Haddon turned to look sourly at him. “Something amuses you?”
Jerry raised his hands apologetically, one of them holding the pipe. “Sorry, Dr. Haddon, no offense. Something just struck me funny.” He shrugged amiably, grinned at Haddon, and stuck the pipe back in his mouth.
Dr. Haddon’s retort was interrupted by the appearance in the arched doorway of a wiry, dark-skinned man in turban and long, loose dirt-stained galabiya, who appeared to be in a state of mild, pleasurable excitement. This was in itself an extraordinary occurrence. It was one of Dr. Haddon’s rules that outside workers were not to enter the living quarters.
“What the devil-” he began.
“Moomy,” the man announced, and was silent.
“Moomy,” Dr. Haddon echoed after a moment. “What the devil is moomy?”
“Moomy,” the man said again. “In back.”
Dr. Haddon had no choice but to ask for help from Tiffany, the only one among them who knew more Arabic than was required to issue an instruction or hold a rudimentary conversation. She asked a brief question. The man replied volubly.
“He says he found a mummy while he was cleaning up,” Tiffany explained.
“A mummy?” Dr. Haddon exclaimed incredulously. “Here on the grounds? Impossible.”
Tiffany asked several more questions and received lengthy answers. “Apparently what he’s found is a skeleton, or at least some bones. He thinks they’re human.”
Dr. Haddon waved the idea away. “Absurd. Where?”
“In the old storage area behind the laundry.”
“The-what in heavens was he doing in there?” Dr. Haddon glowered at the man. “You! What were you doing in there?”
The man grinned and nodded. “Moomy, yes. No problem.”
“He said they were following your instructions, cleaning everything up for the moving pictures,” Tiffany said.
“Yes, of course, but I didn’t mean the old storage area, for God’s sake. Does he think they want to-oh, what difference does it make?” Haddon rubbed wearily at his eyes. “Go and see what he’s talking about, Tiffany. Nobody’s been back there for ages. It’s probably what’s left of some dog that got in.”