Page 72 of Disturbing the Dead
Her eyes glisten. “But he only said what we wanted to hear, didn’t he? Because Mama and Mimi would not have married him if he believed otherwise. He pretended because it made them happy.”
“I think,” I say slowly, “that such a thing would require too much pretending. At home, we wish to relax and be ourselves.”
“So you think he lied to others. That he pretended to think women shouldn’t study medicine when he didn’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what your father did or what he thought, Phoebe. I only believe that he was not lying when he told you that you could be whatever you like, that you are as capable as any boy.”
“But Papa must have opposed the women students for a reason.” She fingers the needles on an evergreen and then says, “Perhaps he did it because of someone else. Like in a book I read, where a boy at school said mean things because he wanted other boys to like him.”
“I cannot speculate on that, Phoebe, and I am not sure it helps you to do so.”
“But would that not be worse?” she says. “It is bad enough to think women should not study at university. Is it not worse to think they should… and yet try to stop them? At least if you believe in an idea, you think you are doing the right thing. Like Lord Muir. He believes women should not be in university. That is terrible, but it is also sad, because he believes something that is wrong.”
She stops short, stick swinging up. “Was Lord Muir the one pushing Papa to say those things?”
“The police are investigating every angle.”
“I do not trust the police,” she says tartly, sounding more herself at last. “There are no women among them, and so they cannot be trusted to truly understand cases that involve women. That is what Mama always said. You must have women in a group if the group is supposed to be for everyone. Just like you need Egyptians on a job that is in Egypt. You must have them in positions of influence, Mama said, and Papa agreed.” Her voice cracks a little. “Or he said he did. Did he hire Egyptians just to make Mama happy?”
“I cannot see a man molding his hiring practices to appease his wife.”
She worries her bottom lip with her teeth and then blurts, “I did not want Papa harmed.”
I frown at her. “All right…”
“I know I said he should be cursed for unwrapping a mummy for entertainment, but I did not mean it.”
I lay a careful hand on her arm. “You were clearly teasing, and even then, you said you would only hex him with boils. What happened has nothing to do with you. Curses aren’t real.”
“I know,” she says, her voice dropping. “He was a good papa. He would complain if we were underfoot or making too much noise, but he took us to the excavations and he talked to us and listened to us as if we were grown-ups. Michael liked that. I did, too.”
“Then that is the part you remember,” I say. “That is the part that counts.”
She resumes walking. Now she’s tapping the stick ahead of her, the movement almost agitated. When she stops, it’s so abrupt that I nearly crash into her.
She turns sharply and looks up at me. “If Uncle Selim took the artifacts, he had a good reason.”
I go still.
Her chin lifts. “He did, no matter what Lord Muir might say.”
Damn it. In the modern world, I’d be obligated to let this drop—or at least take her to Lady Christie before she went further. But whatever she’s saying, she’s not going to say it in front of Selim’s sister.
“All right,” I say carefully.
“He is not a thief.”
“All right.”
“If he took them, he has a reason and it is a good one.”
I speak with as much care as I can. “Do you have cause to suspect he might have… removed artifacts from the house?”
Silence. Shit. If she was merely defending him, she’d have been startled by the question, rushed to say no, of course not.
Her chin lifts again. “Uncle Selim is not a thief. You cannot steal what is, rightfully, already yours. The history of Egypt belongs to the Egyptians.”
I exhale. Okay, then. Well, that puts a very different spin on this.
