by John Burke
There was certainly little in this rather dull little piece to suggest kinship with the richly decorated funerary splendors of Ra Antef. Yet John felt sure that somehow this was a keystone. Somewhere it fitted into the scheme of things, and its very insignificance was relevant.
He said stubbornly: “I still believe it could be from the tomb.”
Adam’s eyes hardened. John was glad that he had been able to sting the usually imperturbable host into a display of open hostility. “Let me assure you, Mr. Bray, it is Old Kingdom.”
“Nobody could be as certain as you are, Mr. Beauchamp, without extensive examination.”
“Then why don’t you reserve judgement until you have made an extensive examination?”
“Very well,” said John. Adam was making an untypically fidgety movement with his right hand, as though wanting to reach out and reclaim the medallion. John held on to it and said to Annette: “With your permission . . . ?”
“What is it?” She was as uncertain as Adam. Before either of them could gain control of the situation, John said quickly:
“There’s only one person I know who has the full references to this period, and that’s Sir Giles. He knows more about the subject than any of us. I’d like to see him now.”
“Now?” Adam did his best to be the courteous host again. “John, it’s getting late. Another drink, and then tomorrow—”
“Now,” John insisted. “He won’t be in bed yet. If you’ll both excuse me, I’ll start right away.”
Again they turned to watch him. As he left the room he had the satisfaction of knowing that they were both disturbed and that the pleasure they might derive from each other’s company would not be as unruffled as it might have been earlier in the evening.
Sir Giles was, as he had predicted, still awake. If one could call it that. As soon as he entered the library John knew that the archaeologist had been drinking. Even in the few days since they last met there had been a deterioration. Sir Giles’s military crispness was crumbling, his voice slurring into plaintive incoherence.
John, without preamble, gave him the medallion and waited for a verdict. Sir Giles shook his head muzzily over it and then began to recite his woes. His old friend Dubois was dead, King had cheated him, he would never be able to work again . . . the self-pitying stream flowed without cease.
“I want you,” said John at last, brutally emphasizing the words and driving them home through Sir Giles’s mutterings, “to identify that medallion for me. Its period. Its significance.”
Sir Giles pouted reproachfully at him. He tried to focus on the medallion. Then he waved a hand towards the bookshelves.
“Try over there. Third shelf. No, fourth. Try Belzoni. And de Morgan.” As John began to explore the shelves, Sir Giles poured himself another drink, splashing a fair quantity down the side of his glass, and rambled on: “If money is to be the yardstick by which the value of education is to be ass’d . . . assessed . . . then I fear for the future. The past isn’t inviolable—we’ve discovered that, haven’t we, hey, my boy?—but the future . . . oh, think of the future! Let’s make the redoubtable Mr. King headmaster of Eton and be done with it. Huh. In six months he’d turn the playing fields into a fairground, with each boy a barker on a percentage share of the profits.”
John, turning over the yellowing pages of a musty book, commented: “Well, at least their arithmetic would have to be good, if only to make sure of them getting their fair share.”
This appealed to Sir Giles. He chuckled. He couldn’t stop chuckling. He began to rock to and fro in his chair. Then the noise changed in a split second to lamentation again.
“Think of me! Whoever heard of an Egyptologist who wasn’t allowed into Egypt? Forbidden. Undesirable—that’s what I am. And there’s no court of appeal, you know.”
“What page will it be—what section, anyway?” asked John, picking his way through a complicated index.
“Oh, that damned Hashmi! Why couldn’t he have told the authorities it was King who was responsible for removing the relics, not I?”
“What page, Sir Giles?”
“Mm? Oh, that book. Yes, there ought to be something. Somewhere in the three hundreds, I think. A couple of sketches. Might help.”
“I was wondering . . .”
John let the question die. It was no use. Whatever knowledge Sir Giles might have stored away in that podgy head of his, he would be incapable of extracting any of it now. Or perhaps ever again. When a man drank himself into this kind of stupor and wilfully kept himself there, it meant that he had abandoned all his previous values.
Sir Giles became aware of John’s gaze. He produced a feebly ingratiating smile. To show how willing he was to offer his advice, he groped for the medallion on the table at his elbow. His glass went flying and the table rocked perilously.
To see one of his old idols crumbling like this was too much for John’s self-control. He burst out: “Oh, you clumsy, drunken old . . .”
He checked himself. But it was too late. An incongruous, shameful tear welled in Sir Giles’s left eye. “I see I’ve lost your respect now, too.” He forced himself up, wavered, and steadied himself. “You are undoubtedly better left alone to your studies,” he said with a pathetic attempt at dignity.
“I’m sorry, Sir Giles. It’s only that—”
“Goodnight,” said Sir Giles. He made his unsteady way to the door. “When you have finished, no doubt you can find your own way out.”
John perched on the arm of a chair for a moment, unable to continue his researches. He was ashamed of his outburst. Yet it had been justified. Whatever the pressures on him, Sir Giles ought to have been capable of standing up to adversity. If he had remained sober and determined, he would have been able to reinstate himself without too great a struggle. Now he could only sink.
