Page 69 of Disturbing the Dead
“Yes. I decided I would wait until after the party, when he would doubtless be in a better mood. With his death, I forgot all about it until I was informed that more artifacts were missing.”
“Who informed you?”
“I received a note from Miriam last night. It seems the children went to look at something and it was not there, and that began the chain of events leading to Miriam deciding I ought to be informed.”
“Lady Christie’s note said more artifacts were missing? She presumed you knew about the others?”
He shakes his head. “I misspoke. She said several artifacts were missing. That is all. I can show you the note. I have not mentioned the past thefts to her, so I do not know whether she is aware of them. I suspect not, if Alastair thought her brother responsible. Selim has… been in trouble before, and she has needed to get him out of it.”
“Trouble with the law?”
“Oh no. Certainly not. Youthful trouble. That is all I know. I did not think Selim responsible for this theft myself, and perhaps not even the others. With these current ones, I thought the artifacts had been misplaced. Or Alastair’s killer took them. Then I arrived to find that Selim has been gone since last night.”
“Ah.”
He glances toward the door, voice lowering again. “Alastair would not wish the police involved in this. I only want the artifacts returned and Selim spoken to, most sternly.”
We have taken our leave of Muir and had a maid show us to a room where we might talk—a small music room.
“Well, this is a problem easily fixed,” Gray says. “Find Selim Awad. Insist on the return of the artifacts. Then speak to him. Sternly.”
“Most sternly.” I take a chair by a pianoforte. “At least Muir didn’t demand we deport him to Egypt.”
“Hmm. There is that.” Gray stands by a window overlooking the back garden. “What do you think of all this?”
I sigh and sink into my chair. “I don’t know. It’s easy to paint Muir as a bigot who automatically points fingers at a foreign relation, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. He didn’t even seem to think Selim responsible until he went missing.”
“And the letter?”
I throw up my hands. “Not sure how to interpret that. We can ask Selim about it, but if Sir Alastair was accusing him, he could just lie.”
“And the fact Mr. Awad is now missing?”
“It looks suspicious, but it isn’t proof of anything. If Sir Alastair suspected Selim, that would be a solid lead… if we were investigating missing artifacts.”
“Because the missing artifacts do not seem to be connected to the murder. The thief only took advantage of the household’s mourning to steal them. I would say we have no place in this artifact investigation at all except…” Gray glances toward the door.
“Except that if we refuse, Lady Christie may call in the police, not realizing the prime suspect is her own brother?”
“Hmm.”
“If we must look at Selim, is it only for artifacts? He couldn’t have committed the murder, right? His ship arrived too late.”
“Unfortunately, that did not clear him. It arrived closer to one than two, and Hugh cannot find the driver who allegedly dropped him off here past four. While arriving at the house around two would give him a compressed timeline, he would know how to unwrap and rewrap a mummy, making him quicker than the average person. Also, it would mean we could not say the killer left after four, as the tunnel encounter would be a lie.”
“Damn.”
I rise and walk around the room, thinking. “The theft of the artifacts might not be directly connected, but talking to Lord Muir did provide a potential connection of another sort. We already knew Sir Alastair chafed at being indebted to Muir.”
“Yes.”
“Yet he had to stay indebted if he needed to continue his work. In return, he owed Muir a share of the artifacts, and he had to agree to things like that mummy party. He was under Muir’s thumb. Is that an accurate understanding of such a relationship?”
“It is. Many men in Sir Alastair’s position would have made the best of it. Curried favor with their sponsor. The Sir Alastair I knew would have, as you said, chafed.”
I pause by a harpsichord and run my fingers over the keys. “Last night, I was thinking about Sir Alastair avoiding Miss Jex-Blake. As both you and Isla said, he didn’t seem the type to oppose women in medical school. He married a strong-willed woman and had one for a sister. The issue didn’t affect him personally, and he seemed much too wrapped up in his work to fuss with academic politics. My sense, after what Mrs. King said, was that someone was putting him up to it. He had a position on the medical faculty and some person or group demanded he use it to oppose the female students.”
“Lord Muir.”
