in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, as the Roman Catholics believe. After my explorations of the Holy City, I journeyed to Cairo to have a look at the pyramids of the Giza Plateau and the Sphinx. During my stay at the Mena House, a very fine old hostelry in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, I chanced to meet Basil Porter. He is a nephew of Lord Porter, under whose auspices a dig had been organised. He graciously invited me to join them. The expedition was led by Professor Felix Broadmoor of Cambridge University. Perhaps you've heard of it."
"The newspapers were full of it, and rightly so," I said emphatically. "I expect that Her Majesty will presently recognize its achievements with the appropriate honours."
"As well she should," said McAndrew. "However, Lord Porter has been subjected to a firestorm of criticism from some quarters for not consigning the expedition's finds to the nation by turning everything over to the British Museum."
"I'm certain that will eventually be sorted out," said Holmes. "Please go on with your story and the matter of the mummy's curse."
"The expedition was hoping to locate tombs from the period of the Sixth Dynasty king named Raneferef. We did not find a royal sarcophagus, but located the burial place of a minor official called Sarenput. It was a discovery of breathtaking riches. Believe me, gentlemen, nothing I had seen of the wealth of Indian maharajahs matched the treasures that we unearthed. The mummy itself was in an excellent state of preservation in a tomb that had escaped the grave robbers that through the millennia have looted so many burial chambers, perhaps because of the curse that had been carved into the door of the main chamber. It was so chilling that it is etched in my memory so indelibly that I can recite it exactly: 'The priest of Hathor will punish any of you who enters this sacred tomb or does harm to it. The gods will confront him because I am honoured by his Lord. Anyone who desecrates my tomb will drown, burn, be beaten, and be destroyed by the crocodile, hippopotamus, and lion. The scorpion and the cobra will strike him. Stones will crush the trespasser.'"
"Ah, at last," Holmes exclaimed "Now, we're getting somewhere. You have associated the stones of the curse with your unfortunate encounter with the falling tile."
"I am not a superstitious man, but my injury, occurring after some peculiar and tragic events since the conclusion of the Porter-Broadmoor expedition, has caused me to wonder if there might be something to this curse business."
"Your story becomes even more compelling," said Holmes. "What were these peculiar events, as you so colourfully put it?"
"The first was the collapse of a tunnel at the tomb site. No one was injured or killed at that time, but we had to work very rapidly to shore up the walls in order to extricate the diggers."
"The next incident?"
"One of the ships carrying several larger artefacts from the dig to England was lost in a Mediterranean storm. Again, there was no loss of life or injury, but the artefacts are now lying at a depth that leaves them unrecoverable."
"When did someone die?"
McAndrew smiled appreciatively. "I can see that Dr. Watson in his writings has not exaggerated your facility at deduction, Mr. Holmes. Several weeks ago, an expert in Egyptian hieroglyphics who translated the curse, Anthony Fulmer, was killed in a train wreck in Kent."
Recalling reading in the newspapers that several persons had died, I muttered, "A terrible accident, indeed."
"What happened next?" asked Holmes.
"Last week Felix Broadmoor was waylaid in the night by a robber on a street near his home in Cambridge. He was so badly beaten that he died without recovering. The police have attributed the incident to a gang of toughs who have been plaguing the area. As far as I know, there have been no arrests."
"How many individuals participated in the expedition?"
"Including diggers, carters, and others that we hired from the local population, there were about two hundred. Those who came out from England were Lord Porter, as financial backer; his nephew Basil; an exceptional Egyptologist from the BM named Geoffrey Desmond, who is still in Cairo; Mr. Broadmoor; and Mr. Fulmer."
"Six men," I said, "two of whom are dead and yourself injured. If one were inclined to believe in the occult, your mummy's curse would seem to have taken quite a toll."
With a sigh, McAndrew replied, "I'm certain all of this is pure coincidence, but