He stopped. The little chamber; the sunlight falling in shafts on that thing. He saw it again. Saw what he had done! No. Not right. Died of a heart attack or a stroke, he did-the man lying sprawled on the sandy floor, I didn't do it. And that thing, it hadn't been staring through the wrappings, that was absurd!
He drank the champagne too quickly. Ah, but it was good, He filled his glass again.
"But a bleeding mummy in the very house with her," Daisy said.
And suddenly, violently, he saw those eyes again, beneath rotted bandages, staring at him. Yes, staring. Stop it, you fool, you did what you had to do! Stop it or you will go mad.
He rose from the table a bit clumsily and put on his jacket, and straightened his silk tie.
"But where are you going?" Daisy asked. "You're a bit too drunk to be going out now, if you ask me."
"But I didn't," he answered. She knew where he was going. He had the hundred pounds he'd managed to squeeze out of Randolph, and the casino was open. It had opened at dark.
He wanted to be there alone now, so that he could truly concentrate. Merely thinking of it, of the green baize under the lamps and the sound of the dice and roulette wheel, engendered a deep excitement in him. One good win, and he'd quit, he promised himself. And with a hundred pounds to start. No, he couldn't wait. . . .
Of course he'd run into Sharpies, and he owed Sharpies too much money, but how the hell was he supposed to pay it back if he didn't get to the tables, and though he didn't feel lucky-no, not lucky at all tonight-well, he had to give it a try.
"Just wait now, sir. Sit down, sir," Daisy said, coming after him. "Have another glass with me and then a little nap. It's barely six o'clock."
"Let me alone," he said. He put on his greatcoat and pulled on his leather gloves. Sharpies. A stupid man, Sharpies. He felt in his coat pocket for the knife he'd carried for years. Yes, still there. He drew it out now, and examined the thin steel blade. "Oh no, sir," Daisy gasped.
"Don't be a fool," he said offhandedly, and closing the knife and putting it back into his pocket he went out the door.
* * *
No sound now but the low gurgling of the fountain in the conservatory, the ashen twilight long gone, the Egyptian room lighted only by the green shaded lamp on Lawrence's desk.
Julie sat in her father's leather chair, back to the wall, her silk peignoir soft and comfortable, and surprisingly warm, her hand on the diary which she had not yet read.
The glittering mask of Ramses the Great was ever so slightly frightening, the large almond-shaped eyes peering into the soft shadows; the marble Cleopatra appeared to glow. And so beautiful the coins mounted on black velvet against the far wall.
She had inspected them carefully earlier. Same profile as the bust, same rippling hair beneath its gold tiara. A Greek Cleopatra, not the silly Egyptian image so popular in programmes for Shakespeare's tragedy, or in the engravings which illustrated Plutarch's Lives and popular histories galore.
Profile of a beautiful woman; strong, not tragic. Strong as Romans loved their heroes and heroines to be strong.
The thick scrolls of parchment and papyrus looked all too fragile as they lay heaped on the marble table. The other items could also be easily destroyed by prying hands. Quill pens, ink pots, a little silver burner meant for oil, it seemed, with a ring in which to position a glass vial. The vials themselves lay beside it-exquisite specimens of early glasswork, each with a tiny silver cap. Of course all these little relics, and the string of alabaster jars behind them, were protected by small, neatly inscribed signs which read: "Please do not touch."
Nevertheless, it worried her, so many coming here to view these things.
"Remember, it's poison, most definitely," Julie had told Rita and Oscar, her indispensable maid and butler. And that had been enough to keep them out of the room!
"It's a body, miss," Rita had said. "A dead body! Never mind it's an Egyptian King. I say leave the dead alone, miss."
Julie had laughed softly to herself. "The British Museum is full of dead bodies, Rita."
If only the dead could come back. If only the ghost of her father would come to her. Imagine such a miracle. Having him again, speaking to him, hearing his voice. What happened, Father? Did you suffer? Was there even one second when you were afraid?
Yes, she wouldn't have minded such a visitation at all. But no such thing would ever happen. That was the horror. We went from the cradle to the grave beset by mundane tragedies. The splendour of the supernatural was a thing for stories and poems, and Shakespeare's plays.
But why dwell on it? Now had come the moment to be alone with her father's treasures, and to read the last words he wrote.
She turned the pages now to the date of the discovery. And the first words she saw made her eyes fill with tears.
Must write to Julie, describe everything. Hieroglyphs on the door virtually free of error; must have been written by one who knew what he was writing. Yet the Greek is entirely of the Ptolemaic period. And the Latin is sophisticated. Impossible, Yet there it is. Samir uncommonly fearful and superstitious. Must sleep for a few hours. Am going in tonight!
There was a hasty ink sketch of the door of the tomb and its three broad paragraphs of writing. Hastily she turned to the next page.
Nine P.M. by my watch. Inside the chamber at last. Appears to be a library rather than a tomb. The man has been laid to rest in a King's coffin beside a desk on which he has left some thirteen scrolls. He writes entirely in Latin, with obvious haste but no carelessness. There are droplets of ink all over, but the text is completely coherent.
"Call me Ramses the Damned. For that is the name I have given myself. But I was once Ramses the Great of Upper and Lower Egypt, slayer of the Hittites, Father of many sons and daughters, who ruled Egypt for sixty-four years. My monuments are still standing; the stele recount my victories, though a thousand years have passed since I was pulled, a mortal child, from the womb.
"Ah, fatal moment now buried by time, when from a Hittite priestess I took the cursed elixir. Her warnings I would not heed. Immortality I craved. And so I drank the potion in the brimming cup. And now, long centuries gone by-amid the poisons of my lost Queen, I hide the potion which she would not accept from me-my doomed Cleopatra."
Julie stopped. The elixir, hidden amongst these poisons? She realized what Samir had meant. The papers had not told that part of the little mystery. Tantalizing. These poisons hide a formula that can grant eternal life.
"But who would create such a fiction!" she whispered.
She found herself staring at the marble bust of Cleopatra. Immortality. Why would Cleopatra not drink the potion? Oh, but really, she was beginning to believe it! She smiled.
She turned the page of the diary. The translation was interrupted. Her father had written only:
Goes on to describe how Cleopatra awakened him from his dream-filled sleep, how he tutored her, loved her, watched her seduce the Roman leaders one by one. . . .
"Yes," Julie whispered. "Julius Caesar first and then Mark Antony. But why would she not take the elixir?'' There was another paragraph of translation:
"How can I bear this burden any longer? How can I endure the loneliness anymore? Yet I can not die. Her poisons can not harm me. They keep my elixir safe so that I may dream of still other Queens, both fair and wise, to share the centuries with me. But is it not her face I see? Her voice I hear? Cleopatra. Yesterday. Tomorrow. Cleopatra. ''
Latin followed. Several scribbled paragraphs in Latin which Julie could not read. Even with the aid of a dictionary she could not have translated it. Then there were a few lines of demotic Egyptian, even more nearly impenetrable than that Latin. Nothing more.