11

IN THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS

The setting sun, seen from the deck of the felucca that carried us across the Nile from Luxor into its dying rays, was a sight to behold and remember. Compared to all we had endured, the tranquility of our passage served as a balm to our recent hardships and peril. The river at this juncture could not have been a mile in width, but appearances on water are deceptive and our journey took longer than I anticipated. Were it not for the sense of urgency felt among us all, I could have relished the time it took for our transit. Even the duchess appeared soothed by the experience. We were silent, lost in our thoughts or some, like myself, perhaps, in simple contemplation of the scene, the only sounds being occasional muttered instructions from the boatman to his one-man crew and the slapping of water against our bow. Next to me, Holmes, shielding the flame with his hand, lit his briar. “If only it could always be thus,” he murmured. I was sometimes surprised by my friend’s poetic streak. If he was in any way apprehensive about what was to come this night, he gave no sign.

There was a fair amount of river traffic, some vessels journeying up- or downstream and still others crossing in the opposite direction to ours, fellaheen and tourists alike heading back to hotels and homes on the Nile’s eastern shore. But for all, the serenity of the time and place seemed to inspire silence.

Waiting for us at the western landing stage was one of the largest automobiles I have ever seen. I had just time to make it out, but not to discern its colour, before the sun disappeared and darkness replaced daylight in an instant. Almost immediately, the temperature dropped as well.

“It’s a Knox 7,” Howard Carter informed me, following my look. “From America. His Lordship is a great automobile fancier and owns several varieties. He chose this one specifically for this work as, by its name, you will understand, it carries a great many. Also, it is equipped with the new radiator springs, which makes travel on such roads as these less onerous than might otherwise be the case.”

As he spoke, the Lascars were lowering sail and tying off the felucca. Ashore, I saw the acetylene gas headlamps of the Knox 7 being fired up by a driver whose face I could not make out.

“That’s Ahmed,” the Egyptologist explained. “Been with me for years. He’s very good.”

The duchess was first ashore, helped across the gap by Professor Tewfik, followed by Holmes, myself, and finally Carter, who exchanged some Arabic with the boatman. Handing over baksheesh, he explained, “He will wait here for us all night if need be.”

Now we climbed into the commodious vehicle with its three rows of seats, and again Carter issued instructions, this time to Ahmed, standing by the bonnet, who immediately worked the crank, bringing the engine to life, its roar echoing across the night-time river. I imagined they could hear us in Luxor.

Ahmed moved to the boot and with Carter’s help erected the canvas top, securing the grommets, before climbing behind the wheel. Not for the first time, it occurred to me that I should like to add driving to my meagre list of accomplishments.^*

As we’d been warned, the road was primitive, comprised of local limestone pounded into gravel chips, but well maintained, as a steady stream of vehicular traffic in daylight carried workers and sightseers to and from our destination. By this hour, as Carter had foreseen, it was empty. It was some fifteen miles more to our destination, hence we had a longish drive before us. There wasn’t anything to be seen except the road immediately ahead, lit only by our faint headlamps. Occasionally we would pass Bedouin campfires and by their yellow flames behold turbaned faces of diggers, curiously inspecting us as we passed.

As I grew accustomed to what would typify the next two hours, I became aware that I was nestled among supplies and equipment packed snugly at my feet, leaving them little room. These, on examination, proved to include two large canteens (their contents sloshing within as we jounced), sandwiches in waxed paper, three electric torches, a kerosene lamp, a Graflex camera, and a tripod. There was, in addition, a coil of stout rope and a tool belt laden with differing instruments whose specific uses I could not make out in the darkness, save for a smallish ball-peen hammer. When I asked the expert, seated beside the chauffeur, the purpose of the rope, his only comment was, “You never can tell.”

His words caused me to think wistfully of the duke’s carbine from Purdey’s, left behind by His Grace—and us—at Shepheard’s. Sitting to my right, the detective read my mind. “I suspect artillery won’t do us much good where we’re going,” was his dry declaration.

