Mummy Dearest (35 page)

“Good heavens, Father,” Alexander said reproachfully. “Don’t make a spectacle of yourself in front of the ladies and Miss el-Musafira. When it comes down to it, a mummy’s just a pile of old bones wrapped in rotting linen.”

Caron and Inez were staring at the headless
shabti.
Caron looked up at me and nodded. Salima took the box from Caron and moved nearer the window to study it more closely. “Magnificent,” Salima murmured. “The cartouche is well defined. The prenomen is Akhenamon, so it really must be from the tomb of Ramses VIII. I’m amazed the Supreme Council of Antiquities has allowed you to keep it in your possession. Has anyone arrived from the Cairo Museum?”

Lord Bledrock blew his nose. “They’re descending like jackals, slobbering to get their hands on this precious treasure. Had so many not been aware of its discovery, it might have found a safer home. A much safer home.”

“In a castle in Kent?” I suggested.

“Who can say?” He took the box from Salima and reverently replaced the flannel before closing the lid. “I must tuck him back in the safe. Only I know the combination, which I set myself, but if something were to happen to me, hotel security has a master code. The chaps from Cairo will be here this afternoon to take possession. I long for the good old days, when benefactors were rewarded for their investment.”

Salima arched her eyebrows. “When benefactors carried off whatever they could stuff in their pockets? Lord Carnarvon and his friends looted King Tut’s tomb. So many priceless pieces are now in foreign museums or in the lairs of private collectors, pieces that are key to the Egyptian heritage.”

“Balderdash!” Lord Bledrock said. “You know as well as I that this may well end up in a cardboard box in the basement of the Cairo Museum. If people can’t take proper care of their heritage, they don’t deserve to have one!” He stomped into his bedroom and slammed the door.

“Now look what you’ve gone and done,” chided
Alexander. “You could have cajoled him into making a nice donation to your little exhibit at the museum, perhaps enough to buy some glass cleaner to polish those smudgy display cases.”

Salima hissed something at him in Arabic, and he replied. Aware that they were not exchanging compliments, I dragged Caron and Inez out of the room. “Your language book doesn’t cover everything, does it?” I asked Inez.

“I don’t think we need a translation,” she said.

“I wish they’d stop behaving like adolescents,” Caron said as I unlocked the door. “Now do you believe someone searched our room? If you’d listened to us the first time, instead of making rude remarks, I would have told you what was missing.”

“I asked you at the time, and you said nothing,” I pointed out. “You can’t claim candor in retrospect.”

She rolled her eyes and grimaced for my benefit. “So what are we going to do all day? Watch nature shows on TV? Play cards? Throw furniture off the balcony and bet on how high it bounces?”

I was still annoyed that they hadn’t mentioned the
shabti
before we went on the cruise. Now they’d clearly decided on their excuse, fine-tuned it, and would stick to it no matter what I said. I couldn’t ground them. I could send them to their room, but they probably would hang out there all afternoon in any case.

The best I could come up with was a petty display of maternal authority. “Go get your room picked up,” I said. “Put away the clean clothes, make a pile of dirty clothes to be laundered, and organize what you’ve bought. I’m going to sit on the balcony and read. Don’t even think about slipping out through your room to go down to the lobby. When the mood strikes, I’ll be in to assess your progress.”

Caron nodded. “Okay, and we’re really sorry we didn’t tell you and Peter about the
shabti.
We didn’t think it was valuable, so we wrapped it in tissue paper and put it in a drawer with our other souvenirs.”

“That’s the truth, Mrs. Malloy,” Inez said, her eyes blinking solemnly.

I gave each of them a kiss on the cheek. “If that was an apology, I accept it. Now get busy with your clothes.”

I found a mystery novel and made myself comfortable on the balcony, but I was unable to concentrate on the tidy English village and the obliging suspects who dropped by for tea. I closed my eyes and envisioned
shabtis
on a chessboard, moving from square to square as I considered possibilities and combinations. There were too many hands rearranging the blue playing pieces, I thought glumly. I knew I was being manipulated as well. Sittermann seemed to be a grand master, but he was not the only one involved in what was an increasingly nasty situation.

