The Serpent on the Crown (2 page)

“She was taking no chances, was she?” Ramses said, while his father picked at the knots and swore under his breath. “It could be an ushebti, it’s the right shape.”

“Surely nothing so ordinary,” I objected. The little servant statues, placed in the tomb to serve the dead man in the afterlife, had been found in the thousands; most were of crude workmanship and cheap materials such as faience.

“Why not?” Ramses inquired. “The notion of a curse is pure superstition; it can be attached to any object, however humble.”

“Petherick wouldn’t have owned anything humble,” said Emerson.

But his wife might have purchased something of the sort to add verisimilitude to her sensational account. I did not voice this sentiment, since Emerson would not have accepted it. Anyhow, I told myself, it would do no harm to have a look.

Since neither Emerson nor Ramses carried even a small penknife (David John was an accomplished pickpocket and particularly interested in sharp objects), Emerson had to go into the house to get a knife with which to cut the cords, the knots being beyond even my skill. By that time, I candidly admit, we were all agog with anticipation. Even Nefret abandoned her maternal duties and came to lean over my shoulder as Emerson removed the wrappings.

Sunset light set the small statue aglow, as if a fire burned within. This was no crude ushebti, of common material; it was the golden figure of a crowned king. His face was youthful, rounded and faintly smiling, his half-bared body gently curved. He wore an elaborately pleated kilt, the lines of which had been rendered with exquisite precision. The small sandaled feet and delicate hands were models of graceful beauty.

Nefret caught her breath and Emerson gave me a triumphant look. Even Ramses’s normally enigmatic countenance betrayed astonishment verging on awe.

“How beautiful,” I murmured. “There is nothing evil about this face.”

“The devil with that,” said Emerson, lifting the statuette out of the box. “Where did it come from? Where did he get it? How could such a thing come onto the antiquities market without causing a sensation?”

“Is it genuine?” Nefret asked breathlessly.

Emerson weighed the statuette in his hand. “Forgers don’t use this amount of solid gold.”

W
e agreed to postpone further discussion until the children had been sent off to bed. Our friends the Vandergelts were dining with us, and as Emerson and I dressed I inquired, “Are you planning to show it to Cyrus?”

“Hmph,” said Emerson.

I had learned over the years how to interpret Emerson’s wordless grunts. “You must, Emerson,” I said. “We can’t keep the statue, you know, it is far too valuable. An ordinary accursed ushebti is one thing, but this—”

“Yes, yes, confound it,” said Emerson. “I intend to pay her for it.”

“If she had wanted money, she would have asked for it.”

“Everybody wants money,” said Emerson. He pondered the matter for a moment and then went on, “It is odd, though, that she would hand over something so valuable to complete strangers in order to support a fantastic story which could have been equally well served by a cheap antiquity such as an amulet or ushebti.”

“Better served,” I admitted. “One of the monster-headed Egyptian gods like Tausert or Sobek would be more likely to appeal to a melodramatic mind like hers. How much is this object worth, do you suppose?”

“You ought to know better than to ask me, Peabody. I never purchase antiquities and I do not follow the vagaries of the market.”

“All the more reason to invite Cyrus’s opinion. He too is a collector, as well as a knowledgeable and respected excavator.”

“Hmph,” said Emerson. This time it was a tacit acknowledgment of the correctness of my statement.

So Emerson took the little box with him when we went to the drawing room. He had adamantly refused to assume proper evening dress, which he hates, but I had managed to persuade him into a tweed coat and a nice sapphire blue tie, selected by me. Given his own way, he would have gone to dinner in the same open-necked shirt and unpressed trousers he wore on the dig—a costume which, I would be the first to admit, becomes his stalwart form to best advantage. However, certain standards must be maintained.

We found Nefret and Ramses waiting for us. Ramses was dressed like his father, but Nefret, who enjoyed pretty clothes and had enough money to buy all she liked, wore a clinging frock of Nile green that set off her golden-red hair. The Great Cat of Re had also condescended to join us. He was the only cat in residence that year, Nefret’s unpleasant old pet Horus having passed on to whatever hereafter awaited him (I hoped it was someplace uncomfortable). The Great Cat of Re—who was always referred to by his full name—was more agreeable and a good deal more ornamental than Horus had been: striped gray and white, with a tail as bushy as a Cavalier’s plume. He had arranged himself at the feet of Ramses with the expression of a creature who expects to be admired.

