Harun stood with his back to me—an act of rudeness I found hard to understand until I realized he was hunched over, his arms wrapped round what was either a disastrously enlarged stomach or an object of some size.

“Caught in the act,” said Emerson, grinning. “Put it on the table, Harun. You cannot elude the Sitt Hakim or the Father of Curses.”

“Or the Brother of Demons,” Ramses added ominously.

Harun let out a heartrending groan. “I know that. But I have done nothing wrong. He will tell you; he comes every day to see her. She is his. He found her, and he has fallen in love with her.”

“Good gracious,” I said. “Is it Herr Morgenstern of whom you speak?”

Harun nodded vigorously. “I did not say his name. I gave him my word I would not say it.”

“You have kept your word,” Emerson said impatiently. “Now let us see it.”

Everyone knows it now. It has become a symbol of Egypt, an icon. But that first sight literally took my breath away. I had never seen anything to equal it. The exquisite face, tinted in the colors of life, the long slender throat and proudly lifted chin, and the tall blue crown that was hers alone.

“Nefertiti,” I said in a long breath. “How lovely she is, how serene, how regal.”

Ramses took it from Harun’s arms and set it on the table. “Indeed. Her name translates as ‘a beautiful woman has come.’ That is an understatement. Thutmose must have been a highly talented sculptor to produce a work of this precision.”

“So this is what Morgenstern found before he deserted his excavation and went dashing off to Cairo,” Emerson muttered. “What is it doing here, Harun?”

“It is his. He brought it—”

“It is not his,” Emerson said. “Not unless the Service des Antiquités awards it to him at the final division. Answer my question, Harun. Why did Morgenstern bring it to you?”

Harun was very proud of his long white beard. It extended almost to his waist. I presume he combed and washed it periodically, but hair of that length does tend to collect debris, and Harun’s was an untidy profession. He brushed at it as he glanced upward for help from Allah.

“Never mind,” Emerson went on. “The answer is obvious. You are the one my wife likes to call the Master Forger, the most skilled maker of fakes in Cairo. Morgenstern asked you to make him a copy. Who else asked you to do so?”

“No one, Father of Curses. No one.”