Peter wouldn’t be back until five. I considered calling Mahmoud, but it seemed likely that he had written me off as a reckless busybody with an overly active imagination. Which was not an unreasonable opinion, I admitted as I wandered into the girls’ bedroom. There was a marginal improvement in the decor, although several crumpled pairs of shorts and filthy socks were in the middle of the floor. Inez was on the bed, reading
The Savage Sheik
, her toes curled and her expression glazed. Caron was peeling the price tag off the sole of a sandal.

“I’m going to call room service for coffee and rolls,” I said. “Would you like anything?” Neither of them looked up. I went back into the sitting room and placed the order, adding some pastries. When Abdullah came into the suite, I asked him to carry the tray to the balcony.

“A very nice day,
Sitt,”
he murmured.

“You’re exuding disapproval,” I said to him. “Is it because I appear to keep having parties while my husband is gone?”

“It is not for me to offer judgment. I do not always understand the way of American women. If this is the way they choose to behave, then they should do so. I have seen some of the television shows. America is very different from Egypt.”

“I can’t argue with that. Do you have daughters, Abdullah? Did they stay at home behind the shutters until you chose husbands for them?”

“Few families are that traditional these days,
Sitt
Malloy. One of my daughters is a nurse in Alexandria, and another does secretarial duties for Lady Emerson. The youngest is in Paris, studying art history and hoping to work at a museum when she completes her degree.”

“I’m impressed that you were able to pay for their educations,” I said.

“I have always been a frugal man. Is there anything else you would like?”

I wanted him to sit down and tell me more about his life, but I suspected I’d have more luck trying to chat with the pot of fig jam on the tray. “Yes, I’d like to ask you something else. It’s not personal, I promise. Did the police find the taxi driver who took Dr. King to the Valley of the Kings?”

“Yes, but he was unable to answer their questions.”

“Why not, Abdullah? He didn’t do something to her, did he?”

Abdullah hesitated. “They found Sobny in his taxi behind an abandoned house several miles from Luxor. His throat had been slashed. Usually one hears rumors of men boasting or spending more money than they should, but there has been not one word about this crime. Those who have been known to do such things in the past have been questioned by the police and released. It is very curious. People are nervous, afraid to speak about it.”

“Was he robbed?” I asked, trying not to shudder.

“He had American money in his pocket, more than two hundred dollars. The police also found Dr. King’s room key, which had slipped between the seats.” Abdullah bowed slightly. “I will spend the rest of today cleaning the carpet and floor in the hall. It appears that beverages were spilled last night. There is an unpleasant smell.”

I followed him to the door and locked it behind him. It was comforting to know I had a bodyguard outside the
room, even if he was as ancient as the colossi protecting the temple at Abu Simbel. I went to the balcony and peered down. This side of the hotel was highly visible from the terrace, the sidewalk, and the corniche. Scaling it with ropes and hooks would work only in a mindless action movie.

I took a few deep breaths, poured myself a cup of coffee, and dedicated myself to the dastardly deeds of the vicar’s wife, whose pen was as dangerous as her tongue. Caron and Inez joined me and finished the pastries. Inez offered to teach me how to play poker, and I reluctantly agreed.

I’d lost all of my dried figs and was down to a single date when the telephone rang. “Don’t touch that date,” I said as I went into the sitting room and answered the phone, dearly hoping it was not Peter with an infinitely reasonable explanation why he was stuck in Cairo for another month.

“Mrs. Malloy?” cooed a voice. “This is Buffy. I’m not disturbing you, am I? Now that I’ve had time to rest and get all clean, I realize that I was hideously ungrateful yesterday. I should have been slobbering all over you like a lost puppy, but I was too upset to think straight. Could I come and apologize in person?”

“You’re not going to slobber all over me, are you?”

“Good heavens, no,” she said, laughing. “I went to one of the shops by the hotel and bought you a gift. It’s not nearly adequate to pay you back for everything you did for me, but those men took my purse and I don’t have any credit cards. Maybe when I get back to Rome, American Express will have my replacement card and I can find something extra special for you. If you give me your home address, I’ll mail it to you.”

“We’ll discuss that later. Yes, you may come to the suite. Be careful when you get off the elevator; the floor may be damp.”

I told the girls about the call. Caron went to comb her hair, but Inez sat back and said, “You didn’t tell us much about what happened to her. Are you sure she wasn’t taken to the camp of a sheik with a volatile temper and blazing
eyes? Maybe she’s afraid to admit she was drawn to his animal passion and they made love on silken cushions beneath a sky of glittering diamonds.”

