Harriet heard a series of labored, almost frenzied inhalations. She found her attention captured by an unexpected movement on the other side of the room.
Impossible. Impossible! Impossible!!
The mummy of Yuya was moving. His mouth seemed to be open beneath the decaying veneer of linen, and he drew long, painful gulps of air into his lungs. His hands seemed to be flexing. His eyes were open. Beside him, Meret also struggled to force air into her lungs. She raised her left hand upward in a gesture of supplication, and Sekhemib leaned over and grabbed it. "Meret, my sister," he whispered, using the ancient term of endearment. "Thou livest, beloved! Fear not, for I live, and thou livest, and all is well."
"D—D—" Harriet heard the thin, weak voice mutter. "Du—"
"Dudimose?" Sekhemib asked. "He is dead. He is dust. We are safe from him, from his god, from his powers. They are all dust, and we live again." Sekhemib rose to his feet and extended his hand toward her. "Come to me, my beloved. Rise up upon thy feet and make welcome this new day and this new age!"
The mummy of Meret, priestess of Isis, rolled over onto her side and tried to push herself up onto her knees. She seemed to falter, and Sekhemib quickly reached out to steady her. She took his hand eagerly, and with his aid rose up to her knees and then slowly stretched upward until she stood, wavering but erect, upon her feet. She reached up to her face and peeled away the layers of decayed bandages which covered her mouth. "Sekhemib," she whispered. "Brother—"
Sekhemib grabbed her in his arms and squeezed her hard against him, weeping softly. "Meret, my sister, beloved, Meret, Meret!"
"Where are we, my love?"
Sekhemib smiled and shook his head. "Shall I measure the thousands of miles or the thousands of years, my sister? We are far, far from all we knew, far from all we loved."
Harriet sat mesmerized as she watched the mummy continue to strip away the rotten linen. "Not so far from all we loved, my joy and my love," Meret said. "Are we alone of our company? Do we alone live?"
"No, beloved, for behold Yuya!" The other mummy had sat up and was busily engaged in stripping away the linen. "And the others—Herihor, Wenet, Senmut, Khumara—they are near but still sleep. Soon we shall return to the land of our birth, my love, my love."
Harriet's senses reached the point of overload. She fainted once again. But her swoon was of a shorter duration than the previous one; for when her eyes opened and focused, nothing in the room had changed.
Nothing had changed! All the definitions of truth and sanity had changed! Before her stood a handsome young man and an exquisitely beautiful young woman, whose decaying linen raiment was being peeled away to reveal a body of fresh, smooth pinkish skin. Beside them, another young man was removing his own funeral dress, uncovering his own unlined, unwrinkled, taut, fresh flesh.
They are beautiful! Harriet thought. Beautiful beyond description!
And Gus and Suzanne, or rather what was left of Gus and Suzanne—the rotting husks, the decaying shells, the reptilian remnants of leathery skin and cracking bones of Gus and Suzanne—lay in pathetic stillness upon the floor.
Why am I not crying? Harriet wondered. Why am I just sitting here as if I were calm and untroubled? "Suzie," she whispered, and the mere act of speaking the name aloud seemed to open the floodgates of her tears. She wept loudly and her head fell forward upon her breast.
Ahmed Hadji walked over to her. "I told you, didn't I? I told you that you would pay, and you shall, even as they have paid."
"Hadji," Sekhemib said in the ancient tongue. "Gather up the bones of the tekenues and dispose of them as I instructed you earlier. Make haste, for we must make ready to leave this place and begin our long journey."
"Yes, my lord." Hadji ran upstairs and looked in vain for more laundry bags. He found none, and realized that he would have to carry the bodies out in his bare hands, a prospect which did not please him.
When he returned to the basement he found Sekhemib and Meret still embracing, even as they and Yuya spoke cheerfully to each other, laughing and jabbering away in the ancient tongue much too quickly for Hadji to follow their conversation. Harriet was still weeping, her body trembling and shaking. Hadji ignored her even as he was being ignored by the three ancient ones. He picked up the body of Gus Rudd and placed it atop the body of Suzanne Melendez, noting as before with Will Foster how light they were, how oddly cohesive in their state of decay, and he carried them up the stairs and out into the gray light of early dawn. Make haste, he told himself. Make haste.
