The Mummy or Ramses the Damned

4

ELLIOTT SAT back in the wing chair, staring forward at the coal fire. He was as close as possible to the grate, his slippered feet on the fender. The heat of it soothed the pain in his legs and in his hands. He was listening to Henry, veering between impatience and an unexpected fascination. God's vengeance upon Henry had been almost complete for his sins. Henry was a scandal.

"You must have imagined it!" Alex said.

"But I am telling you that damned thing got out of that mummy case and came at me. It strangled me. I felt its hand on me; I looked up into its filthy bandaged face."

"Definitely imagined it," Alex said.

"Imagined it, hell!"

Elliott glanced up at the two young men at the end of the mantel shelf to his right. Henry, unshaven, trembling, the glass of Scotch in his hand. And Alex, immaculate, his hands as clean as a nun's.

"And this Egyptologist fellow, you're saying that he and the mummy are one and the same? Henry, you've been out all night, haven't you? You've been drinking with that girl from the Music Hall. You've been-"

"Well, where the hell did the bastard come from if he's not the mummy!"

Elliott laughed softly. He gave the coals a poke with the tip of his silver cane.

Henry went on undaunted.

"He wasn't there last night! He came down the stairs in Uncle Lawrence's bathrobe! And you haven't seen this man! He's no ordinary man. Anybody who looks at him can tell he's not ordinary."

"He's alone there now? With Julie?"

It took so long for Alex to put things together, trusting soul.

"That's what I Ve been trying to tell you. My God! Isn't there anyone in London who will listen to me?" Henry gulped the Scotch, went to the sideboard and filled his glass again. "And Julie's protecting him. Julie knows what happened. She saw the thing come at me!''

"You're doing yourself a disservice with this story," Alex said gently. "No one's going to believe-"

"You realize those papyri, those scrolls," Henry sputtered. "They talk about some kind of immortal something. Lawrence was talking about it to that Samir fellow, something about Ramses the Second wandering for a thousand years-''

"I thought it was Ramses the Great," Alex interrupted.

"They are one and the same, you numbskull. Ramses the Second, Ramses the Great, Ramses the Damned. It was all in those scrolls, I tell you-about Cleopatra and this Ramses. Didn't you read it in the papers? I thought Uncle Lawrence was going soft from the heat."

"I think you need a rest, possibly in hospital. All this talk of a curse-"

"Damn it, don't you understand me! It's worse than a curse. The thing tried to kill me. It moved, I tell you. It's alive."

Alex stared at Henry with a thinly veiled look of revulsion. Same look he reserves for newspapers, Elliott thought glumly.

"I'm going to see Julie. Father, if you'll excuse ..."

"Of course, that's exactly what you should do." Elliott looked into the fire again. "See about this Egyptologist person. Where he came from. She shouldn't be alone in that house with a stranger. It's absurd."

"She's alone in that house with the damned mummy!'' Henry growled.

"Henry, why don't you go home and get some sleep?" Alex asked. "I shall see you later, Father."

"You bloody twit!"

Alex ignored the insult. It seemed an amazingly easy insult to ignore. Henry emptied the glass again and went back to the sideboard.

Elliott listened to the chink of the bottle against the glass. "And this man, this mysterious Egyptologist, did you catch his name?" he asked.

"Reginald Ramsey, try that one on for size. And I could swear she made it up on the spot." He came back to the mantel shelf, resting his elbow on it, with a full tumbler of Scotch, which he sipped slowly, his eyes darting anxiously away as Elliott looked up. "I didn't hear him speak a word of English; and you should have seen the look in his eye. I 'm telling you-you've got to do something!"

"Yes, but precisely what?"

"How the hell should I know? Catch the damned thing, that's what!''

Elliott gave a short laugh. "If this thing or person or whatever it is tried to strangle you, why is Julie protecting it? Why hasn't it strangled her?"

Henry stared forward blankly for a moment. Then he took another deep gulp from the glass. Elliott eyed him coldly. Not mad. No. Hysterical, but not mad.

"What I am asking," Elliott said softly, "is why would it try to harm you?"

"For the love of hell, it's a mummy, isn't it? I was the one traipsing about over there in its bloody tomb! Not Julie. I found Lawrence dead in the damned tomb-"

Henry stopped, as if he had just realized something. He was no longer merely blank-faced; he was in a visible state of shock.

Their eyes locked, but only for an instant. Elliott looked down at the fire. This is the young man I once cared for, he thought, once caressed with tenderness and hunger; once loved. And now he is reaching the end of something, the very end. And revenge ought to be sweet, but it isn't.

"Look," Henry said. He was almost stammering. "There's some sort of twist to this, some sort of explanation. But the thing, whatever it is, has to be stopped. It could have Julie in some sort of spell."

"I see."

"No, you don't see. You think I'm mad. And you despise me. You always have."

"No, not always."

Again they looked at each other. Henry's face was wet now with perspiration. His lip trembled slightly, and then he looked away.

Utterly desperate, Elliott thought. He has nowhere to hide anymore from himself, that's the crux of it.

"Well, whatever you think," Henry said, "I'm not spending another night in that house. I'm having my things sent to the club."

"You can't leave her alone there. It isn't proper. And in the absence of a formal engagement between Julie and Alex, I cannot properly interfere."