John sighed and turned his attention to the medallion. He found a magnifying glass on Sir Giles’s littered desk, and pored over the convoluted signs.
An incredible theory formed in his mind. He saw that both he and Adam could be right. This medallion could be Old Kingdom, yet could have been in or near the tomb of Ra Antef. Perhaps it had been hidden close to the tomb after the burial chamber had been sealed—hidden by a devoted follower who knew that no ordinary mortal must be allowed to interpret the words on the face of the stone.
He turned back to the bookshelves. A faint breeze stirred as though a window had been opened and closed. He looked over his shoulder. The curtains billowed faintly and then subsided. John carried a book to the desk, and went through it in search of a detailed examination of the story of Ra and Be. But there was no solid foundation from which to work. All that was most significant in the story was yet to be written down, since it would have to be based on the discoveries so recently made by the King expedition. There were hints and speculations, wary references . . . no more.
But by assembling various references, he might be able to arrive at a rough interpretation of the minuscule writing. He picked up the magnifying glass again, and settled at the desk.
When footsteps rustled swiftly across the floor towards him he tried to get up and turn; but he was too late. He was aware of an arm raised, of a flurry of movement, and then he was struck on the head and beaten down into oblivion.
7
Ten minutes before the opening of the exhibition to the Press and selected dignitaries, Hashmi Bey entered the tent.
Annette was the first to see him. She and Adam were standing by a table laden with food and wineglasses. Alexander King knew the best way to win the goodwill of gentlemen of the Press. King himself was fussing to and fro making a number of unnecessary last-minute alterations. He was dressed in a garish garment which a theatrical costumier had assured him was a genuine Egyptian ceremonial robe. “Atmosphere,” he had explained to the bemused Annette. “Got to get the atmosphere just right.”
Annette thought that Hashmi’s expression when he saw this apparition would have been funny if it had not been so grim. She
drew Adam’s attention to the newcomer, who made straight for King and began to talk forcefully and earnestly. King shook his head. Hashmi’s eyes widened, and he began to pound his fist on a table.
“I think we’d better go and protect Mr. King,” said Adam.
Annette doubted whether King needed protection, but she was glad to cross the tent and find out what was happening.
Hashmi acknowledged her presence with a curt nod. He was not to be distracted by the need for an exchange of formal greetings.
“This is not a joking matter, Mr. King,” he was saying into that complacent, self-satisfied face. “I would have thought the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand English pounds would have made even you reconsider.”
“Chicken feed,” said King blandly. “You seriously expect me to pack up this whole kit and ship it back—”
“My government would gladly accept the responsibility for the transportation charges.”
“More chicken feed.” King patted Hashmi condescendingly on the shoulder. “My show is advertised clear across the United States already. Or if it isn’t, someone’s going to get fired the minute I arrive. You don’t want me to disappoint all those little Middle Western people, do you? Do you know what a circus means to them?”
“A circus!”
“An outing for the whole family,” said King with a cloyingly sentimental smile; “a day to remember.”
“For the last time I beg of you to accept my government’s offer.”
King laughed.
“Then,” said Hashmi, “the consequences of the actions you contemplate must rest upon your own head.”
“Well, let the consequences commence.”
King waved Hashmi aside and spread his arms before Annette. He was obviously waiting for her reaction to his flamboyant garb.
She said: “You’d put Ra to shame.”
He beamed, then assumed an unconvincingly regretful mien. “Say, I’m sorry John can’t be here. After all he’s done to make it a success, it’s just too bad. How is he?”
Adam and Annette had left John only just before arriving here. He had still not regained consciousness and the doctor would not let him be moved from Sir Giles Dalrymple’s house. Shocked into sobriety, Sir Giles was being an attentive companion, but so far John had been unable to give any idea of what had happened to him or who his attacker could have been. It was Sir Giles who pointed out that the medallion had disappeared. He wished now that he had been in a better condition to examine it when John showed it to him. Remembering Sir Giles’s distress and realizing how much of it was due to the arrogance of Alexander King, Annette found it difficult to be amiable to the organizer of the exhibition.
“John’s very ill,” she said tersely, and left it at that.
King shook his head. But nothing could depress him this evening. His cherished schemes were coming to fruition. At any moment he would be the centre of attention—he and the mummy, really, but he wasn’t anticipating any interruptions from the dead prince.
Adam looked round as a buzz of voices filtered in from the entrance.
“I see the Press are arriving.”
“And all their friends,” said King. “They all show up when they know it’s for free. If you’ll excuse me, I . . . er . . . I have a show to put on.”
They watched him go to greet the new arrivals effusively. As more and more flocked in, the chatter of conversation surged up under the roof of the tent. There was a clink of glasses. Through it all King’s voice went on insistently, talking and explaining and boasting. His boyish naïvety could have been almost likeable, thought Annette, if only he had possessed just one grain of good taste.
Yet as some of the reporters and critics gathered round the items on display, she wondered if perhaps King was not right. Taking culture to the masses, in however brazen a way, might be better than shutting it away and hoping that the masses would somehow find their way to it of their own volition.
