The Hippopotamus Pool by Elizabeth Peters Page A

beautiful in their lives, though. This little old lady was practically bald by the time she arrived at the embalmers', and those protruding front teeth did not add to her charm."
    "Who is she?" Nefret asked.
    Emerson shrugged. "The mummies got jumbled up a bit, which is not surprising when you consider that they were moved several times. Some are unidentified, and many, I believe, were mislabeled. It will probably take years to sort them out, if it can be done at all."
    "The techniques of mummification changed over the course of time," Ramses said. "One might determine thereby the approximate period in which the individual lived."
    "Enough of mummies," I said in disgust.
    "This is more to your taste, I suppose," Emerson said, as Nefret held up a photograph of a massive gold bracelet.
    "I remember seeing these jewels in the Cairo Museum," Nefret said admiringly. "Is it certain that they belonged to Queen Ahhotep? The cartouche is that of King Ahmose—her son, I believe?"
    "They were found in her coffin," Emerson replied. "So they must have been given to her by Ahmose, who was indeed her son. If the gifts he bestowed on his grandmother Tetisheri were as rich as these ..."
    "It is surely too much to expect that her tomb was not robbed in antiquity," Ramses said.
    "We must not get our hopes up," Emerson agreed. "A number of objects belonging to royal personages of the Seventeenth Dynasty have been discovered in modern times, including the jewelry of Ahhotep. The only one bearing the name of Tetisheri is this statuette."
    There were four photographs in all, showing the statue from the front, the back, and both sides. It portrayed a young woman seated in the stiff formal pose common to such sculptures. Her garment was the simple, close-fitting shift worn by women of all ranks, supported by straps that framed her little breasts, but on her head was the vulture crown of a queen. The feathered wings framed a delicate young face.
    Ramses began, "If it came from her tomb—"
    "It certainly came from the Theban area. I first saw it in 1889, in the shop of an antiquities dealer in Luxor," Emerson said. "It was one of a pair."
    "I did not know that," Ramses admitted with chagrin.
    "Few people do. In fact, only the base of the second exists, and it is badly damaged, but it is an exact replica of the base of this statue. Before we left Cairo I went round to the French Institute, where the broken base has been rotting away ever since that moron Bouriant acquired it—God knows where or when, since he never bothered keeping records. It makes my blood boil," said Emerson, grinding his teeth, "to think how much knowledge has been lost by the carelessness of archaeologists. One can't expect any better from illiterate tomb robbers, but scholars are almost as bad, especially that bastard—"
    "Emerson."
    "Er—hmph," said Emerson, scowling at me as if it had been my fault that he had employed language no young lady should hear. He really did try, poor man, but he had not been named Father of Curses for nothing, and old habits are hard to break. I had more or less given up nagging him about it. It did not appear to bother Nefret, whose Nubian vocabulary included a number of words I had never asked to have translated.
    "It is a lovely thing," I said, studying the photograph and wondering what there was about it that struck me so oddly. I had seen the statue several times, for it was in the British Museum. Never before had it affected me as it did now. Frowning, I went on, "Mr. Budge did not purchase it for the Museum until 1891, I believe. If you knew of it earlier you might have abandoned your principles just for once. A gift like that would have quite won my heart."
    "If your protestations can be believed, your heart had already been won," said my husband coldly. "You know how I feel about buying from dealers, Amelia. Your principles are more elastic, which is why I never mentioned the statue to you. And besides—"
    He broke off.
    "Besides what,