"The hell you can't. And the hell I won't go where I wish. I tell you I won't stay there."

He heard Henry turn to go. He heard the glass slammed down on the marble-top sideboard. He heard the heavy steps retreating, leaving him alone.

Elliott leaned back against the damask. There was a dull resonating sound that meant the front door had been slammed shut.

He tried to see the entire incident in perspective, Henry coming here because Randolph did not believe him. What a strange story for a young man to have invented, even one as crazed and desperate as Henry. It did not make sense at all.

"Lover of Cleopatra," he whispered, "guardian of the royal house of Egypt. Ramses the Immortal. Ramses the Damned."

Suddenly he wanted to see Samir again. Talk to him. Of course the story was ridiculous, but ... No. The whole point was that Henry was deteriorating more rapidly than anyone could have predicted. Nevertheless he wanted Samir to know about this.

He removed his pocket watch. Why, it was still very early. He had plenty of time before his afternoon appointments. If only he could manage to get himself out of this chair.

He had planted the cane firmly on the hearthstones in front of him when he heard his wife's soft tread on the carpet near the door. He sank back again, relieved that he wouldn't feel that excruciating pain for a few more moments, and then he looked up into her eyes.

He had always liked his wife; and now in the middle of his life, he had discovered that he loved her. A woman of impeccable grooming and subtle charm, she looked ageless to him, perhaps because he was not erotically attracted to her. But he knew that she was twelve years his senior, and therefore old, and this disturbed him only because he feared age himself, and he feared losing her.

He had always admired her, enjoyed her company; and he needed her money desperately. She had never minded that. She appreciated his charm, his social connections, and forgave him his secret eccentricities.

She had always known something was wrong with him philosophically, that he was "the tainted wether of the flock," wholly out of sympathy with his peers and his friends and enemies. But she never made an issue of it. Her happiness did not depend upon his happiness, it seemed; and she was eternally grateful that he went through the motions of social life, and had not run off like Lawrence Stratford to live in Egypt.

He was too crippled now with arthritis to be unfaithful to her any longer, and he wondered sometimes whether this was a relief to her, or whether it saddened her. He could not make up his mind. They still shared the marriage bed, and probably always would, though there was never any urgency or real need, except that of late, he'd been keenly aware that he depended upon her and loved her deeply.

He was glad she was home. It lessened the pain of Lawrence's death. But of course he'd have to recover her diamond necklace very soon, and that Randolph had promised to pay him tomorrow morning for the money he had borrowed against the thing was a great relief to him.

Edith looked especially pretty to him now, in her new Paris suit of green wool. She had a tailored look about her, except for her bouffant silver hair, which looked all the more lovely because of the severity of her clothes and the absence of any jewelry. She never wore the diamonds he had borrowed against, except to attend balls. He took pride in the fact that she was a handsome woman in her old age, and invariably impressive. People liked her, more even than they liked him, which was as it should be.

"I'm going out fora while," he said to her. "Little errand. You shan't miss me. I'll be back in good time for lunch."

She didn't answer. She sat down on the tufted ottoman beside him, and slipped her hand over his. How light it felt. Her hands were the only pan of her which revealed age without question.

"Elliott, you've borrowed again against my necklace," she said.

He was ashamed. He said nothing.

"I know you did it for Randolph. Henry's debts again. Always the same story."

He looked at the coals in front of him. He didn't answer. After all, what was there to say? She knew it was safe in the hands of a jeweller trusted by both of them, that the advance had been relatively small-easy for her to manage, even if Randolph did not come through.

"Why didn't you come to me and tell me you needed money?" she asked him.

"It's never been easy to do that, my dear. Besides, Henry has made things so difficult for Randolph."

"I know. And I know you meant well, as usual."

"As vulgar as it may sound, a loan against a diamond necklace is a small price to pay for the Stratford millions. And that's where we are, my dear, trying to make a good marriage, as they say, for our son."

"Randolph cannot persuade his niece to marry Alex. He has no influence with her at all. You lent the money because you felt sorry for Randolph. Because he's your old friend."

"Perhaps that's true."

He sighed. He wouldn't look at her. "Perhaps, in some way, I feel responsible," he said.

"How could you be responsible? What have you to do with Henry, and what's become of him?" she asked.

He didn't answer. He thought of the hotel room in Paris, and the look of dull misery in Henry's eyes when his attempt at extortion had failed. Strange how clear it all was to him, the furnishings of that room. Later, when he had discovered the theft of the cigarette case and the money, he had sat thinking: I must remember this; I must remember .all of it. This mustn't happen to me again.

"I'm sorry about the necklace, Edith," he whispered, suddenly stung to think that he had stolen from his wife as Henry had stolen from him. He found himself smiling at her, even winking, flirting a little as he always did. He gave her a little shrug.

She acknowledged all this with a wicked little smile of her own. Years ago she would have said, Don't play the bad boy with me. The fact that she didn't say it anymore didn't mean she didn't find him charming.

'' Randolph has the money now to cover the loan," he assured her, more seriously.

"Not necessary," she whispered. "Leave it to me." And now she rose slowly and waited. She knew that he could use her help to get up and on his feet. And much as it humiliated him, he knew it too.

"Where are you going?" she asked as she held out her hands.

"Samir Ibrahaim at the museum."

"This mummy again."

"Henry's come up with the strangest story. ..."