The Mummy (Ramses the Damned 1)

The mouth was a young man's mouth, or at least that of a man in his prime. And the nose was slender, but not emaciated--what Englishmen call aristocratic. The ridges of the brows were prominent and the eyes themselves could not have been small. Probably a handsome man. In fact, there seemed little doubt of it.

Someone said crossly that the thing ought to be in the museum. Another that it was perfectly gruesome. And to think, these had been Lawrence's friends? Hancock was examining the gold coins on display in their velvet-lined case. Samir was beside him.

In fact, Hancock was making a fuss about something, wasn't he? Elliott knew that officious tone.

"There were five, only five? You're sure of it?" And he was speaking so loudly one would have thought Samir was deaf, not merely Egyptian.

"Quite sure. I told you," Samir said with a touch of irritation. "I cataloged the entire contents of the chamber myself."

Quite unmistakably, Hancock shifted his gaze to someone across the room. Elliott saw it was Henry Stratford, looking quite splendid in his dove-grey wool, with a black silk tie at his throat. Laughing and talking nervously, too, it seemed, with Alex and Julie and that crowd of young people whom Henry secretly loathed and resented.

Handsome as ever, Elliott thought. Handsome as when he was a boy of twenty, and that narrow elegant face could flash from a beguiling vulnerability to a chilling viciousness.

But why was Hancock staring at him? And what was he whispering now in Samir's ear? Samir looked at Hancock for a long moment, then gave a languid little shrug, his eyes moving slowly over Henry also.

How Samir must loathe all this, Elliott thought. How he must loathe that uncomfortable Western suit; he wants his gellebiyya of watered silk, and his slippers, and he should have them. What barbarians we must seem.

Elliott moved to the far corner and slipped into Lawrence's leather chair, easing it back against the wall. The crowd opened and closed at random, revealing Henry again moving away from the others, and glancing uncomfortably to right and left. Very subtle, not like a stage villain, but he's up to something, isn't he?

Henry slowly passed the marble table, his hand hovering as if he meant to touch the ancient scrolls. The crowd closed again, but Elliott merely waited. The little knot of persons in front of him shifted finally, and there was Henry, yards away, peering at a necklace on a little glass shelf, one of those many relics which Lawrence had brought home years ago.

Did anyone see Henry pick up the necklace and look at it lovingly as if he were an antiquarian? Did anyone see him slip it into his pocket and walk away, face blank, mouth rigid?

Bastard.

Elliott only smiled. He took a sip of the chilled white wine, and wished it were sherry. He wished he had not seen the little theft. He wished he had not seen Henry.

His own secret memories of Henry had never lost their painful edge, perhaps because he had never confessed what had happened to anyone. Not even to Edith, though he had told her many other sordid things about himself when wine and philosophy had made it seem imperative that he do so; and not to the Roman Catholic priests to whom he occasionally went to speak of heaven and hell in passionate ways no one else would tolerate.

He always told himself that if he did not relive those dark times, then he would forget them. But they were horridly vivid even now, some ten years after.

He had loved Henry Stratford once. And Henry Stratford was the only lover Elliott had ever had who tried to blackmail him.

Of course it had been an utter failure. Elliott had laughed in Henry's face. He'd called his bluff. "Shall I tell your father all about it? Or shall I tell your uncle Lawrence first? He's going to be furious with me ... for perhaps five minutes. But you, his favourite nephew, he will despise till the day you die because I shall tell him all of it, you see, down to the sum of money you're demanding. What was it? Five hundred pounds? You've made yourself a wretch for that, imagine."

How sullen and hurt Henry had been; how utterly confounded.

It should have been a triumph; but nothing took the sting from the overall humiliation. Henry at twenty-two--a viper with an angel's face, turning on Elliott in their Paris hotel as if he were a common boy out of the gutter.

And then there had been the little thefts. An hour after Henry had left, Elliott had discovered that his cigarette case, his money clip and all his cash were missing. His dressing gown was gone; his cuff links. Other items he could no longer remember.

He could never bring himself to mention the whole disaster. But he would have liked to needle Henry now, to slip up beside him and ask about the necklace that had just found its way into his pocket. Would Henry put it with the gold cigarette case, and the fine engraved money clip, and the diamond cuff links? Or lay it off on the same pawnbroker?

It was all too sad really. Henry had been a gifted young man; and it had all gone wrong, despite education and blood and countless opportunities. He'd started to gamble when he was no more than a boy; his drinking had become a disease by the time he was twenty-five; and now at thirty-two he had a perpetually sinister air that deepened his good looks and made him curiously repulsive in spite of them. And who suffered for it? Randolph, of course, who believed against all evidence that Henry's descent was his father's failure.

Let him go to hell, Elliott thought. Maybe he'd sought some glimmer with Henry of the flame he'd known with Lawrence, and it was all his own fault--seeing the uncle in the nephew. But no, it had started as an honest thing in its own right. And Henry Stratford had pursued him, after all. Yes, to hell with Henry.

It was the mummy Elliott had come to see. And the crowd had backed off a little again. He caught a fresh glass of wine from a passing tray, climbed to his feet, ignoring the outrageous stab of pain in his left hip, and made his way back to the solemn figure in the coffin.

He looked at the face again, the grim set of the mouth with its firm chin. A man in his prime all right. And there was hair cleaving to the well-shaped skull beneath the swollen bandages.

He lifted his glass in salute.

"Ramses," he whispered, drawing closer. And then speaking in Latin, he said, "Welcome to London. Do you know where London is?" He laughed softly at himself speaking Latin to this thing. Then he quoted a few sentences from Caesar's account of his conquest of Britain. "That's where you are, great King," he said. He made a feeble attempt to switch to Greek, but it was simply too hard for him. In Latin, he said: "I hope you like the damn place better than I do."

There was a faint rustling sound suddenly. Where had it come from? How odd to hear it so distinctly when the roar of conversation all around him was such a persistent nuisance. But it sounded as if it had come from the coffin itself, right in front of him.

He scanned the face again. Then the arms and hands, which appeared to be snagged in the rotted linen, as if they might fall loose at any moment. In fact, there was a distinct tear in the dark, dirty cloth, exposing a bit of the undergarment of the body right where the wrists were crossed. Not good. The thing was deteriorating right here before his eyes. Or there were tiny parasites at work. Must be stopped immediately.