It was still dark when Bella Cuddy arrived at the office of Vale Investigations, with only the milkman and the city’s rats and cats out and about so early. ‘Thanks for coming in,’ said Clara, taking the bottle of milk from her assistant and carrying it to the little kitchenette at the back.
‘I hope my telephone call didn’t wake the whole household,’ she said as she put the kettle on the little Primus stove. Clara had insisted on paying for a telephone to be installed at Bella Cuddy’s house in case she needed to reach her new assistant at odd hours.
Bella grinned as she hung up her coat, hat and scarf. ‘Well, me mam nearly turned the air blue, but she’ll get over it. Having the only telephone in Lemington – bar the vicarage – will sweeten things. She’s just got to get used to it, that’s all. Now, what can I do for you, Miss Vale? I didn’t think you’d be working today.’
‘Well, I wasn’t planning on doing so, but I had a knock on my door at two this morning.’ As she made tea she proceeded to tell Bella what had happened at the museum.
‘Bleedin’ Norah! And that happened after we all went home?’
‘Well, not all of us. Seems like Dr Rupert Pilkerton stayed.’
Bella shook her head and accepted a cup of tea from Clara. ‘So let me get this straight. Dr Coleman, the lady in the pith helmet who runs the show at the Hancock, thinks this fella from the British Museum was trying to steal some priceless Egyptian loot – what they call artefacts – from under the mummy, which was not the mummy they expected to be there. But setting aside the “wrong” mummy for a minute, how did the jewels get under the mummy in the first place?’
Clara shrugged. ‘We’re not sure. That will form part of our investigation, Bella. But for now we’re assuming that Pilkerton knew they were there when he arrived at the Hancock and waited for everyone to go home so he could retrieve them. And we don’t know if he managed to get away with anything after the guards interrupted him, because we don’t know what was there in the first place.’
‘Could he have put them there himself?’
Clara poured herself a cup and sat down at her desk, with Bella seated on the other side. ‘He could have, but we don’t know. What we do know is that they shouldn’t have been there. There was not supposed to be anything under the mummy – whichever mummy! And beyond that, Dr Coleman thinks the artefacts shouldn’t even be in England. That they were smuggled out of Egypt. And that’s why she doesn’t want the police involved at this point – because the police will report it to the Home Office who will report it to the Foreign Office and there’ll be some to-do with the Egyptian government, and … oh, don’t worry about all that. For now, we just have to keep it hush-hush. Even Danskin’s agreed to do that.’
Bella laughed. ‘Bet he’s going to do his own investigation!’
Clara rolled her eyes. ‘Apparently. But we can’t worry about him. We just have to get on with our own job.’
‘Which is?’
‘Well,’ said Clara, opening a file she’d labelled Hancock and perusing her notes. ‘The first thing I need you to do is to try to track down Pilkerton here in Newcastle. Now, he might have left town, but he might still be around, waiting for another opportunity to get his hands on the artefacts. You could start at the station and see if any cab drivers picked up anyone of his description early this morning. I believe the sarcophagus was transported to the museum by a van that the Hancock sent to meet the train, but Dr Coleman has already asked the van driver and he said Pilkerton said he’d make his own way there after booking in at his hotel. He didn’t tell the driver which hotel. So, you’ll have to visit them all and find out where he was registered and if he left any details.’
‘Righto!’ said Bella.
‘You can remember what he looked like from last night?’
‘The fella that looked like a boxer? Oh aye, I remember. At the time I thought he looked a bit unlikely as a scholar.’
Clara nodded. ‘Yes, he did look unlikely. But I spoke to him, and though he looked a bit rough and ready and had a strong Yorkshire accent, he came across as well educated. However, none of the other scholars had heard of him. Which is odd. Dr Coleman is going to make further enquiries with the British Museum. So for now, can you try to get on his trail here in Newcastle? And if he’s no longer here, try to find out where he went.’
Bella nodded enthusiastically. ‘Aye, I can. I’ll get right on it.’
‘Oh finish your tea, first,’ said Clara, leaning back and sipping her own.
Bella put her cup down. ‘No, miss. The trail might be cold before me tea is. I’d better shake a leg.’
The museum was not yet open for its Saturday morning visitors when Clara arrived. Daphne Coleman, haggard and worn, greeted her and ushered her into an office.
‘Did you get any sleep?’ she asked Clara, running a hand through her rumpled grey hair.
‘Not a wink.’ Clara yawned.