After a time, Carter spoke again. “The Colossi of Memnon are nearby to our right,” he informed us, pointing. “But too dark to see.”

The road itself gradually inclined, and in the inky gloom on either side I sensed hills encroaching on what had earlier felt like openness. Notwithstanding the innovative “radiator springs,” the ride was anything but smooth.

“It’s chilly,” the duchess allowed. She was—as always—dressed for the occasion, wearing boots, jodhpurs, and a heavy woolen blue turtleneck I suspect belonged to either her husband or Lord Darlington (I wondered which), but even with the canvas top, the car was open, boasting no windows other than the windscreen. It was the breeze created by our forward movement that contributed to the cold.

Huddled in my bloodstained Norfolk, I must have fallen asleep, only to be roused by a large bump and Ahmed jerking us to a stop.

Before us a barrier, modelled more or less on those of provincial railway crossings to be found everywhere, was illumined by our headlamps. Within their beams two fellaheen with rifles slung over their shoulders stood with palms upraised in our direction, the clearest possible signal that we were forbidden to proceed farther.

“Wait here,” Carter instructed. “This shouldn’t take long.”

He climbed out of the car and withdrew what I presumed were his certificates of authorisation.

“Let’s hope they’re not fussy enough to scrutinise the date,” I mumbled, aware that Carter was no longer an employee, much less Chief Inspector, of the Department of Antiquities.

“Let’s hope,” agreed the detective.

“I daresay they can’t read,” struck in Tewfik. “But in the end, they always succumb to baksheesh.”

The reverberating noise of our engine turned the exchange before us into a kind of pantomime, not that we could have understood more had it been audible. There was some back-and-forth in the light as we watched, some pointing and nodding, before the expert walked back to us, pocketing his documents as the two guards set about raising the barrier.

Carter climbed into the vehicle and spoke to Ahmed, who nodded.

“That’s alright then. It’s only a quarter of a mile more.”

By now we were hemmed in by walls of stone, rising in ominous blackness above us on either side.

“Welcome to the Valley of the Kings.”

I am not normally given to what is generally known as “the creeps,” but this phrase, uttered in this dark and desolate place, home of the dead for thousands of years, I confess sent a shiver down my spine.

We rode in silence until we saw, spanning the road above us, a lacy network of human construction.

“There are your trestles, Doctor. Scaffolding designed to help sightseers get from one burial site to the next without risk to life and limb.” He said something to Ahmed and the car stopped a second time. Carter took a breath, like a horse collecting itself before a jump. “We’re here,” he announced. “Bring the torches and gear, if you please.”

Stiff from the confinement of the journey and perhaps from accumulated tension as well, we eased ourselves out of the car. Carter strapped on his tool belt and handed off the canteens. Taking one of the electric torches and switching it on before passing it to him, I briefly observed the Knox 7 to be a dull red in colour, unsurprisingly now covered with dust.

Carter again spoke to Ahmed, who extinguished the headlamps, plunging us into utter pitch, save for the torch beams. With the engine additionally switched off, we were now surrounded by oppressive silence as well as towering stone.

“Follow me and stay close. The way is slippery, but it’s not far.”

We did as instructed, and before we had travelled a hundred yards Carter’s torch illumined a second barrier, more clearly improvised than the first, with crude exclamation points and signs in English and French, warning visitors this area was dangerous and off-limits. Above barbed-wire fencing, the dark hills stretched up and out of sight. Directly behind the ad hoc barrier was a flight of descending stairs, hewn from the omnipresent limestone.

“Behold VR 61,” the expert said.

Shoving aside the barbed wire barrier, Carter led us to the cavity.

Alongside the top step was a heavy stone flag with a ring of some sort embedded at its centre. Roughly the size of the aperture itself, the stone had clearly been cut and placed over it to conceal the opening, a sort of Egyptian manhole cover.

“This was what he found first.” Carter gestured with the torch beam to the ring.