He tossed them unceremoniously into the back seat of the car and started the engine. A middle-aged man was walking his dog down the street, and Hadji casually (he hoped) covered the side of his face with his hand as he passed by him, and then accelerated as he turned the corner and headed once again out of town.
He glanced up nervously at the reddish orb of the sun which was creeping inexorably up over the horizon. Damnation! he thought. The risk of capture increased with every passing moment. He sped past the You Are Now Leaving Greenfield sign and turned onto a small road which bore the title Route 51. After a few moments he came to the foot of a small bridge of the cantilever type which stretched over a body of moving water too small to be called a river but too large to be called a stream.
Hadji stopped the car and got out. He leaned over the railing and looking at the rushing water. I must destroy the bodies of the tekenues, he thought, but that does not mean they must be burned. If I bind them to rocks and throw them in the river, the fish will eat whatever is edible and the current will reduce them to nothing in a short time. He looked up again at the sun. I cannot be seen, I must not be seen outside of that house until we are prepared to depart. To start another fire now would be foolish, dangerous; it would jeopardize my whole mission. If I throw them in the river, it will serve the same purpose. Sekhemib would approve, he would under stand, he would see the logic of my actions.
Sekhemib need never know.
He got back into the car and drove off the road onto the narrow shoulder just before the bridge. He opened the trunk and removed the coil of rope which he had seen there earlier, when he had removed the hammer and crowbar, and tossed it to the ground. He then dragged the remains of the two tekenues from the back seat and tied the end of the rope to their ankles, binding them together. A few moments of searching provided him with a rock, large enough to hold them on the bottom of the river but small enough for him to handle. He swiftly and securely wrapped the rope around the rock, tying it numerous times at appropriate places around the irregular shape, and then, holding the rock in his arms, carried it onto the bridge, the tekenues dragging behind him. When he reached the middle of the bridge, he placed the rock carefully on the flat surface of the steel railing and, steadying it with one hand, pulled the light bodies up and draped them over the railing beside the rock. Then he pushed everything over the edge.
Hadji watched with satisfaction as the rock pulled the bodies downward, as they hit the water with a resounding slap, as they sank from sight beneath the surface. He waited for a few moments, searching the surface with his eyes for any hint of their presence, and then, smiling, climbed back into the car, made a U-turn, and drove back toward Greenfield.
He should have waited a little longer. He should have tied better knots.
Not five minutes later the grinning death's-head of Gus Rudd bobbed playfully to the surface of the river, and the current carried him downstream. All that was left of Suzanne Melendez followed almost immediately. The two withered, leathery corpses floated downstream for a half hour before the current deposited them upon a sand bar which thrust outward from the bank. They lay there in the sun, upon their backs, looking for all the world as if they had abandoned their graves and gone to the water side to get a tan.
CHAPTER 11
At first, Thomas Sawhill was unable to discover the cause of his feeling of frustration because his mind was generally incapable of reason as it climbed slowly from sleep to wakefulness. Some people awaken
quickly, their eyes springing open, their mental faculties instantly alert and functioning clearly, but Sawhill was not such a person. It took him a few minutes of head shaking, eye rubbing, and arm stretching to restore himself to the condition of mental clarity necessary for any degree of analytical thought.
Thus it was that when he rolled over in his half sleep to embrace Harriet and found her gone, he at first felt confused disappointment without understanding the cause. He sat up in bed and proceeded very slowly to rouse himself to full wakefulness. Scratching his scalp through tousled hair, he looked blearily around the bedroom. Where is she? he wondered. Breakfast, he thought, smiling. She must be making breakfast. Do I smell coffee brewing?
No, I don't, he realized after a few moments. I don't smell bacon either. Sawhill pulled on the pajama bottoms which he had discarded the previous evening and stumbled out into the kitchen. It was uninhabited. "Harriet?" he called out into the empty apartment. "Honey, are you here?" He checked the bathroom, finding it likewise free of human presence.
