The Curse Page 3

Nothing about the picture, other than it had been sent to me with a mysterious phone number, grabbed my interest. There was nothing new or sensational about Mrs. Vanderbilt or the necklace. The curse stories were decades old.

  I studied the picture, wondering why it was sent to me.

  Who sent it was another question.

  And was there any money in it for me? And Morty. The damn cat had gone “green” and ate only fish not on the mercury or endangered species list. He used only biodegradable cat litter.

  Studying the picture, I realized that the woman Lady Candace was talking to was also wearing a necklace that looked familiar to me.

  I got out my magnifing glass and took a closer look. I recognized the necklace because I’d seen it before.

  The Isis necklace.

  The last time I’d seen the necklace was at the Egyptian Museum five or six years ago, where it should be. It had been part of the Tut exhibit.

  How did the necklace get from the museum to this woman’s neck?

  The more I looked at the picture though, the more I realized that this necklace belonged in a museum, not on some rich woman’s neck.

  Someone obviously knew my weakness for protecting antiquities.

  The title of the magazine article deepened the mystery: “The Mummy’s Revenge After Howard Carter Looted the Tomb.”

  6

  Howard Carter was the Holy Grail of archaeology. He lacked a university education in archaeology, yet gained a reputation as an outstanding archaeologist and Egyptologist even before he made the most stunning antiquities find in history. And he didn’t just make a lucky find—he spent more than thirty years digging, bringing up a lot of dry holes along with some good finds, before he hit the jackpot.

  The word “looting” and Howard Carter’s name were also not in anyway synonomous: artifacts were his babies and he treated them with a rare reverence and respect.

  I’d worked and studied antiquities for half my life and I never heard a bad word about the man.

  The magazine that carried the mummy’s revenge story was little more than a tabloid with scientific pretentions. I’d seen it near the checkout at grocery stores, with glaring headlines about ancient aliens and farm girls who have two-headed babies.

  I would never have read the article if it hadn’t come with an intriguing picture about the Isis necklace.

  The article began with tantalizing details about the curse of the pharaohs thrown upon those who violated their tombs. Hollywood characterized it as the revenge of mummies and turned it into a cottage industry after strange events made the news following the opening of King Tut’s tomb.

  The first event revolved around Howard Carter, a snake, and a canary.

  Soon after opening the King Tut burial chambers, Carter sent an aide back to his house to retrieve something. As the man approached the house, he heard what he called a “faint, almost human cry.” As he came to the entrance, he found a cobra curled up in the birdcage that hung there. It had Carter’s canary in its mouth.

  The cobra was the symbol of Egypt’s pharaohs and the incident set off speculation that the ancient curse that was supposed to punish those who defiled the resting places of kings had struck.

  To the Egyptian workers at the dig, Carter had not been killed by the cobra because he had handled the opening of the tomb with great care and reverence. But they wondered who the revenge would be reaped upon.

  The legend grew as unusual deaths occurred among a group of people that had some association with King Tut’s tomb. Some of the deaths occurred among those directly involved with Howard Carter and the excavation, but some people had merely been visitors Carter permitted onto the site.

  The first strange death came within a few months and it was a sensational one: Lord Carnarvon. With his death, the curse became front-page news.

  The exact cause of Lord Carnarvon’s death wasn’t known, although they believed he died from blood poisoning after a mosquito bite had become infected from shaving with a rusty blade. They fastened on that cause because the doctors couldn’t come up with an exact diagnosis.

  During his last moments, Carnarvon was heard mumbling Tutankhamen’s name.

  If that wasn’t enough to throw fuel on the fires of the curse, when he died in Cairo during the wee hours, the lights in the city went inexplicably out—and two thousand miles away at his estate in Britain, the peer’s favorite dog howled inconsolably and died within minutes of his master.

  Lord Allenby, Britain’s high commissioner for Egypt, demanded an explanation for the mysterious power outage, but his power plant engineers weren’t able to supply one.

  Within months, Egypt’s first native Egyptologist and Egyptian Museum curator, Ahmed Kamal, and American Egyptologist William Henry Goodyear, both with a connection to the site, were dead.

  In another strange twist, Aubry Herbert, Lord Carnarvon’s brother, died six months later—also from blood poisoning. Aubry was only forty-three and Lord Carnarvon was fifty-six.

  His death was followed by that of an Oxford archaeologist who had entered Tut’s burial chamber with Carter. He hung himself, leaving a note that said he had “succumbed to a curse.”

  More deaths came; some seemed natural, some strange, but all were blamed on the curse. One scholar died attempting to rescue a book from his burning house. It was the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

  That nearly a couple dozen people with some connection to King Tut’s tomb died over the next six or seven years didn’t appear on the surface to be significant.

  However, when the ages of those who passed away underwent statistical analysis, the results supported the fact that the death rate was far above the norm. Throw in some strange circumstances, including the death of Lord Carnarvon’s wife allegedly from an insect bite, and it makes one wonder if the spirit of the boy king wasn’t reeking havoc on the invaders.