Tewfik at once knelt to examine the ring, running his fingers over the metal. “Iron, no less,” he declared. “Preserved by the aridity from rust.”

On either side of the man-made crevice, shovels and wheelbarrows lay alongside massive piles of sand and pounded limestone chips of the same sort that comprised the road on which we’d driven. These had self-evidently been dug up and cleared from the steps by the duke and his workmen.

“When they’d buried their courtiers and kings,” Tewfik explained, “they filled in all traces with what they’d carved out”—he indicated the piles of sand and stone—“and in the end, no trace could easily be detected.”

“Unless one knew where to look,” the detective murmured. The hush of night made us talk in whispers. No birds or crickets or sounds of any life except our own disturbed the stillness.

I stared down the flight of steps leading into the earth and tried not to think of hell.

“Ready?”

Without waiting for any affirmation, Carter extended his hand to the duchess, who took it, and slowly they led the way down. Cramming one of the sandwiches into his pocket, Holmes followed, shouldering the rope, the tripod, and carrying one of the canteens. Tewfik and I followed, holding the second canteen and juggling the camera and other two torches between us, as we brought up the rear. The torch batteries were exceptionally heavy and I hoped we had not far to carry them.

I counted twenty-seven steps in all. At the last we congregated before a pair of desiccated doors that looked to have once been cedar. Across the handles was wound an intricate knot of petrified rope or twine, and over that Gordian contrivance dripped a coating of what I took to be hardened tallow.

Carter knelt and lit the kerosene lamp, greatly improving our ability to see, and inspected the seal. The two door panels themselves bore the remains of hieroglyphs, eagerly perused by the Egyptologist.

“Professor?”

Tewfik squeezed past us and squinted at the doors and their markings.

“Amazing,” he breathed.

“Tuthmose, Eighteenth Dynasty. You concur?”

“And unbroken, with the cartouche of Tuthmose,” Tewfik responded, reverently touching the ancient rope and tallow with the tips of his fingers.

“This is the perennial dilemma of the archeologist,” Carter sighed, tremulously stroking the seal. “How to unearth the past without destroying it?” He shook his head as if to say he had no ready answer. “Very well, I shall now—”

“Just a minute,” the professor interrupted, standing up and looking about the way we’d come.

“What is it?”

The urbane museum director seemed perplexed and suddenly uncertain. “I don’t trust that lot at the barrier. Carter, you’d best go back and read them the riot act.”

“What?”

“You’ll probably end up offering baksheesh, but as an Egyptian I tell you I know these beggars. They’re capable of anything. Take one of the torches. We’ll wait.”

“Nonsense. I’m not leaving at a moment like this and I’ve no intention of waiting. This thing must be over and done with before dawn.”

The professor shook his head like one unconvinced. “Very well, give me one torch and I’ll go myself. Better safe than sorry.” He stretched forth an impatient hand.

“Are you sure?” Carter asked doubtfully.

“Quite sure. Start without me and I’ll catch you up.”

“Would you like me to accompany you?” Holmes asked, handing him one of the torches, which he switched on.

Tewfik scratched his head. “Perhaps that would be best,” he began, then apparently thought better of it. “Very kind of you, Colonel, but I think I can manage. We’ve got Ahmed up there and I doubt they’ll try anything with the two of us, but I want to make sure they’re not planning any sort of mischief.”

Carrying the light, he warily mounted the steps and disappeared over the lid. We waited in some bemusement, broken by Howard Carter’s handing me the kerosene lamp, fishing into his tool belt for the implements he knew by touch, and slipping off his rucksack.

I held the lamp aloft and watched as the Egyptologist, with a surgeon’s expertise, pricked and pried at the rigid rope and its wax-like seal.

“There’s no way to break this seal without ultimately breaking it,” he acknowledged, “but one wants to preserve as many of the pieces as possible for future examination.”

