The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart, page 18
“There you are, Brograve. Anna can drive them.”
“Drive who?”
“Mr. Merton and Sir Sherlock. Oh, and Dr. Watson and Mrs. Roberts, too, I suppose.”
“What about us?” the baronet asked, looking slighted.
“We can take the train, just as we’d planned. We’re in no hurry.”
That silenced the baronet, though I think he would rather have gone in the car.
And so it was decided, although I would have been happier on the train myself. The luggage was still going that way. I preferred to keep an eye on it.
It was ten hours by train to Cairo. Anna vowed to do it in seven, even though the baronet’s last words to her were “Don’t get the idea you’re in a race, dear.”
Just as we were about to disperse to our rooms, another knock came on the door. Mr. Merton opened it to Sir Archibald, the radiologist. He came straight to the point. “I’ve heard you’re driving to Cairo. May I tag along?”
Thus we had a full complement. The Bugatti was a lovely blue, blessedly a four-seater. That meant I was wedged in the back between Dr. Watson and Sir Sherlock, but it also meant Sir Archibald and Mr. Merton were wedged into the front passenger seat, and they were neither of them petite fellows.
There was really only one drawback to the Bugatti—rather a fatal drawback for driving in the desert, as became evident in short order—no side windows. There were some yellowed sheets of cellophane hung as curtains, but these were a far from ideal stopgap. Which meant dust. Not a little dust: the dust was absurd, as if the clouds (there were no clouds) had opened up and, instead of sending cool, blessed rain, sent torrents of sand down on our heads, filling up sand rivers that flooded their banks, inundating the auto with sand. The men sitting next to the windows got the worst of it, turning into living sandcastles before my eyes. I daresay they are still finding sand in their pockets and their shoes.
We were lucky, according to Mr. Merton. In a few weeks the khamsin would begin, a desert wind so furious that it made driving impossible. I finally resorted to those silly sunglasses Dr. Watson wore everywhere. Anna, of course, had had the foresight to procure a pair of goggles and a flat cap from somewhere. Sir Sherlock looked uncomfortable, having wrapped a scarf over his mouth. I began to miss our slow, plodding dahabeah. Also, Dr. Watson snored like a band saw the entire trip.
“I suppose you’ll have to board the early train tomorrow for the return trip to Luxor. I would have assumed the Times could allot two men to cover the land of the Nile,” said Sir Sherlock.
“I won’t let another chap elbow in on my turf. Besides, I may not be going back. Carter is threatening to shut down the entire enterprise,” answered Merton.
“What are you talking about? It looks as if he’s still loads to do,” I objected.
“Oh, several years’ worth, at a conservative estimate. Someone will have to do it. But not Carter. You haven’t heard the rumors?” asked Mr. Merton.
“We’ve observed Carter in a very ill humor,” said Sir Sherlock.
“He always is, but now he hasn’t got Lord Carnarvon to intercede for him with the Egyptians. The new administration wants to horn in on the excavation. Well, they’ve always wanted their share of the glory. Carter’s not having a bit of it.”
“But don’t the Egyptians own it? I mean, it’s their land, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Lord Carnarvon paid for the concession. Lady Almina renewed it. That gives Carter certain rights. But there’s never been a find like this before. Lacau wants to throw out the rule book. The latest contretemps is on behalf of the ladies.”
“The ladies? I don’t understand.” I felt myself sinking deep into the morass of politics.
“Carter had scheduled a tour for the wives of the staff to see the boy king in the flesh. Extravaganza. Lacau forbad it. It’s made Carter furious. Straw that broke the camel’s back and all that sort of thing.”
“Carter can’t see his way to a compromise?” wheezed Sir Archibald, who was suffering from the dust.
“Compromise is anathema to Carter, I suspect,” said Sir Sherlock.
“True enough. He’s spoiling for a fight. If Egypt rises up, Britain will bring the hammer down. Then Carter could have anything his heart desires,” said Merton.
“Would the Egyptians stand for it? Aren’t they supposed to be independent?” I asked, perhaps naively.
