Out at their digging site, Amelia is disturbed to recognise one of the workers that has been hired – she is convinced that she saw him in the antiquities shop and that he is involved somehow. When she and Emerson do return, they find the shop proprietor hanged. She manages to get the antiquities dealer to co-operate and tell her what is going on if she returns at midnight that night. Amelia is looking for papyri for her brother-in-law Walter and just happens to enter the shop during the time of a suspicious conversation, which she interrupts. However before they can even arrive at their site, Amelia and Ramses visit an antiquities dealer in Cairo, and become caught up in a scam of illegal antiquities dealing.

Because of his irascible temper, Emerson usually gets on the wrong side of those that give out the digging permits and this unattractive location is clearly destined to bring him down a peg or two. After some deliberation they decide that Ramses is at last old enough to come to Egypt, providing they take along one of their servants, John, to look after him.Įmerson is denied the dig he requests and is instead given the insulting location of Mazghunah, with periods in a state of disrepair and littered mostly with late-period graveyards, not at all Emerson’s expertise or preference. Plans are thwarted when Evelyn falls pregnant again and even Emerson and Amelia can see that it will be impossible for them to leave Ramses behind as he is far too much of a handful for someone in such a delicate condition. Evelyn has just suffered a ‘disappointment’ (miscarriage) and having Ramses comforts her. They plan to return to Egypt and dig at the pyramids of Dahshoor, leaving behind their precocious son Ramses with Emerson’s brother Walter and his wife Evelyn. The Mummy Case is the third novel in the Amelia Peabody series and once again we open with the Emerson’s in England.

The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters