The Mummy or Ramses the Damned (21 page)

It occurred to him again that he was playing a very dramatic little game; that belief is a word we seldom thoroughly examine. For example, he had all his life “believed” in the teaching of the Church of England. But he did not really for a moment expect to enter a Christian heaven when he died, and certainly not a Christian hell. He would not have gambled one farthing on the existence of either.

One thing was most certain. If he had actually seen the thing climb out of the coffin, as Henry claimed to have done, he would not be behaving like Henry. A man of no imagination, that was Henry. Perhaps the lack of imagination had always been the tragic flaw. It occurred to him that Henry was a man who did not grasp the
implications
of things.

Far from running from this mystery, as Henry had chosen to do, Elliott had become obsessed with it. If only he had stayed longer in the Stratford house, been a little more clever. He could have examined those alabaster jars; he could have taken one of the scrolls. That poor little Rita would have settled for just about any explanation.

He wished he had tried.

He also wished that his son, Alex, were not suffering. For that was the only unpleasant aspect of this entertaining mystery so far.

Alex had been calling Julie all day. He was in a great state of alarm over the guest in Julie’s house, whom he had only glimpsed through the conservatory doors—“an enormous man, well, very tall, anyhow, with blue eyes. Quite a … a good-looking fellow, but certainly too old to be courting Julie!”

Then at eight this evening, there had come a call from one of those well-meaning friends who make a point of circulating rumours relentlessly. Julie had been seen dancing at the Victoria Hotel with a handsome and imposing stranger. Were not Alex and Julie engaged? Alex was now beside himself with worry.
Though he had called Julie every hour upon the hour all afternoon, there had been no response from her. Finally he had begged his father to intervene. Could not Elliott get to the bottom of this?

Yes. Elliott would get to the bottom of this. In fact, Elliott felt curiously enlivened by this entire development. Elliott felt almost young, daydreaming about Ramses the Great and his elixir hidden among poisons.

He rose now from his comfortable chair by the fire, ignoring the familiar pain in his legs, and went to his desk to write a letter.

In a few moments he had finished this note. He put it in an envelope, sealed it, and took it into the front hall, where he laid it in a silver tray for his man, Walter, to deliver in the morning. Then he paused. Of course it was what Alex wanted him to do. But he knew that he was not doing it for Alex. And he knew that if any such dinner took place that Alex might be hurt even more than he had been already. On the other hand, the sooner Alex realized … He stopped. He did not really know what it was that Alex was supposed to realize. He knew only that he himself was inflamed with the mystery that was slowly unfolding before him.

He limped uneasily to the hook behind the stairs, removed his heavy serge cloak and then went out the side door of the house onto the street. There were four motor cars parked there.

But the Lancia Theta with the electric starter was the only one he ever drove. And a whole year had passed during which he had not enjoyed that extraordinary pleasure.

It delighted him now that he might take the thing out all alone, without having to consult a groom, a coachman, a valet or a chauffeur. What a lovely development, that such a complex invention took one back to simplicity.

The worst of it was easing himself onto the front seat, but he managed it. Then he pressed down on the starter pedal, gave it petrol and he was soon on horseback again, free, as he’d been when he was a young man, heading toward Mayfair at a gallop.

Leaving Ramses, Julie hurried up the stairs and into her room, closing the door behind her. For a long moment she leaned against the door, her eyes closed. She could hear Rita bustling about. She could smell the fragrant wax of the candles Rita always lighted by her bed. A romantic little touch that Julie retained from her childhood—before there had been electric lights—when the smell of the gaslights had always faintly sickened her.

She thought of nothing now except all that had happened: it filled her so completely there was no room for true reflection or evaluation. That pounding sense of an all-consuming adventure was the only attitude she could rationally identify within herself. Except of course for a physical attraction to Ramses that was acutely painful.

No, not merely physical. She was falling in love totally.