This he proceeded to do. There was another pause as we watched his delicate manipulations and listened to the trickle of debris dislodged by his efforts. With mounting impatience we stood over him while he used one of his camelhair brushes to sweep the bits he had created into a rectangular canvas envelope, before replacing the whole into the rucksack.

“Can’t this wait ’til our return?” the duchess enquired, but Carter, absorbed in the work, either didn’t hear or chose to ignore her question.

When he finally completed the task to his own satisfaction, the Egyptologist sat back on his haunches, running the back of his sleeve across his mouth, and looked up at us.

“That’s done it,” he said, employing a deliberately casual tone.

All that was now left, we knew, was to open those long-closed doors.

“Go on,” the duchess commanded in a faint voice.

“Very well.”

As we watched, Carter tugged gently at the handles, as if fearing they might crumble, but finding they did not, gradually applied more force. After some initial resistance and with a deal of crackling, the doors finally opened outwards towards us on hinges that hadn’t functioned in three thousand years and gave way as they did. Again we exchanged looks. The duchess briefly put a hand to her brow. I stole a look at Holmes, who followed the proceedings, attentive as a pointer.

“Follow me,” Howard Carter commanded, taking back the lamp, and we did, leaving behind the cool night air, and entering what proved a long inclined corridor, eerily lit by the kerosene flame, whose yellow light meandered as we walked downwards.

In contrast to the crude and confined robbers’ entrance I’d traversed within the Great Pyramid of Cheops, this thirty-foot hallway was engineered to plumb line perfection. I judged it perhaps eight feet high and almost as wide. Both walls and the ceiling were covered with innumerable hieroglyphs and extraordinary paintings in vibrant reds, shimmering blues, greens, and gleaming gold, denoting lives lived millennia before ours, but as fresh as if the colours in which they’d been daubed had not yet dried. The lamp showed them piecemeal as we inched our way forward and down. Scenes of gods and animals, sometimes both the same, of farmers threshing wheat, of priests praying, or folk bathing in the river. Carter wanted to study each and every one, to sketch and possibly photograph them, using flash powder, but the duchess would have none of it and kept urging him forward, her excitement—or should I call it by its proper name, greed?—overcoming her fear.

Even I by this time could now recognise the ubiquitous cartouche of Tuthmose.

The air within was somehow different from any I could recall inhaling before. It wasn’t precisely musty; neither was it entirely clear, being faintly infused with an odor I could not at the time identify.

“I don’t see any images of the Aten,” Holmes observed, his voice echoing slightly.

“Nor will you,” Carter responded. “The gods depicted here were the old gods, not the Aten later favored by Akhenaten. Tuthmose died and was interred before his brother’s religious epiphany.”

We continued.

“West by one and by one,” the detective murmured after a time.

“What?” demanded Her Grace, more loudly I suspect than she’d intended.

“‘And so under,’” I finished, smiling in the dark. The last time Holmes and I had uttered these enigmatic phrases we had also been searching for buried treasure.

“Ah, yes, ‘The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual,’” Howard Carter, ever the Holmes enthusiast informed the duchess, holding the lamp as high as he could. “But if I’m right, there will be far more of value here than a rusty old English crown.”

“Are you alright, Your Grace?” I enquired.

She nodded in dumb fascination, never taking her eyes from the pageantry on the walls and ceiling as the corridor inclined downwards into the mountain.

Presently we came to a second set of doors, but here we were confronted by a disagreeable and inexplicable shock, for the rope and tallow seal that formerly bound the panels had been brutally sundered, with crumbs of rope and waxen fragments scattered all over the floor before them, the handiwork of predecessors.

“The devil!” exclaimed Carter. “He was already here.”

“The duke?”

“Who else? I’ll wager the treasure is gone. Curse the man.”

“One moment.” The detective laid a hand on his arm. “If the outer seal was intact just now”—he jerked his head back in the direction we had come—“how is it possible that this one is broken?”

We stared at one another lit by the glow of the lamp.

“There can be only one explanation,” said I.