“I’m sorry to say she slept on a flea-ridden blanket the first night, and was then locked in a dingy hotel room the size of a closet. When are you going to finish that infernal book? Your mother’s going to blame me if you come home with all these fantasies. As you’re so fond of pointing out, she already has reservations about me.”

“When I read
Gone With the Wind
, my father claimed my accent was so syrupy that he couldn’t understand half of what I said.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Vicarious thrills. What’s so fascinating about the sheik is that I’m pretty sure he’s not truly an Arab. His complexion is lighter, and he buys cases of imported wine and plays operas on a gramophone. The English lady doesn’t realize that’s why she’s in love with him. It’s actually very racist. Back when the book was written, it was unthinkable that any civilized woman could get hot and bothered over someone from an inferior race.”

“So why is he pretending to be an Arab?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet. What’s more, I don’t think she’s really the daughter of a duke or whatever she keeps saying. She’s pretending, too. It’d be a lot better if they were honest with each other, but if they were, it would be a very short book.”

“And therefore nobody would have bought it and the author would have faded into obscurity, along with a lot of other authors. What a ghastly thought.”

Buffy handed me a small cloth pouch with a drawstring. “I wish I could have bought you perfume or jewelry. The American Express lady in Cairo said they’d cover the hotel bill, but they can’t advance much cash. I’m going to have to charge everything to the room until I get a new card.”

I poured a silver chain and tiny charm out of the bag. “Very nice,” I said.

“It’s an ankh, the hieroglyph for ‘life.’ The guy at the shop said it’s a symbolic depiction of genitalia, but he was being snide. It doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity, even though it looks like a weird cross.”

I handed it to Inez, who said, “I should get some of these to give to my cousins. My brother’s getting a cockroach I caught in our room. I’m going to tell him it’s a scarab.”

“It’s dead,” Caron said. “Wrap it in toilet paper and tell him it was mummified.”

Buffy winced. “I’m sure he’ll love it. Anyway, Mrs. Malloy, I do want to thank you for everything you did yesterday. I don’t know why you risked your life for me, but I am so unbelievably grateful. Those horrible men were going to take me to an oasis way out in the desert. They probably knew some fat old bedouin who’d buy me for a sex slave. Nobody would have ever heard from me again.”

“The men spoke English?” I said.

“No. I mean, I don’t think they did. I overheard one of them say something about Oasis al-Farafra. Samuel made
me go there with him after we arrived in Egypt. It was awful, nothing but mud-brick huts and springs with sulphur water. The bus from Cairo took ten hours. Ten long, sweltering hours with people who hadn’t bathed in weeks.”

“You seemed to be reluctant to leave Samuel behind at Kharga,” I said, trying to sound casual. “That was thoughtful of you, since I was under the impression the two of you weren’t the happiest of traveling companions. Didn’t he warn you about his plans when you first met in Rome?”

“Sort of, but I didn’t pay much attention. I was so bored in Rome with all the lectures and guided tours. It’s not like we were a bunch of high school kids”—she winked at Caron and Inez—“who’d get into trouble if we explored on our own. We actually had a curfew, if you can imagine. Once, when we were supposed to have a private audience with the Pope, I was so hungover that I slept till noon. I thought Miss Ripley was going to have a total meltdown and send me home. It’s not like I’m Catholic, for pity’s sake.”

“It sounds like a fabulous program,” I said. “What’s the name of the college?”

Buffy picked up the chain and ankh and put them back in the cloth bag. “A small private school in California. Nobody’s ever heard of it. Oh, and you said something about Sausalito. I made a really dumb mistake on my passport application and mixed up the house numbers. My mother’s been married four times. My father was her second, and I use that name. She hardly knows what her last name is anymore. She’ll have a new one before I get home. I just hope this husband is older than me. The last kept getting carded when we went out to dinner.” She gazed at me like a puppy pleading for a kindly pat on the head. “My shrink says I have a problem relating to men, that I get inappropriately attached. I guess that explains why I was upset yesterday about Samuel. He hasn’t come back yet. Chief Inspector el-Habachi told me that the police over there searched the entire town. Did he say anything to you about knowing someone who lives or works there? Could he have recognized someone on the street?”