The Mummy Case (9 page)

Except for the soft, sinister movements of the predators of the night, the silence was complete. In the modern street, where the tourists and those who catered to their whims still sought pleasure, there were lights and laughter, music and loud voices. The dwellers of the Khan el Khaleel were asleep or engaged in occupations that demanded dim lights and barred doors. As we proceeded I caught a whiff of sickening sweetness and saw a pallid streak of light through a shuttered window. A voice, muted by the thick mud-plaster walls, rose in a thin shriek of pain or ecstasy. The house was a ghurza, an opium den, where the hashshahiin lay wrapped in stuporous dreams. I bit back a cry as a dark form rushed through an opening ahead and vanished into a doorway, blending with the blackness there. Emerson chuckled. "The nadurgiyya was dozing. He ought to have heard us approaching before this."

He spoke softly; but oh, how wonderfully, blessedly comforting was that calm English voice!
"Nadurgiyya?"
I repeated.

"The lookout. He took us for police spies. The ghurza will close down until the supposed danger is past. Are you sorry you came, Peabody?"

The street was so narrow we could not walk side by side and so dark I could scarcely make out the vague outline of his form. I sensed, rather than saw, the hand stretched toward me. Clasping it, I replied truthfully, "Not at all, my dear Emerson. It is a most interesting and unusual experience. But I confess that if you were not with me I would be conscious of a certain trepidation."

"We are almost there," Emerson said. "If this is a wild-goose
chase, Peabody, I will hold it over you for the rest of your life."

Like all the others, Abd el Atti's shop was dark and seemingly deserted. "What did I tell you?" Emerson said.

"We must go round to the back," I said.

"The back, Peabody? Do you take this for an English village, with lanes and kitchen doors?"

"Don't play games, Emerson. I am quite confident you know where the back entrance is located. There must be another entrance; some of Abd el Atti's clients would hardly choose to walk in the front door with their goods."

Emerson grunted. Holding my hand, he proceeded along the street for a distance and then drew me toward what appeared to be a blank wall. There was an opening, however, so narrow and opaque that it looked like a line drawn with the blackest of ink. My shoulders brushed the walls on the other side. Emerson had to sidle along sideways.

"Here it is," he said, after a moment.

"Where? I can't see a thing."

He directed my hand toward an invisible surface. I felt wood under my fingers. "There is no knocker," I said, groping.

"Nor a doorbell," Emerson said sarcastically. He tapped lightly.

There was no response. Emerson, never the most patient of men, let out an oath and struck his fist against the door.

The panel yielded. A scant inch, no more, and in utter silence it moved; and through the slit came a pallid light, so dim it did not penetrate the darkness where we stood.

"The devil," Emerson muttered.

I shared his sentiments. There was something strange and sinister about the movement of the door. From within came not the slightest whisper of sound. It was as if a pall of horror lay over the region, silencing even breath. More prosaically, the yielding of the portal held ominous implications. Either the person who had opened it was concealed behind it, or the door had not been latched in the first place. It was inconceivable that a merchant in that quarter would leave his shop unlocked at night, unless...

"Stand back, Peabody," Emerson ordered. He reinforced the command with an outthrust arm that flung me back against the wall with rather more force than was necessary. Before I could protest, he raised his foot and kicked the door.

If he had intended to pin a would-be assassin between door and inner wall he failed. The portal was so heavy it responded sluggishly to his attack, opening only halfway. Emerson cursed and clutched his foot.

I went to his side and looked in. A single lamp, one of the crude clay bowls that have been used since ancient times, lit the room; the flickering, smoking flame created an eerie illusion of surreptitious movement in the shadows. The place was in the wildest disorder. Abd el Atti was not noted for neatness, but something more alarming than sloth was responsible for the confusion that prevailed. A rickety wooden table had been overturned. The bits of pottery and glass littering the floor must have fallen from its surface, or from the shelves on the right-hand wall, which were empty. Mingled with the broken pieces were scarabs and ushebtis, scraps of papyrus and linen, stone vessels, carvings, and even a wrapped mummy, half-hidden by a wooden packing case.

Emerson repeated his adjuration to the Prince of Evil and stepped boldly forward. I caught his arm. "Emerson, take care. I hypothesize that a struggle has ensued here."

"Either that or Abd el Atti has suffered a seizure at long last."

"Were that the case, his prostrate body would be visible."

"True." Emerson fondled the cleft in his chin, his invariable habit when deep in thought. "Your hypothesis seems more likely."

He tried to shake off my hold, but I persisted. "Presumably one of the combatants was our old friend. But the other—Emerson, he may be lying in wait, ready to attack."

"He would be a fool if he stayed," Emerson replied. "Even if he had been on the premises when we arrived, he had ample time to make good his escape through the front of the shop while we stood here debating. Besides, where would he hide?

The only possible place..." He peered behind the door. "No, there is no one here. Come in and close the door. I don't like the look of this."

I followed his instructions. I felt more secure with the heavy door closed against the dangers of the night. Yet a sinking feeling had seized me; I could not shake off the impression that something dreadful lurked in that quiet, shadowy place.

"Perhaps Abd el Atti was not here after all," I said. "Two thieves fell out—or down—"

Emerson continued to worry his chin. "Impossible to tell if anything is missing. What a clutter! Good Gad, Amelia—look there, on the shelf. That fragment of painted relief—I saw it only two years ago in one of the tombs at El Bersheh. Confound the old rascal, he has no more morals than a jackal, robbing his own ancestors!"

"Emerson," I remonstrated, "this is not the time—"

"And there..." Emerson pounced on an object half-concealed by pottery shards. "A portrait panel—torn from the mummy—encaustic on wood..."

