by John Burke
Which was just as well, since the brain was no longer in it.
Orders were given for the laboratory to be dismantled, but as there was no urgency in this the process dragged on long enough for Hans to remove certain essential items. These included various pieces of equipment whose use the Medical Council reactionaries would not have understood, certain carefully preserved limbs—among them a tattooed arm—and above all a jar full of liquid in which floated a brain. Hans treated this with the utmost care. He had made some serious mistakes in the past, but now he worked to eradicate them.
The task to which he bent all his energies took rather more than a year. He suffered many setbacks and at one stage was near to abandoning the whole thing. I knew none of this. Time passed, but for me there was no time. For me, there had been the pain and then the descent into nothingness. And then I was awake once more. I might have done no more than close my eyes and open them again.
There was still pain, but it was a different order of pain. I suffered internally for many weeks as flesh knit and came to life again. But this I could endure: I knew what was happening, and by not fighting against it I was able to help it along. Hans needed to give me no instructions. I laid down for myself a strict programme of carefully graduated movements. Today I would concentrate on my fingers, tomorrow on gentle exercises with my arms; next week I would walk, and the month after that I would go out into the world and adjust myself to the milieu in which I must now function.
It came as a surprise to me to find what a distance Hans had put between us and Carlsbruck. We were in England. The name of Frankenstein was scarcely known here, and even if someone were to arrive in London from the Continent with grisly stories, there would never be any danger of recognition. The Frankenstein features were gone. The body which I now inhabited could be claimed by no one and recognized by no one, since it was an assembly of so many different items. Hans had done a splendid job. There were one or two minor adjustments I might wish to make to myself in due course, but they could wait. On the whole I was satisfied with my new self.
And as time has gone on, I have remained satisfied. The pains abated, the stiffness and awkwardness of limbs to whose balance I had to adjust soon wore off, and my brain was as clear and efficient as it had always been.
When I looked at myself in a glass this morning, I could detect only the faintest white line of a scar across the forehead. Sometimes my patients have looked at that scar—with curiosity and the admiration which is always aroused by mystery. It has done me no harm: rather the reverse, in fact. Once more the ladies flock to my consulting room. Once more I receive invitations to those musical evenings which seem as common here as they were in my own country.
But this is my own country now. I am Doctor Frank, a distinguished European physician who has chosen to make London his home. My voice retains enough of an accent to enchant the wealthy ladies. My practice grows more and more prosperous. My valued assistant, Hans, takes some of the weight off my shoulders, and between us we plan great things.
I have amassed enough capital to buy the mews stables adjoining those in which I keep my coach. When the doors have been strengthened against prying neighbors and some new equipment installed piece by piece, there are some interesting experiments which we are eager to carry out.
Two of my elderly patients have not long to live. One of them has promised to leave me a small amount of money in her will.
But it is not her money I want. She does not know it, but she is going to donate to me something more valuable than money.
I am impatient to be at work in the laboratory once more . . .
The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb
1
They rode down upon him out of the desert before he heard even the faintest whisper of their coming. He was crouched over a heap of pottery shards, trying to identify enough of a pattern to make reassembly possible, when a flurry of sand was kicked into his face. Dubois looked up indignantly.
Three Bedouin horsemen had reined in and were staring down at him. Behind him, the three porters who had been working for Dubois closed in without a word. Their silence was a threat. Professor Dubois did not take it too seriously, but as he got to his feet he wondered what demand was going to be made on him. A story about starving families would probably be the next thing, followed by a whining plea for increased wages. The porters were always grumbling, sometimes fawning, sometimes aggressive. Now that they had him on his own he feared they were likely to be aggressive.
“What do you want?” he asked.
There was no reply. The porters ran suddenly round behind him and pinioned his arms behind his back. As he tried to shout a protest, a dark hand struck him across the mouth. He was dragged to the post which marked the corner of the new diggings planned for the following week, and lashed to it.
One of the Bedouins dismounted and drew a knife. Dubois stared incredulously. This could not be real: he had worked with these people, respected their ways, brought them employment and the chance to learn many things about their own history . . .
The Bedouin stroked Dubois’ face with the knife. The touch of the steel made him shiver. The others saw this and laughed savagely. And then the knife swept back, gleamed for a moment in the sun, and plunged into Dubois’ stomach.
Dubois choked and sagged forward. He tried to scream, but could produce only a sickening, gagging sound. He was hardly aware of the porter taking his right hand and pulling it out, away from his body. The Bedouin raised his knife again. It no longer gleamed: it was dark with blood. In one swift, forceful movement he chopped off Dubois’ hand, watching with grim approval as it fell to the sand.
