Page 48 of Disturbing the Dead
“We will need to have Hugh’s policemen continue questioning the staff,” Gray says. “Now, about that key…” He pulls it over and frowns. “It is very old.”
Old…
“The tunnel?” I say. “The shed at the top is locked. Selim had a key, and Michael. How many keys would there be?”
“I will ask for Mr. Awad’s and see whether it is a match.”
“Good idea. Now, this letter…” I spread it out on the table with my gloved hands and squint. “The writing is so cramped, I can barely read it.”
Isla reaches out, and I hand it to her. Then she shakes her head and passes it to Gray.
“The problem is not the small writing,” she says. “It does not appear to be in English.”
“No,” Gray says. “I think it is English. But a cipher.”
“Oooh, a code?” I say. “You’re good at those, right?”
“I know a few,” he says. “This is not any of those.”
“So we copy it out, give the original to the police, and then try to solve it.”
“Yes…” Gray says, with obvious hesitancy.
“Is that a problem?”
“If it’s too complex for me to easily solve, then it will take time, and unless we consider Mrs. King a strong suspect, we’d spend hours deciphering what would likely turn out to be a love letter. They are newlyweds.”
“Ah. Fair point. Then we set this aside for now. The primary lead, of course, is the mummy itself.”
Gray frowns. Then he says, “Of course. Yes. Whoever killed Sir Alastair undoubtedly also took the mummified remains. There was little point in concealing them—and great danger in being caught with them. Meaning they had a purpose for them.”
“Both Michael and his uncle mentioned the resale value for medicinal purposes. What do you two know about that?”
“I do not deal in quack medicines,” Gray says loftily.
“Well, then, you’re no help at all.”
“Fine,” he says. “I am aware that mummia—”
“What?”
“Mummia,” he says with some impatience. “The powdered remains of mummies.”
“There’s a name for that? Wow.”
“As I was saying, I am aware that mummia has been used in medicines. Human remains have been thought to have medical uses throughout history. In the second century, Galen thought burnt human bones could be used in the treatment of epilepsy. In the sixteenth century, Paracelsus believed in using human fat, marrow, and, yes, mummia, to treat various conditions.”
“Also excrement,” Isla says.
“I was not mentioning that,” Gray says.
I shake my head. “If we’re talking about eating dried bits of people, I’m not sure eating feces is a whole lot worse.”
Gray continues, “When the remains of mummies began to be used in Europe, it included both the powder and a liquor form made from the liquid leaked during the mummification process.”
“Tell me you are joking.”
“I never joke about medical history. It is believed that the original mummia was the material used in mummification—a bitumen. A Western translation error led to that being interpreted as first the leaked residue and later the remains themselves. Mummy remains were most popular as medicines between the fifteenth and eighteenth century, when they were used primarily for treating cuts, bruises, and fractures. At the height of its popularity, however, people naturally began to falsify the ingredients, and what was most commonly available was not powdered Egyptians but powdered corpses of Europeans. That led to the decline in popularity.”
