‘This is a mixed bunch of motives, I’m hearing,’ said Joe.
‘And here’s one for the connoisseur! I’ve saved the best for last. But, for me, it was the first in the sequence, I suppose. Though it wasn’t for some weeks that I realized I’d had a pretty strange experience. In 1923. Newly appointed to the Institut and rather overawed by the big city, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect – except that everything would be faster, more exciting than I was used to in Normandy. I got a phone call from upstairs telling me to grab my bag, jump into a police car and get over to the Louvre. To the Egyptian rooms on the ground floor. Pandemonium when I got there! And something very odd going on. An American couple alone in one of the galleries had come across a pool of blood at the foot of one of the mummy cases. You know – those great big ornate coffin things . . . weigh a ton . . .’
‘I know them.’
‘When I got there – ten minutes after receiving the call – the body hadn’t even been discovered. It didn’t strike me as strange until later, mesmerized as I was by the quality of the communications in the city: phone, telegraph, police cars standing at the ready outside . . . “So this is the modern pace!” I thought. “Must keep up!” And there was a lot of activity to distract me at the museum. A whole chorus of academics – curators, Egyptologists, students – had assembled to see what was going on. Newsmen weren’t far behind!
‘Luckily, a British official of some sort who happened to be leaving a meeting was collared by the distraught American who’d just avoided putting his foot in something very nasty and this Briton, using the several languages he spoke, backed up by – shall we say – a certain natural authority . . .’ Moulin paused and grinned apologetically at Joe.
‘Arrogance, you can say if you wish,’ suggested Joe easily. ‘We learn it on school playing fields – or charging enemy machine-gun nests armed with a swagger-stick and shouting: “Follow me, lads!” But I can imagine what you’re going to say and – I’d have done the same, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, the Englishman took charge. Jack Pollock, his name was, and thank goodness he was there.’
Joe had reached automatically for his notebook but, remembering his promise, he relaxed.
‘He calmed everyone down and sent for all the right people. A policeman was on the spot to see fair play, I remember.’
‘And you found a body in the case? Dripping blood on to the floor? Not very well hidden?’
‘No. I think it was meant to be found. And the finding was timed . . . orchestrated, you might say.’
‘Who was in the box?’
‘Two bodies. Below: the rightful occupant, a High Priest of some sort, and on top: an alien presence. A professor of Egyptology. Stabbed. Messily. The killer knew enough about knife work to ensure that the body drained itself of blood. Weapon? A type of butcher’s knife, I wrote in my report. Something capable of stabbing and ripping open. A pig farmer could advise perhaps? It was never found. But we did find, in the throat, and sucked right down into the breathing passages of the deceased, wads of linen bindings. Ancient linen. Taken from the body of some other mummy. He’d been forced to swallow the stuff.’
‘Deeply unpleasant!’ Joe could not contain his revulsion.
‘That wasn’t the worst. I say, you won’t arrest me if I make a confession, will you, Sandilands?’
‘Good Lord! Depends what you’re confessing. If you want to tell me you’re the Mastermind behind all this, I’ll have you in cuffs at once!’
Moulin smiled, got to his feet and went to take a small box from a shelf. ‘I’m going to show you something I stole. From an evidence file. It comes from the scene of the crime.’
He handed the box to Joe who raised his brows in alarm on catching sight of the contents.
‘You can handle it. It’s been sterilized.’
‘Why would you need to do that?’ asked Joe, cautiously.
‘I removed it from the bloodied bandage lodged in the throat of the corpse of Professor Joachim Lebreton. It was sticky with various body fluids and an oil that had been used to ease the descent of the fabric down the tubes.’
‘Charming!’ Joe took the golden object gingerly and held it to the light between finger and thumb. ‘An amulet?’
‘No. Not my job, of course, to establish the provenance of exhibits but no one else seemed interested enough to do it. In the police report it’s listed as “imitation gold medallion, value 5 francs”. It would have been chucked out after a year but I was curious enough to preserve it. Oh, it’s not valuable. It’s not even ancient. A modern copy – gilded. Crudely done. Anyone with a bit of tin, a chisel and a pot of gold paint could produce the equivalent. Any mouleur-plaquiste could churn them out by the hundred. But you’d need to know your Egyptology. This is a bona fide, head and shoulders portrait, you might say.’