The Khamsin Curse Read online

  The

  Khamsin

  Curse

  ANNA LORD

  Book Eleven

  Watson & The Countess Series

  Copyright © 2016 by Anna Lord

  Melbourne, Australia

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any

  form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information

  storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations

  embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are

  used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is

  purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Table of Contents

  1 Queen of Cairo

  2 Pharaoh’s Palace

  3 Giza Plateau

  4 The Souk

  5 The Citadel

  6 Perfumed Garden

  7 Sekhmet

  8 Luxor

  9 Khamsin

  10 Philae

  11 Krokodilus

  12 Book of the Dead

  13 Moran

  14 Golden Rain

  15 Born Evil

  16 Ibn-the-Mad

  17 Sobek

  18 Against The Gods

  19 Scorpion

  20 Eye of Ra

  21 Sacred Terror

  1

  Queen of Cairo

  “To breathe the air of Egypt,” she sighed, “is to inhale the incense of antiquity.”

  Countess Volodymyrovna, standing idly by the guard rail of the Queen of Cairo paddle-steamer as it docked, watched the solar-disc slip behind a cluster of doum palms that since the days of the Pharaohs had lined the banks of the Nile.

  Sunset washed the timeless palette in rose-gold hues while the busyness of the wharf began to slow down as if attuned to the softening of the light. Water reeds swayed and rustled as boatmen moored their feluccas for the night. On the opposite side of the river bank, where old Cairo dipped to the east and the horizon was defined by the Citadel of Saladin, the call went out to the faithful. Plaintive cries drifted on a blissful caress of warm dry air that anointed every cheek with the healing balm of Gilead.

  Every cheek except one. “Aaatchoo!” Dr Watson fumbled for his handkerchief. “Well, I just inhaled a lungful of old dust!”

  A quizzical glance over a scrupulous shoulder came with an overture of mild reproof.

  “I thought you’d managed to shake off that head cold back in Venice?”

  “I don’t think it’s a head cold. My head feels clear and my nose isn’t runny. There must be some Saharan sand in the air. It’s a precursor to the Khamsin. You realize this is the worst time of year to visit Egypt.”

  He was referring to the sandstorm that blew intermittently for fifty days starting around April somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, increasing the temperature in Cairo by up to 20 degrees before sweeping across North Africa.

  “Are you having second thoughts about this assignment?”

  “I’ll answer that in a minute. I want to grab a clean handkerchief before we disembark.” He spotted a group of fellaheen clambering up the wobbly gangway anxious to scoop up the luggage and cart it down to the queue of waiting wagons before rushing off to evening prayers.

  Now, into which compartment of his suitcase did Fedir pack the handkerchiefs? This inexplicable sneezing was exasperating. He knew it wasn’t a head cold. He didn’t have any of the usual symptoms. It was most likely an allergic reaction to dust, or perhaps sensitivity to sand particles. Yes, the Khamsin was on its way.

  Armed with a freshly ironed handkerchief, he refastened his suitcase but the second sneeze he was bracing for never came. “To answer your question,” he replied circumspectly, pocketing the neatly folded nose-wiper, “I cannot say I’m sorry to shake off the madness of Mardi Gras or turn my back on the austerity of Lent. Plus, it’s good to be somewhere warm and dry, but things could get hot fairly quickly, and I’m not just referring to the daytime temperature. This is a rum business. I don’t like lying to old chums.”

  “You can hardly be expected to share state secrets with someone you haven’t seen for umpteen years. How well do you really know Colonel Hayter?”

  “We met during the Anglo-Afghan war. He was a patient of mine. I operated on him – a case of acute appendicitis. He was immensely grateful. I rarely saw him in the years that followed though we kept up a correspondence of sorts and he always ended his letters by inviting me to stay at his country house in Surrey. I eventually took him up on the invitation just before that nasty Reichenbach business put an abrupt halt to everything. Sherlock was suffering from ‘nervous prostration’ after a particularly harrowing case. A quiet spell in the countryside was called for and the village of Reigate in Surrey fit the bill. Colonel Hayter played host. He’s a capital fellow. None better.”

  “That Reichenbach business happened in 1891 and we are now at the beginning of April in the year 1900.”

  “It seems like yesterday.”

