The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart, page 28
“This is not Tutankhamun’s cartouche,” said Sir Sherlock, confounded.
And then the scarab spoke to me with the voice of the Lady, and all became plain.
“It’s Nefertiti,” I said quietly.
“You expected it, didn’t you?” said Sir Sherlock, turning to me with an appraising look.
I nodded. “Who else would have her stillborn daughters by her?”
“That’s what all that writing says?” asked Dr. Watson, his eyes nearly crossing at all the tiny symbols.
“No, indeed,” Natacha replied. “It’s etched with an entire chapter from the Book of the Dead. I won’t translate it all for you, but the last line reads, ‘May I endure on earth, not die in the west, and be a blessed spirit there.’”
I reached for the scarab. She handed it to me willingly enough, a good sign. It was almost hot to the touch. I felt a great welling of desire within me. I closed my eyes, concentrating on Terry in the next room, and my three girls. The yearning slowly subsided.
“That’s why he stole the heart scarab. Because it was Nefertiti’s tomb, not Tutankhamun’s,” said Dr. Watson.
“No, I don’t think it was quite like that,” said Natacha. “I think Tutankhamun was Nefertiti. Or rather, I don’t think there ever was a Tutankhamun as such. Remember, she was trying to rule a kingdom that had always been a patriarchy. She needed a young, virile male to hold her kingdom together. Someone she could trust. Who better than herself?”
“You’re saying Tutankhamun was Nefertiti in trousers?” Dr. Watson asked.
“Why not? She needed the authority that only a male ruler could command. But she couldn’t risk another male who would commit the folly of her former husband, Akhenaten. There must have been a few priests in on the impersonation, sworn to secrecy. She needed the cooperation of her daughter Ankhesenamun, of course, who gave it wholeheartedly. The daughter desired no male to rule over her, either.”
“That was why the voice in the tomb was a woman’s,” said Sir Sherlock.
“So, you see, I think Carter would not welcome the return of the scarab,” said Natacha. “He’d look a fool.”
“But it needn’t go back to Carter, or Egypt,” I blurted out.
They all turned to me. What had I said? It had dawned on me; the scarab had spoken to me again.
“It should go where Lord Carnarvon intended—to his widow. His queen.”
“Is this true? This was his intention?” She directed her gaze to Sir Sherlock. He was taken by surprise. We had never taken Lady Almina into account at all. He looked to Dr. Watson, who merely shrugged his assent.
“He meant it as an act of love. An act that was never fulfilled. That’s what awakened all the wretched evil in the elemental.”
“You believe it would break the chain of blood?” Sir Sherlock asked me.
I nodded. “If it is freely given.”
“You’re asking a great deal of me. To give is one thing, to freely give quite another.” Natacha sat quietly for a few minutes, gathering her thoughts. Finally, she said, “I should be the one to take it to her.”
You could feel an exhalation around the room.
“Shall I escort you, Mrs. Valentino?” asked Sir Sherlock.
“Surely you trust me to do what I say I will do,” she replied.
“I trust you. I do not trust the scarab.”
“Rest assured, I don’t feel like murdering anyone. Not even my husband.”
And such was the force of her personality that Sir Sherlock bowed, both literally and figuratively.
“Natacha, you really should visit the Valley of the Kings,” I urged.
She nodded. “Someday. And someday, Mr. Holmes, we would like to make a movie based on one of your adventures. Rudolph is very interested in playing the great detective.”
“Oh, but there’s already been a Sherlock Holmes film, featuring William Gillette. I hardly think there would be interest in another.”
Epilogue: Dr. John Watson
Did Natacha Rambova fulfill her promise? There was no way to be sure. She indeed took a trip out to Highclere. Sherlock Holmes shadowed her thus far. But, of course, he could not question the lady Almina. The heart scarab still legally belonged to the Cairo Museum. But the murder trail died there—though the trail of death did not, not quite. Every time anyone associated in the slightest with the tomb died what were seen as unnatural deaths (such as when Lord Carnarvon’s secretary, Richard Bethell, was found smothered in his room in 1929), the press presented themselves at Sherlock Holmes’s door. They were always greeted by a curt “I have nothing to say on the subject.”
Sherlock Holmes met privately with Lady Evelyn and her husband. I do not know how much he told them, or whether he collected his thousand pounds, but they were satisfied. Both Mrs. Roberts and I were remembered for our roles in the investigation, although the lady refused to pay for my camera. Aristos! I was not asked to pronounce an opinion on the existence of elementals, for which I was grateful. Holmes issued a patently insincere retraction in the Times, which was promptly buried in the back pages. The papers preferred to print the legend of the curse rather than the facts of the case.
