The Mummy (Ramses the Damned 1)

"Oh, Alex, dear Alex." She bent forward and kissed him, and felt his sudden desperate clasp of her hand.

The gaudy little clock on Daisy's dressing table rang six.

Henry sat back, stretched, then reached for the champagne again, filling his glass, then hers.

She looked drowsy still, the thin satin strap of her nightgown fallen down over one rounded arm.

"Drink, darling," he said.

"Not me, lovey. Singing tonight," she said with an arrogant lift of her chin. "I can't drink all day like some I know." She tore off a bit of meat from the roasted fowl on her plate, and put it in her mouth crudely. Beautiful mouth. "But this cousin of yours! She's not afraid of the bloody mummy! Putting it right there in her own house!"

Big stupid blue eyes fixed on him; just the kind he liked. Though he missed Malenka, his Egyptian beauty; he really did. The thing about an Eastern woman was she didn't have to be stupid; she could be clever, and just as easy to manage. With a girl like Daisy, the stupidity was essential; and then you had to talk to her--and talk to her and talk to her.

"Why the hell should she be afraid of the damned mummy!" he said irritably. "The daft part is giving the whole treasure to a museum. She doesn't know what money is, my cousin. She has too much of it to know. He increased my trust fund by a pittance and he leaves her a shipping empire. He's the one who was ..."

He stopped. The little chamber; the sunlight falling in shafts on that thing. He saw it again. Saw what he had done! No. Not right. Died of a heart attack or a stroke, he did--the man lying sprawled on the sandy floor. I didn't do it. And that thing, it hadn't been staring through the wrappings, that was absurd!

He drank the champagne too quickly. Ah, but it was good. He filled his glass again.

"But a bleeding mummy in the very house with her," Daisy said.

And suddenly, violently, he saw those eyes again, beneath rotted bandages, staring at him. Yes, staring. Stop it, you fool, you did what you had to do! Stop it or you will go mad.

He rose from the table a bit clumsily and put on his jacket, and straightened his silk tie.

"But where are you going?" Daisy asked. "You're a bit too drunk to be going out now, if you ask me."

"But I didn't," he answered. She knew where he was going. He had the hundred pounds he'd managed to squeeze out of Randolph, and the casino was open. It had opened at dark.

He wanted to be there alone now, so that he could truly concentrate. Merely thinking of it, of the green baize under the lamps and the sound of the dice and roulette wheel, engendered a deep excitement in him. One good win, and he'd quit, he promised himself. And with a hundred pounds to start. No, he couldn't wait....

Of course he'd run into Sharples, and he owed Sharples too much money, but how the hell was he supposed to pay it back if he didn't get to the tables, and though he didn't feel lucky-no, not lucky at all tonight--well, he had to give it a try.

"Just wait now, sir. Sit down, sir," Daisy said, coming after him. "Have another glass with me and then a little nap. It's barely six o'clock."

"Let me alone," he said. He put on his greatcoat and pulled on his leather gloves. Sharples. A stupid man, Sharples. He felt in his coat pocket for the knife he'd carried for years. Yes, still there. He drew it out now, and examined the thin steel blade.

"Oh no, sir," Daisy gasped.

"Don't be a fool," he said offhandedly, and closing the knife and putting it back into his pocket he went out the door.

No sound now but the low gurgling of the fountain in the conservatory, the ashen twilight long gone, the Egyptian room lighted only by the green shaded lamp on Lawrence's desk.

Julie sat in her father's leather chair, back to the wall, her silk peignoir soft and comfortable, and surprisingly warm, her hand on the diary which she had not yet read.

The glittering mask of Ramses the Great was ever so slightly frightening, the large almond-shaped eyes peering into the soft shadows; the marble Cleopatra appeared to glow. And so beautiful the coins mounted on black velvet against the far wall.

She had inspected them carefully earlier. Same profile as the bust, same rippling hair beneath its gold tiara. A Greek Cleopatra, not the silly Egyptian image so popular in programmes for Shakespeare's tragedy, or in the engravings which illustrated Plutarch's Lives and popular histories galore.

Profile of a beautiful woman; strong, not tragic. Strong as Romans loved their heroes and heroines to be strong.

The thick scrolls of parchment and papyrus looked all too fragile as they lay heaped on the marble table. The other items could also be easily destroyed by prying hands. Quill pens, ink pots, a little silver burner meant for oil, it seemed, with a ring in which to position a glass vial. The vials themselves lay beside it--exquisite specimens of early glasswork, each with a tiny silver cap. Of course all these little relics, and the string of alabaster jars behind them, were protected by small, neatly inscribed signs which read: "Please do not touch."

Nevertheless, it worried her, so many coming here to view these things.

"Remember, it's poison, most definitely," Julie had told Rita and Oscar, her indispensable maid and butler. And that had been enough to keep them out of the room!

"It's a body, miss," Rita had said. "A dead body! Never mind it's an Egyptian King. I say leave the dead alone, miss."