As she opened her eyes, she saw the portrait of Alex on her dressing table. And Rita in the shadows, who had just laid out her nightgown over the lace-covered counterpane. Then gradually she became aware of flowers everywhere. Bouquets of flowers in glass vases on the dressing table, on the night tables, on her desk in the corner.

“From the Viscount, miss,” Rita said. “All these bouquets. I don’t know what he’s going to think, miss, about all this … these strange goings-on. I don’t know what I think myself, miss.…”

“Of course you don’t,” Julie said, “but, Rita, you mustn’t tell a soul, you know that.”

“Who would believe me, miss!” Rita said. “But I don’t understand it, miss. How did he hide in that box? Why does he eat all that food?”

For a moment Julie couldn’t answer. What in the world was Rita thinking?

“Rita, there’s nothing to worry about,” she said firmly. She took Rita’s hands in hers. “Will you believe me when I tell you that he is a good man, and there is a good explanation for everything?”

Rita stared blankly at Julie. Her small blue eyes grew very
wide suddenly. “But, Miss Julie!” she whispered. “If he’s a good man, why did he have to sneak into London like that? And why didn’t he smother under all that wrapping?”

Julie considered for a moment.

“Rita, my father knew of the plan,” she said soberly. “He approved of it.”

Can we really burn in hell for telling lies? Julie thought. Especially lies that calm other people immediately?

“I might even add,” Julie said, “that the man had a very important purpose here. And only a few people in the government know about it.”

“Ohhhh …” Rita was dumbfounded.

“Of course a few very important people at Stratford Shipping know as well, but you mustn’t breathe a word. Especially not to Henry, or Uncle Randolph, or Lord Rutherford or anyone else, you see.…”

Rita nodded. “Very well, miss. I didn’t know it was like that.”

After the door had closed, Julie started to laugh and put her hand to her mouth like a schoolgirl. But the truth was, it made perfect sense. For what Rita believed, mad as it seemed, was a great deal more plausible than what had really happened.

What had really happened. She sat down before her mirror. She began almost idly to take the pins from her hair, and her vision blurred as she looked at her own reflection. She saw the room as if through a veil; she saw the flowers; she saw the white lace curtains of her bed; she saw her world, remote, and no longer important.

She drifted slowly through the motions of brushing her hair, of rising, undressing, putting on her gown, and climbing under the covers. The candles still burned. The room had a soft lovely glow. The flowers gave a faint perfume.

Tomorrow she would take him to the museums, if he wanted. They would take a train perhaps out in the country. To the Tower of London they might go. Oh, so many things … so many, many things.…

And there came that great lovely cessation of all thought; she saw him; she saw herself and him together.

Samir had been sitting at his desk for the better part of an hour. He had drunk half a bottle of Pernod, a liqueur he had always loved, which he had discovered in a French café in Cairo. He
wasn’t drunk, however; he had merely blunted the palm-tingling agitation that had taken possession of him shortly after he left the Stratford house. But when he tried to really think about what was going on, the agitation would return again.

He was suddenly startled by a tap at his window. His office was at the back of the museum. And the only light shining in the entire building was his light, and perhaps another somewhere deep inside where the night guards took their cigarettes and coffee.

He could not see the figure outside. But he knew who it was. And he was on his feet before the tap came again. He went into the back corridor, and to a rear door and opened it on the back alleyway.

In a rain-spattered coat, his shirt open and unbuttoned halfway down the front, Ramses the Great stood waiting for him. Samir stepped out into the darkness. The rain had left a sheen on the stone walls, and on the pavement. But nothing seemed to shimmer quite like this tall, commanding figure before him.

“What can I do for you, sire?” Samir asked. “What service can I render?”

“I want to come in, honest one,” Ramses said. “If you will permit, I would like to see the relics of my ancestors and of my children.”

A lovely tremor passed through Samir at these words. He felt tears springing to his eyes. He could not have explained this bittersweet happiness to anyone.

“Gladly, sire,” he said. “Let me be your guide. It is a great privilege.”