Daphne grimaced. ‘Thanks for coming in, then. I’ve tried to speak to someone at the British Museum but no one’s answering the telephone. A bit early, I think. I’ll send a telegram off as soon as the post office is open. And I’ve also tried the Department of Egyptology at University College London – they work closely with the British Museum – but again no reply. Not surprising on a Saturday morning, I suppose.’
‘And Dr Mortimer? The head of Egyptian antiquities? You said you had his home details.’
Daphne nodded. ‘I do. But he’s away for the weekend visiting a poorly family member. His housekeeper told me he’ll be back on Monday. At least someone’s answering their phone.’
‘My assistant is too. I’ve set her the task of finding Pilkerton’s trail. Which hotel he stayed at. Whether he’s checked out …’
‘Good, good. In the meantime, shall we see what we can find out here?’
‘You think there’s something we missed last night?’
‘Oh, there’s a lot we missed last night, but I needed to wait until now before I could confirm my suspicions. Are you ready for some scientific investigation?’
Clara nodded eagerly.
‘Then follow me.’ Daphne led Clara into a room, laid out like a rudimentary laboratory, where the mummy had been placed on a table. The sarcophagus had been left, with the lid closed, in the main gallery. ‘I’ve put a note on it saying the mummy will not be available for viewing today. Hopefully the casket will keep people entertained for now,’ explained Daphne.
Daphne gave Clara a lab coat and gloves and ushered her over to the body. Clara was not squeamish, but the corpse was gruesome. She had seen a mummy before – at the British Museum – but that had been while jostling for space with a gaggle of tourists and she hadn’t had time to fully appreciate it. This mummy was shrunken and wizened, barely bigger than a twelve-year-old child might be in life. The corpse was wrapped in stained, aged linen strips, not the white bandages that were shown in the moving pictures and magazine caricatures. The strips around the head had been partially prised away to reveal a glimpse of leathered cheek.
‘Are you going to cut away all the coverings? asked Clara.
Daphne shook her head. ‘No. We don’t do that anymore. Previous interventions like that have ended up damaging the corpse, and in one unfortunate instance, the entire fleshly remains crumbled as all that was keeping it together was the fabric. So nowadays, we try to X-ray the mummy first to see what kind of bodily integrity we have before attempting anything more invasive.’
Clara looked around at the rudimentary facilities. ‘You have an X-ray machine here?’
Daphne sighed. ‘Unfortunately not. We can only do some preliminary investigations. I can open a small section of the face covering, as the skull and teeth normally hold their structural integrity well. Anything beyond that we’ll have to take her back to London.’
‘Her?’ said Clara, surprised.
‘Her. That’s how I knew immediately last night that this is not Amentukah. Look at the shape of the pelvis. You can see the outline of it under the wrappings. That’s a female pelvis. And Amentukah we know was a man in his thirties. We know that not just from his body – primarily his teeth – but also because we have fragments of written records to corroborate. The man was a civil servant. He kept track of agricultural yield. And kept a little personal diary on the side.’
‘So this is a female child?’ Clara looked at the shrivelled remains and couldn’t help thinking that it looked like a macabre ragdoll.
‘Female, yes,’ said Daphne, ‘but not a child. I’d need X-rays to confirm, but at first glance the length of the femur suggests an adult female. Possibly a young adult. Late teens, early twenties. I hope to have a look at her teeth now.’
‘Can I help you with that?’ asked Clara, intrigued.
‘You can watch, yes, but I’d also like to draw on your expertise to help me confirm a few things before arranging for her to be transported back to London.’
Clara was surprised. ‘But I’m not an Egyptologist, anthropologist or pathologist.’
‘No, but you are a chemist. You have training in chemistry, don’t you?’
Clara nodded. ‘A degree from Oxford.’
‘So I’ve been told. And, I believe, you have some experience in forensic investigation as part of your detection business.’
‘Well, I dabble,’ said Clara modestly.
Daphne smiled. ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s more than dabbling. Do you know the chemical composition of natron?’
‘Natron salt? The desiccating agent?’
‘That’s correct. It’s what the ancient Egyptians used to dry out bodies in the mummification process, after removing the organs. So, can you remember what it’s made of?’
Clara thought for a moment then said, ‘If I recall correctly, natron is a combination of sodium carbonate decahydrate and sodium bicarbonate. If you give me a pen and paper I can probably figure out the formula.’