Holmes tapered off his lectures on spiritualism and sank into obscurity. But he never flagged in his belief in spiritualism and the marvelous. Nor, after our encounter with the pharaoh’s heart, did I ever again try to turn him away from his beliefs. I think that this world had become too small a stage for him to practice his craft upon. He required a larger arena, a more inclusive set of data. I, for one, would not deny him that larger stage on which to perform his arias.
Mrs. Roberts went on to relative fame as a medium, although she never allowed herself to be tested by independent experts. I still have not made up my mind about the events of 1924, or the source of her extraordinary talents. I should like to think I keep an open mind, but if you tell me man can fly, I shall require proof. If you tell me pigs can fly, the bar of proof is that much higher. When you have eliminated the impossible, Holmes used to say, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. But the devil is in separating the improbable from the impossible. One thing is certain: I do not believe in fairies.
We did have a treat in July of that year, when Howard Carter came to London to deliver a lecture on Tutankhamun to the Royal Asiatic Society. He was still deep in his dustup with the Egyptian government, so he had plenty of time on his hands, I suppose. The lecture was to be given at the aptly named Egyptian Hall, Mansion House. Lord Chalmers was indebted to Sherlock Holmes for his many services, so we were able to secure seats, although we did not actually stay for the lecture. You must imagine Mr. Carter’s look of surprise to find us waiting for him on his arrival backstage.
“Now,” said Holmes in his most reasonable tone, “will you tell us about the theft of the heart scarab, or shall I tell your audience how I deduce it occurred?”
I was standing in front of the door, my arms crossed. All the fight drained out of Carter’s face. “At first, we only wanted to know whether the mummy was actually in the sarcophagus. Lord Carnarvon was mad with anticipation,” he said miserably.
“So you broke through to the burial chamber?” Holmes drove him.
“There were four of us—His Lordship, myself, Callender, and Hassan. Bloody little room to maneuver inside the shrines, but we needed to move the lid only a few inches, just enough to see inside. Even with crowbars it was hellish.”
“You cracked the lid,” Holmes reminded him.
“That was unfortunate, but we could always blame it on tomb raiders. We’d done that before.”
“Most convenient.”
“If we hadn’t done it, Lord Carnarvon would have gone to his grave without ever meeting Tutankhamun face-to-face. That was our entire aim.”
“But then you spied the heart scarab.”
“His Lordship saw it and fell in love. He wanted it for the lady Almina. He adored that woman. No one there could say boo to him. But it was the devil clawing it out of that muck. So he gave it to her as a love token. I for one am glad of it.”
Holmes did not inform Carter of the crooked road the scarab took to Highclere Castle.
I do hope he had a spare dress shirt for his audience. When we left, the one he had on was drenched with sweat.
On a suitably cold night in November, with the rain driving hard, I was listening to the Kutcher String Quartet playing Mozart on the BBC when an announcer interrupted to report that the sirdar of Egypt, General Lee Stack, had been ambushed by Egyptian extremists and had died in a hail of gunfire. His aide, P. K. Campbell, was injured. Members of Parliament were already calling loudly for repeal of the grant of independence that Great Britain had given to Egypt, and that Egypt had now proven itself profoundly unworthy of. King Fuad and Prime Minister Zaghlul had both expressed horror at the murder. Crocodile tears. Egyptian nationalists, Russian Bolsheviks, even British radicals all came in for their share of the blame. Did Lawrence have a hand in the deed? If he did, he was careful to wipe his fingerprints.
Seven men were hanged, and harsh penalties were imposed upon the Egyptian government. Zaghlul was forced to resign. Egypt will remain a thorn in England’s side. But we shall never give up the Suez.
There was still one question that haunted me. The answer came to me, quite by accident, on February 19, 1925. I was reading the obituaries in the Times. (When one reaches a certain age, one follows the obituaries to catch up on old friends.) I came upon a name that arrested my notice. George Sigerson was laid to rest that day in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. He was a great man, the paper said, a physician, writer, politician, and poet. The mourners at his funeral comprised a who’s who of the Irish literary movement, or the Irish Rebellion. They were too often one and the same. But there among the Casements, the Hydes, the Stevenses, the Yeatses, the Pearses, McDonoughs, and the de Valeras, one name stood out to me: Sherlock Holmes, pallbearer.
Sigerson!
Epilogue: Mrs. Estelle Roberts
Iwas at John Watson’s funeral in 1932. I was not invited to speak, of course, as I had been at Sir Sherlock’s Albert Hall memorial. His skepticism of spiritism was well-known, especially his scathing repudiation of Mr. Hodson’s fairies, published in The Strand in 1930.
What was known to only a handful was the story of our investigation of Lord Carnarvon’s untimely death. And even fewer knew that we became fast friends afterward. He would often visit my public demonstrations, unannounced and incognito. I would spy him at the back of the crowd, scratching his head, looking flummoxed, and a little thrill of satisfaction would go up my spine.
