The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart, page 19
“I do not know why you have followed me to Cairo, but let me give you fair warning: stay out of my business.”
She snatched up the article and crumpled it into a small ball. Then she threw it, rather surprisingly, at Mrs. Roberts, who seemed to come out of some deep meditation to register the assault. “Don’t look at me that way!” the princess fairly screamed at her.
Mrs. Roberts shut her eyes as against a gale.
“And as for you”—she turned her blast on Merton—“never again shall I speak to the Times.”
Merton clutched his heart in mock despair.
“Au revoir, Madame,” Holmes said to her, but she had already turned stiffly and stalked away, Sir Archibald trailing behind.
“There is great evil about that woman,” said Mrs. Roberts, opening her eyes.
It seemed an understatement. “After all, she did murder her husband,” I reminded her.
“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “She is wrapped in evil, as though it were a dress she chose. It doesn’t feel a part of her.”
Even Sherlock Holmes seemed at a loss to answer this. Silence fell.
“What was the radiologist doing with her?” I asked at last.
“I wondered about that, too,” said Merton. “You suppose that’s why Sir Archibald was in such a lather about getting up here yesterday?”
“They obviously have a history,” said Holmes. “I hope he does not let her get too close.”
“Perhaps he intends to deliver the baby?” Merton conjectured idly.
“I didn’t get a chance to read all of it,” I complained, retrieving the balled-up article from the floor.
“It’s nothing but more verbal fencing,” Holmes assured me. “Then Merton asked her who made her clothes, which was meant to mollify her. Paul Poiret, by the way.”
“The ladies clamor for those facts,” said Merton in defense.
“You say that the evil does not come from her?” asked Holmes, reflective.
“Perhaps I would say that something draws forth whatever evil is within her. There’s a bit in all of us, I’m afraid, though ofttimes buried deep within. In her case, cupidity drives her,” said Mrs. Roberts, thinking out loud.
“Didn’t have to dig too deeply there,” I opined.
“I think we have not seen the last of the princess,” said Holmes with a deep crease in his brow.
Well, I thought, if she wanted to see me for anything, she’d have to break down my door on Queen Anne Street, for we were going home that very day.
But first we had one more expedition to make that morning: the Cairo Museum. Mrs. Roberts could not be argued out of it. She, at least, had not given up on seeking out elementals. I feared she was due for a disappointment, but at least she was unlikely to run into any cobras there. We linked up with the Beauchamps at Shepheard’s and took a taxi from there.
We were greeted at the museum by Monsieur Pierre Lacau, Egypt’s director of antiquities, a long-faced, white-bearded old Jesuit, whom I gathered was Carter’s bête noire.
“This can’t be everything,” said Mrs. Roberts, looking about the Tut exhibit.
It looked like everything to me. Cups of pure alabaster, chariots of gold, bows and arrows of gold, life-size statues, tiny figurines of Tutankhamun (in every pose), gods, monsters in every size, oars (but no boat), chests, scepters, crowns, wigs, vases, couches, beds, shrines, gold, gold, gold, everywhere, all in rows of gleaming glass cases. If he needed to pack this much for a trip to the underworld, who knew what he’d pack for a week in the country?
It made me pause and wonder whether the descendants of tomb robbers might not be tempted to become museum robbers. Although it looked well guarded, I wondered if the guards were well paid enough to fend off the enormous temptations that must come with the post.
“Certainly not,” said Lacau in answer to Mrs. Roberts’s question. “There’s a great deal of work still to be done on restoration and mounting yet before we can display the entire treasure. And, of course, the main prize still awaits within the tomb—Tutankhamun himself.”
“Oh, no, no more restoration. That won’t do at all. It dulls the emanations. Can’t we see the rest? Surely you can use your influence—” Mrs. Roberts urged.
“No, I’m afraid not. The state is very jealous of the treasure once they get their hands on it. And besides, most of is still bundled up and packed away,” said Lacau.
“And some has gone to other museums, I suppose? The Metropolitan, the British Museum?” suggested Holmes.