“In name only. Allenby’s got them on a short leash,” said Mr. Merton.
“‘Lacau’ doesn’t sound like an Egyptian name,” I said.
Sir Archibald cleared his throat portentously and turned toward me. “Pierre Lacau, French. A Jesuit, or at least trained as one. You know how some of those priests operate sub rosa. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s working on instructions from Ratti.”
“Ratti?” I echoed. This triggered a coughing fit in the man so loud that Dr. Watson shifted in his sleep. When Sir Archibald recovered, he explained.
“Pius XI. You know it’s his ambition to make a state of the Vatican.”
I didn’t know anything about the Catholic Church or the Jesuits. “But why would they take an interest in Tutankhamun?” I persisted.
“To create unrest in Egypt. Ratti wants to spread his voodoo into Africa. Always easier to spread the faith during a time of crisis.”
I had heard that exposure to radiation was dangerous. I was beginning to wonder if it had gotten to Sir Archibald.
Dr. Watson spoke up for the first time. “Murray!”
“Excuse me, Doctor?” I said.
The doctor only repeated, more emphatically this time, “Murray!”
Then I realized, “Why, he’s still asleep!”
“Yes,” Sir Sherlock said parenthetically. “Watson always had a habit of talking in his sleep.”
“Who in the wide world is Murray?” questioned Merton.
“His orderly from his days in Afghanistan. Saved him from certain death, so he tells it. He’s saved him a hundred times over in his dreams, I suppose.”
“Strange, isn’t it, how our dreams always draw us back to those near-death experiences,” mused Merton.
“It isn’t strange at all,” I replied.
“You really believe you can talk to the dead? It’s rather macabre,” stated Sir Archibald.
“They’re not dead, simply passed over. Do you really believe you can see a person’s insides?” I asked.
“It’s science!” he sputtered.
“Fifty years ago, it would have been called black magic. Do you know what Röntgen’s wife said when she saw the first radiographic picture he took, of her hand? ‘I have seen my death.’”
His eyes slid away from me and fastened on Sir Sherlock, as if he were my sponsor.
“Oh, did you take her for a dullard?” Sir Sherlock asked him with a wry smile.
We were by this time in the heart of the desert, in a haze of dust. And yet out of nowhere, tall green reeds sprang up on our lefthand side. I wondered whether we were passing an oasis when, lo and behold, a giant ship rose up in the middle of the desert, gliding along as if that genie of the sands had it in tow.
“The Suez Canal. Nothing strange or macabre.” Sir Archibald must have been reading my mind. Why was he still turned around staring at me?
“Of course not. Still, it is wonderful.”
“More wonderful than the pyramids?” he asked, trying to spark a quarrel.
“Engineering and manpower, in both cases,” I answered mildly.
“You don’t think magic was involved in the raising of the pyramids?”
“I don’t believe in magic.”
Which promptly shut down that conversation. He stared at me a bit longer, then finally turned back, coughing.
It was nearly seven hours to Cairo, by which time the blue Bugatti was the color of sand. The noise of the city broke in on the silence we had fallen into. The odors of the city came out to greet us. The smells of jasmine and anemone lingered longest in the air, along with the dank onion smell of sweat from twenty million unbathed. I was ready for London and the smell of my daughters’ hair and the baby’s nappies. Or at least the smell of a solid English meal.
Chapter Thirteen: Dr. John Watson
Lady Evelyn had refused to stay at the Savoy-Continental, where her father had died. But Holmes and I had no such scruples. He wanted to see the scene of the death (which the reader will remember I had suggested before) and perhaps unearth a few witnesses, so he and I decided to spend our last night in Egypt there.“
Whatever I say, simply stare and gawk.” Holmes strode up to the desk and started speaking, for some reason, in an American accent. “We’ve just been to see King Tut. Marvelous! You seen King Tut?”
“Tutankhamun? No, sir, I have not had that good fortune,” answered the clerk, as if by rote. He was brown enough to be a native, with curly black hair, but he spoke English with a pure French accent.
