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"I feel so sorry for you, Henry," he whispered suddenly. "That you can't savour such a discovery. This ancient King, this mystery." Who said that he couldn't touch the remains? Just move perhaps an inch of the rotted linen?
He drew out his penknife and held it uncertainly. Twenty years ago he might have cut the thing open. There wouldn't have been any busybody officials to deal with. He might have seen for himself if under all that dust--
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Uncle," Henry interrupted. "The museum people in London will raise the roof."
"I told you to get out."
He heard Henry pour a cup of coffee as if he had all the time in the world. The aroma filled the close little chamber.
Lawrence backed into the camp chair, and again pressed his folded handkerchief to his brow. Twenty-four hours now without sleep. Maybe he should rest.
"Drink your coffee, Uncle Lawrence," Henry said to him. "I poured it for you." And there it was, the full cup. "They're waiting for you out there. You're exhausted."
"You bloody fool," Lawrence whispered. "I wish you'd go away."
Henry set the cup before him, right by the notebook.
"Careful, that papyrus is priceless."
The coffee did look inviting, even if Henry was pushing it at him. He lifted the cup, took a deep swallow, and closed his eyes.
What had he just seen as he put down the cup? The mummy stirring in the sunlight? Impossible. Suddenly a burning sensation in his throat blotted out everything else. It was as if his throat were closing! He couldn't breathe or speak.
He tried to rise; he was staring at Henry; and suddenly he caught the smell coming from the cup still in his trembling hand. Bitter almonds. It was the poison. The cup was falling; dimly he heard it shatter as it hit the stone floor.
"For the love of God! You bastard!" He was falling; his hands out towards his nephew, who stood white-faced and grim, staring coldly at him as if this catastrophe were not happening; as if he were not dying.
His body convulsed. Violently, he turned away. The last thing he saw as he fell was the mummy in the dazzling sunlight; the last thing he felt was the sandy floor beneath his burning face.
*
For a long moment Henry Stratford did not move. He stared down at the body of his uncle as if he did not quite believe what he saw. Someone else had done this. Someone else had broken through the thick membrane of frustration and put this horrid plot into motion. Someone else had put the silver coffee spoon into the jar of ancient poison and slipped that poison into Lawrence's cup.
Nothing moved in the dusty sunlight. The tiniest particles seemed suspended in the hot air. Only a faint sound originated within the chamber; something like the beat of a heart.
Imaginings. It was imperative to follow through. It was imperative to stop his hand from shaking; to prevent the scream from ever leaving his lips. Because it was there all right--a scream which once released would never stop.
I killed him. I poisoned him.
And now that great hideous and immovable obstacle to my plan is no more.
Bend down; feel the vein. Yes, he's dead. Quite dead.
Henry straightened, fighting a sudden wave of nausea, and quickly took several papers from his briefcase. He dipped his uncle's pen and wrote the name Lawrence Stratford neatly and quickly, as he had done several times on less important papers in the past.
His hand shook badly, but so much the better. For his uncle had had just such a tremor. And the scribble looked all the better when it was done.
He put the pen back and stood with his eyes closed, trying to calm himself again, trying to think only, It is done.
The most curious thoughts were flooding him suddenly, that he could undo this! That it had been no more than an impulse; that he could roll back the minutes and his uncle would be alive again. This positively could not have happened! Poison ... coffee ... Lawrence dead.
And then a memory came to him, pure and quiet and certainly welcome, of the day twenty-one years ago when his cousin Julie had been born. His uncle and he sitting in the drawing room together. His uncle Lawrence, whom he loved more than his father.
"But I want you to know that you will always be my nephew, my beloved nephew ..."
Dear God, was he losing his mind? For a moment he did not even know where he was. He could have sworn someone else was in this room with him. Who was it?
That thing in the mummy case. Don't look at it. Like a witness. Get back to the business at hand.
