the lower floors, where the coolness of the temperature and the dryness of the atmosphere are ideally suited for my purpose.”
It could hardly be more contrary to what Charles was expecting, but nonetheless he accepts with alacrity. Tulkinghorn leads him down towards the ground floor, but stops on the half landing by a door that is so cleverly concealed by the veins and swirls of faked marbled paintwork you could pass it by nine times out of ten, and never even notice. He lights a candle and the two of them make their way down a spiral stone staircase to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion. The stairs are dark, and the candle throws the lawyer’s enormous, quivering shadow against the curve of the wall. But strange though it seems, the air brightens as they descend, and when they reach the foot of the staircase Charles sees why. He’s in a small hexagonal chamber that opens into another, much larger room, lit from above by a huge conical dome of yellow glass with a stone rose in its centre. They must be at least two floors below ground, but the room ahead of him is double-height, with a catacomb of corridors opening away from him in all directions. The architecture is astounding, but even that retreats into insignificance compared with what it holds. It is like some augmentum ad absurdum of Charles’s own former lodgings—objects stud every surface, every wall, every shelf, as well as every passage and alcove within view. It is, quite simply, the largest and most extraordinary collection of classical statuary Charles has ever seen. Not even his beloved British Museum can rival this. Stone, marble, terracotta, alabaster—every texture, every colour from pearly ivory to a rich polished black. Funerary urns and a statue of Apollo, horn-eared gods and a snake-hairedMedusa, busts of ancient emperors and fragments of vase, heads in profile, heads in relief, tiny broken details mounted on plaques, and perfectly intact slabs of huge architectural frieze. Tulkinghorn eyes his visitor with a quiet but obvious satisfaction.
“Most of the best Greek and Roman sculpture is in here,” he says, as if casually, “but I think Egypt is your own preference?”
Charles has no preference of the kind, but he has no objection to seeing what else his host is prepared to show him. Tulkinghorn leads him towards the dome, and he sees now that this space is not a room at all, but a gallery round another, lower chamber that opens now beneath him, half plunged in darkness, and dominated by a huge stone trough, throned on pillars and deeply carved with symbols and runes. No—not runes, thinks Charles, leaning over the balustrade as his eyes adjust to the light. Not runes but hieroglyphs , and it’s not a trough but a sarcophagus—an enormous, perfectly preserved Egyptian sarcophagus. He starts and turns to Tulkinghorn, remembering suddenly where he has seen this before.
“But this is—”
“The sarcophagus of Pharaoh Seti the First. Indeed.”
“But you said—”
“That I was given the amulet. That is quite true, but we are speaking of two distinct occasions. The sarcophagus had to be paid for.”
“May I go down?”
“Of course. You will find the stairs in the corner over there.”
Charles heads round the gallery to the far side, but when he gets there he finds himself unexpectedly confounded. He knows this is where the stairs are supposed to be (and he is, as we know, rather better than most at finding his way), but when he turns the final corner by a niche containing a life-sized statue of Pan, he finds himself face-to-face with—himself: a life-sized reflection of himself. The glass is slightly convex, and the mirror so cleverly sited and angled that it makes the room seem at least twice its real size. It also serves, very effectively, as a blind alley, an optical illusion that can only bedesigned to lead the inexperienced visitor astray. What sort of man could possibly—? Charles turns and looks back to the
It could hardly be more contrary to what Charles was expecting, but nonetheless he accepts with alacrity. Tulkinghorn leads him down towards the ground floor, but stops on the half landing by a door that is so cleverly concealed by the veins and swirls of faked marbled paintwork you could pass it by nine times out of ten, and never even notice. He lights a candle and the two of them make their way down a spiral stone staircase to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion. The stairs are dark, and the candle throws the lawyer’s enormous, quivering shadow against the curve of the wall. But strange though it seems, the air brightens as they descend, and when they reach the foot of the staircase Charles sees why. He’s in a small hexagonal chamber that opens into another, much larger room, lit from above by a huge conical dome of yellow glass with a stone rose in its centre. They must be at least two floors below ground, but the room ahead of him is double-height, with a catacomb of corridors opening away from him in all directions. The architecture is astounding, but even that retreats into insignificance compared with what it holds. It is like some augmentum ad absurdum of Charles’s own former lodgings—objects stud every surface, every wall, every shelf, as well as every passage and alcove within view. It is, quite simply, the largest and most extraordinary collection of classical statuary Charles has ever seen. Not even his beloved British Museum can rival this. Stone, marble, terracotta, alabaster—every texture, every colour from pearly ivory to a rich polished black. Funerary urns and a statue of Apollo, horn-eared gods and a snake-hairedMedusa, busts of ancient emperors and fragments of vase, heads in profile, heads in relief, tiny broken details mounted on plaques, and perfectly intact slabs of huge architectural frieze. Tulkinghorn eyes his visitor with a quiet but obvious satisfaction.
“Most of the best Greek and Roman sculpture is in here,” he says, as if casually, “but I think Egypt is your own preference?”
Charles has no preference of the kind, but he has no objection to seeing what else his host is prepared to show him. Tulkinghorn leads him towards the dome, and he sees now that this space is not a room at all, but a gallery round another, lower chamber that opens now beneath him, half plunged in darkness, and dominated by a huge stone trough, throned on pillars and deeply carved with symbols and runes. No—not runes, thinks Charles, leaning over the balustrade as his eyes adjust to the light. Not runes but hieroglyphs , and it’s not a trough but a sarcophagus—an enormous, perfectly preserved Egyptian sarcophagus. He starts and turns to Tulkinghorn, remembering suddenly where he has seen this before.
“But this is—”
“The sarcophagus of Pharaoh Seti the First. Indeed.”
“But you said—”
“That I was given the amulet. That is quite true, but we are speaking of two distinct occasions. The sarcophagus had to be paid for.”
“May I go down?”
“Of course. You will find the stairs in the corner over there.”
Charles heads round the gallery to the far side, but when he gets there he finds himself unexpectedly confounded. He knows this is where the stairs are supposed to be (and he is, as we know, rather better than most at finding his way), but when he turns the final corner by a niche containing a life-sized statue of Pan, he finds himself face-to-face with—himself: a life-sized reflection of himself. The glass is slightly convex, and the mirror so cleverly sited and angled that it makes the room seem at least twice its real size. It also serves, very effectively, as a blind alley, an optical illusion that can only bedesigned to lead the inexperienced visitor astray. What sort of man could possibly—? Charles turns and looks back to the
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