2
The King Expedition of 1900 had encountered few difficulties when it first set to work in Egypt. Financed by the wealthy American, Alexander King, and headed by the two greatest Egyptologists which France and England could provide, it had both the wealth and prestige needed to overcome official and personal objections. The French grave robbers and speculators of 1897 had left behind them the ruins of plundered Abydos and the seed of hostility towards all profiteering Europeans. But Flinders Petrie had done something to restore the good name of serious archaeology, and whatever might be thought of the brash, exuberant Alexander King, the reputations of Professor Pierre Dubois and Sir Giles Dalrymple opened the way to the Valley of the Kings. Sceptical observers might suggest renaming it “The Valley of Alexander King”, but while they scoffed and sneered the devoted archaeologists applied themselves to the delicate, careful work of excavating lost tombs and scrupulously recording what they found. Dubois and Dalrymple were not interested in amassing spoils to be sold to the highest bidder or presented as a matter of national pride to some greedy museum. They wanted to fill in the gaps in the world’s knowledge of the Pharaohs. They sought to find missing links in the dynastic succession. The mummies of many Kings and Princes of ancient Egypt had disappeared over the centuries, destroyed by vandals; but there must still be many which had simply not been discovered.
King Sekhemre Shedtaui and his consort had been desecrated by grave robbers—but did this also mean that the great Ra Antef, missing from his rightful resting-place in the Valley of the Kings, had long ago been destroyed? Where was Tuthmosis the Fourth, and where the boy king, Tutankhamen? The arduous work of establishing the complicated chronology and of searching for the tombs which would confirm their theories would have worn down lesser men. Under that searing sun, in the parched air that preserved pyramids and inscriptions but could destroy men from another country, only a fanatic would have persevered. But Dubois and Dalrymple were fanatics, and glad to be so. Their life was the study of death and its trappings.
Dubois had as assistant his daughter Annette. Sir Giles took with him John Bray, an eager young man from Cambridge. They endured the intermittent presence of Alexander King with a good grace: he had provided the money, and even if it was hard to treat him with respect it was possible to show gratitude. Fortunately, the climate was too much for the
American most of the time. His visits were brief and he was usually glad to return to the comforts of Cairo, leaving the archaeologists to dig and sift, to record and speculate, to brood over the tiniest fragment of potsherd or the chipped remains of what might be a significant inscription.
After ten months of intensive work, the discovery of one small stone step, overlooked by searchers and plunderers for countless generations, led the team to believe that they had found a small burial chamber. It was only as excavations continued that they realized this was no minor discovery. This was not a shallow grave of pre-dynastic times, nor was it the mound of some minor princeling. The deeper they went, the more they uncovered. After six days of unremitting effort, they stood on the threshold of a huge tomb. Below them was the first great door—portals to the past. By the door stood the dog-headed Anubis, patron of embalming and guardian of the tomb.
When they opened the door and went in, the dust of lost centuries filled the air. It was heavy and slumberous, seeming to contain the textures and echoes of a vanished civilization. It clung to the clothes and hair of the intruders and cloyed in their nostrils, as if to lull them into a stupor, to take from them all desire to proceed farther.
But they went on.
At an inner door stood the cat-headed Bubastis, and beyond it a rich collection of grave furniture—the wardrobe and personal belongings of a prince. There were statues of his god, weapons, grain, sumptuous clothing, and jewellery; and set against the farthest wall was the magnificently ornate sarcophagus bearing upon it the moulded likeness of the body which it contained. The painted eyes stared sightlessly yet with terrifying wisdom upon those who had dared to venture into this sanctuary. Around the sarcophagus were set unguent jars and papyrus boat models. All was ready for the dead ruler when he entered the next world.
The intruders were awed by the splendor of what lay before them. They were scholars and accustomed to relating solid objects to the intangible pattern of history; they were overjoyed by the profusion of material now presented to them; but at the same time they were overwhelmed by the sheer emotional weight and dignity of the long-dead ruler. The objects would be catalogued and explained, the hieroglyphics translated—and yet when all the facts and data were added together, they would somehow not amount to the awesome completeness of this burial chamber.
From a dark corner the gilded head of a vulture gleamed on the arm of a chair. There were treasures everywhere—in the corners, on the walls, heaped lavishly on the floor. No comparable find had been made since the days when Bonaparte marched into Egypt and commanded that the doors of the past should be flung open.
Dubois and Dalrymple soon recovered from their first stupefaction. They set to work reconstructing a period of history from the evidence which the earth had yielded up to them. Their academic interest soon dulled the first holy fear which the tomb had provoked.
But Annette Dubois never quite got over those earlier sensations. Standing behind her father when the inner door was opened, she had felt an almost irresistible urge to turn and run. It was as though someone were about to speak—and she did not want to hear the words. A terrible danger lay within, and it was imperative that they should turn their backs on it while there was still time. Her father’s training was too strong: Annette did not turn away, but waited as light filtered in where no light had been for more than three thousand years . . . waited as it fell on the proud mask of the man who had planned to be left here in peace for all eternity. Later she trembled at the recollection. The smell of the place and the clogging dust of the place and the appalling dead silence of the place would remain with her for the rest of her life. It was as though all those who entered the burial chamber had contracted a mortal disease for which there would never be a cure.