“Oh, no, I’ve put a stop to that. Egypt’s patrimony will remain in Egypt,” he said proudly.
“Don’t you have agreements with those institutions?” said Lady Evelyn.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, Miss Herbert, the government has always reserved the rights to any tomb found intact. Just such a tomb is Tutankhamun’s.”
“But the tomb was not intact. It has been broken into, twice, we think, over the centuries,” Lady Evelyn protested.
“We have decided that your proofs are insufficient. The agreement has been voided by the new government. No more of the British making agreements with the British.” Lacau gave an unpleasant laugh. Did he think we would join him in laughing at the British?
I saw Lady Evelyn’s face turn red as though she’d been slapped. But she said nothing to contradict him. She had already known of this turn of events, I realized. Beauchamp had his face hidden in a guidebook. He’d known, too, obviously. What a blow for science.
“Who are these?” Mrs. Roberts asked, screwing up her eyes at two statues as if just discovering them, though they must have been one of the centerpieces of the exhibit.
“Ah, the guardian statues. They were originally placed on either side of the door to the burial chamber,” said Lacau.
They were certainly imposing enough to give any tomb robber pause. Both were life-size, carved of wood and painted black, with gilded headdress, sandals, and kilt, and burning obsidian eyes, ready to smite with their staffs and condemn any intruders to whatever hell the Egyptians believed in.
But Mrs. Roberts persisted. “Yes, but who are they?”
“Why, they’re images of Tutankhamun,” he replied.
She studied them closely, her breath fogging the glass. “No. I don’t think so,” she muttered, and she did that boring-eye thing that was so unnerving to him. “Too aggressive.”
He blinked and turned away. Mrs. Roberts was at a loss. Whether she had hoped to find the revenant of Tutankhamun among the packing crates in the back, it was certain she felt no connection to the polished exhibits on display. Her nerves were strained. I caught the look of concern on Holmes’s face. While there were certainly many other wondrous exhibits and mummies aplenty on view, we would never see them. We were done.
We retreated to a place just off Tahrir Square, where they served real English tea, a much-needed restorer of equanimity all around.
Holmes leaned back, templing his fingers in his lap, and said, “Now, Lady Evelyn, if you’ll tell me about your dealings with Colonel Lawrence, or Airman Ross, or Captain Shaw, as he’s now calling himself.”
I couldn’t decide who was blushing brighter, husband or wife, but the two of them could have lit up a tomb quite comfortably. What the dickens was Holmes talking about?
“I didn’t want to deceive you,” said the lady meekly.
“I most assuredly did not wish to deceive,” added her husband.
Holmes simply waited, his heavy-lidded eyes flashing quicksilver.
“Tom was an old friend of Uncle Aubrey. They were much alike— men of a different age, men of vision, adventurers. Much like yourself.”
Ah, flattery. Holmes’s Achilles’ heel. Well played.
“After the war, he felt betrayed. So many promises he had made to Emir Faisal and his father, which were completely ignored by those now in charge of the fate of Arabia. He felt disgraced.”
“So many promises he was not authorized to make,” said Holmes.
“Perhaps. He tells it differently. At any rate, he was sick to death of the famous Lawrence of Arabia. He’s really an intensely shy person. So he went into hiding, enlisted in the RAF as Airman Ross—”
“That was where I first tumbled to him.”
“Ah! I didn’t realize. Believe me, he only wants to be left alone.”
“Believe me, he’s up to more mischief. He’s already upset the apple cart in Iraq and Syria. Now he’s got his sights set on Palestine and Egypt.”
“He’s gained the trust of the Arabs,” said Lady Evelyn.
“Yes, yes, and lost it twice over. You know that he murdered one of his own men in cold blood? Shot him in the head while two lieutenants held him down.”
“He said he did it to keep a blood feud from splitting his men apart,” Beauchamp protested. “Besides, where did you learn that? It was supposed to be hush-hush.”
“From his own writings. He planned on publishing a book. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, I think he wanted to call it. It was full to bursting with official secrets.”
“But he didn’t publish it,” Lady Evelyn said.
