The Locked Tomb Mystery: and Other Stories

The Locked Tomb Mystery

and Other Stories

Elizabeth Peters

Contents

Preface

Introduction by Daniel Stashower

The Vengeance of Sekhmet

Introduction by Tasha Alexander

Liz Peters, PI

Introduction: Elizabeth Peters & Egyptology by Salima Ikram

The Locked Tomb Mystery

Introduction by Juliet Blackwell

The Runaway

About the Author

PREFACE

Across Worlds and Times: Barbara Mertz, Elizabeth Peters, Barbara Michaels

Elizabeth Peters, aka Barbara Mertz, aka Barbara Michaels, was a mystery writer, Egyptologist, mother, daughter, organizer of mystery conventions, feminist, cat-lover, avid reader, and more. As Barbara Mertz, she earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1952, at the age of 24, but in that era she was not encouraged by her professors to pursue an academic career. Instead, she went on to focus on raising her children and writing novels. Her early mysteries, written under the name of Barbara Michaels, started as Gothic novels and moved on to include paranormal elements. Later on, she also wrote using the name of Elizabeth Peters, developing her signal mysteries with historical and archaeological themes and featuring strong, independent female protagonists. Under her own name, she authored very popular nonfiction histories of ancient Egypt.

This re-issued version of The Locked Tomb and Other Stories from Mysterious Press gives us a tantalizing sampler of the worlds and times across which Barbara delighted to move in her writings. It contains a new short story, discovered after her death and published in 2021 in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. It also includes new introductions for each of the short stories from writers whose expertise ranges from Egyptology to Sherlock Holmes, historical fiction to paranormal mysteries. But one thing they all have in common with each other, and with Barbara, is that they are all book lovers. Barbara often stressed how much her development as a writer grew from her love of books and reading. That love began early, when her father introduced her to science fiction and her mother to romantic suspense novels. The novels of L.M. Montgomery and trips to the Oriental Institute with her formidable Aunt Ida all played a role in Barbara’s eventual fiction-writing as Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels. Early years on a farm in southern Illinois left her with a life-long appreciation for libraries, after living in a place where she couldn’t access one—and with a deep respect for the crucial role librarians play in making books available to everyone. Through books, a young girl with limited resources could travel anywhere, imagine everything.

Barbara, who loved transporting across time to immerse herself in ancient archaeological sites but also across the worlds created in the books she loved to read (and write), had deep sympathy with anyone carried away by imagination. She especially valued a touch of humor in those travels across time and place, an appreciation that shines out in most of her writing. While she considered herself primarily a novelist, in her short stories we get a distilled sampling of how far her imagination reached. What would the typical tough PI look (and sound) like if partially transformed into an Elizabeth Peters heroine? Liz Peters, PI offers a gently humorous send-up of a classic mystery genre from a differently gendered point of view. How would an ancient Egyptian detective approach a locked tomb mystery? Our answer is voiced by the Barbara Mertz who rendered daily culture in ancient Egypt familiar and approachable in her non-fiction classic Red Land, Black Land. On a very different note, for the edification of readers who enjoy a blend of gothic, ghost, and horror themes (familiar from classics such as Turn of the Screw), Barbara Michaels provided books in which family scars and hard-to-face psychological truths packed a powerful paranormal punch. The Runaway moves us just a few steps into that haunted and haunting terrain. The collection concludes with Mertz/Peters/Michaels’ most beloved characters: Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson, as they make their nod to Sherlock Holmes in The Vengeance of Sekhmet.

To help us interpret these stories, we are fortunate to have introductions from four wonderful commentators: three accomplished authors, and a distinguished scholar. Tasha Alexander (whose Lady Emily has much in common with Amelia) explains the gender dilemmas facing women mystery writers from early on. Like a number of other leading women authors of today, Alexander was inspired by Barbara’s writings. Salima Ikram, a dear friend of Barbara’s and a distinguished Egyptologist, shares her own perspectives both as an expert on ancient Egypt—and as a member of Barbara’s inner circle during Egyptian adventures. Juliet Blackwell, an anthropologist as well as a bestselling author of paranormal novels, uncovers connections between ghosts in mystery novels and deeply buried psychological secrets—connections she first made when encountering Barbara’s book Ammie Come Home. Dan Stashower, author of two award-winning biographical works on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, completes the set with his spirited invitation to join Amelia and Emerson in Barbara’s affection bow to Sherlock.

Introduction

Daniel Stashower

Elizabeth Peters was no stranger to Baker Street. Her longtime readers, myself included, will happily recall that The Curse of the Pharaohs, the second Amelia Peabody book, featured the death of a character with a decidedly familiar name: Sir Henry Baskerville. I came here to excavate, Radcliffe Emerson tells Amelia on that occasion, not to play Sherlock Holmes. Needless to say, they wound up playing Sherlock Holmes in any case, to great effect.

The Amelia Peabody books are filled with affectionate nods to the Great Detective, but I confess to a sneaking preference for her novel Other Worlds, written as Barbara Michaels. It finds Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself probing the origins of a pair of ghosts stories, assisted by a team of psychic researchers—including Harry Houdini. This is worse than escaping from a sealed coffin, the escape artist says of his paranormal inquiries. Over the years the true facts have become so encrusted with layers of exaggeration, misinterpretation, false memories and plain out-and-out lies that the result sounds like one of Sir Arthur’s wilder fictions.

It should come as no surprise, then, to find Elizabeth Peters once again climbing the seventeen steps to Baker Street in The Vengeance of Sekhmet, a story that Conan Doyle himself might have described as a real creeper. She signals her intentions early as Amelia prepares a whiskey-and-soda by reaching for a gasogene, a device that features prominently in the sitting room at 221B Baker Street. (It is, of course, a trifle, as Sherlock Holmes once observed, but there is nothing so important as trifles.) From there, the story takes a delightfully sinister cue from one of Sir Arthur’s wilder fictions.

I had the honor to call Elizabeth Peters a friend for twenty-five years, and in that time we discussed the work of Conan Doyle many times. She had read and enjoyed a great deal of Doyle’s non-Sherlockian work and had much to say about the stories with an Egyptian theme, such as The Tragedy of the Korosko. You can tell that he’d actually been there, she said. It makes all the difference. When pressed to name a favorite tale, though, she returned to the unfortunate Sir Henry and took delight in quoting a well-loved passage from The Hound of the Baskervilles:

Footprints?

Footprints.

A man’s or a woman’s?

Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered:—

Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

What a pleasure to find this famous scene echoed in The Vengeance of Sekhmet, anchored firmly in the world of Elizabeth Peters, and reimagined with her inimitable style and wit. Come, reader, come! The game is afoot!

Daniel Stashower is a New York Times–bestselling author and a three-time winner of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. His nonfiction books include The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War and Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle.

THE VENGEANCE OF SEKHMET

It is wonderful to be back in Luxor again," the old man said softly, gazing through the open windows