Annette was frightened, and went on being frightened. The normal routine of excavation and cataloguing did not absorb her as it absorbed the others. She felt herself shrivelling in the merciless sun. The sun or the mummy’s vengeful spirit would turn her to powder, blow her away into the shifting sands of the desert. She pleaded with her father to abandon this site, and saw how disappointed he was in her. Always he had relied on her, treating her as a dependable, clear-headed disciple. Now she had shown herself to be a typical, unbalanced woman. He brusquely arranged that she should spend as little time as possible at the diggings. Instead, she stayed in the rock caves where they had set up their headquarters and kept all their records: Annette made herself useful as a clerk, sorting out innumerable sheets of notes into coherence and deciphering the scrawled jottings of her father and Sir Giles Dalrymple.
Even though she contributed little to the work on the site itself, the fear remained with her. It was with her that evening in the cave when her father failed to return from the diggings.
Oil lamps shed a warm glow through the cavern. The curtains at the entrance were still: there was no breeze, no sound from the arid expanse of rock and sand outside. This could have been a romantic setting. She had thought of it as romantic when they arrived, but now it was inhospitable and sinister.
John Bray had been washing the grime of the day from his arms and legs. As he came back from the rear of the cave, Annette looked up at him and asked the question which she had already asked too many times.
“What time is it now?”
His freckled, sun-tanned face puckered into a grin of protest. With an exaggerated sigh he took out a large gold pocket watch. “It’s exactly ten minutes since the last time.”
“I’m sorry.” But it was unlike her father to stay on the site after dark. She would not be at ease until he reappeared.
“Perhaps he’s found something of special interest,” said John reassuringly.
“That Canopic jar”—she tried to accept his attempt—“he was going to reassemble. He must have got lost in the work.”
“Darling, I meant something of real interest—such as a beautiful desert maiden.”
Annette forced a smile. “The only maiden my father is likely to meet would be mummified and at least three thousand years old.”
“Hm.” John nodded. “I suppose that would be too old even for your father.”
Annette let herself laugh. She wanted to laugh. She wanted everything to be light and pleasurable again.
“That’s better,” said John. “Can I get you a drink?”
Without waiting for an answer he went to the locked cupboard which Sir Giles had installed against one ragged wall of the cave. Dalrymple never travelled without what he called his medicine chest. The lock was his own invention, proof even against the most skilled grave robbers.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” asked Annette.
John looked round at the stark floor and walls. “Not here. Not tonight. But I will once we get back to Paris.”
Watching his shadow leaping grotesquely up a wall, and then watching John himself come back towards her with a glass of wine, Annette thought abstractedly that when they got back to Paris, she might well let him. In the twelve months during which they had worked together, making their plans in Europe and then setting to work here, it had somehow come to be taken for granted that they belonged together. If John married her, she knew that her father would be pleased. And Sir Giles would certainly nod a benign blessing on the marriage. John, she trusted, would like it.
And for herself . . . ?
John stooped over her, gave her the glass, and kissed her. Yes, she was very fond of John. They liked the same jokes and the same kind of life. He was dependable, he was creative, he was stimulating to be with; and one day he would be famous in that field of activity which, with her upbringing, she had always regarded as the most important of all.
If her heart sank ever so slightly, dipping just fractionally before she gained control of herself, it was at the prospect of all those years to come which would be the same as the year just gone—digging in gruelling heat, unearthing things best left where they had been hidden, dealing with suspicious natives and uncooperative authorities. Unt
il now she had enjoyed the challenge as much as the others had done. But now some intuition warned her that they had reached a turning-point.
Outside the wind rose suddenly and unexpectedly. It brought with it a chatter of Arab voices. They were silenced by the snap of a command in Sir Giles Dalrymple’s familiar bluff tone. A moment later the curtain was twitched aside and Sir Giles came in.
He was a plump man who seemed unable to shed even an ounce of his considerable weight even after weeks in the blazing sun. His crisp, curt voice did not go well with his rubicund, almost babyish face. One expected him to squeak; instead, he spoke with military precision. It made him sound cruder and more forceful than he really was. It carried him and his colleagues through many difficulties and apparent impasses. Only when he was actually working on a dig did his basic gentleness come through: then, utterly absorbed, he would sift through sand in search of the minutest fragment of archaeological evidence, and handle everything he touched as though afraid of its dissolving into dust.
Now he looked stern and very tired. His expression heralded some disaster. Annette knew it. She was on her feet before he could reach her.
“Annette, my dear . . .”
“My father,” she said. “Where is he?”
Sir Giles stood aside. Hashmi, the dark, lean representative of the Egyptian Government, who had been with them since the start of their operations, followed him into the cave and held back the curtain. Two stretcher-bearers entered. Annette could not see the face of the body which they carried between them. She did not need to see. She had known all along—in the depths of her had been waiting for just this.
