Ghosts by Gaslight by Jack Dann Page B

black velvet dust-cloth covering the tall shape beneath. The claw-hand closed, clenched, pulled. Ramose took one, two steps back, tottering slightly as the shroud came fully away.
    In my mind I applauded silently. Exactly as rehearsed.
    “Ah my!” Kray said, and yet again stared in wonder. Before him—behind him more correctly, though by now he was out of his chair and standing once more—was an unadorned wooden Egyptian burial casket propped upright, held at a gentle eight degrees in a gleaming brass frame consisting of rods, brackets, intricate clamps and gears, all fitted close, keeping it secure.
    “Wonderful!” Kray said. “But that frame. I see clockwork. What on earth—?”
    “Just some new conservation techniques I’m trying, Dr. Kray. Precautions against the local humidity, vibrations caused by traffic, doors closing, that sort of thing. I keep my guest in the drawing room here to offset the effects of damp. Hence the heavy drapes I’ve had installed. The subdued lighting.”
    “Of course. Of course. Has it been opened?”
    “It never has. Please feel free to examine the seals, if you wish. They are Twentieth Dynasty.”
    Kray did so, moving in close. His zeal was impossible to hide. He was seeing a lost king, a queen, another of the marvelous reinterred royal mummies of the kind officially discovered by Maspero in 1881, or those from the Loret cache seven years later. “You are prepared to sell this?”
    “Dr. Bendeck and yourself are reputable experts in this business. I thought I should come to you first.”
    “Yes, yes. Capital! But contents unseen? Hm.” Kray made as if to be deep in thought, frowning slightly, stroking his neatly bearded chin with one hand.
    “Just as I found it, Dr. Kray,” I said.
    “Which was where, Mr. Trenton, if I may ask?”
    “You will understand that this must remain undisclosed for the present.”
    “Of course. Of course.” Kray was examining the casket again, carefully, so carefully, spending long minutes studying the wood, the mixture of pitch and resins keeping it still airtight after so many centuries. He was no doubt imagining a new royal cache, one not yet made known to the Arab Bureau, the Antiquities Service, or the British High Commission, or possibly even more: the barely imaginable wonder of a new sealed tomb, possibly that of Herihor or Tutankhamun, for heaven’s sake, a continuing stream of artefacts finding their way into the special holds of ships using the Suez Canal or reaching England by way of the old contraband routes out of Morocco and Spain. “I’m sure we can reach an agreement, Mr. Trenton. But please. Why have you invited me here ahead of Dr. Bendeck? We are business associates. He said he was asked to call on you at four o’clock, yet your invitation to me specified three and asked for strictest discretion. Surely we might have called on you together. Unless . . . May I assume . . . ?” Kray hesitated a final time, daring not say it.
    I spread my hands. You understand how it is. Make an offer if you wish. “I know you are a man of discrimination, Dr. Kray. A man of letters. A scholar as well as a collector and a dealer. I merely wanted to give you time to examine this piece in your own time, make an unhurried appraisal, form your own conclusions.”
    “Yes, yes, I see. I thank you for that.”
    “And give us a chance to talk. Let me be frank. When Dr. Bendeck arrives, it will be different.”
    Kray returned to his armchair, seated himself again. He took another sip of port and gave me a shrewd look. “Very well,” he said finally, setting down his glass. “May I be equally frank? This is an unadorned casket. It possibly contains the mummy of a nonentity like those unidentified individuals Maspero discovered among the fifty kings of the DB320 cache. The controversial Unknown Man E, for instance, possibly a disgraced royal prince, possibly a murdered royal suitor for Tutankhamun’s widow, but, equally possible, nothing more