Agatha Christie - Death Comes as the End

Satipy put a slightly shaking hand on Renisenb's arm, urging her back the way she had come, and at that touch Renisenb felt a sudden revolt.

"No, I am going up to the Tomb."

"There is no one there, I tell you."

"I like to look out over the River. To sit there."

"But the sun is setting - it is too late."

Satipy's fingers closed vise-like over Renisenb's arm. Renisenb wrenched herself loose.

"Don't! Let me go, Satipy."

"No. Come back. Come back with me."

But Renisenb had already broken loose, pushed past her, and was on her way to the cliff.

There was something - instinct told her there was something... Her steps quickened to a run...

Then she saw it - the dark bundle lying under the shadow of the cliff... She hurried along until she stood close beside it.

There was no surprise in her at what she saw. It was as though already she had expected it...

Nofret lay with her face upturned, her body broken and twisted. Her eyes were open and sightless...

Renisenb bent and touched the cold stiff cheek, then stood up again looking down on her. She hardly heard Satipy come up behind her.

"She must have fallen," Satipy was saying. "She has fallen. She was walking along the cliff path and she fell..."

Yes, Renisenb thought, that was what had happened. Nofret had fallen from the path above, her body bouncing off the limestone rocks.

"She may have seen a snake," said Satipy, "and been startled. There are snakes asleep in the sun on that path sometimes."

Snakes. Yes, snakes. Sobek and the snake. A snake, its back broken, lying dead in the sun. Sobek, his eyes gleaming...

She thought: "Sobek... Nofret..."

Then sudden relief came to her as she heard Hori's voice.

"What has happened?"

She turned with relief. Hori and Yahmose had come up together. Satipy was explaining eagerly that Nofret must have fallen from the path above.

Yahmose said, "She must have come up to find us, but Hori and I have been out to look at the irrigation canals. We have been away at least an hour. As we came back we saw you standing here."

Renisenb said, and her voice surprised her, it sounded so different: "Where is Sobek?"

She felt rather than saw Hori's immediate sharp turn of the head at the question. Yahmose sounded merely puzzled as he said:

"Sobek? I have not seen him all the afternoon. Not since he left us so angrily in the house."

But Hori was looking at Renisenb. She raised her eyes and met his. She saw him turn from their gaze and look down thoughtfully at Nofret's body and she knew with absolute certainty exactly what he was thinking.

He murmured questioningly:

"Sobek?"

"Oh, no," Renisenb heard herself saying. "Oh, no... Oh, no..."

Satipy said again urgently: "She fell from the path. It is narrow just above here - and dangerous..."

Dangerous? What was it Hori had told her once? A tale of Sobek as a child attacking Yahmose, and of her dead mother prising them apart and saying, "You must not do that, Sobek. It is dangerous..."

Sobek liked killing. "What I do, I shall enjoy doing."

Sobek killing a snake...

Sobek meeting Nofret on that narrow path...

She heard herself murmuring brokenly:

"We don't know - we don't know..."

And then, with infinite relief, with the sense of a burden taken away, she heard Hori's grave voice giving weight and value to Satipy's asseveration.

"She must have fallen from the path..."

His eyes met Renisenb's. She thought: "He and I know... We shall always know..."

Aloud she heard her voice saying shakily:

"She fell from the path..."

And like a final echo, Yahmose's gentle voice chimed in:

"She must have fallen from the path."

FOURTH MONTH OF WINTER, 6TH DAY

Imhotep sat facing Esa.

"They all tell the same story," he said fretfully.

"That is at least convenient," said Esa.

"Convenient - convenient? What extraordinary words you use!"

Esa gave a short cackle.

"I know what I am saying, my son."

"Are they speaking the truth, that is what I have to decide!" Imhotep spoke portentously.

"You are hardly the goddess Maat. Nor, like Anubis, can you weigh the heart in a balance!"

"Was it an accident?" Imhotep shook his head judicially. "I have to remember that the announcement of my intentions towards my ungrateful family may have aroused some passionate feelings."

"Yes, indeed," said Esa. "Feelings were aroused. They shouted so in the main hall that I could hear what was said in my room here. By the way, were those really your intentions?"

Imhotep shifted uneasily as he murmured:

"I wrote in anger - in justifiable anger. My family needed teaching a sharp lesson."

"In other words," said Esa, "you were merely giving them a fright. Is that it?"

"My dear mother, does that matter now?"

"I see," said Esa. "You did not know what you meant to do. Muddled thinking, as usual."

Imhotep controlled his irritation with an effort.

"I simply mean that that particular point no longer arises. It is the facts of Nofret's death that are now in question. If I were to believe that anyone in my family could be so undutiful, so unbalanced in their anger, as wantonly to harm the girl - I - I really do not know what I should do!"

"So it is fortunate," said Esa, "that they all tell the same story! Nobody has hinted at anything else, have they?"

"Certainly not."

"Then why not regard the incident as closed? You should have taken the girl north with you. I told you so at the time."

"Then you do believe -"

Esa said with emphasis:

"I believe what I am told unless it conflicts with what I have seen with my own eyes - which is very little nowadays - or heard with my own ears. You have questioned Henet, I suppose? What has she to say of the matter?"

"She is deeply distressed - very deeply distressed. On my behalf."

Esa raised her eyebrows.

"Indeed. You surprise me."

"Henet," said Imhotep warmly, "has a lot of heart."

"Quite so. She has also more than the usual allowance of tongue. If distress at your loss is her only reaction. I should certainly regard the incident as closed. There are plenty of other affairs to occupy your attention."

"Yes, indeed." Imhotep rose with a reassumption of his fussy, important manner. "Yahmose is waiting for me now in the main hall with all sorts of matters needing my urgent attention. There are many decisions awaiting my sanction. As you say, private grief must not usurp the main functions of life."

He hurried out.

Esa smiled for a moment, a somewhat sardonic smile, then her face grew grave again. She sighed and shook her head.

II

Yahmose was awaiting his father with Kameni in attendance. Hori, Yahmose explained, was superintending the work of the embalmers and undertakers who were busy with the first stages of the funeral preparations.

It had taken Imhotep some weeks to journey home after receiving the news of Nofret's death, and the funeral preparations were now completed. The body had received its long soaking in the brine bath, had been restored to some semblance of its normal appearance, had been oiled and rubbed with salts, and duly wrapped in its bandages and deposited in its coffin.

Yahmose explained that he had appointed a small funeral chamber near the rock tomb designed later to hold the body of Imhotep himself. He went into the details of what he had ordered and Imhotep expressed his approval.

"You have done well, Yahmose," he said kindly. "You seem to have shown very good judgment and to have kept your head well."

Yahmose colored a little at this unexpected praise.

"Ipi and Montu are, of course, expensive embalmers," went on Imhotep. "These canopic jars, for instance, seem to me unduly costly. There is really no need for such extravagance. Some of their charges seem to me much too high. That is the worst of these embalmers who have been employed by the Governor's family. They think they can charge any fantastic prices they like. It would have come much cheaper to go to somebody less well-known."