Page 12 of Disturbing the Dead
“Indeed. I fully admit that Sir Alastair is a fascinating individual, but you will have to content yourself with his Egyptian treasures.”
“Probably for the best.”
We turn another corner and someone says, “Mr. Awad?”
A man steps in front of us, looking at Gray. “Mr. Awad. I had not heard you’d arrived.” When Gray looks confused, the man says, “Oh! My apologies,” and switches to address him in a language I don’t recognize.
“I fear you have mistaken me for someone else,” Gray says.
The man’s eyes widen. “Oh! Yes. Given your accent, I most certainly have. My sincerest apologies.”
The man retreats quickly, still apologizing, and is gone before we can say anything.
“Awad?” I say. “That sounds Egyptian. Do you think Sir Alastair brought someone from the excavation to speak? I would like to hear that.”
“Let us hope so. If he has brought a local archaeologist or historian, that would cast this affair in a slightly less discomfiting light.”
Gray waves toward a doorway. It leads into one of the rooms at the back, with what looks like gardens beyond, closed for the winter. Whatever the purpose of this room, everything has been cleared, right down to paintings on the walls being removed, leaving ghostly outlines on the wallpaper, as if that art might detract from the antiquities on display.
I turn to the first table… and gasp. Less than five feet away a set of canopic jars is just sitting there, with no glass box, no barrier, nothing between me and the jars.
“You know what those are, I presume,” Gray asks as we step into the room.
“Canopic jars,” I say. “Before mummification, the embalmer removed the organs through a slit in the corpse’s side. And removed the brain through the nose.” I look at him. “Can you do that?”
“The question, I believe, is ‘Would I want to do that?’ And also ‘Why.’” He walks up beside me. “It is an intriguing concept, though. To be quite honest, I am not quite certain how they managed it.”
“And you ask whether you want to do it and why?” I grin at him. “Because it’s a puzzle. The problem would be finding a volunteer. Preferably dead.”
“Preferably, yes.”
“You’d need to have a reason to do it, I suppose. Beyond satisfying scientific curiosity. Or would you? It would make a valid paper. You should do it. You just need a body.”
When I glance over, I can see that brain of his whirring. Then he shakes it off. “You are a bad influence, Mallory.”
“I am the best influence, and you know it.”
There are four jars, all blue-glazed pottery. Each jar lid is shaped like the head of a god. Fortunately, there are labels, or I’d never know which was which, much less be able to name the gods. On the one with the intestines is the falcon-headed Qebehsenuef; baboon-headed Hapi protects the lungs, jackal-headed Duamutef is in charge of the stomach, and human-headed Imsety takes the liver.
“See these?” I point to the line of hieroglyphics on each jar. “It’s a spell naming the deceased and invoking the appropriate god.”
I spend a few minutes with the jars. Then I realize I’ve been so wrapped up in the jars that I haven’t looked up to see what else is in the room. Now I do, and I gasp again and take a running step forward, before I remember I’m not wearing jeans and sneakers… and not eight years old, setting foot in the British Museum for the first time.
Gray gives a soft chuckle behind me, and when he catches up, his smile is pure indulgence that somehow manages to avoid condescension.
“I’ve been trying to play this cool,” I say. “Recognize the cultural concerns and all that, but when my parents went to London, they’d drop me off at the museum, I’d spend hours in the Egyptian exhibit. History in general isn’t my thing, but I loved this stuff.”
“Because it is suitably macabre.”
“I’m so predictable.” I look around. “Are we really the only ones here? This is…” I struggle for words as scan the room. “This is literal treasure, right here, to see and smell and touch—yes, I know better than to touch it and I won’t, but I could. Where is everyone?”
He gives a vague wave. “Talking to people they have not spoken to since the last event a few weeks ago.”
“Ugh. Do I dare hope they’ll at least pay attention during the unwrapping?”
“Silly lass, of course not. They only want to say they were here. We will need to stand near the front of the exhibition if we hope to hear anything other than speculation on what Lady McDonald might serve at her winter ball.”
“Well, I can’t complain about having this whole room to ourselves. Wait, is that a funerary mask?”
