Robin Cook: Sphinx

Between the two statues was another sealed door.

Carter left the opening so the others could have a better look. Like Belzoni, he was tempted to crash down the wall and dive into the room. Instead, he calmly announced that the rest of the day would be devoted to photographing the sealed door. They would not attempt to enter what was obviously an antechamber until morning.

It took more than three hours for Carter to dismantle the ancient blocking of the door to the antechamber. Raman and a few other fellahin helped during this stage. Callender had laid in temporary electric wires, so the tunnel was brightly lit. Lord Carnarvon and Lady Evelyn entered the corridor when the job was almost complete. The last baskets of plaster and stone were hauled away. The moment of entry had arrived. No one spoke. Outside, at the mouth of the tomb, hundreds of reporters from newspapers around the world tensely waited their first view.

For a brief second Carter hesitated. As a scientist he was interested in the minutest detail inside the tomb; as a human being he was embarrassed by his intrusion into the sacred realm of the dead; and as an explorer he was experiencing the exhilaration of discovery. But, British to the core, he merely straightened his bow tie and stepped over the threshold, keeping his eye on the objects below.

Without a sound he pointed at a beautiful lotiform cup of translucent alabaster on the threshold, so Carnarvon could avoid it. Carter then made his way over to the sealed door between the two life-size statues of Tutankhamen. Carefully he began to examine the seals. His heart sank as he realized that this door had also been opened by the ancient tomb robbers, and then resealed.

Carnarvon stepped into the antechamber, his mind reeling with the beauty of the objects so carelessly scattered around him. He turned to take his daughter’s hand as she prepared to enter, and in the process noticed a rolled papyrus leaning against the wall to the right of the alabaster cup. To the left was a garland of dead flowers, as if Tutankhamen’s funeral had been only yesterday, and beside it a blackened oil lamp. Lady Evelyn entered, holding her father’s hand, followed by Callender. Raman leaned into the antechamber but did not enter for lack of space.

“Unfortunately, the burial chamber has been entered and resealed,” said Carter, pointing toward the door in front of him. Carefully Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn, and Callender moved over to the archaeologist, their eyes following his finger. Raman stepped into the antechamber.

“Curiously, though,” continued Carter, “it has been entered only once, instead of twice, like the doors into the antechamber. So there is hope that the thieves did not reach the mummy.” Carter turned, seeing Raman for the first time. “Raman, I did not give you permission to enter the antechamber.”

“I beg your Excellency’s pardon. I thought that I could be of assistance.”

“Indeed. You can be of assistance by making sure no one enters this chamber without my personal approval.”

“Of course, your Excellency.” Raman silently slipped from the room.

“Howard,” said Carnarvon, “Raman is undoubtedly as enchanted as we with the find. Perhaps you could be a little more generous.”

“The workers will all be allowed to view this room, but I will designate the time,” said Carter. “Now, as I was saying, the reason I feel hopeful about the mummy is that I think the tomb robbers were surprised in the middle of their sacrilege. There is something mysterious about the way these priceless objects are haphazardly thrown about. It appears as if someone spent a little time rearranging things after the thieves, but not enough to put everything back in its original state. Why?”

Carnarvon shrugged.

“Look at that beautiful cup on the threshold,” continued Carter. “Why wasn’t that replaced? And that gilded shrine with its door ajar. Obviously a statue was stolen, but why wasn’t the door even closed?” Carter stepped back to the door. “And this ordinary oil lamp. Why was it left within the tomb? I tell you, we’d better record the positioning of each object in this room very carefully. These clues are trying to tell us something. It is very strange indeed.”

Sensing Carter’s tension, Carnarvon tried to look about the tomb through his friend’s trained eyes. Indeed, leaving an oil lamp within the tomb was surprising, and so was the disarray of the objects. But Carnarvon was so overwhelmed by the beauty of the pieces he could think of nothing else. Gazing at the translucent alabaster cup abandoned so casually on the threshold, he yearned to pick it up and hold it in his hands. It was so enticingly beautiful. Suddenly he noticed a subtle change in its orientation with regard to the garland of dried flowers and the oil lamp. He was about to say something when Carter’s excited voice rang out in the chamber.

“There’s another room. Everyone take a look.” Carter was squatting down, shining his flashlight beneath one of the funerary beds. Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn, and Callender hurried over to him. There, glittering in the circle of light from the torch, another chamber took form, filled with gold and jeweled treasure. As in the anteroom, the precious objects had been chaotically scattered, but for the moment the Egyptologists were too awed by their find to question what had happened three thousand years in the past.

Later, when they would be ready to explore the mystery, Carnarvon was already fatally ill with blood poisoning. At 2 A.M. on April 5, 1923, less than twenty weeks after the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb and during an unexplainable five-minute power failure throughout Cairo, Lord Carnarvon died. His illness reputedly was started by the bite of an insect, but questions were raised.

Within months four other people associated with the opening of the tomb died under mysterious circumstances. One man disappeared from the deck of his own yacht lying at anchor in the placid Nile. Interest in the ancient robbery of the tomb waned and was replaced by a reassertion of the reputation of the ancient Egyptians in the occult sciences. The specter of the “Curse of the Pharaohs” rose from the shadows of the past. The New York Times was moved to write about the deaths: “It is a deep mystery, which it is all too easy to dismiss by skepticism.” A fear began to infiltrate the scientific community. There were just too many coincidences.

Erica Baron’s reaction was pure reflex. The muscles of her back and thighs contracted and she straightened up, twirling to face the molester. She had bent over to examine an engraved brass bowl when an open hand had thrust between her legs, grabbing at her through her cotton slacks. Although she had been the object of a number of lewd stares, and even obviously sexual comments since she had left the Hilton Hotel, she had not expected to be touched. It was a shock. It would have been a shock anywhere, but in Cairo, on her first day, it seemed that much worse.

Her attacker was about fifteen, with a jeering smile that exposed straight rows of yellow teeth. The offending hand was still extended.

Ignoring her canvas tote bag, Erica used her left hand to knock the boy’s arm to the side. Then, surprising herself even more than the boy, she clenched her right hand in a tight fist and punched the taunting face, throwing all her weight into the blow.

The effect was astonishing. The punch was like a good karate blow, hurling the surprised boy back against the rickety tables of the brass vendor’s shop. Table legs buckled, wares crashed into the cobblestone street. Another boy carrying coffee and water on a metal tray suspended by a tripod was caught in the avalanche, and he too fell, adding to the confusion.