Chapter Fifteen

I enter the town house through the back door, and I'm still removing my outdoor boots when feet tap on the stairs. The steps are too light to be Gray's, and even too light for Isla. Too quick for Mrs. Wallace. Too heavy for Alice. Then who…?

Lorna pokes her head around the corner. Ah, right. New maid.

"Miss Mallory," she says, and I don't correct her. If she's not ready to call me by my given name, this is close enough. "Dr. Gray said to send you down to his offices when you return, and Mrs. Ballantyne said you are to have lunch with her and that Dr. Gray may attend if he insists." She lowers her voice. "I think she was teasing about that."

I smile. "She was."

"She said you will discuss the case over luncheon, so you are to bring your notes. But first, you must attend to Dr. Gray." She puts a hand out. "I will brush those for you."

I hesitate until I realize she means my boots. Usually I am the one brushing off everyone's boots, including my own. But that is a housemaid's job, I remind myself, and I am no longer a housemaid. Still, even when we had other temporary maids, none of them had offered to clean my boots.

"I will brush them later," I say, "but I do appreciate the offer."

"May I bring you tea?" she asks.

Huh. None of the other maids offered that either. I could get used to this.

I check my pocket watch. "It is almost time for Dr. Gray's morning tea and biscuits. I will have some with him. Thank you."

She half curtsies. "I will bring them down."

I put on my indoor boots and head downstairs. Gray is in his laboratory, looking down at the body of Sir Alastair.

"Is he saying anything interesting?" I ask.

"Sadly, no. Even his corpse is a rather dull conversationalist." He makes a face. "And that was petty and rude. Sir Alastair could be very engaging. I admired his passion for his work, and I always had the feeling we would have gotten on well, if he could have gotten past…"

"The color of your skin?"

"To be honest, that was never an issue. In medical school, I developed a rather finely honed sense for determining who claimed to have no concern with a brown-skinned doctor but obviously did. But that was not a problem with Sir Alastair. At that point, he had already worked for years with Egyptians, experts and professionals as well as laborers. The problem was, well…" A quick glance my way. "The affair with his sister. Although, again, I do not believe his reaction had anything to do with my skin color. He would have been as outraged if Hugh were the man involved."

"As a widow, his sister was his responsibility. So was her virtue."

"I am not certain it was that so much as a fear that she would be hurt. She was the one who, well…" He clears his throat. "She initiated the relationship. I think he presumed I had taken advantage of her. A misunderstanding, but not one that would reflect as poorly on him as considering his sister to be his property. His wife—his first wife at least—was very forward thinking, as is his sister, and he did not ever seem to mind that."

"Yet he did have a problem with women joining the medical school?"

His lips purse. "I thought that was odd. Perhaps his respect for women's intelligence had limits? I can only imagine that if his first wife had been alive, she would have roundly thumped him for speaking out against female students."

"His current wife doesn't seem like a shrinking violet either. Just maybe not as confident in her voice yet."

"Yes, perhaps they had not been married long enough for her to feel comfortable objecting. Also, I believe Lady Christie was in Cairo when Sir Alastair argued against the young women's admission. She stayed with the children and helped her brother supervise the dig." He shakes his head. "But enough of that. You are here to discuss the autopsy."

"Dare I hope it went well?"

"That depends on whether you—"

A tap at the door, almost inaudible.

I call a hello, and Lorna enters with the tea tray.

"Where would you like this, sir?" she asks.

Gray waves distractedly at a table right beside the dissection table. To her credit, Lorna doesn't hesitate. She sets the tray down two feet from a naked corpse with a bit of cloth over his groin for privacy. Then she begins pouring the tea.

"You need not do that," Gray says.

She smiles. "I am fine, sir. It is not often I get to serve tea beside a dead body."

"You're doing very well," I say.

"Thank you, miss."

We wait until she's done pouring tea and leaves.

When the door closes behind Lorna, I say, "About the autopsy? You said whether it went well depends on…?"

"On whether you are in the mood to be amused by Addington, rather than wanting to smack your head against the nearest wall."

"That good, huh?"

"He allowed me to attend the autopsy, mostly because he wanted to be done before Lord Muir returned. He asked what I thought, and I made the mistake of saying it seemed to be strangulation. He then declared, without even looking at the body, that Sir Alastair died because he had been wrapped in the mummy's bandages and could not breathe."

"Did you explain the difference between strangulation and suffocation?"

"Oh, that is only the first of many issues with that scenario. He then proceeded to wax poetic on what a gruesome and terrifying death that would be, waking to discover one is entombed in a mummy's wrappings. He seemed very taken with the image. I will admit to being somewhat concerned."

"‘Somewhat'? I'm the macabre one here, and I don't even want to think what it would be like to die that way. However, I know I sure as hell wouldn't just lie there and let myself suffocate… when I could struggle a bit and get out of the damn wrappings."

