John Adams - The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

"Up the stairs, past the Etruscan gallery, and straight ahead. Last door on the right."

"Think of it, Watson," said Holmes as we hurried up the steps and down a long corridor. "Within these magnificent walls reposes the tangible history of mankind, with its glories and tragedies catalogued and preserved, gathered from the four corners of the globe in what is the greatest gift to the world of the long reach of the British Empire!"

"Indeed?" I said, breathlessly. "What about parliamentary government?"

"Said like a true and loyal British citizen, Watson!" Stopping before a plain door with a sign that announced DEPT. OF EGYPTOLOGY, he exclaimed, "Here we are! The domain of Flinders Petrie, unquestionably."

Three swift raps on the door produced from within the room the reply, "It's open."

Entering the office, Holmes and I found a slight figure with a neatly trimmed brown beard and moustache. Wearing a white laboratory coat, he bent over a coal-black, mummified corpse. Stepping boldly across the room, Holmes said, "Professor Flinders Petrie, I presume."

Peering intently down at the mummy, the professor replied, "You arrive at an auspicious moment, gentlemen. This man is unquestionably of the Third Dynasty."

"Forgive the intrusion, Professor," said Holmes. "I am Sherlock Holmes. This is my friend and associate, Dr. John H. Watson. If our call upon you is an inconvenience, we can return at a more opportune time."

"This chap has kept his secrets for nearly four millennia, sir," replied Flinders Petrie, looking up. "A few more minutes is of no consequence, Mr. Holmes. How may I be of service?"

"You are very kind, sir. What can you tell us about the Porter-Broadmoor expedition?"

The question was greeted with a puzzled expression. "Before answering, Mr. Holmes, I must inquire as to whom you represent. Are you here on behalf of Lord Porter?"

"We represent only ourselves."

Stepping away from the mummy to a sink at the far side of the room to wash his hands, the professor said, "That is a disappointment. I was hoping that Lord Porter had sent you. If you are not his agent, why are you interested in seeing me?"

"We are here because you are universally recognised as the preeminent authority in the emerging field of Egyptology."

"Emerging is the right word. Anyone who claims to be the preeminent authority on the study of Egyptology is treading on shaky ground. We have only begun to scratch the surface of the subject, gentlemen."

Finished cleansing his hands, Flinders Petrie invited us to continue our conversation in a small, comfortable office adjacent to his laboratory that was a jumble of Egyptian artefacts. "Are you aware, Professor," said Holmes, "of a series of unfortunate events concerning the recent Porter-Broadmoor expedition that some people have attributed to a curse that was found in the tomb? I refer to the collapse of a tunnel during the excavation, the sinking of a ship carrying artefacts, and the deaths of two of the expedition members."

"Surely, Mr. Holmes, you of all people cannot lend credence to the fantastic stories that these unfortunate events were the result of a curse. Regardless of what you may have read in newspapers about promises of death and doom for members of that expedition, those incidents were coincidence, pure and simple."

"Do you doubt," asked I, "that the expedition found a curse in the mummy's tomb?"

"I would have been surprised had they not. Curses of some kind have been found in every tomb in Egypt. They are as common as quotations from the Holy Bible on the gravestones of Christians in England. For as long as history has been written there have been tales of spells and curses. Read Plato's Republic and you will find he noted that if anyone in his time wished to injure an enemy, for a small fee one could hire a sorcerer to bring harm to an individual through an incantation, sign, or effigy to bind the gods to serve the purpose. All of this nonsense about curses in Egyptian tombs began in the imagination of a writer of horror stories named Jane Loudon Webb. After visiting a bizarre theatrical show in Piccadilly Circus in 1821, in which several mummies were unwrapped, this woman penned a science-fiction novel entitled The Mummy. Set in the twenty-second century, it featured a vengeful mummy that came to life and threatened to strangle the book's hero. This fantastic tome was followed in 1828 by publication of an anonymous children's book, The Fruits of Enterprize, in which mummies were set ablaze to illuminate the interior of an Egyptian tomb. The understandably irate mummies went on a rampage.

"The latest of these flights of imagination was the handiwork of a quite distinguished American author. In 1868, Louisa May Alcott published a short story, 'Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy's Curse.' In this grotesque fantasy, an explorer used a flaming mummy to light his way into the interior chamber of a tomb, where he found a golden box containing three seeds that were taken back to America and planted. They produced flowers which his fiancée wore at her wedding. When she inhaled the perfume, she lapsed into a coma and was transformed into a living mummy. It is a pitiful comment on our age, gentlemen, that people do actually believe in all this rot.

"Now we find the shelves of our bookstores and our libraries filled with novels about monsters assembled from body parts and brought to life by mad scientists, and tales of werewolves and vampires. Even one of our country's promising new writers of stories, Arthur Conan Doyle, has dabbled in tales of the occult and supernatural, much of it apparently inspired by the American scribbler and lunatic, Mr. Edgar Allan Poe."

"You are obviously a man with strong opinions," said Holmes.

"If you seek an explanation for the unhappy events associated with the Porter-Broadmoor expedition, you would do well to look beyond the mummy's curse to the obvious explanation. It is human imagination that has discerned horror in happenstance. I refer you to a recent inventive newspaper article that appeared following the unfortunate murder of Professor Broadmoor. The item drew upon an interview in which the nephew of the financier of the expedition referred to the curse that had been found in the tomb. Suddenly, a murderous attack upon Broadmoor was in the mind of a reporter for a sensation-seeking newspaper the latest in a sequence of mysterious occurrences ominously linked to a mummy's curse. What a comment that is on the gullibility of the English people."

"You inquired as to whether Dr. Watson and I were sent to see you by Lord Porter. May I ask why you thought so?"

"I called upon him and his nephew several weeks ago in an attempt to persuade him that he bore an obligation to share his findings with the entire world by turning over the results of his expedition to the British Museum. My argument was along the line that he must choose between the transitory pleasures of personal wealth and the lasting glory of knowing that his name could forever be honoured by the naming of a wing of the Museum for him. I left his home feeling quite encouraged that he would come round to my position on the matter. A few days later, to my great delight, he sent me a letter stating that I would presently be hearing from his solicitor, the Honourable Dudley Walsingham, concerning creation of just such a permanent exhibition. When you appeared, my hope was that you were his agents. I'm afraid now that my expectation that his remarkable collection might take the form of an exhibition for the Museum is groundless. What a great loss that is, gentlemen."

Leaving Flinders Petrie to resume his examination of the mummy, Holmes asked, "Well, Watson, what do you make of our professor of Egyptology?"

"A remarkable man! I found his lecture on the subject of curses fascinating. I share his belief that the proper place for the repose of the artefacts of the Porter-Broadmoor expedition is within the British Museum. He is also spot-on about the deplorable state of the press. Its only interest seems to be in drumming up a fresh sensation in order to sell more newspapers."