“Well, you need to go. ’Course, this is where he died, wasn’t it? Sir Carnival? Right here at this very hotel.”
“Lord Carnarvon. Yes, sir, very tragic.”
“Hell, you musta seen a lot of famous people. Just come to court His Lordship.”
“Yes, indeed, sir,” he replied, drawing himself up with pride.
“Like who?”
“Well, one doesn’t like to say—”
“They all stay at the Mena House?”
“The queen of Belgium stayed here,” the clerk answered defensively.
“Say, didn’t that wild lady that killed her husband stay here? What’s her name, Mrs. Fanny.”
“Fahmy? That incident did not occur here. That was at the Savoy in London.”
“No murders here, huh? Well, don’t feel bad.” Holmes leaned over the counter. “I hear she’s a looker up close,” he said with a wink.
“She did visit His Lordship once,” the clerk admitted. “Very well made-up.”
“Alone? Her husband know about that?”
“He visited the next day.”
“The husband, you mean?”
The clerk nodded discreetly.
“Oh, Lord, the shit musta hit the fan.”
“I believe there were words spoken. With a wife like that, what can one expect?”
“You got that right. They said George Jay Gould visited King Tut. He ever stay here? You know, the American millionaire? Trains. I’d like to have his walkin’-around money.”
“He did visit Lord Carnarvon. As a matter of fact, the day before Madame Fahmy.”
“I bet his wife didn’t visit. Not on her own.”
“No, sir, I don’t believe she did.”
“American girls don’t play around.”
“How very unfortunate.”
“Eh?”
“The boy will show you to your rooms. Enjoy your stay, messieurs,” the clerk dismissed us diplomatically.
As we crowded into the elevator, Holmes asked, “What room did Lord Carnarvon stay in?”
“Suite four hundred, I believe it was, sir,” reported the bellhop.
“Oh, a suite. Well, make sure my razor’s sharp. I don’t want to kill myself like he did.”
The lift operator spoke up. “It wasn’t shaving that he cut himself.”
“Hush!” warned the bellhop.
The lift operator made a hissing noise and swiped at his face with his hand shaped like a claw.
“Oh, really? But wasn’t no cat, I’ll wager. Maybe a French wildcat,” drawled Holmes.
Both attendants laughed at this.
“You are a man of the world,” said the bellhop, grinning from ear to ear.
I had to ask. “You fellows don’t believe all this nonsense about a curse, do you?”
Their faces drained of color. Finally, the lift operator answered, “Oh, yes. The lights went out all over Cairo the moment His Lordship died.”
“The curse, it is real,” the bellhop nodded.
At least they didn’t blame the ten plagues of Egypt on the curse. Then again, I didn’t ask them.
As soon as I had unpacked, I was knocking on Holmes’s door. I could hear him speaking within, in a loud voice. He had never come to trust the telephone to convey his voice adequately and still preferred to communicate by wire. Thus I heard quite distinctly that Merton’s interview with the infamous widow was scheduled for midnight—a strange time, I thought, as did Holmes himself. So much for getting here as fast as we could. The widow was obviously a night owl. So our race to get up here had been unnecessary. I was still finding sand in my pockets.
When I entered, I found Holmes at an odd endeavor. He had half a dozen bottles lined up before him, hotel amenities: scents, soaps, shaving necessities. He was sniffing them each in turn, which was strange, since Holmes normally avoided such emollients like the plague. “Plague” was what he called them, in fact, since they tended to interfere with his highly developed olfactory sense.
“Ah, Watson, just in time! Smell these,” he commanded without explanation.
Since I was inured to his quirks, I did as he bade. I’ve had less pleasant chores. They were a bit more powerful than my tastes, however, the last one being so potent that I drew back and sneezed.
“Gesundheit, Watson. So you would say that one was the most overpowering?”
“Without a doubt,” I replied, drawing my handkerchief and finding relief in it. “What is that?”
“Aftershave.”
“I’ll stay with Truefitt.” I tucked my kerchief away. “Shall we inspect suite four hundred?”