“Correct, Watson. The outer seal was a fake of the sort Professor Tewfik warned us about in Cairo. He said they were prevalent and convincing.”

“If the outer seal is fake, what was the object? To keep us out?”

“Or lure us in?” the detective mused.

“Where is Professor Tewfik?” Carter suddenly wondered. “Ought we to stop here and have our sandwiches while we wait for him to join us, or go back and see what has become of him?”

“No!” declared the duchess, her voice bouncing off the painted walls. “I don’t want any more splintering off in different places.”

That logic made sense as far as it went, but again she was not finished. I noticed a sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Her nostrils flared now, twitching as she imagined the scent of gold. “I must know what is on the other side of this door and I am not waiting or going anywhere else but forward until I do.”

I daresay she spoke for all of us. We were now all in the grip of that spectral, heady aroma. Speaking for myself, I had by now forgotten what we had originally come for. Bring back Au 79, Juliet had wired me. I will forever retain the smell of gold in my nostrils, a dizzying perfume as difficult to describe as it is to forget. The prospect of uncounted riches on the far side of these open panels literally affected my ability to see, let alone think. It pains me even now to acknowledge that like the rest of mankind, I was not immune to gold.

We stared for some moments at those opened doors, but now, like someone having the first intimations of a sore throat, I began to feel a nameless, inexplicable dread at what lay beyond them.

But acceding to her wishes, Carter, with abrupt decision, pulled apart the panels, which fell to pieces at his feet from their second use in three millennia. This time the duchess, in a fever of impatience, did not wait for him to scoop them up but proceeded to cross the threshold.

How to write about what followed? Even now, secure and safe as I am, the palm of my hand as I hold my pen becomes damp with terror as I remember.

The smallish, low-ceilinged room we were facing contained but two objects but was otherwise entirely bare. All the golden contents, the iridescent treasures and possessions Crown Prince Tuthmose intended for his next life had been taken by the duke, leaving only the walls covered with still more paintings and messages in hieroglyphic writings that included his name.

“He has made off with all of it, the wretch!” exclaimed his wife, stamping her foot, quivering and white with rage in the lamplight. “He and that creature!”

The tomb indeed had been stripped clean, like all yet discovered.

But I saw at a glance the two objects remaining that made this room different from all others.

The first was a giant stone sarcophagus, topped by its monumental convex lid.

The second, the figure on the floor, shrouded head to toe in torn linen and gazing at us through bandaged eyes, while reclining in seemingly tranquil repose, propped against the coffin’s base.

In addition, I became again aware of the unusual odor, more noticeable here than before. If this was the smell of gold, I could do without it.

We should have fled at that moment and I wish we had. Had we done so, we might have avoided what was to come, but riveted by the horror we froze where we were and stared, at which moment the duchess gave a muffled cry at the sight of the mummy and Holmes caught her as her legs gave way. He lowered her gently, propping her back against the wall beside the doorway.

“Don’t move!” the detective commanded, seeing that Carter and I had started forward. We stopped, obedient to his authority. “What do you see?” he enquired of the expert and myself.

“What looks to be a mummy,” the Egyptologist responded, again making to go towards it.

“Stay where you are! I insist!” Holmes’s tone brooked no contradiction. “Look at the floor, gentlemen. What do you see?”

In our astonishment at beholding the sarcophagus and the shrouded corpse before it, we had not observed a cluster of footprints in the thin layer of dust on the floor. Taking out his magnifier and aiming his electric torch, Holmes proceeded to examine them, muttering a string of exclamations, whistles, and a sort of running commentary as he moved cautiously among the imprints.

“Most are flat sandals, scuffing about, doubtless removing the treasure— Hullo, but see here, a pair of bespoke hiking boots alongside a much smaller pair—a woman’s beyond question. Observe the dainty heel. They both make directly for the foot of the sarcophagus. And, hullo, what’s this?” He paused, bending closer. “A third pair of boots, these with square toes, but only the toes! The heels are not present. Why?” He looked at us, a teacher examining his pupils.