"Tosh, Mallory. What a ridiculous thought. Fight your way out? Why not simply lie there and revel in the horror of your inevitable demise?"

I shake my head. "Please tell me he changed his cause of death after seeing the very obvious ligature marks around Sir Alastair's neck."

"He did, thankfully. And while he failed to note the bruising on the back or the angle of the ligatures, he did notice the abdominal bruises. He also performed the autopsy correctly and concluded that it was indeed suffocation brought on by strangulation. I would concur."

"So Sir Alastair died the way we thought he died."

"Yes. Otherwise, as I said, Sir Alastair has very little to tell us."

"And the rope?" I say.

"Ah, yes. I actually had time to check that before Addington arrived." He points to the rope. "Would you like to give it a try?"

I smile. "I would, thank you."

Matching weapon marks is one thing they can do in this time. Or Gray can do it, though the validity for court is still in question. There are three basic steps here. The first is comparing the size and pattern of the rope sample to the marks. I do that and agree that it appears to match, which is as conclusive as that can be. The next step is examining a fiber from the wound and comparing it to one from the rope. Under the magnifying glass, they do indeed match. The third step is the most conclusive, but that involved Isla. She took these two fibers for comparative testing and found a match. Apparently, I missed that demonstration, too.

"I have also confirmed that it is the same type of rope we found in the packing crates," Gray says.

"Which suggests it wasn't premeditated murder," I say. "Yes, I know, that doesn't matter here—it's still murder, and the killer will still go to the gallows. But it does affect the investigation."

"Because grabbing a murder weapon from the supplies at hand suggests that the killer didn't plan to murder Sir Alastair."

"Right," I say. "Either Sir Alastair caught them doing something, possibly in the artifact room, or they argued and the killer lashed out."

"It must have been a quiet argument if no one overheard."

"Fair point. Considering—" I stop. "Isla wanted to discuss this over lunch. Should we wait?"

He checks his pocket watch. "I would rather not wait to decide our next move. However, I agree Isla should be part of the conversation. Shall we see whether she is free to join us for this tea that we've let go cold?"

"Good idea."

We're in the dining room with fresh tea and biscuits and Isla, who was indeed ready to join us. We bring her up to speed quickly. She confirms that her analysis on the rope matched fibers found in Sir Alastair's neck and that the length of rope used is from the same skein as the rope found for packing, meaning the murder weapon was already at the scene.

As for the dirt, the traces found in the exhibit room are not a conclusive match for the dirt in the tunnel. They could still be from the tunnel, but we can't say with certainty that the killer came in that way.

Then I say, "So we seem to have an unplanned attack. Something happened in that room, and Sir Alastair was murdered without raising enough fuss to be heard through the closed door. Did he walk in on the killer?"

"Stealing an artifact," Isla says.

"That's the most obvious answer. The door was unlocked while they were being removed. Let's say the killer sneaks in before it's locked again. Then Sir Alastair enters."

"Could the killer have had a key?" Isla asks.

"No, only Sir Alastair…" I stop. "But we haven't recovered the key, meaning it's still out there."

I remember the hidden key in the Kings' apartment. I take the envelope from my pocket and explain where it came from.

"That is not the key to the artifact room," Gray says. "While we were at the house, I examined the lock to see whether it could be opened the way you do it."

"With my handy hairpins?"

"Yes, and it is a more complex mechanism. That key"—he points to the one on the table—"is for the simpler sort."

He's correct, of course. This is a classic Victorian key, the sort we in the modern world consider an old-fashioned key. My grandmother had locks like that in her home, and I'd delighted in opening them with my junior-detective-kit picks.

"So three options," I say. "One, the killer snuck in while the artifacts were being carried out. Two, they came in while Sir Alastair was in there with the door unlocked. Three, Sir Alastair took the person inside himself. Except the house had no visitors that morning. Which suggests the killer was part of the staff."

Isla shakes her head. "They were preparing for a party. People would have been coming and going, and the staff wouldn't consider them ‘visitors.' Someone could have easily entered through the back door if they were dressed in any sort of service or trade clothing."

"Also," Gray says, "while the staff may have not admitted any visitors, Sir Alastair was not the sort to stand on ceremony. If he were expecting a guest and the staff were busy, he'd have let them in himself."

"With that sort of chaos—planning for a fancy party—getting into the house would have been easy," Isla says.

"We will need to have Hugh's policemen continue questioning the staff," Gray says. "Now, about that key…" He pulls it over and frowns. "It is very old."

Old…

"The tunnel?" I say. "The shed at the top is locked. Selim had a key, and Michael. How many keys would there be?"

"I will ask for Mr. Awad's and see whether it is a match."

"Good idea. Now, this letter…" I spread it out on the table with my gloved hands and squint. "The writing is so cramped, I can barely read it."