  “I’d normally say tempus fugit but in the Land of the Pharaohs time stands still. Nevertheless, we need to bear in mind this isn’t just another murder case. There’s more at stake.”

  Some people learned to worry less as the years went by. They took things in their stride. They gave a shrug of the shoulders and simply got on with life. He was not one of them. A wave of worry washed over him as he ran his tongue over dry lips which felt sore and cracked from the warm dry wind that had been blowing non-stop across the deck ever since they left the port city of Alexandria. But one thought, above all others, bolstered courage and gave him heart.

  “Colonel Hayter is one of the most decent chaps I ever met. You’ll like him from the moment you are introduced. Honest and straightforward but at all times a gentleman, hale and hearty though he’d be nearly sixty now, courageous, loyal and totally trustworthy. I’m not surprised they offered him the Acting High Commissioner’s post at such short notice after the previous chap, the so-called Hon. Rex Bootham, eloped with the eighteen year old cousin of the Pasha of the Kingdom of Tripoli. Gerald Hayter would be just the ticket to smooth things over with the Tripolitanians.”

  “He sounds like the epitome of British diplomacy and dependability but we better stick to Mycroft’s suggestion: we are on holiday. You’re interested in purchasing an Egyptian mummy on the black market and I’m keen to try my hand at archaeology.”

  “That’s a hopeless cover story. I cannot believe Mycroft even suggested it. Every foreign spy in Egypt pretends to be interested in archaeology.”

  “But everyone is interested in archaeology, mon ami. That’s what makes it such an unassailable cover story. The French, Germans and Americans are mad for it.”

  He gave a cynical snort. “There’ll be nothing left to dig up shortly.”

  “Mmm, if Lord Carnforth doesn’t get a move on with that excavation in the Valley of the Kings he will miss the boat.”

  “Tomb robbers probably got there first anyway. Here comes a vacant calash. I better hail it before that German chap elbowing his way down the gangway grabs it. Are you sure Fedir and Xenia will be able to keep an eye on your luggage with all those shifty-looking foreign fellows loitering on the dock?”

  The Countess never travelled light and he often wondered how half her bags didn’t go astray. Fifteen pieces at last count; granted five of them were hat boxes; and that was only the summer wardrobe. She’d left all her winter things at the Palazzo Pagano in Venice. The fact she travelled with so much valuable jewellery was also a worry. Although the eye-catching, Moroccan, purple leather, jewel case contained nothing more than an old pair of boots. She stashed her precious joa
illerie inside socks which were then stuffed into the boots stored in the luggage belonging to her Ukrainian maid and manservant.

  He signalled for the calash to swing round and pick them up.

  A calash was a fast-moving carriage about the size of a hansom drawn by a single horse. The driver sat at the front and the hood was always retracted because, unlike London, it hardly ever rained. The wheels were gaily painted, usually in red or purple, and the seats were upholstered in vivid fabrics.

  “Quite sure. They’ve had years of practice. Let’s go. I want to bathe in ibis water.”

  “What?”

  “It’s an old Egyptian saying – the water from which ibises drink is pure and sacred.”

  “I’ll settle for clean and tepid. What rotten cheek! Did you see that?”

  “Yes, that German chap nabbed our calash.”

  “Here comes another. Wait here. I’ll catch it before it wheels round.”

  He darted off across the dock, dodging sacks of grain, weir baskets, coiled ropes, racks of dried fish and a group of men repairing fishing nets. After narrowly avoiding collision with a man pushing a luggage trolley, he leapt boldly into the vacant calash as soon as it slowed into the curve. When it came to a halt in front of the first class passengers gathering at the foot of the gangway of the Queen of Cairo, he smugly helped the Countess up and directed the driver to The Mena House.

  Built originally as a hunting lodge, and quaintly dubbed the ‘Mud Hut’, The Mena House was now a palatial hotel owned by an English couple who had completely refurbished it in 1886 and added a swimming pool in 1890. It was now the piece de resistance of oriental decadence. It had been named after a First Dynasty Pharaoh called Menes and befitting its namesake it had an unsurpassed view of the plateau where sat the three pyramids of Giza.

  Architecturally speaking it had been re-built in the modernist Khedivial style, similar to the Khedive Opera House, an Isma’il homage to the Paris of Haussmann. Tourists always felt a little disappointed at first glance that a palatial Egyptian hotel did not resemble something Cleopatra might have swanned around in. But when they crossed the threshold they were pleasantly surprised to discover a sublime melange of exotic souk, Mamluk fortress and Coptic Church.

