Murder in the Place of Anubis Read Online Free PDF Page B

waiting to be examined by one of the Eyes and Ears of Pharaoh loosened tongues.
     One of his men ushered the family out and went with them. When they were gone Meren summoned the porter, who produced the chief manservant. With this guide and his remaining assistant, Meren toured the house of Hormin.
    It was the house of a prosperous scribe; there were many such in the capital of the empire. A basement  housed workrooms used for weaving, bread making, and other chores. Above lay a reception hall and dining room, and above these the family bedrooms and lavatory. On the roof was the kitchen.
     To Meren the house appeared ordinary. White-plastered, painted with friezes of lotus petals and geometric designs in bright red, blue, yellow, and green, it contained simple furnishings. The beds, tables, stools, and chairs were of good but not costly wood, the seats of woven rushes.
     On the way back from his tour, Meren stuck his head  in the door of the scribe's bedchamber. The bed sat at the far end; clothing boxes and a cosmetic table were arranged around the walls. One of his men knelt at a box that held Hormin's kilts, lifted each one, and laid it on the floor.
     Meren turned away and headed for the room where  he'd first encountered Hormin's family, the man's personal office. Here the furniture was of cedar inlaid with ebony and ivory. Gilt paint adorned Hormin's chair and table, and there were three boxes and four storage caskets, each of expensive wood. One was inlaid with ivory and ebony marquetry. Several alabaster lamps rested on tables, and there was one casket carved from the same stone.
     All of the containers bore Hormin's name. Meren  touched the obsidian knob on the lid of the alabaster casket, lifted the cover, and placed it aside. Within were fourteen glass bottles and vials. Meren unstopped a vial and sniffed the perfume within. He opened a pot and touched the tip of his finger to the salve within. It was unguent; from the scent, costly unguent, made of foreign spices and resins. Yet it wasn't the same as that he'd found on Hormin's kilt.
    Replacing the unguent, Meren summoned the porter and ordered him to bring the wife of Hormin to him. He arranged himself in Hormin's chair and picked up a gilt  penholder from the table beside him. Removing the top, he shook out several reed pens and replaced them. He was twirling the penholder when the porter announced Selket, the wife of Hormin.
     She must have been of an age with her husband, for  Selket bore the signs of middle age. There were pockets of flesh beneath her eyes. The flesh of her upper arms drooped like empty barley sacks, and her skin was as cracked and dry as old wood left in the desert. Without speaking to her, Meren knew that this woman had spent her youth laboring in the sun and heat. She stood before him with her eyes fixed on sheets of papyrus scattered on the floor at her feet. Meren gave her permission to sit, and the woman took a stool.
     "Please accept my condolences upon the death of  your husband, mistress. I'm here to seek out his murderer."
     Selket's face had been as blank as the outfacing wall of a house. At his words, it cracked open and from it  erupted a flood of venom.
     "It's her. She killed him for his wealth or to hide her  depravities. She beds any pretty man who comes into her sight, you know. My husband must have found her out." Selket's arms swept around indicating the disturbed room. "Or perhaps she killed him for finding her in his office pilfering."
    "Who?"
     "Beltis, my lord. That creature who tried to wound  you with the spice pot. She is my—was my husband's concubine."
     This was why Meren cultivated the skill of listening. He remembered the admonition of the sage Ptahhotep,  which advised a wise man not to listen to the spouting of the hot-bellied. He had found that listening to the  hot-bellied often led to the discovery of the truth.
     Meren set the penholder back on the table and regarded Selket.