  The article’s premise was that the long-dead pharaoh was taking his revenge not just because his tomb had been opened, but also because it had been secretly looted by Carter and his cohorts.

  The theft had occurred at the tomb, soon after the realization that a major find had in fact been made and before the Egyptian government inspectors had arrived.

  In a very famous moment on November twenty-sixth, Carter had a hole made in a wall that was exposed after stairs leading to it were excavated. The hole only revealed a pitch-black empty void.

  To determine if the empty space was a room, Carter stuck a long steel rod through the opening. Deciding the area was large enough to be a room, he next extended a candle through the hole and stuck his head through the opening.

  That was when Lord Carnarvon, who was behind him, asked Carter the famous question. The article had excerpts from Carter’s own account, which said “as soon as one’s eyes became accustomed to the glimmer of light, the interior of the chamber gradually loomed … with its strange and wonderful medley of extraordinary and beautiful objects. Lord Carnarvon said to me, ‘Can you see anything?’ I replied to him, ‘Yes, it’s wonderful.’”

  It was an extraordinary moment.

  Egyptian tombs had been picked over for thousands of years and not a single intact tomb had been found. Archaeologists were lucky to find even broken fragments left behind by looters and conquerors.

  It was also an extraordinary moment for Howard Carter who had come to Egypt thirty-one years earlier as a seventeen-year-old artist. Great photography was still in its infancy and Carter was first employed to reproduce the wall etchings by hand.

  He learned archaeology and Egyptology hands-on by working at the sites and stayed in the profession for the rest of his life.

  Carter had been working for Lord Carnarvon for about fourteen years, without making a major discovery, when he found the boy-king’s site.

  What he saw told him that he had made a discovery of monumental importance. He wrote that he was struck dumb with amazement, that as objects took shape in the dark mist, his first impression suggested the property room of an oper
a of a vanished civilization. He saw “strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold.”

  What a thrilling moment for a treasure seeker, which is what an archaeologist is, even if the treasure is to be placed in a museum.

  The first person to set eyes upon the treasure in nearly four thousand years, Carter reported that he had experienced “the exhilaration of discovery, the fever of suspense, the almost overmastering impulse, born of curiosity, to break down the seals and lift the lids of boxes…”

  As a treasure seeker myself, I was electrified just reading about it.

  Peeking inside, Carter realized that he was only looking into the tomb’s antechamber—the actual burial place and treasure room, with their untold riches, would be beyond that.

  Carter stated he and Carnarvon went home that night and that the tomb was opened the next day when inspectors from the Egyptian department that supervised antiquity sites arrived.

  According to the article, the exhilaration that Carter and Carnarvon felt at seeing what they realized was just a small part of the most amazing antiquities find in history was too much for them.

  They had to see what was beyond, in the burial room where the pharaoh was entombed and the treasure room where the wealth that would give him a kingly existence in the next life was stored.

  So they returned surreptitiously that night. And created a controversy as to what had been—or might have been—removed before the site was fully cataloged.

  The article stirred a vague memory of having read before that there had been a nighttime secret entry of the tomb.

  It also pointed out that a few weeks after the incident, Lord Carnarvon admitted to a London reporter that they had come back during the night and enlarged the hole in order to get into the antechamber to examine the artifacts there firsthand, but he claimed that they had resisted the tantalizing temptation to go beyond into the burial and treasure rooms.

  The temptation would have been irresistible.

  I suspect that’s why they did it in the middle of the night. It had nothing to do with the fact that the Egyptian antiquities inspectors were arriving the following morning. It just may have been a seduction these men who spent their lives searching for riches were unable to resist.

  Personally, I saw nothing wrong with their entry, even if it was done secretly. They weren’t tomb robbers. The two of them returned in the middle of the night to get another look at their exciting find. Besides, they had dutifully notified the authorities of the discovery and the incident took place in 1922, before many of the strict rules laid down by the Egyptian authorities were created.

  I think it would be more amazing if these men hadn’t succumbed to the temptation to see firsthand what was in the antechamber and beyond.

  Another important factor had to do with whether there was evidence that the tomb had ever been violated by looters in the past.

  The contract between seekers like Carter and Carnarvon and the Egyptian government had recently been changed. In the past, any antiquities found were divided equally between the people who discovered them and the government. However, the contract had been changed to include a clause that if a tomb was found completely intact, all of the antiquities would go to the government with some payment for the work done by the excavators.

  Carter put years of work into the excavations and Lord Carnarvon put the equivalent of millions of dollars into financing the projects, so no doubt they wanted to see if there was evidence of past entry by looters.

  However, the article focused on the fact that some of King Tut’s artifacts ended up in the hands of the men and some museums, inferring that they had been removed that night before they were officially cataloged.

  A number of museums today have items that are alleged to have come from the boy king’s treasures and Carter himself had items in his possession when he passed away in Britain years later.

  As for the museum pieces, although there were rumors that Carter provided some of them, it was also just as likely that pieces made their way out of the Egyptian Museum and into the black market for antiquities through theft. There were even allegations that Egypt’s King Farouk permitted some items to be taken, perhaps as a magnanimous gesture.

