Once again, Hope found herself floundering. Of course, she’d wondered what had made the writer cut off all communication with the man she loved, but she hadn’t expected to be sharing that wildly romantic speculation with the expert she’d gone to in search of clues to unravel the mystery. Yet here he was, waiting for her answer with all the patience of a teacher who was used to students being slow to reply, and she knew she was going to have to give him something before he’d share the identity of the letter writer.
‘Okay, I do have a theory as it happens,’ she began, and took a deep breath. ‘Whoever B was, she came from a wealthy family – she might possibly have been a member of the aristocracy – and was working on the excavations in the Valley of the Kings. While in Egypt, she fell in love with K, who was outside her social circle and not English, but that didn’t matter to B and they embarked on a secret engagement. She fell ill and returned to England for treatment, where the engagement was discovered by her family, who forced her to break it off.’
‘Not bad,’ he said and smiled in a way that simultaneously made Hope feel like a teenager again and caused her stomach to somersault. ‘A few leaps of faith not directly supported by the source material but I can see why you went with them. Now, let’s have a look at the ring.’
He opened the velvet box Will had given Hope a few days earlier and whistled when he saw the emerald. ‘Now that’s what I call an engagement ring. I’m not surprised it never found its way back to Egypt.’
Hope sat up a little straighter. ‘So, it is Egyptian? The jeweller who assessed it suspected it might have been made abroad but he couldn’t say where.’
Professor McCormack held the ring up to the light, admiring it. ‘I can’t be totally sure of the provenance just from looking but the carving is exquisite. And, of course, the scarab beetle is very symbolic – it represented rebirth or regeneration to the Ancient Egyptians. So perhaps this ring was meant to herald the beginning of a new life.’
‘I suppose marriage was often seen in that way,’ Hope replied. ‘At least for the woman, who basically left everything she knew behind her.’
‘Good point,’ he said and placed the ring back in the box. ‘And, in this particular case, I suspect you’re right to suggest there was a mismatch in status so the marriage would definitely have changed everything.’
Hope forced herself to ignore her growing sense of impatience. ‘Who do you think wrote the letter?’
He held up a hand. ‘Let’s not jump the gun. Tell me how you found it.’
She explained what had happened – that the Emporium had undertaken a house clearance in York that had included the puzzle box, how it had remained unopened for years until Brodie had solved the puzzle and why that had led Hope to the University in her quest for more information.
Professor McCormack considered her for a long moment. ‘Have you ever heard of Elenor Lovelace?’
Hope racked her brains. ‘I’ve heard of Ada Lovelace,’ she said doubtfully.
‘Everyone has,’ he said without rancour. ‘Lovelace was a reasonably common surname for centuries – it means lawless or outlaw – and Elenor’s family was distantly related to Ada. But that’s all beside the point. The Right Honourable Elenor Lovelace was one of the most promising female archaeologists of her day. Howard Carter allegedly claimed he might never have found Tutankhamun’s tomb without her and the list of her previous archaeological achievements is impressive.’
Hope couldn’t help herself. ‘But the letter is signed B.’
His forehead furrowed into a frown. ‘A nickname, maybe? Term of endearment?’
Abruptly he stood up and strode to a bookshelf to Hope’s right. ‘I’m sure it’s here somewhere,’ he murmured, trailing one hand along the spines of the titles that lined the top shelf. ‘Five Years at Thebes… The Tombs of Tutankhamun… Ah, here it is!’
He pulled a slim volume from the bookshelf and held it out so Hope could see the title. ‘Uncovering the Valley of the Kings, by E.E. Brunton,’ she read. ‘I suppose the B could stand for Brunton.’
But Professor McCormack wasn’t listening. His attention was focused on flipping the pages of the book, scanning each one until he found what he was looking for. ‘This is our girl,’ he said, raising the open book and tapping one finger on a fuzzy black and white photograph of what was clearly a group in front of a sizeable archaeological dig. ‘Elenor Beatrice Lovelace, who was born in York in before the turn of the century and vanished without trace in 1923.’
‘Vanished?’ Hope echoed, staring at the photo in consternation. ‘What do you mean vanished?’
‘I mean she disappeared without trace,’ Professor McCormack said as he sat down and slid the book across the desk for Hope to take a closer look. ‘There were rumours of a relationship that had come to an unhappy end and she was seen walking the cliffs around Whitby the day before she disappeared, but her body was never found.’
Hope studied the picture, picking out the young woman identified in the tiny print beneath as Elenor. Her spirits plummeted as she recalled the quiet desperation of the letter. ‘Suicide, then?’
‘That was the accepted explanation,’ he agreed and tapped a finger in the middle of the triangle formed by the book, the letter and the ring. ‘Until now.’
The meaning of that sank in. ‘You don’t think she killed herself?’
‘I’m not saying that,’ he said evenly. ‘But there are a number of things that don’t add up. If Elenor posted the letter ending her engagement and returned the ring to her fiancé, how did both items remain in York?’
It was a good question, especially since the letter had suggested the fiancé couldn’t come to England. ‘Do you know who she might have been planning