Daphne nodded approvingly. ‘I’m sure you could. And I’m sure if I gave you a small tissue sample and pointed you to a microscope and some chemical solvents you could test if there was any natron present.’
Clara smiled. ‘Oh, I think I could do that.’
‘Righto,’ said Daphne. ‘Let’s get started.’
The two women set to work, Daphne deftly slicing a small sample of cheek tissue and passing the slide to Clara to examine, then cutting open more of the covering to expose the teeth. ‘Hmmm, yes, I’d need a forensic dentist to confirm, but this looks like a young person. Definitely under twenty-five.’
Then she took a sample of the cloth and put it on a second slide for Clara. ‘When you’re finished with the skin tissue, have a look at that. I need to know what it’s made of.’
‘Righto,’ said Clara, as a thrill of excitement ran through her.
Fifteen minutes later, she was even more excited. In fact, she could barely contain her astonishment.
‘What is it?’ asked Daphne, smiling at her new apprentice’s enthusiasm.
‘Well,’ said Clara, pointing to some jottings on a notepad, ‘there is definitely sodium bicarbonate present – NaHCO₃ – which is plain old bicarbonate of soda, so I was expecting to find the sodium carbonate decahydrate as well – that’s 10H2O. But it’s not there!’
Daphne nodded encouragingly. ‘Just as I thought. Can you tell what has been mixed with the bicarbonate? Because bicarbonate alone could not execute this degree of desiccation.’
‘Well,’ said Clara, pointing to a petri dish with a clear solution. ‘It’s soluble in hydrochloric acid. So I think it’s activated aluminium oxide – Al2O3 – which I believe is a desiccant used in funeral parlours.’
‘It is indeed! Modern funeral parlours. And do you recall when aluminium oxide was first discovered by modern scientists?’
‘Goodness me, now you’re asking!’ Clara pondered a moment, her memory ranging over past studies. ‘Aluminium was discovered just over a hundred years ago by Humphry Davy – that’s the Davy lamp chap. But aluminium oxide, I think, was only mass produced for industrial use in the 1890s. Thirty or forty years ago, I would think.’
‘Exactly!’ said Daphne, her eyes twinkling behind her spectacles. ‘This is what I suspected. It only takes seventy days to mummify a corpse, but one that’s over three thousand years old should be even more desiccated than this. That’s what got me suspicious.’
‘You mean she’s too juicy?’ asked Clara.
Daphne barked out a laugh. ‘Well, she’s still dry – relatively speaking. And to the untrained eye would probably go undetected.’
‘But you’re not an untrained eye.’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Daphne, without any kind of pomposity. ‘However, with those samples we now have proof that this is a more recent mummy. At the most forty years old, if aluminium oxide was used. And there’s also this.’ She ushered Clara over and used a metal pick to point to something in the corpse’s teeth. ‘See that?’
‘It’s a filling,’ said Clara.
‘It is indeed. And if I were to chip out a sample to give you, I suspect it would prove to be mercury. And do you know when mercury was first used for fillings?’
Clara shook her head. ‘I can’t say I do.’
‘Well, it was only the 1830s. So that’s double confirmation that this is a relatively recent death. Examination of the teeth told me it was within the last hundred years. Your discovery narrowed it down to the last forty years. And …’
Clara raised her finger. ‘And … that brings us to the fabric sample. What were ancient mummies wrapped in?’
‘Natural linen. But this isn’t that, is it?’
‘No, it’s not. It’s been made to look like that – and artificially aged. It’s been stained with tannin and plain old mud, but the actual fabric is a mix of linen and rayon.’
‘Rayon? Good God, this is amateur hour! That’s artificial!’
Clara gave a deprecating roll of her eyes. ‘Amateur hour indeed! But it helps us immensely. Rayon only started to be used as an artificial silk in the early 1910s. And – I’ll have to check on this, of course – but I think it only started being used in bandages and wound dressings in the war.’
Daphne adjusted the spectacles on her nose. ‘Yes, I think so too. So now we have a body that was mummified within the last fifteen years.’
Clara nodded, looking at the young woman who might, if she were still alive, be not too much younger than her sister, Laura. Suddenly all the excitement of the scientific investigation took on a more sombre tone. This was a woman who had died during Clara’s lifetime … and then … a horrific thought struck her. ‘Daphne, how long did you say it takes to mummify a body?’
‘Around seventy days. Why do you … oh dear God, you’re not suggesting …’
Clara gave a long, sad sigh. ‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.’