The Serpent on the Crown Read Online Free PDF Page A

I said. “He is accusing his brother.”
    There was no need to explain which one I meant. Walter, Emerson’s younger brother, was a reputable scholar and a man of integrity. Seth, their illegitimate half brother, was…not. Even Katherine knew his strange history; before I reformed him, Sethos (to give him his nom de crime) had been the most successful dealer in illegal antiquities ever to operate in Egypt. His keen intelligence, his skill at the art of disguise, and his charismatic personality had placed him at the head of an organization that had wreaked havoc with the Service des Antiquités and caused us no little personal inconvenience. All that was in the past. Sethos had served his country honorably during the war and had sworn to me that he had given up his criminal activities.
    However, it was the past to which Emerson referred, and I had to admit that Sethos was the most logical suspect. I knew for a fact that he had looted Davis’s tomb.
    So did Emerson. I keep nothing from my husband (unless it is unlikely to accomplish anything except to arouse his formidable temper). A violent explosion had, in fact, ensued, when I described my somewhat unusual and (in Emerson’s opinion) unnecessarily intimate conversation with Sethos following the excavation of Tomb 55; but once he cooled off he agreed there would have been no point in pursuing the matter. Sethos had calmly admitted taking a number of antiquities from the tomb, but by the time I learned this it was too late to prevent them from being sent out of the country. They were irretrievably lost, and so was Sethos, who could change his appearance as readily as he did his name.
    “By the Almighty,” Cyrus exclaimed. “Well, but Sethos is now a reformed character and a friend. All we have to do is ask him—”
    “Whether he took the statue,” Nefret cut in. “A man is innocent until proven guilty, isn’t he?”
    She had always had a weakness for Sethos. Most women did. Ramses shook his head. He did not have a weakness for his uncle. Most men did not.
    “When it comes to Sethos’s past history, the reverse is true. He usually was guilty. Where is he now?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “He is still working undercover for the War Office.”
    “I can’t see that it matters,” Nefret declared. “Mr. Petherick was the legal owner.”
    “It does matter, though,” Ramses said. “If Sethos denies taking this from KV55—and if we believe him—we must look elsewhere for the origin of the statue.”
    “Hmph.” Emerson tossed his napkin onto the table and stood up. “Let’s get to work.”
    I knew what he meant to do, and understood his reasons, but I felt obliged to protest. “Emerson, it is very late, and we have guests.”
    “We aren’t guests,” Cyrus said, rising in his turn. “I reckon we’re of the same mind, Emerson. It’s a pity David isn’t here. He’s the best artist in the family.”
    “We may be able to hang on to the statuette until he arrives next week,” Emerson said. “But if we are forced to return it we will at least have a record—photographs, scale drawings, perhaps a plaster cast.”
    “It will take all night,” I protested.
    “What does that matter?” Emerson demanded.
     
    I t did take most of the night, for Emerson was not satisfied until the object had been photographed from every angle and detailed notes taken. Under close examination, certain minor flaws were apparent in what had seemed a perfect work of art. One of the small fingers had been broken off. The long embroidered sash and the wide collar had once been inlaid with tiny bits of glass or precious stone; almost all of them were missing. There was a hole on the Blue Crown, in the center of the brow. Here the uraeus serpent, the symbol of kingship, had reared its lordly head. It must have been a separate piece, inserted into the crown, and it had fallen out.
    “Poor little king,” I said whimsically. “Without the guardian serpent on his brow he was