Elliott saw the lights in Randolph’s library. He parked his car at the kerb, right beside the old mews, climbed out and somehow managed to get up the steps and ring the bell. Randolph himself, in shirt-sleeves and with the stale smell of wine on his breath, came to answer.

“Good Lord, do you know what time it is?” he asked. He turned and allowed Elliott to follow him back into the library. What a grand affair it was, chock full of all the accoutrements money could buy for such a room, including prints of dogs and horses, and maps which no one ever looked at.

“I’ll tell you the truth right off. I’m too tired for anything else,” Randolph said. “You’ve come at a very good time to answer a very important question.”

“And what is that?” Elliott said. He watched Randolph settle at his desk, a great monstrous thing of mahogany with heavy carving. There were papers and account books all over the top of it. There were bills in heaps. And a great huge ugly telephone, and leather containers for clips, pens, paper.

“The ancient Romans,” Randolph said, sitting back and drinking his wine without a thought to offering Elliott any. “What did they do when they were dishonoured, Elliott? They slit their wrists, did they not? And bled to death gracefully.”

Elliott eyed the man, his red eyes, the slight palsy of his hand. Then he put his walking stick to use as he climbed to his feet again. He went to the desk and poured himself a glass of wine from the decanter. He refilled Randolph’s glass, and then retreated to his chair again.

Randolph watched all this but appeared to attach no significance to it whatsoever. He rested his elbows on the desk before him, and ran his heavy wrinkled fingers through his grey hair as he stared at the heap of papers.

“If memory serves me right,” Elliott said, “Brutus fell on his sword. Mark Antony later tried the same trick, and made a mess of it. He then climbed a rope to Cleopatra’s bedchamber. And there managed somehow to kill himself again, or to die finally. She chose the poison of a snake. But yes, to answer your question, Romans did from time to time slit their wrists, that’s true. But will you allow me to observe that no amount of money is worth a man’s life. And you must stop thinking of this.”

Randolph smiled. Elliott tasted the wine. Very good. The Stratfords always drank good wine. Day in and day out, they drank vintages that others saved for momentous occasions.

“Is that so?” Randolph said. “No amount of money. And where am I going to get the amount of money I need to prevent my niece from understanding the full extent of my perfidy?”

The Earl shook his head. “If you take your life, she will undoubtedly find out everything.”

“Yes, and I shall not be there to answer her questions.”

“A small point, and not worth the price of your remaining years. You’re talking nonsense.”

“Am I? She isn’t going to marry Alex. You know she isn’t. And she wouldn’t turn her back on Stratford Shipping even if she did. There’s nothing standing between me and the final disaster.”

“Oh, yes, there is.”

“And what is that?”

“Give it a few days and see if I’m not right. Your niece has herself a new distraction. Her guest from Cairo, Mr. Reginald Ramsey. Alex is miserable about it, of course, but Alex will recover. And this Reginald Ramsey may very well sweep Julie away from Stratford Shipping as well as from my son. And your problems may find a very simple solution. She may forgive you everything.”

“I saw that fellow!” Randolph said. “Saw him this morning when Henry made that asinine scene. You don’t mean to tell me …”

“I have a hunch, as Americans say. Julie and this man …”

“Henry ought to be in that house!”

“Forget it. What you’re saying doesn’t matter.”

“Well, you sound downright cheerful about this! I should have thought you’d be more upset than I am.”

“It’s unimportant.”

“Since when?”

“Since I began to think, really think, about what our lives consist of. Old age and death await us all. And we cannot face that simple truth, so we look for endless distractions.”

“Good God, Elliott! You’re not talking to Lawrence, you’re talking to Randolph. I wish I could share your grand perspective. At the moment I’d sell my soul for one hundred thousand pounds. And so would a lot of other men.”

“I wouldn’t,” Elliott said. “And I don’t have one hundred thousand pounds and I never will. If I had it, I’d give it to you.”

“You would?”

“Yes, I believe so. But let me take this conversation in another direction. Julie may not wish to be questioned about her friend Mr. Ramsey. She may want some time alone, some real independence. And you might find everything in your hands again.”