Ramses’s eagle eye immediately fell on the box his father held.

“So you mean to let Cyrus in on this?” he inquired.

Emerson frowned. “I do not know why you put it in those terms, my boy. Surely you don’t meant to imply I would keep this remarkable discovery to myself? Even if I could.”

The regret in the last phrase brought a smile to Ramses’s tanned face, and Nefret laughed aloud.

“You cannot,” I said firmly. “We haven’t even begun to discuss the ramifications of this business. I confess that my initial interpretation of Mrs. Petherick’s motives has been shaken. An ordinary amulet would have served the purpose if she wished only to—ah, here are the Vandergelts. Prompt as always! Good evening, Cyrus—Katherine—Bertie, dear boy. But where is Jumana?”

Jumana was a member of our dear departed reis Abdullah’s family, not a Vandergelt, though Katherine’s son Bertie had more than once attempted to persuade her to become one. After completing her training in Egyptology, she had joined our staff but she lived at the Castle, since Cyrus’s palatial home near the Valley of the Kings was more commodious than our humble abode.

Bertie’s amiable countenance darkened. “She said she had to finish a paper. The girl thinks of nothing but work.”

“She bears a heavy burden on those slender shoulders,” I said. “As the first Egyptian woman to practice Egyptology, she feels she must outshine all others. An admirable attitude, in my opinion.”

Having served our guests with their beverage of choice, Emerson flung himself into a chair and took out his pipe. “We had a most interesting visitor this afternoon,” he said. “A Mrs. Pringle Petherick.”

Animation lit Cyrus’s lined countenance. “Petherick’s widow? What’s she doing in Egypt? Pringle said she hates the place.”

Emerson countered with another question. “Were you a friend of his?”

“As good a friend as one die-hard collector can be with a fellow who is after the same artifacts,” Cyrus said. “I saw his collection one time—some of it, anyhow. He frankly admitted he had some pieces he could never display, since he’d got them illegally. He’d do anything, pay anything, to get what he wanted. Say!” He leaned forward, his eyes brightening. “Is his widow putting the collection up for sale? Is that why she called on you, to get your advice? Emerson, old pal, you wouldn’t cut me out, would you?”

“That never occurred to me,” Ramses said thoughtfully. “It makes better sense than her nonsense about a curse, though it’s an extremely roundabout way of capturing your interest, Father.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “If she knows anything about your father, she must realize he would reject a request for assistance in marketing the antiquities. Perhaps the statue could be considered a sample. It certainly succeeded in capturing his interest.”

“What are you talking about?” Cyrus demanded. “Sample? Statue?”

“And what’s this about a curse?” Katherine asked.

I recounted our conversation with Mrs. Petherick. Being in receipt of several grunts and meaningful glances from Emerson, I stopped short of describing the statuette. He wanted to spring it on Cyrus himself.

“How can she believe anything so preposterous?” Katherine exclaimed.

“I don’t know why it should surprise you, Mother,” Bertie said.

The oblique reference to Katherine’s former career as a spiritualist medium brought a frown to that lady’s face. After years of happy marriage and complete respectability, she would have preferred to forget that part of her life—which, I should add in justice to her, she had taken on solely as a means of earning a living for herself and her orphaned children. Generous soul that he was, Cyrus regarded Bertie and his sister Anna as his own, and Bertie had repaid his stepfather’s kindness by becoming his affectionate and skilled assistant in his excavations.

“It isn’t at all surprising,” Cyrus said impatiently. “The world is full of people who can’t think straight. Come on, Emerson, let’s see the thing.”

Emerson removed the statuette from the box and held it up.

The effect was all my husband could have desired. Cyrus actually and literally went white. Bertie leaned forward, his eyes wide. Katherine was not so violently affected, since she had not the expertise to understand what it was she saw, but even she exclaimed in admiration.

“I presume this was not one of the objects you saw when you visited Petherick,” said Emerson.

Cyrus shook his head. In silence he held out his hand—it trembled perceptibly—and Emerson gave him the statue.

“Mrs. Petherick said he did not acquire it until shortly before his death,” I said.

“She…” Cyrus cleared his throat. “She gave you this? In exchange for what?”

