Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie Page B

it...
    Nofret lay with her face upturned, her body broken and twisted. Her eyes were open and sightless...
    Renisenb bent and touched the cold stiff cheek, then stood up again looking down on her. She hardly heard Satipy come up behind her.
    “She must have fallen,” Satipy was saying. “She has fallen. She was walking along the cliff path and she fell...”
    Yes, Renisenb thought, that was what had happened. Nofret had fallen from the path above, her body bouncing off the limestone rocks.
    “She may have seen a snake,” said Satipy, “and been startled. There are snakes asleep in the sun on that path sometimes.”
    Snakes. Yes, snakes. Sobek and the snake. A snake, its back broken, lying dead in the sun. Sobek, his eyes gleaming...
    She thought: “Sobek... Nofret...”
    Then sudden relief came to her as she heard Hori's voice.
    “What has happened?”
    She turned with relief. Hori and Yahmose had come up together. Satipy was explaining eagerly that Nofret must have fallen from the path above.
    Yahmose said, “She must have come up to find us, but Hori and I have been out to look at the irrigation canals. We have been away at least an hour. As we came back we saw you standing here.”
    Renisenb said, and her voice surprised her, it sounded so different: “Where is Sobek?”
    She felt rather than saw Hori's immediate sharp turn of the head at the question. Yahmose sounded merely puzzled as he said:
    “Sobek? I have not seen him all the afternoon. Not since he left us so angrily in the house.”
    But Hori was looking at Renisenb. She raised her eyes and met his. She saw him turn from their gaze and look down thoughtfully at Nofret's body and she knew with absolute certainty exactly what he was thinking.
    He murmured questioningly:
    “Sobek?”
    “Oh, no,” Renisenb heard herself saying. “Oh, no... Oh, no...”
    Satipy said again urgently: “She fell from the path. It is narrow just above here - and dangerous...”
    Dangerous? What was it Hori had told her once? A tale of Sobek as a child attacking Yahmose, and of her dead mother prising them apart and saying, “You must not do that, Sobek. It is dangerous...”
    Sobek liked killing. “What I do, I shall enjoy doing.”
    Sobek killing a snake...
    Sobek meeting Nofret on that narrow path...
    She heard herself murmuring brokenly:
    “We don't know - we don't know...”
    And then, with infinite relief, with the sense of a burden taken away, she heard Hori's grave voice giving weight and value to Satipy's asseveration.
    “She must have fallen from the path...”
    His eyes met Renisenb's. She thought: “He and I know... We shall always know...”
    Aloud she heard her voice saying shakily:
    “She fell from the path...”
    And like a final echo, Yahmose's gentle voice chimed in:
    “She must have fallen from the path.”

Death Comes as the End

Chapter 10
    FOURTH MONTH OF WINTER, 6TH DAY
    Imhotep sat facing Esa.
    “They all tell the same story,” he said fretfully.
    “That is at least convenient,” said Esa.
    “Convenient - convenient? What extraordinary words you use!”
    Esa gave a short cackle.
    “I know what I am saying, my son.”
    “Are they speaking the truth, that is what I have to decide!” Imhotep spoke portentously.
    “You are hardly the goddess Maat. Nor, like Anubis, can you weigh the heart in a balance!”
    “Was it an accident?” Imhotep shook his head judicially. “I have to remember that the announcement of my intentions towards my ungrateful family may have aroused some passionate feelings.”
    “Yes, indeed,” said Esa. “Feelings were aroused. They shouted so in the main hall that I could hear what was said in my room here. By the way, were those really your intentions?”
    Imhotep shifted uneasily as he murmured:
    “I wrote in anger - in justifiable anger. My family needed teaching a sharp lesson.”
    “In other words,” said Esa, “you were merely giving them a fright. Is that it?”
    “My dear mother, does that matter