Isla reaches out, and I hand it to her. Then she shakes her head and passes it to Gray.

"The problem is not the small writing," she says. "It does not appear to be in English."

"No," Gray says. "I think it is English. But a cipher."

"Oooh, a code?" I say. "You're good at those, right?"

"I know a few," he says. "This is not any of those."

"So we copy it out, give the original to the police, and then try to solve it."

"Yes…" Gray says, with obvious hesitancy.

"Is that a problem?"

"If it's too complex for me to easily solve, then it will take time, and unless we consider Mrs. King a strong suspect, we'd spend hours deciphering what would likely turn out to be a love letter. They are newlyweds."

"Ah. Fair point. Then we set this aside for now. The primary lead, of course, is the mummy itself."

Gray frowns. Then he says, "Of course. Yes. Whoever killed Sir Alastair undoubtedly also took the mummified remains. There was little point in concealing them—and great danger in being caught with them. Meaning they had a purpose for them."

"Both Michael and his uncle mentioned the resale value for medicinal purposes. What do you two know about that?"

"I do not deal in quack medicines," Gray says loftily.

"Well, then, you're no help at all."

"Fine," he says. "I am aware that mummia—"

"What?"

"Mummia," he says with some impatience. "The powdered remains of mummies."

"There's a name for that? Wow."

"As I was saying, I am aware that mummia has been used in medicines. Human remains have been thought to have medical uses throughout history. In the second century, Galen thought burnt human bones could be used in the treatment of epilepsy. In the sixteenth century, Paracelsus believed in using human fat, marrow, and, yes, mummia, to treat various conditions."

"Also excrement," Isla says.

"I was not mentioning that," Gray says.

I shake my head. "If we're talking about eating dried bits of people, I'm not sure eating feces is a whole lot worse."

Gray continues, "When the remains of mummies began to be used in Europe, it included both the powder and a liquor form made from the liquid leaked during the mummification process."

"Tell me you are joking."

"I never joke about medical history. It is believed that the original mummia was the material used in mummification—a bitumen. A Western translation error led to that being interpreted as first the leaked residue and later the remains themselves. Mummy remains were most popular as medicines between the fifteenth and eighteenth century, when they were used primarily for treating cuts, bruises, and fractures. At the height of its popularity, however, people naturally began to falsify the ingredients, and what was most commonly available was not powdered Egyptians but powdered corpses of Europeans. That led to the decline in popularity."

"What is the world coming to when you can't even trust your mummy powder to be actual mummy."

"The same as when you cannot trust your sugar to be actual sugar or your coffee to be actual coffee," he says dryly. "If it can be adulterated, it will be."

I'd never given much thought to food regulations until I came to this world where, as Gray says, adulteration is rampant, whether it's medicine or food.

"So there's no market for mummia now?"

He gives me a hard look. Isla only shakes her head.

"Right," I say. "Dumb question. If it was a recognized medicine in the past, there will still be a market for it. You just won't be able to find it in a chemist's shop."

Isla nods. "Whenever a medical ingredient goes out of fashion, there are still those who will cling to it and clamor for it, that knowledge having been passed down through generations."

"Like people in my world who still think you can catch the common cold—or catarrh—by going out in cold weather, despite the fact we've known for generations that it's caused by a virus."

"Catarrh is caused by… what?" Gray says.

"Whoops. Sorry. Spoilers. Moving right along. I get your point. Just because mummia is no longer a common medicine doesn't mean there won't be a market for it. The next step, then, is to investigate that. Do we talk to Selim Awad first?"

"I agree we should speak to him at some point," Isla says. "But for now, it might be better to exhaust our own resources first. Give the police time to retreat from the Christies' house and allow the family a brief respite."

That's not how we'd do things in the modern day, but I understand her thinking. Here, if someone of Sir Alastair's caliber told McCreadie to come back and question his family tomorrow, he'd have to do it unless he had enough evidence to push the point.

"Our own resources first then," I say. "Do you know someone?"

"No, but you do, and I've been rather eager for the excuse to meet her."

I frown.

"Queen Mab, of course," Isla says. "While her expertise is in preventing—and ending—pregnancies, she is known to deal in rare and illicit ingredients that I cannot obtain myself. I do not expect her to sell powdered mummy…"

"But she might know someone who does. The problem will be contacting her. We know where she lives but showing up there would be rude, even threatening."

"Then you approach her the same way you did the last time."

"The last time, we sent a message…" I look over at her. "Through Jack."

Isla smiles and takes a bite of her biscuit.

"Jack," I say, "whom we already want to talk to—about these detective stories—but we can't afford the time to do that while we're on the case."

"And now the two purposes have cleverly intersected." She smiles again. "How convenient. I will allow you and Duncan to tackle Jack—literally, if necessary—as it is your story she seems to be writing. Then Mallory and I will pay a visit to Queen Mab."