“My promise that I would take upon myself the wrath of the original owner,” said Emerson with a superior smile. “Bad luck, Vandergelt. Had you my reputation for superstitious hokery-pokery, she might have gone to you.”

“Don’t tease, Emerson,” I said.

The drawing-room door opened, and Fatima appeared. “Dinner is—” Before she could finish the sentence, a man pushed past her and entered the room. He was tall and cadaverously thin, the black of his evening suit matching windblown ebony hair, his long face as white as his shirtfront; but I believe no one took much notice of his appearance at that time. Our attention was concentrated on the pistol he held.

“Give it back,” he cried, waving the weapon wildly. “Give it to me now, and no one will be hurt.”

His hungry eyes were fixed on the statuette. Clutching it still more firmly, Cyrus took a step back. “Now see here, young fellow,” he began.

“Don’t argue, Vandergelt,” said Emerson. “If the statuette is his property, we must certainly return it. Sir, may I suggest you put the gun away? There are ladies present.”

The appeal had an effect reason had not. The fellow’s high white brow wrinkled. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

He took his finger off the trigger and lowered the weapon a trifle; it now pointed at my feet instead of my head. This was something of an improvement, but not entirely reassuring. I smiled graciously, holding his gaze, and Ramses, who had been edging sideways in that noiseless fashion of his, caught hold of the fellow from behind, gripping his right wrist and forcing his arm down. The weapon thumped onto the floor and the intruder let out a cry of pain.

“It was locked on safety,” said Ramses coolly.

“Very good,” said Emerson, who had, of course, been aware of the maneuver from the start. “You had better keep hold of him.”

The intruder stood passive in Ramses’s grasp, his head bowed. Cyrus took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his brow; Katherine sank back in her chair with a long sigh. Fatima had prudently retired to the farthest corner of the room, but had betrayed no signs of alarm, since she took it for granted that we could handle any situation, up to and including armed assault.

“Sitt Hakim,” she said somewhat accusingly, “dinner is—”

She got no further with the announcement than she had before. This time the person who pushed her aside was a woman, smartly dressed in a beaded evening frock and a cloak trimmed with marabou feathers. She let out a piercing scream, flung the cloak aside, and rushed at Ramses. “How dare you! Release him at once!”

She began pounding at Ramses with clenched fists. Ramses raised one arm to protect his face, and Nefret, swearing, went to his assistance. Avoiding the flailing fists, she administered a sharp kick on the ankle. The woman sat down suddenly on the floor.

“Well, really,” I said in exasperation. “It appears we are not to dine anytime soon. Young woman, who the devil are you, and what do you mean by this?”

The fall had knocked the breath out of her, and some sense into her. Despite her undignified position, limbs asprawl, long dark hair loosened and skirt crumpled, she maintained an air of self-possession. “I came for my brother,” she said. “Adrian, have they hurt you?”

Holding his mute, unresisting captive with one arm, Ramses said, “The only damage inflicted on anyone has been done by your brother and you. Is it his habit to threaten strangers with a pistol?”

She hadn’t seen the pistol until then. Her lips tightened and she looked up at Ramses with a stare that held more accusation than apology. For a moment their eyes locked. Then she got slowly to her feet, straightening her skirt. She was tall for a woman, and her bearing was more manly than feminine—feet apart, shoulders squared. Her hair was long and black and lustrous; it had come loose from its combs and hung untidily around her face. Her eyes, of a soft hazel, were her most attractive feature; her nose was prominent and her lips thin. “Apparently I misunderstood the situation,” she said coolly. Her gaze turned to me. “Are you the one they call the Sitt Hakim?”

“It is my Egyptian sobriquet, meaning Lady Doctor,” I said. “Dating from my early days in this country, when I endeavored in my humble fashion to alleviate the sufferings of the local people. You, however, are not entitled to use that name, since—”

“Peabody!” Emerson said in a loud voice.

“Nor that one,” I said. “Only my husband employs my maiden name as a title of affection and—”

“Amelia,” said Emerson even more loudly.

I know Emerson is out of temper with me when he employs my given name. I nodded, in acknowledgment of his implicit complaint, and said to the young woman, “You will address me as Mrs. Emerson, and apologize for your rude intrusion. You and your brother have probably spoiled our dinner. Fatima, will you tell Cook we will be a few minutes longer?”