“Not after we lifted the only copy of his manuscript, no. I hear he’s planning to rewrite the whole thing from memory. He cannot take a hint. Now he’s intending to ‘liberate’ Egypt.”
“What makes you so certain?” broke in Beauchamp.
“I know dirt from fungus,” answered Holmes gnomically.
“You certainly haven’t solved the riddle of the so-called curse!” Beauchamp’s temperature was rising.
“It might help if you tell me what you know,” said Holmes placidly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Beauchamp, suddenly turning cagey.
“Perhaps you could assist me by telling me about your dinner with the Fahmys and the Goulds.”
Beauchamp sighed heavily. “So you’re determined to follow this to the end?”
“My friend Watson here can tell you what I’m like once I have the bit between my teeth.”
I nodded emphatically.
Beauchamp seemed to be ruminating, as if he saw things in a new light.
“All right, then, I’ll tell you what I know. It’s not much, and it may be of no help whatever, but you can take it for what it’s worth.”
Holmes gave him an encouraging look.
“Eve and I left early that night. She complained of a headache, but Eve doesn’t get headaches. I think she was embarrassed being seen in public with Marguerite Fahmy.”
Lady Evelyn nodded, pinking.
“Anyway, I got to my room and realized I had left my demmed cigarette case. I went back down for it. They were still there, Herbert, Fahmy, and Gould.
“He showed them something. No, I don’t know what, and not one of them would tell me—Gould said they’d taken a vow of honor, and he made me take a vow not to reveal even that much—but they were mightily impressed with it, whatever it was. That’s all I can tell you. No, not because of the vow I took; I’ve already broken that. But I did hear Herbert say, to both of them, ‘Which would you choose, beauty or power?’
“‘Is this your idea of a game? Or can you grant these things?’ said the prince.
“‘I can,’ replied Herbert . Then they noticed me and fell silent. I excused myself, retrieved my cigarette case, and went up to bed.”
“Perhaps one of the widows could tell me more,” Holmes conjectured.
“The women weren’t present. After dinner, brandy and all that rot,” said Beauchamp.
“So, no one living knows what was said,” I said.
“I realize it’s not much to go on,” said Beauchamp falteringly.
“On the contrary, it clears up one puzzling riddle,” said Holmes.
“What’s that?”
“Why you are not dead.”
Beauchamp’s eyebrows shot up.
That afternoon we said goodbye to Cairo and to the Beauchamps. We took the train to Alexandria to board the ship to Marseille. I was half afraid Mrs. Roberts was expecting to visit the great library of Alexandria, but she merely looked glumly around her at the dreary port town. Most of the ancient city has long since foundered under the sea.
She had not spoken all through the train ride. She was furiously busy catching up on letters home. She had held a long, private conversation with Miss van Vredenburch before they parted. It seemed a strange pairing of friends, but no stranger than mine with Holmes, I suppose. They both liked doing things that were ordinarily the province of men, and we both liked sticking our noses into problems ordinarily left to Scotland Yard.
Holmes and I were standing in the stern of the ship, watching the wake cream out behind us. For once we had shed the company of Mrs. Roberts, who had retired to her cabin in a sulk. Well, it’s said witches can’t cross water. For my part, I was wondering whether we two would ever go hunting together again. What a shambles this journey had proved!
I cleared my throat. “Holmes, you know you have my services to the end.”
“I never doubted it.”
“And I promise, no matter what the outcome, I shall not record this case.”
“Don’t be so hasty with your store of promises. I might want you to publish this one.”
My heart was eased. I didn’t have the slightest grasp of this tangle, but I knew the look on Holmes’s face. I had confidence in that look. Somehow, whether with the aid of his medium or without, he would untangle every strand.
“I was shocked to learn that Shaw was really the hero T. E. Lawrence—how has he fallen from colonel to an ordinary pilot?”
“That unfortunately falls under the Official Secrets Act, but I’m afraid he’s up to some skulduggery. Frankly, he’s a bit of a loose cannon, more inclined to safeguard the interest of his Arab allies than those of king and country. And he’s got a special grudge against yours truly.”