“I’ve seen all of it that interests me. I’m ready for a long, leisurely dinner. I’ve hours to fill until I’m admitted into the august presence of the princess.”
He would not speak another word about the case, which was equally frustrating and refreshing. We had the pleasantest meal of our entire trip and drank endless cups of coffee to keep ourselves awake until midnight.
And that was how Sherlock Holmes came to interrogate the murderess—not that I was allowed to be present. Merton didn’t want her distressed by a whole crowd of people. Indeed, he would not allow Holmes to speak, presenting him as only a stenographer there to record the interview. But he took down Holmes’s questions and promised to include them. Holmes wanted to be there to gauge her reactions. He could tell more from a raised eyebrow or a pursed lip than Scotland Yard could tell from a bloody dagger and a full confession.
Thus, when he joined me again, along about one in the morning, he was extraordinarily closemouthed. He only told me that I could read it in the paper the next day and that she was quite an accomplished liar.
We were at the breakfast table the next morning when Merton dropped down upon us with that day’s Times. He threw it on the table.
Front-page news: “Master Sleuth Sherlock Holmes Grills Princess Marguerite.” There was a picture of her at her most vixenish, and below it a picture of Holmes that had to be from thirty years ago. I scanned it, along with Mrs. Roberts and Miss van V. They had come over from Shepheard’s, promising that the Beauchamps would meet up with us later. Miss van V. was about to leave us to return to Monaco, but the two ladies had become thick as thieves. They crowded in on either side of me to read.
Can you tell our readers why you have returned to Cairo?
This was where I met my husband. It is where I was happiest.
It’s not to claim the 2.5 million dollars he left?
The money means nothing to me. But who should rightfully have it if not his wife?
His murderess.
I only shot him in self-defense, as the court proved. He was enraged.
You shot him in the back. Three times. He could not have been attacking you.
He turned as I pulled the trigger. I was afraid for my life.
When you were here last, you visited King Tut’s Tomb?
Ah, oui. Tutankhamun. Magnifique.
You must have met Lord Carnarvon then.
Who is this Lord Carnarvon? I do not know him.
Did you not visit Lord Carnarvon in his room, in this very hotel?
Oh. Lord Carnarvon. One meets so many English lords in Cairo.
You visited him alone.
What is that? More of your English prudery? We talked. About the pharaohs. He was most knowledgeable.
What else did you discuss with His Lordship?
Only the treasure. Tres desirable.
A very desirable treasure. Did you desire anything in par-ticular?
No. My husband was quite a generous man. I wanted for nothing.
I understand there were sharp words spoken. That you even scratched him.
No! Perhaps a little. He might have become too familiar. Eng
lishmen are like that.
Did you tell your husband?
No! I did not wish to make him jealous.
Was he prone to jealousy? Is that why you shot him?
No. What we had was beautiful. Anyone would kill for it.
Then he sold it.
“Sold it? What’s she talking about?” I wondered aloud.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday! She’s just come through the door,” Merton whispered urgently.
Indeed, there she was, framed in the doorway. With her smoky eyes and Clara Bow lips, she was perilous as a princess and just as imperious. She was, of course, with a male escort. The odd thing was that I recognized the escort. Her eyes studied the room. They settled on us, and her eyelids seemed to snap down like the guillotine. She advanced on our table. Her escort followed a pace behind. Her escort was Sir Archibald Douglas-Reid. His coughing broke the silence.
“Monsieur Holmes?”
“Bonjour, Madame.”
“Monsieur Sherlock Holmes?”
“Oui, Madame?”
“Last night you did conceal from me that you are the Sherlock Holmes, the famous English detective. Last night you are only the silent stenographer.”
“I was introduced to you as Mr. Holmes. I cannot be held accountable for any assumptions you may have made.”
“You did not interview me. He did.” She pointed at Merton, who reacted as if singed.
“No, I am not such an accommodating interviewer. Dr. Watson here can tell you that I do not tolerate liars.”
I was fortunately not called upon to second Holmes in this. Although his words were the unmitigated truth, I was reluctant to cross a trigger-happy Frenchwoman.