He looked a bit foolish as he stood, almost but not quite awake, in the middle of the living room, gazing about him with a look of helplessness upon his face. "I wonder where she went?" he muttered aloud to no one in particular. "Store, maybe."
He decided that she would return soon. He had no reason to believe this, but he chose to believe it because it made him feel good. Sawhill went back into the kitchen and began to make some coffee, but then stopped and thought. She wouldn't have just left without leaving a note or waking me up. Besides, where would she go? She had no classes to teach between terms. There was no…
Wait! She must have gone to the museum to examine the other mummies! Sawhill smiled and shook his head, embarrassed at his own lack of clarity. She still had four crates to unload, and Lord knows what other curatorial work to do over there. He glanced up at the clock. Eight in the morning. Harriet always was an early riser, and she knew that he wasn't, so leaving without disturbing him was an act of courtesy, nothing more. He resumed preparing the coffee.
As the coffee began to perk he went over to Harriet's address book beside the telephone in the bedroom and looked up the museum's number. He rehearsed an opening quip in his mind as he waited for her to answer the phone. She did not. He leafed through the address book until he found the central switchboard for the college and dialed the number. A few rings later it was answered.
"Hello, WinthropCollege."
"Hello, this is Dr. Sawhill. Could you please connect me with the grounds building?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but the switchboard isn't open."
He paused for a moment and fought down his sarcasm. "Then who am I speaking to?"
"This is Cindy Abrams. I'm the emergency operator between terms, but I'm not allowed to—"
"Well, this is an emergency," he cut in. "This is Doctor Sawhill. Please connect me with the grounds building."
A pause, and then, "Oh, okay. Wait a minute." He waited as the student operator made the appropriate connection, and then waited some more as the phone rang. "I'm sorry, sir, there's no answer."
He frowned, perplexed. "Okay, thank you." He hung up and stood there for a few moments, tapping his fingers on the night table in annoyance. Then he picked up the phone and dialed information. He asked for the number of the Huguenot Hotel, where he knew Suzanne and Roderick were staying, and asked to be connected to Ms. Melendez's room. There was no answer. He called the desk once more and asked to be connected to Lord Selwyn's room.
He waited as the phone rang once again. After a few moments he heard Roderick's voice say thickly, "Hello? Are you there?"
"Your Lordship? This is Thomas Sawhill."
"What? Oh, er, yes, hello." A long, protracted yawn issued forth from the receiver. "What time is it? Am I supposed to be doing something?"
Sawhill repressed a laugh. "No, no, Your Lordship. I'm sorry to bother you so early, but I'm trying to find Harriet or Suzanne. I don't wish to be indelicate, but might Suzanne be with you?"
Roderick laughed. "Oh, certainly not!"
"Well, I just thought I'd check. Thanks any—"
"I haven't seen Ms. Melendez since—oh, last evening, I suppose. Why? Is there something wrong?"
"No, I just don't seem to be able to find Harriet. I thought she and Suzanne might have—well, I don't know, gone out to breakfast or something."
"Have you called the college, or Professor Goldhaber?"
"Not yet. I'll try Sam next. I have called the college, but she isn't there. Really, I'm sorry I woke you up."
"Perfectly all right, old fellow. I had to get up to answer the phone anyway."
Roderick hung up before Sawhill could think of an appropriately absurd response to this parting statement. He replaced the receiver in its holder and picked up Harriet's address book, intending to look up Sam Goldhaber's number. An instant later the phone rang, and Sawhill smiled. Mystery solved, he thought. She's probably calling to tell me she's somewhere with Suzanne. He picked up the receiver and said, "Hello?" in a drawn out, somewhat whimsical manner.
The voice he heard was neither whimsical nor Harriet's. "Who the hell is this?" Jasper Rudd said darkly. Sawhill could tell by the sound of Jasper's voice that something was wrong. He sounded hoarse, tremulous, angry.
"Jasper? This is Tom Sawhill. What's—"
"Good. Glad you're there. Been tryin' to find you. I want you here as soon as possible."
"Where are you?"
"At the hospital. In the morgue."
Sawhill's stomach froze. "Another murder?"