Only one thing can distract Emerson from his passion for antiquities. It did not seem appropriate to apply this distraction. I left him muttering and scrabbling in the debris; slowly, with dread impeding my every step, I approached the curtained doorway that led to the front room of the shop. I knew what I would find and was prepared, as I thought, for the worst; yet the sight that met my eyes when I drew the curtain aside froze my limbs and my vocal apparatus.

At first it was only a dark, shapeless mass that almost filled the tiny room. The dark thing moved, gently swaying, like a monster of the deep sluggishly responding to the slow movements of watery currents. A shimmer of gold, a flash of scarlet— my eyes, adjusting to the gloom, began to make out details—a hand, glittering with rings... A face. Unrecognizable as human, much less familiar. Black and bloated, the dark tongue protruding in ghastly mockery, the wide eyes suffused with blood...

A shriek of horror burst from my lips. Emerson was instantly
at my side. His hands closed painfully over my shoulders. "Peabody, come away. Don't look."

But I had looked, and I knew the sight would haunt my dreams: Abd el Atti, hanging from the roofbeam of his own shop, swaying to and fro like some winged monster of the night.

Clearing my throat, I reassured my husband. "I am quite myself again, Emerson. I apologize for startling you."

"No apologies are necessary, my dear Peabody. What a horrible sight! He was grotesque enough in life, but this..."

"Should we not cut him down?"

"Impractical and unnecessary," Emerson said. "There is not a spark of life left in him. We will leave that unpleasant task to the authorities." I tried to put his hands away, and he went on, in mounting indignation, "You don't mean to play physician? I assure you, Peabody—"

"My dear Emerson, I have never pretended I could restore life
to
the dead. But before we summon the police I want to examine the situation."

Accustomed as I am to violent death, it cost me some effort to touch the poor flaccid hand. It was still warm. Impossible to calculate the time of death; the temperature in the closed room was stiflingly hot. But I deduced he had not been dead long. I struck several matches and examined the floor, averting my eyes from Abd el Atti's dreadful face.

"What the devil are you doing?" Emerson demanded, arms akimbo. "Let's get out of this hellish place. We will have to return to the hotel to call the police; people in this neighborhood don't respond to knocks on the door at night."

"Certainly." I had seen what I needed to know. I followed Emerson into the back room and let the curtain fall into place, concealing the horror within.

"Looking for clues?" Emerson inquired ironically, as I inspected the litter on the floor. The mummy portrait was not there. I made no comment; the piece had been stolen anyway, and it could not be in better hands than those of my husband.

"I don't know what I'm looking for," I replied. "It is hopeless, I suppose; there is no chance of finding a clear footprint in this debris. Ah! Emerson, look here. Isn't this a spot of blood?"

"The poor fellow died of strangulation, Peabody," Emerson exclaimed.

"Obviously, Emerson. But I am sure this blood—"

"It is probably paint."

"... that this blood is that of the thief who..."

"What thief?"

"...who cut himself during the fight," I continued, being accustomed to Emerson's rude habit of interrupting. "His foot, I expect. He trampled on a bit of broken pottery while struggling with Abd el Atti—"

Emerson seized me firmly by the hand. "Enough, Peabody. If you don't come with me, I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you."

"The passageway outside is too narrow," I pointed out. "Just one minute, Emerson."

He tugged me to my feet as my fingers closed over the object that had caught my attention. "It is a scrap of papyrus," I exclaimed.

Emerson led me from the room.

We had reached the broad stretch of the Muski before either of us spoke again. Even that popular thoroughfare was quiet,
for the hour was exceedingly late; but the beneficent glow of starlight lifted our spirits as it illumined the scene. I drew a long breath. "Wait a minute, Emerson. I can't walk so fast. I am tired."

"I should think so, after such a night." But Emerson immediately slowed his pace and offered me his arm. We walked on side-by-side, and I did not scruple to lean on him. He likes me to lean on him. In a much milder tone he remarked, "You were right after all, Peabody. The poor old wretch did have something on his mind. A pity he decided to end it all before he talked to us."

"What are you saying?" I exclaimed. "Abd de Atti did not commit suicide. He was murdered."

"Amelia, that is the merest surmise. I confess I had expected you would concoct some wild theory. Sensationalism is your meat and drink. But you cannot—"

"Oh, Emerson, don't be ridiculous. You saw the murder room. Was there anything near the body—a table, a chair, a stool— on which Abd el Atti might have stood while he tied the noose around his neck?"

"Damnation," said Emerson.

"No doubt. He was murdered, Emerson—our old friend was foully slain. And after he had appealed to us to save him."

"Pray do not insult my intelligence by attempting to move me with such sentimental tosh," Emerson exclaimed furiously. "If Abd el Atti was murdered, the killer was one of his criminal associates. It has nothing to do with us. Only an unhappy coincidence—or, more accurately, your incurable habit of meddling in other people's business—put us on the spot at the wrong time. We will notify the police, as is our duty, and that will be the end of it. I have enough on my mind this year. I will not allow my professional activities to be interrupted...."

I let him grumble on. Time would prove me right; the inexorable pressure of events would force our involvement. So why argue?

A few hours' sleep restored me to my usual vigor and spirits. When I awoke the sun was high in the heavens. My first act, even before drinking the tea the safragi brought me, was to open the door to the adjoining room. It was empty. A note, placed prominently on the table, explained that John and Ramses, not wishing to waken us, had gone out to explore the city. "Do not worry, sir and madam," John had written. "I will watch over Master Ramses."

Emerson was not reassured by the message. "You see what happens when you go off on your absurd adventures," he grumbled. "We overslept and now our helpless young son is wandering the streets of this wicked city, unprotected and vulnerable."