In the crowd she saw Sir Giles. He was shockingly haggard, but he was clearly in full possession of his faculties. It might have been better if he had stayed at home and spared himself the pain of what he was about to witness. But she realized that he would not have been able to keep himself away.
There was a throbbing roll on timpani behind a curtain, and the long resonant boom of a gong. Voices babbled on for a few seconds and then died away.
King stepped out on to the stage at the end of the tent and raised his arms. Trumpets played a fanfare.
Reporters, several of them still clutching their glasses, edged into seats. Sir Giles settled himself at one side. Adam guided Annette to a chair and put his hand briefly on hers as they sat down. She wanted to think of John and to will him back to health and consciousness, but her mind was full of Adam. In every fibre of her being she sensed that things were coming to a climax. Soon she would be faced with a decision.
“Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen of the Press”—it was King in full-throated joviality—“this is an historic moment. Today we are to open the three-thousand-year-old coffin of Ra Antef, royal prince of Egypt.” He waited for the echoes of another fanfare to ebb away, then went on: “But first I want you to absorb some of the atmosphere, much as it must have been to those intrepid explorers . . .”
He stepped slightly to one side, and a beam of light fell upon a screen at the back of a stage. To her surprise Annette saw the face of Sir Giles Dalrymple on the screen. She had forgotten that King had taken a great many pictures during the early stages of the expedition, evidently with the intention even then of turning them into lantern slides. She wondered what Sir Giles was thinking. Probably the same thing as she was. Right from the start the whole expedition had been, in King’s view, a stunt. All of it had led inevitably to this exhibition tent.
“A leading member of our team,” King was saying, “was Professor Dubois from the Paris Museum of Egyptology.” On the screen appeared Annette’s father examining a rock formation with John. He was caught forever, petrified in a characteristic stance, just as Ra Antef was caught in the panels depicting his life. Caught, preserved . . . but dead. “The youngest, and by far the prettiest, of our team”—King was playing to his audience without any concern for the susceptibilities of certain members of it—“was Annette Dubois, a breath of Parisian charm who did much to help cool the hot winds of the desert. In addition to being decorative, she was an able personal assistant to her father, the late Professor, who unfortunately . . .” He paused histrionically, then lowered his head. “Who unfortunately lost his life at the hands of superstitious natives.” He allowed it full value, then brightened immediately. “The guiding light of the expedition . . .”
A slide of a painting of Rameses VIII appeared on the screen.
“No, not him,” bellowed King. “Myself!”
There was a ripple of laughter.
King ploughed on with what he supposed to be a dazzling technical description of the methods used in the excavation and the collating of the team’s findings. Annette wondered whether he would have allowed John to handle this if John had been well enough to attend. Behind and to one side of her she heard a chair creak, and guessed that it was Sir Giles squirming.
Some of the newspapermen were jotting down notes. Others looked around, sizing up the exhibits.
King reached the end of his talk and loudly reclaimed their attention. “And now . . . ladies and gentlemen, please . . . before this great historic moment I must take you into my confidence. I must warn you. There is a curse which says that all persons present at the opening of a Pharaoh’s coffin and who gaze on the face of the mummy therein . . . shall die.” The audience murmured. King smirked with gratification, then tried to look imposing. “They will be struck down,” he cried melodramatically, “by the wrath of the Egyptian gods. So any of you of a nervous disposition who wish to leave now may do so.”
He looked challengingly over the audience. A woman giggled nervously. Sir Giles grunted with disgust and shifted in his chai
r. Annette glanced along the row and at the end of it saw Hashmi, utterly still, expressionless but watching, always watching.
King said: “Well, you have been warned!”
Again there was a gong, again a roll of drums, again a florid fanfare. The lights dimmed.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . for the first time, and before your very eyes, I will cut the royal seal.”
Adam glanced sardonically at Annette. She wondered whether it would be “the first time” every time the show was put on.
A spotlight settled on the gleaming head of the sarcophagus and then spread to take in the seal. Knife in hand, King stepped towards it. He sliced through the seal and waved the two well-rehearsed Nubians into position on either side of the coffin. They lifted away the lid.
“Alexander King is very proud to present to you the mummy of the royal prince, Ra Antef.”
There was a murmur of anticipation. Then someone laughed. A reporter looked up from his notebook and said, “Now wait a minute . . .” And there was the scrape of chairs being pushed back as a few men stood up and began to jeer.
The mummy case was empty.
Annette began to get to her feet. King, his arm raised in a histrionic gesture, was puzzled by the reactions of his audience. He turned to stare into the coffin. His arm fell to his side.
It was left to Annette to rush outside and fetch the police inspector in charge of the small contingent which had been on duty here since work began on the erection of the tent. The Inspector was more skilled at directing traffic and keeping crowds of curious sightseers in check than in detective work; but he welcomed the change in routine and set to work with a will.
Several disgruntled reporters and guests had already left the tent. The Inspector ordered his men to stop any further escapes. It was unlikely that anyone could walk past a police guard carrying a swathed mummy, but until he had asked certain questions he did not want the audience to disperse too quickly.
The questions were not very rewarding. They kept coming back to the same thing:
