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‘More than you can from some modern bodies.’
    â€˜I don’t see how that’s possible, doctor.’ Crosby was at his most mulish. As far as the police constable was concerned, being in the pathologist’s office was better than being in the actual mortuary – but only just. ‘Our doctor doesn’t even know what’s wrong with my granny’s stomach and she’s still around.’
    â€˜Ah, that’s because mummies are dead before they’re examined,’ said the pathologist by way of professional solidarity. ‘Easier to get at the evidence so to speak. The abdomen in the living is terra incognita. In the dead it’s terra firma.’
    The constable looked unconvinced.
    â€˜But,’ continued Dabbe, ‘it’s only in theory, gentlemen, that you can tell a lot about mummies…’
    â€˜In theory, doctor?’ Sloan hastened into speech before Crosby’s grandmother’s illness could come back into the exchange.
    â€˜In theory,’ repeated the pathologist firmly. ‘And that’s only if we were to open up that mummy over at the museum and I was to examine the remains for you.’
    â€˜I rather think that is exactly what the coroner has in mind, doctor,’ murmured Sloan; although he was actually still unsure about this. Finding out was very high on his agenda.
    â€˜Which, Sloan,’ said Dr Dabbe amiably, ‘is only because our Mr Locombe-Stableford does not as yet understand the risks involved.’
    â€˜Risks?’ Detective Constable Crosby’s head came up sharply as he showed real interest for the first time. ‘Danger, you mean?’
    The pathologist smiled gently. ‘Precisely, Constable. Danger.’
    â€˜Who to?’ asked Crosby immediately.
    â€˜You and me,’ said the pathologist.
    Crosby clearly didn’t like the sound of that.
    â€˜And, of course,’ added Dabbe largely, waving a hand around, ‘to anyone else who might happen to be around when the mummy is unwrapped.’
    Crosby liked the sound of this even less. ‘But, doctor…’
    â€˜Without my taking a great many additional precautions, that is,’ carried on Dr Dabbe. ‘Such as those I’ve just had to apply to my last post-mortem examination.’
    â€˜What sort of danger?’ enquired the constable curiously.
    â€˜From spiders that come in with banana boxes?’ suggested Detective Inspector Sloan. A local supermarket had once seen fit to send for him urgently for one such on the pedantic grounds that it was a suspected illegal immigrant. That, in Sloan’s book, hadn’t been real police work.
    â€˜Disease,’ said Dr Dabbe.
    â€˜You mean disease in the dead can harm us?’ asked Crosby.
    â€˜It’s called contagion and mummies can carry old diseases,’ said Dabbe. He pointed in the direction of the door of the mortuary. ‘And so, incidentally, can new bodies.’
    Detective Constable Crosby looked unhappy.
    â€˜My last case, on the other hand,’ went on the pathologist, unusually expansive, ‘was a new body with a new disease and I still had to take plenty of preventative measures.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan nodded his comprehension of this coded message. ‘Aids?’
    â€˜In my opinion, yes. Mind you, one mustn’t be judgemental…’
    â€˜No, doctor.’ The fine difference between crime and sin was dinned early on into every new recruit to the police force.
    â€˜And I, Inspector, was taught that the true pathologist should only be concerned with white and yellow fibrous tissue not moral fibre.’
    â€˜Yes, doctor.’ It was when crime and sin overlapped that the policing became really difficult.
    â€˜Mind you, Sloan,’ the doctor said, tongue in cheek, ‘it’s the yellow tissue that’s elastic.’
    Detective Inspector Sloan would have been the first to agree that moral fibre was