“Possibly the third man was running to catch up,” I hazarded. “That might account for no heel prints.”

“No, Watson, the length of his stride is too short for someone running, and why trouble in this small space? No, this third man was walking on tip-toe. He was creeping up behind the other two.”

The detective stood, stretching his back, which evidently still troubled him, before returning to his scrutiny of the floor. At length, satisfied he had extracted all there was to learn from the confusion of footsteps in the dust, the detective fairly rubbed his hands. “We may now proceed to examine him who has been so patiently awaiting us.” He motioned us forward.

I followed Holmes to where he squatted beside Carter next to the body. As he raised the kerosene lamp above it, we now could see the linen that swathed the corpse had blackened and shredded with time. The mouth contained few teeth.

“Yes, it is a mummy,” Carter proclaimed. “But whose? And why does it still reek?”

“It doesn’t,” Holmes responded grimly. With the tenderness of a lover, he gently unwound the tattered bandages surrounding the head. Spellbound, Carter raised no objection.

“That is Tuthmose the Fifth,” said I, peering closely at what was revealed.

The Egyptologist looked at me in bewilderment. “How can you know?” he demanded, perplexed by my show of expertise.

“Because, like his younger brother, Akhenaten, he has Marfan Syndrome,” the detective answered for me. “The bandages cannot conceal the distorted elongation of the face and fingers, peculiar to the disease, which, according to the good doctor here, runs in families.”

I hadn’t realised Holmes was paying such close attention the night we spent in gaol.

Carter blinked in astonishment and again regarded the mummy. “So this is truly Tuthmose…”

“Which leaves three questions unanswered.” Holmes was minutely examining the head, his slender fingers roaming with dispassionate dexterity over the skull.

I cast a look at the duchess, who was sitting motionless with dead eyes. It was impossible to determine if she was watching the proceedings or not.

“What three questions?” Carter demanded.

“Primo, who murdered him? Oh, make no mistake, three thousand years ago this man was killed.” Delicately parting more wrappings atop the corpse’s head, the detective might have been leading an anatomy class. “Observe this crushing blow to the parietal bone, splitting the skull. There can be no question. Tuthmose the Fifth was murdered and must have died instantly. The first question is thus, murdered by whom?”

“Wouldn’t that be obvious?” I asked. “As in any murder investigation, the first question is: Who profits?”

“Very good, Watson. Murdered by Akhenaten or those in his employ. The proper term for such a crime is ‘regicide.’”

“And the second question?” pursued the Egyptologist, regarding the detective with something like awe.

“Secondo, why is Tuthmose outside his sarcophagus and not within it?”

“Possibly to make room for something else,” I responded before I’d had time to consider the implications of what I was saying.

The detective looked up at me. “Which might explain this dreadful smell, for it does not emanate from His Majesty.”

“Not after three millennia,” agreed the Egyptologist.

“Which brings us to the third question.” Holmes’s grey eyes gleamed in the lamplight.

At this the duchess gave another moan. She had now curled into a fetal ball on the polished floor.

“Holmes, perhaps we should move her away from here.”

“I think Her Grace’s logic still holds, Watson. It may be difficult, but let us stay together for now. Whatever happens, we don’t want to be disbelieved later by Her Grace. At the end of the day, of course, the choice is hers,” he added as an afterthought.

It was a brutal calculus, but entirely logical. Logic, as always, was the detective’s Polaris.

“Your Grace? If you care to leave, all you need do is say so. The way back is clear. You can bring one of the electric torches and you’ve only to retrace our steps to be in the open air where you can wait for us with professor Tewfik.”

Staring with wide eyes from her prone position, Lizabetta del Maurepas did not answer. I unscrewed the lid of my canteen and held it up to her, lifting her head so she could drink. She swallowed some of the water, nodding gratefully and sitting up, brought back, for the moment, to herself.

For the rest of my life I will reproach myself for leaving her then as she was, but in the moment, caught up in the same frenzy of the chase, I abandoned her and returned to the sarcophagus, which drew us like so many iron filings towards a magnet.