“Then you’ve met before?”
“Not in person. But I was the one tasked with discovering his whereabouts when he went to ground before. Intelligence likes to keep an eye on him. Airman John Ross, he called himself that time.”
“What was he doing as Ross?”
“It wasn’t part of my portfolio to unearth that. Probably spying. Or plotting.”
“With the Arabs?”
“No, he’d finished with them, or they with him. Too many promises broken. Perhaps for the Egyptians?”
“Aren’t Egyptians Arabs?”
“You have a great deal to learn about that part of the world, Watson.”
I really had no desire to learn anything more about that part of the world. But I was worried about Holmes. He obviously knew more about Colonel Lawrence than he could reveal. I only had the vaguest idea of what Holmes had done for Intelligence during the war. There were times when I thought his travels as a spiritualist might be merely an elaborate ruse to disarm his enemies. I still recalled vividly the time he pretended to be dying—pretended even to me!—to catch an enemy unawares.
Which brought me back to where this had all begun. “How do you think Evelyn-White’s death figures into the puzzle?”
“Who?”
I was astounded. Sherlock Holmes forgetting? Sherlock Holmes without every aspect of a case at his fingertips? Age brings even great minds to ruin.
“Hugh Evelyn-White?” I gasped. “The suicide?”
“Oh, the lecturer, you mean. Nothing to do with it at all.”
“But wasn’t he one of the first to enter the tomb?”
“I suppose, depending on your definition of first. I did spend an afternoon at Leeds examining the evidence. Plain as a pikestaff.”
“He claimed there was a curse upon him.”
“Aye, the oldest curse in the world. He had got mixed up with a girl, a music teacher named Helen Nind. How seriously I can’t say, but she definitely thought it was serious. When he spurned her, she ended her life by swallowing carbolic acid. Evelyn-White was scheduled to testify at her inquest. Whether it was shame or remorse, he took his own life rather than attend.”
“Could she have been . . . with child?”
“Very good, Watson. The coroner said otherwise, but I consider it likely.”
“Then it had nothing to do with the curse.”
“Of course not. Did you think all deaths were attributable to elementals?”
You cannot imagine how cheered I was by that statement. I only had one more question to ask: the most difficult one. “Holmes, your father . . . ?” I didn’t know how to phrase it.
“I didn’t think you’d let that one go. But I’ve already given you the only clue you need to solve that riddle.”
Of course, I had no idea what clue that might be. I looked at him beseechingly.
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words, ‘wait and hope.’”
And with that Holmes strode away, signaling the subject was closed.
Chapter Fourteen: Mrs. Estelle Roberts
Iwas being a termagant again. I knew it, but I couldn’t help myself. A woman has to shout sometimes to be heard. Once I’d seen the guardian statues at the Cairo Museum, I wanted nothing but to go back to the tomb. The answer was staring me in the face, if I could only see it. Those guardian statues were wrong, all wrong. But the doctor told me I was too weak; he said my pulse was beating like a hummingbird’s wings. What caused my pulse to race was worrying over the riddle! No doubt that was why I couldn’t sleep, either. But Red Cloud had returned to me. I knew I was in no danger as long as he was by my side. If I could only get the lady of the tomb to tell me her name, I could commune with her anywhere in the world. But the farther I traveled from Luxor, the more strained became the ties between myself and that troubled spirit.
I was too sick to go up on deck much. From what Dr. Watson told me, it was cold and rainy most of the time, anyway. He seemed well pleased with the weather. A true Englishman, I must admit.
I was terribly relieved when we made landfall in Marseille, even though it must be the ugliest city in the world. At least that is how I remember it. Grey and muddy. Sir Sherlock made sure for some reason to point out the Château d’If, a rocky island just off the coast, which was famous for its prison fortress. I suppose such things are interesting to detectives. As we traveled through France, I stared out the train window as the two men discussed the “case,” as they referred to the chaos we’d left behind in Luxor, and it was like traveling from summer to autumn to winter. In Paris it was raining as if it had never stopped.
