had been stripped of his clothing.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Nefret asked in surprise. “He owned nothing, he had nothing of value.”
“He might have done it himself,” Ramses said. “Sometimes he did. He would walk about naked, talking to himself or to God, until a kind person took charge of him.”
Selim nodded. “It is possible. His few pieces of clothing had not been taken away, they lay on the ground next to him.” With a sidelong look at Nefret, he added, “I deduce he died in the night. The stiffness had gone from his feet and legs.”
As experts know, the process of rigor mortis is affected by many variables, including the temperature and the victim’s physical condition. However, it was a reasonable deduction for Selim to make. He rather fancied himself as a detective.
“An excellent deduction, Selim,” Nefret said. “I suppose he has been buried?”
“No, Nur Misur. He is here.”
They had laid him out, as reverently as possible, on a table in the garden shed, covered with a clean white sheet. Fatima sat by him. The lamplight reddened the tears on her cheeks.
“I wanted to wash the body, but Selim would not let me,” she murmured.
“Good thinking, Selim,” Ramses said. Nefret lowered the sheet. It was a scene straight out of Doré, or one of the illustrators who specialized in Gothic horrors—the shifting light and elusive shadows, and the naked body, skeletally thin and pallid. Ancient dirt lay encrusted in the wrinkled flesh; a louse crawled out of the wispy gray hair. Normally one of the most fastidious of women, Nefret went over the body with professional detachment. Fatima let out little cries of protest.
“He is filthy and covered with insects, Nur Misur. Let me do that.”
“It’s all right, Fatima,” Nefret said. “Rigor is well advanced. No wounds on the face or skull. The poor man is covered with bruises and scrapes. Fatima, hand me that damp cloth. I want a better look at his throat.”
“He was always falling and running into hard things, God be merciful to him,” Fatima murmured.
“There are bruises on his neck, but no worse than the ones on the rest of his body,” Nefret reported.
“It wouldn’t take much to send a feeble old man like that into cardiac arrest,” Ramses’s mother remarked.
“Oh, bah,” said her husband, now fully attentive. “You are always looking for signs