"We better not be late," I whispered to Tucker, as we squeezed on the bus after some school kids.
"Worth it," he said back, kissing my cheek.
I laughed and almost told him about the Becker notes right then, but decided to wait until we were alone.
Tucker looked like he was eavesdropping on the middle-aged man who'd let us go in front of him so he could chat on his cell phone. Cell Phone Man wore a white scarf held in place by a black circle of rope, which my mom calls a Lawrence of Arabia headdress, but this one looked authentic.
I raised my eyebrows at Tucker to ask whassup.
He rubbed his thumb and middle fingers together in a way that meant Cell Phone Man was loaded.
Hmph. Well, why would he bother taking a bus then?
Scratch that. I'd take a bus even if I were a billionaire. Except maybe not after a too-close encounter with an IED.
I held onto a pole and used my free hand to look up the headdress. Then I moved on to "Carnarvon," another item from Becker's list.
"We should be okay," said Tucker.
I shoved my phone in my pocket. "What?"
"Wow, are you ever jumpy today." He leaned closer. "Maybe I need to relax you all over again."
I emitted a jagged little laugh, but he didn't notice. He checked his watch. "If we run into too much traffic, maybe we should take an Uber-Careem. Or run."
Crap. The ER chief would hate me even more if I seemed to leave early and come in late. Sweat itched my armpits.
"Why were you reading about Lord Carnarvon?" said Tucker.
"Huh?" I tried to change the subject. "I looked up the headdress. It's called a ghutra or keffiyeh. I wonder if our ER chief wears one."
"No, he doesn't. Not at work yesterday, anyway. What does that have to do with Lord Carnarvon?"
My jaw tightened. "Um. Well. His name came up." Technically true. Gizelda had said Carnarvon in passing, although it had meant nothing to me until it reappeared on Becker's list. "It turns out that Lord Carnarvon was the man who backed Harold Carter's archeology expeditions."
"And the man who supposedly died from the mummy's curse."
The bus chatter around us shrivelled with Tucker's words. But that must've been my imagination. How many of them even spoke English?
I glanced around at people's averted faces and muttered, "Mummy's curse?"
"Yeah! The curse of the pharaoh!" Tucker thrust his free hand in the air, making the rock and roll sign.
I had to laugh. "Shh. I've heard of that, but so far, all I saw was that Lord Carnarvon married rich and funded Harold Carter's archaeological digs. Carter found the tomb of King Tut."
"Right. And on the day that Howard Carter opened the tomb, on the 29th of November in 1922, a cobra broke into Carter's own home and killed his pet canary."
I shook my head. Did I hear him wrong? "His canary?"
"Yes, a messenger heard the canary cry out before it died. He said it almost sounded human."
"Aww." That poor, tiny, delicate yellow bird. "On the other hand, a canary would look like lunch to a cobra."
"Right, but think symbolically. The cobra represents the Egyptian monarchy. That cobra eating Carter's canary looked like retribution for opening the tomb."
"Poor birdie. I'd call that more than symbolic. And didn't you say Lord Carnarvon died too?"
"He died on April fifth, 1923. About four months later. He got a mosquito bite on his left cheek which turned into cellulitis, sepsis, and pneumonia."
I counted up the months as I squeezed against people's knees to allow more riders on the bus. Four months and six days. "Hmm. That's a bit of a time lag."
"Yeah, a bit. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle theorized that Carnarvon could have been killed by 'elementals' that King Tut's priests had sequestered to guard the royal tombs."
I made a mental note to look that up. I hadn't realized Sherlock Holmes's creator had any connection to Egypt. "Did anyone else die?"
Tucker grinned and scanned his phone. "Well, considering that this all happened a century ago, all of them. But you're asking if any of them were felled by the curse sometime close to 1922, right? One man died with a fever on the French Riviera in May 1923. A member of the excavation team was poisoned with arsenic in 1928. Carter's secretary died in 1929—they think someone smothered him."
"Good God!"
The balding businessman in front of me glanced up from his phone to check that I was okay. I gave a pained smile.
Tucker half-hugged me, still eyeing his screen. "It's not that bad. Carter didn't die until 1939. On average, the 25 Europeans who attended the official opening lived a normal lifespan. Lord Carnarvon's daughter held on for another 57 years."
"Right. The timeline is suspect. But if two people in the party were murdered, that seems high."
"Yeah, and check this!"
I nearly laughed at his excitement and translated expression. Québecois people sometimes yell "Check ça!", which rubs off on English Quebecers.
Tucker tapped his phone. "Carter gave his friend, Sir Bruce Ingram, a paperweight made of a mummified hand."
"Ew."
"Wait, there's more! The hand had a bracelet inscribed 'Cursed be he who moves my body. To him shall come fire, water, and pestilence.'"
I stared at him. "And did he get fire, water, and pestilence?"
"Apparently Sir Bruce Ingram's house burned down right after he received the hand. He rebuilt the house, and then it flooded."
"Ugh. Did Ingram end up with pestilence, too?"
"Wikipedia didn't mention it, but he probably had mice. Remember how cats are supposed to be sacred in Egypt because they were so good at killing the mice that ate the grain?"
"Let's stick to one story for now." I sighed. The businessman in front of me popped open his briefcase and tried not to react to either of us. "So the curses probably don't work. And yet, for the rest of the month, I promise I'll stay away from King Tut and mummy hands."
"It's a deal." Tucker smacked a kiss on my cheek, and then gave a low whistle at his phone.
"What is it?"
"Just got a notice. Someone thinks they recognize the guy from the ICU."
The guy with Phillip Becker's cobra bag. We exchanged a long look, and then I murmured in Tucker's ear, "The game is afoot. I have something to tell you later, too."