“It will take all three of us to move that lid,” Carter noted.

“Which means more than one person lifted poor Tuthmose from his coffin and sat him here. All those sandal marks.”

We regarded the dead man in silent pity. The fact that he had been killed so very long ago did not, as might be expected, lessen our feelings on his account.

“Yes, more than one man,” the expert agreed, “because many would have been needed to unearth those steps outside and cart off the gold.”

“Shall we?” Holmes stood. We set the lantern on the floor at the head of the sarcophagus and I turned on both electric torches. “We must lower it on the farther side,” the detective reasoned, “or we risk dropping it on His Majesty.”

The duchess, now also unable to resist the magnet’s attraction, drifted closer, wrinkling her nose as she neared the sarcophagus.

The convex lid having been previously removed, its replacement was subsequently misaligned, allowing fingers’ purchase at the head and feet, where Carter and Holmes placed themselves. I stood ready at the midsection and with a nod the detective and the Egyptologist inched the lid towards me until my fingers could lodge their own grip beneath the edge of the stone.

“On three,” Holmes commanded. “One. Two. Three!”

With a mighty collective effort we managed to slide the thing off its base and attempted to lower it to the floor where Holmes indicated it must go, but got only part-way before the weight tore it from our hands and it landed with a crash, splintering in two amid a cluster of discarded digging tools and the stumps of a dozen or more candles we had not seen from the front. The thieves had left behind much of their gear; doubtless they had no further need of it. The treasure was more important to them.

At the thud, the duchess moaned again and thrust her fist into her mouth, an action I had seen her perform before when frightened.

“Holmes, we really should—”

I was interrupted by a wave of horrific putrefaction and another cry from the duchess, who swayed, but whose feet nonetheless remained rooted to the spot as if nailed there.

“What in God’s name is that awful stench?” Carter demanded, instinctively shielding his nose and mouth. The only bodies the expert had ever examined were thousands of years old and had been embalmed by masters of the art. But Holmes and I knew at once what we were smelling, though a lifetime’s familiarity had never inured us to its revolting effects.

Inside the sarcophagus was a beautifully painted wood coffin, red, blue, and black with gold trim delineating, among other things, the serene features of the late prince. The lid was not heavy and the detective and I easily and gently removed it.

The nauseating smell grew stronger yet, now filling the small chamber.

There was another coffin yet within the last, this one painted in still more detail. As Carter had first made the comparison, I was reminded of those wooden Russian dolls, one nestled inside the contours of the next.

Glancing at each other over its top, Holmes and I were now impelled to tie handkerchiefs over our noses, breathing through our mouths only as we prepared ourselves for the inevitable.

Then, with a nod, in rapid unison, we raised and set aside the final lid.

On top was a torn map with faded markings, drawn on what looked like papyrus. It was doubtless Ohlsson’s Egyptian purchase, initiator of the entire tragedy, for tragedy it was, as Holmes had foretold.

Under the map, folded at the knees and mashed together almost beyond recognition with decomposition, were the hideous, liquified, and partly congealed remains of the eleventh Duke of Uxbridge and his mistress.

Breathing through his mouth, the detective peered more closely.

“I believe that is a hairbrush,” he murmured.

“Eighteenth Dynasty?” enquired the archeologist, gagging through his fingers.

“Yardley’s,” returned the detective.

The duke’s widow began to scream.

Even knowing by this point what we should find, for us this had to be the last straw.

Scooping up the woman, the lamp, the torches, the canteens, the camera, and our gear, we now beat a hasty retreat through the second door, tripping in our haste over its fragmented remains as we stumbled up the corridor towards the first set of doors, longing for the open air.

When we first entered, we had left those cedarwood doors open.

Now they were shut. Puzzled and not thinking entirely clearly, we merely pushed at them.

They refused to open.

The duchess’s howls tore her throat to shreds.

All our nightmares had come true.