  My bottom-line feeling after reading the article was that not everything from the Tut collection rested in the Egyptian Museum.

  I picked up my cell phone and hesitated for a moment, staring at the phone number.

  Did I really want to get involved in a mystery in which a museum piece was stolen—again?

  I took a deep breath and dialed the number.

  Death will slay with his wings whoever disturbs the peace of the pharaoh.

  —WARNING ON CLAY TABLET FOUND IN KING TUT’S ANTECHAMBER

  7

  A man’s voice answered almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for my call.

  “Thank you for calling, Miss Dupre.”

  “And you are?”

  “My name is Dr. Mounir Kaseem. I was hoping that the picture would arouse your interest. I would very much like to meet with you and discuss utilizing your services.”

  His English sounded slightly British, but with a Middle Eastern inflection. I guessed he was Egyptian, not an unlikely combination considering many well-off Egyptians had been educated in Britain, not to mention that he’d dropped an article on Egyptology on me.

  Saying he wanted to hire me made him solid gold. As long as he paid, I didn’t care if he was a serial killer wanting me to keep tabs on his victims.

  Trying to keep the desperation out of my voice, I asked, “Is this about the Isis necklace? Has it been stolen?”

  “I wish to retain you for a related matter.”

  “What related matter?”

  “Something I’d prefer to discuss in person with you. Would you mind joining me for lunch?”

  I let the request hang in the air for a moment as I pretended to mull over my busy schedule.

  “I might be able to do lunch. But I need to know a little more before I rearrange my schedule to meet with a new client. Who referred you to me? And what are we meeting about?”

  I was too proud to ask up-front, What’s in it for me?

  “I can’t tell you exactly who recommended you. I called the Egyptian department at the Met and asked for the names of top experts in the Eighteenth Dynasty era. I was given three names and chose to contact you after learning that you have experience in recovering looted artifacts.”

  I had worked for the Met eons ago, and I had recently left business cards with some old acquaintances there in the hopes of getting some referrals.

  As for my recovery of looted artifacts, he obviously didn’t know the entire story or he would’ve hung up and run the other way.

  “Why don’t we meet at the most notable Eighteenth Dynasty artifact in America?” he said. “Shall we say the obelisk at one o’clock? I have already made a reservation at the Russian Tea Room at two. Would that be satisfactory?”

  How could I refuse? I was a little curious though why he wanted to meet me at Cleopatra’s Needle first.

  The Tea Room was an excellent choice—it inferred that he had good taste and that he had money. I didn’t get to eat at pricy restaurants very often anymore. However, something he said puzzled me.

  “You intimated that the Isis necklace had been stolen. I’m sure I would have heard about it if it had been taken from the Egyptian Museum.”

  He chuckled. “I was being facetious. It was stolen from King Tut’s tomb along with all the other Tut treasures. I will explain the mystery of the necklace when we meet.”

  “One o’clock is fine.”

  “Good. I suspect by then you will have solved the mystery of the Isis necklace.”

  “Before you hang up, perhaps you can solve a mystery for me. Who’s the woman that tried to murder me this morning?”

  “Tried to murder you?”

  “Didn’t you send a woman to slip that note under my door?”

  “No, I
sent over a bellman from my hotel. It was quite early and I told him to slip it under your door. You say someone tried to murder you?”

  “Right after I picked the envelope off the floor, I opened the door and a woman tried to stab me.”

  I omitted the fact that it was with a letter opener.

  I imagined the gears working in his head as he thought about what I had said.

  “I know nothing about this. It is a complete surprise to me. I wish to talk to you about authenticating a rare artifact, not murder.”

  I believed him.

  There were two compelling reasons for my faith in his honesty and veracity: I desperately needed the work and he didn’t know me well enough to want me dead—I hoped.

  I also had a third reason.

  Like everyone else in New York, I had three locks on my front door to keep out people like a madwoman wielding a lethal letter opener.

  So it could be a coincidence that a Middle Eastern woman, probably Egyptian, tried to kill me after a Middle Eastern man, also probably Egyptian, had an envelope slipped under my door about an Egyptian artifact.

  Yeah, that worked.

  Funny thing—the broker I am, the more logical and reasonable the completely irrational can sound to me.

  After we hung up, I turned to Morty to let him know things were looking up. He had become spoiled eating organic cat food while I subsisted on fast food with saturated fats and artificial ingredients that were created in a test tube.

  “We’re going to be in the chips, Morty!”

  He eyed me suspiciously, then went back to sleep.

  8

  It occurred to me that if I was really going to sound knowledgeable about the artifact Dr. Kaseem wanted me to evaluate, I should know what it was so I could be prepared to answer his questions.

  I redialed him from the recent calls list on my phone and got nothing—no answer—no ringing; the call just seemed to fade into oblivion.

  That was odd.

  Even odder on a day that I had fallen out of bed and into the twilight zone.

  I tried the number several more times as I was getting ready just to prove to myself that my instincts were right: No one wanted to hire my services; it was just some trick to lure me out of my apartment—no doubt a mob of my creditors would be waiting in the park to hang me from the obelisk.