Sir Sherlock never got up to London again, so far as I knew, though I did visit him in Sussex once or twice for séances. These were small affairs, barely a handful of people. But I would never again feel the powerful presence of Louise Vernet-Lecomte Holmes, nor indeed did he ever call on me to summon her. He seemed wholly at peace with himself. I do not believe he was ever asked to take on another investigation. The last time I went down, he had turned over his bees to a neighbor; he knew he was about to die.
Dr. Watson’s funeral was well attended, especially by his fellow authors. I was surprised to see the esteem in which he was held in by his fellow scribes, some of them quite famous. The eulogy given by his friend J. M. Barrie was especially moving. He said of him “I have always thought him one of the best men I have ever known, there can never have been a straighter nor a more honorable.”
After his funeral, I went out directly and bought all of Dr. Watson’s books and read them, marveling at the way he captured Sherlock Holmes on the page. I wish there could be many more books. Perhaps he is still writing.
Was he an unbeliever to the end? I went to visit his grave once and found a Latin inscription on his headstone: Non omnis moriar. I had no idea what it meant, but I found a very learned sexton who could translate it for me:
“I shall not all die.”
The sexton proposed it meant that his books would live after him—and indeed they have. But I wonder. I wonder very much indeed.
There is of course, this book, which is meant to be published posthumously. When his publisher approached me asking for a release, I insisted upon reading the entire manuscript. One must be careful of one’s reputation. I will acknowledge that I was not entirely pleased and insisted several lengthy addenda of my own composition be added. Whether they may cause the publisher to abandon the project altogether, I cannot say. Whether other players in our drama may threaten legal action if the book is released at all, I have no idea. It could be a very long time before the story sees the light of day. As the Book of the Dead says, “May it endure on earth, not die in the west.”
T. E. Lawrence died of a motorcycle accident in 1935. Britain mourned his passing.
In 1932, Natacha Rambova, long since divorced from Rudolph Valentino, visited Egypt for the first time and found her true calling. She has since edited and published several volumes on Egyptology and religious symbolism. She is at work on another, I hear, having to do with scarabs. I hope in this one she will propound her theory of Tutankhamun/Nefertiti (without, of course, mentioning the heart scarab). I am certain her ideas will make scholars sit up and take notice.
Princess Marguerite lives quietly in the same apartment on the Rue Georges-Ville. We still correspond. She seems such a gentle soul. The elemental, I think, drained her of all cupidity. She never shared in her ex-husband’s fortune. Occasionally, she sends me his greetings.
The Lady Evelyn gave birth to a daughter in 1925. I sent her a letter of congratulations. I was surprised to receive a letter back, not from Lady Evelyn, but from her mother the lady Almina. She said that her daughter was resting after a difficult birth; she was nursing her back to health. By way of addendum she wrote: “If ever my tomb is dug up three thousand years from now, they will find me with my heart scarab intact. Thank you.” I treasured those words.
What you will want to know is whether I have ever been in contact with Sherlock or John since they have crossed over. I can only say that after a lifetime of notoriety, they have begged their privacy, and earned it. I shall not speak of them again.
The End
P.S. There is one error on Dr. Watson’s part I should unquestionably set to rights: George Sigerson was not the father of Sherlock Holmes.
Acknowledgments
I’d first like to thank my editors, Dan Mayer and Rene Sears, for their steady guidance, along with the entire staff at Seventh Street, particularly cover artist Jennifer Do and copyeditor Sara Brady.
Special thanks must go to my readers, Laura Dragon (if she hadn’t hated my original ending for my first Holmes book, this book would not exist); everyone’s den mother, Betsy Hannas Morris; and Professor Elizabeth Liebert, expert in all things British.
Thanks to all my family, but especially to nephew Sean Bos and his father, Frits, for their help with the Dutch language. And thanks to Terry Ward for his excellent renderings of the cartouches.
Thanks to the Griffith Institute at Harvard University for so generously making their wealth of research accessible online, including Howard Carter’s journals, which were essential to this novel (even where I fudged facts). Thanks to Daniel Hånberg Alonso for the Conan Doyle press quotes that open the novel.
As always, a number of books were ground up in the writing of this novel. Fifty Years a Medium by Estelle Roberts, Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence, The Tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter, Fairies at Work and at Play by Geoffrey Hodson, Making Monte Carlo by Mark Braude, and Scandal at the Savoy by Andrew Rose are just a few. Lawrence and Aaronsohn, by Ronald Florence, provided a very different view of T. E. Lawrence. The Complete Tutankhamun by Nicholas Reeves put me inside the boy king’s tomb, and Cook’s Tourists’ Handbook for Egypt, the Nile, and the Desert (1878) guided my steps.
Timothy Miller, The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart
