“And how did they get there?” the director asked crossly.

Jerry shook his head blankly. “Don’t ask me.”

“Perhaps we could now go and see where this collection is kept?” Saleh said, civil but manifestly impatient.

“Sure,” Jerry said, “you bet, good idea.” He unfolded his skinny frame from behind the desk. “Right this way.”

He took them across a path to the modest but roomy structure known as the annex. It had been constructed by Lambert as his museum, but it had been decades since it had served as anything but a workspace and a repository for bones and artifacts.

As they entered Jerry grasped TJ’s wrist and spoke in a whisper. “Where is this stuff, exactly?”

She laughed. “Are you serious? You don’t know where the el-Fuqani material is? You’re supposed to be the registrar.”

“Listen, I’m lucky I know what it is.”

“Back of the storeroom off Workroom A,” she told him.

As they crossed the workroom with its pottery fragments in open trays and its containers of glue and preservatives, Saleh sniffed the air appraisingly. “I smell… what is it?”

Gabra knit his brow. “Pizza?”

“Must be the glue,” Jerry said, straight-faced. He led them confidently through the storeroom to a floor-to-ceiling set of open metal racks on the end of which was taped a flyblown, typewritten placard: “El-Fuqani, 1921-23, C. Lambert.” The three-shelf racks were loaded with heavy cardboard boxes stacked two high. Jerry moved down the racks, forefinger extended, scanning the numbers on the front of the boxes. A few stacks in, he stopped.

“Here we go, 4360.”

He pulled out the box, set it on an empty rack, and, with a flourish, swept off the lid.