"That's what I want to know. Is Miss Langly there?"
"No," Sawhill said, silently relieved. If Jasper could ask that question, then Harriet was not the subject of his phone call. "I've been trying to find her. I thought I'd—"
"You'll do nothing but get over here!" Jasper snapped. "I'll send somebody out to find Miss Langly. Just get here!" Jasper hung up without another word.
Sawhill stared numbly at the phone for a moment and then tossed it down into its holder. He pulled his clothes on hurriedly and rushed out the door.
He hopped into his car and sped to the hospital, running two traffic lights and breaking every town driving ordinance. A freight train was crawling slowly along the tracks which bisected the town and lay between him and the hospital. He pounded his fist in frustration upon the steering wheel as one half of his mind counted the procession of freight cars and the other half preoccupied itself with morbid fantasies of what awaited him. After what seemed an eternity the last car rumbled loudly past, and the striped wooden gate slowly lifted. Sawhill gunned the engine and virtually leaped across the tracks.
He screeched to a halt in front of the hospital and jumped from the car. He nearly knocked Sam Goldhaber over before he saw him. "Sam! I'm sorry. What are you doing here?"
"I got a call from Jasper Rudd," Sam explained. "He asked me to pick up the Earl on my way over." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward Roderick, who was stumbling, disheveled, unshaven, and just barely awake, toward them.
"Have you heard from Harriet or Suzanne?" Sawhill asked.
"No. Why?"
Sawhill shrugged. "Can't seem to find either of them."
"That's funny," Sam said, frowning. "What does Jasper want, anyway? All he told me was that I should come to the hospital."
Sawhill shook his head. "I don't know, but he told me that he'd be in the morgue."
"The morgue! This hospital has a morgue?! A little place like this?"
Sawhill laughed grimly. "Every hospital has a morgue, Sam. People do die in hospitals, you know. The bodies have to be stored somewhere."
"Yes, but—" Sam Goldhaber really had no response. He simply continued speaking. "I mean, a morgue!"
"I say," Roderick broke in, "who's died?"
"I'm as much in the dark as you are, Your Lordship," Sawhill muttered as he began to climb up the steps of the hospital. "I know one thing, though: Jasper sounded pretty strange on the phone."
; "Yes, I noticed that too," Sam said. "He sounded like he was about to scream, like he was struggling to hold himself in."
"Yeah?" Sawhill said. "I didn't get that kind of impression. He sounded to me like he was on the verge of tears." He and Sam smiled at the ludicrousness of the image, Jasper Rudd crying.
"Mornin', Doctor." The young nurse smiled as the three men walked past the reception desk just beyond the entrance way. "Are you looking for the chief?"
"Yes, Marcy. He's expecting us. Is he . . ." Sawhill nodded toward the stairway.
"Yes. He's been down there all by himself for over an hour." She added a bit melodramatically, "Just between you and me, he doesn't look too well."
"Do you know who the deceased is?"
She shook her head. "Nope. He and Dr. Harrison brought the bodies in before I—"
"Bodies?" Sawhill exclaimed. "More than one?"
"Two, I'm afraid," she said. "Dr. Harrison said he was going to have to perform an autopsy after you had examined the bodies."
"Me?! Doug Harrison doesn't need my input into some thing like this. He's the county medical examiner."
The young nurse shrugged. "All I know is what I heard, Doctor. And that's what I heard." She returned to the papers on her desk.
"Damned peculiar," Sawhill said. He began to walk toward the stairs and then, almost as an afterthought, he turned to Sam and Roderick and said, "It's this way, down in the basement."
"Colder down there?" Sam asked.
"Not really," he answered as he pushed open the door and began to descend the steps. "Oh, I guess a long time ago, last century, morgues were always located in basements because it was colder down under, but that isn't the case in modern buildings. I think we just tend to put morgues downstairs nowadays out of tradition."
"Eh, gentlemen," Roderick broke in, "I do hate to be troublesome, but do you think I might wait for you upstairs? I'm not particularly eager to visit with the deceased."
"Suit yourself, Your Lordship," Sawhill said, "but Jasper asked Sam to bring you along, so he must want you for something."
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