were still glorified grave-robbers, and Lambert, an Arizona copper magnate turned ardent archaeologist in his fifties, was even less well-trained than most. Objects had been torn out of the ground with no concern for stratigraphy or relationships. The few really extraordinary pieces had found their way into museums and private collections outside of the country; the best of the rest had been commandeered by the Egyptian government; and whatever was left had been exhibited in Lambert’s “museum” for a few years and then gone into storage to be forgotten.
The el-Fuqani skeletal collection was squarely in the last category. Crudely dug up and primitively processed, it had been placed in storage in 1927 and lain there ever since, exciting no interest, scholarly or otherwise. Why anyone would take the trouble to remove one of them and toss it into the junk pile was anybody’s guess.
They found Jerry in his office off the library reading room. When he was told that the mysterious remains were apparently those of a Bronze Age man from the time of Userkaf, first pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty, he too burst out laughing, which didn’t appear to improve Saleh’s mood any, or Had-don’s either. But a discreet gleam of amusement appeared to play about Sergeant Gabra’s dark eyes.
“And how did they get there?” the director asked crossly.
Jerry shook his head blankly. “Don’t ask me.”
“Perhaps we could now go and see where this collection is kept?” Saleh said, civil but manifestly impatient.
“Sure,” Jerry said, “you bet, good idea.” He unfolded his skinny frame from behind the desk. “Right this way.”
He took them across a path to the modest but roomy structure known as the annex. It had been constructed by Lambert as his museum, but it had been decades since it had served as anything but a workspace and a repository for bones and artifacts.
As they entered Jerry grasped TJ’s wrist and spoke in a whisper. “Where is this stuff, exactly?”
She laughed. “Are you serious? You don’t know where the el-Fuqani material is? You’re supposed to be the registrar.”
“Listen, I’m lucky I know
“Back of the storeroom off Workroom A,” she told him.
As they crossed the workroom with its pottery fragments in open trays and its containers of glue and preservatives, Saleh sniffed the air appraisingly. “I smell… what is it?”
Gabra knit his brow. “Pizza?”
“Must be the glue,” Jerry said, straight-faced. He led them confidently through the storeroom to a floor-to- ceiling set of open metal racks on the end of which was taped a flyblown, typewritten placard: “El-Fuqani, 1921-23, C. Lambert.” The three-shelf racks were loaded with heavy cardboard boxes stacked two high. Jerry moved down the racks, forefinger extended, scanning the numbers on the front of the boxes. A few stacks in, he stopped.
“Here we go, 4360.”
He pulled out the box, set it on an empty rack, and, with a flourish, swept off the lid.
Except for a crumbly accumulation of bone dust, it was empty.
“So,” Saleh said with his cool smile, “the mystery is solved. Nothing very serious, it seems.”
Haddon’s bearded jaw had stiffened. “I consider it quite serious enough,” he said, looking directly at Jerry. “These specimens are housed here on the assumption that they be given proper care and protection. They have received that protection for some seventy years, but now it seems that some rather slipshod practices have been allowed to take hold.”
“I’ll look into the matter, sir,” Jerry said with that serenity that sometimes infuriated TJ, sometimes filled her with admiration, and never stopped amazing her. Even after living with him for twelve years. How did he do it? And he wasn’t even nursing an ulcer from suppressed emotions; he just didn’t give a damn. In his place, she thought, flames would be shooting out of her nose.
“I think we’d better look into it right now,” Haddon snapped, “while we still have the services of these good gentlemen.”
“I don’t know what—”
“How many more of our specimens have been made off with? Are
The same question had occurred to TJ, but she had hoped to examine the rest of the collection with Jerry later on, without anybody—especially and above all others, Clifford Haddon—watching balefully over their shoulders, waiting to pounce.
“Well, let’s just see,” Jerry said amiably, and took the lid from 4370, the box that had been beneath 4360. It was full of old brown bones. So was 4340, 4350, and 4370. So were the other fifty-two boxes. Everything was as it should have been; only 4360 was not peacefully resting where it was supposed to be.
Gabra, who had opened cartons with the others—Saleh had stood watching, glancing occasionally at his watch— rubbed dust from his hands. “Very good. Merely an error of some untrue sort.”
“Gentlemen,” Haddon said ardently, “you have my sincere apologies for wasting so much of your time.”
“I assure you, it was no trouble,” Saleh said formally. “I am only happy that it was not a more serious matter requiring continued police attention.”
“No, no, I take full responsibility for the actions and oversights of my staff.”
TJ silently ground her teeth again. What an unfailingly petty sonofabitch the man was. In his spiteful, self- centered way he managed to see all this as some kind of personal loss of face, which meant, from his point of view, that somebody— anybody but him—had to be blamed.
“Please, please,” said Gabra, who seemed like a nice guy. “It was a most interesting morning with no apologies being necessary.”