  There were low-hanging Moorish lanterns of red and turquoise glass, Byzantine chandeliers dripping gold, Persian tiles foliaged with arabesques, lavish friezes depicting ancient Egyptian life, curtain walls made of shimmering copper discs threaded together that glimmered like a thousand baby sun-gods, and everywhere, all around you, a darkly delicious, luminous coolness that recalled the burial tombs which made Egypt the premier wonder of the world.

  Cairo being a cosmopolitan city and the favourite destination of intrepid travellers meant the foyer of The Mena House was bound to be a vibrant cultural mix. Several languages could be heard at any one time but right at this moment the loudest was English, or that particular branch of it called American.

  “Isn’t that Mr Jefferson Lee?” said Dr Watson, alerted to the booming voice of a red-faced man who was an expostulation of blood and thunder.

  Countess V followed his gaze into the adjoining lounge-cum-bar where a trio of high-backed chairs centred a trio of ivory inlaid coffee tables strewn with cartographer’s maps over which America’s cattle king was casting a cracker-jack eye none too happily. “Yes, and according to the Cairo Gazette he owns half of Texas and is now the fourth richest man in America.”

  “I never understand how they come up with those figures. Who are the two young ladies with him? Do you recognize them?”

  “The attractive blonde is his daughter, Miss Hypatia Lee. The Cairo Gazette said she is passionate about archaeology. Daddy Lee is here to bankroll her passion.”

  “What about the brunette?”

  “I have no idea. She looks a bit overwhelmed, or perhaps overshadowed would be a better description. She does not have the same elegance or mien. Her shoulders have slumped and she’s not sitting back in the chair. Posture speaks volumes about status. A paid companion perhaps.”

  “Oh, look! A third lady has just joined them. I say, that red hair looks rather stunning. And before you start - I concede I have a penchant for redheads, though her red is more like a saffron sunset than a rainbow on fire. I wonder if it’s Mrs Jefferson Lee?”

  “There is no Mrs Jefferson Lee. According to the Cairo Gazette Mr Lee has just celebrated his fifty-fifth birthday and is a widower. Your redhead is certainly attractive with an enviable figure but going by the shape and style of her attire I’d say she is his personal secretary. She is wearing last season’s fuller skirt with soutache swirls, perhaps a Callot Soeurs, not the slimmer silhouette that is now de rigeur in Paris. The blouse is cotton not silk; there’s a bit of machine lace at the throat, not Valenciennes or Brussels. And she waited until Mr Lee indicated for the waiter to pull up a chair for her. The waiter would have jumped if she had been Mrs Lee. He would have conjured a chair out of thin air the moment he spied her gliding across the foyer.”

  “You’re dead right. Plus she’s sitting on the edge of the circle as if she daren’t intrude. And she’s sitting to Mr Lee’s left; a medieval throwback to an inferior placing. And now that you mention it, she looks neatly turned-out rather than decked out in haute couture with strings of pearls and a fistful of diamond sparklers.”

  She fingered her triple stranded pearl necklace playfully. “Precisement, mon ami.”

  “Mr Lee looks in robust health for a man of fifty-five. It must be all that fresh prairie air and the wide open range.”

  “Robust with the air distingue of a man of wealth and power. If this were Rome he would be Caesar. If Florence he would be Lorenzo Medici. If Olympus, then Zeus.”

  “And in Egypt, then Pharaoh!”

  She laughed at his didacity; pleased that he was in fine fettle and good humour – it boded well for their current assignment.

  Her silvery laugh drew some unwanted attention. Several people turned to look. One of them was a sinister-looking man, dark and swarthy, with a thick black moustache and piercing black eyes. He was wearing typical Western garments, the sort of thing you’d see on Threadneedle Street, except he topped off the grey banker’s costume with a traditional fez. The male headdress was common in Egypt, introduced by one of the Ottoman rulers when he banned the turban, but this particular fez was bright green with a black tassel. It matched a green and black brocade waistcoat, indicating a man of sartorial sharpness, perhaps a touch vain, who was not averse to being noticed.

  “Don’t look now,” she delivered in a lower tone as they continued to cross the foyer and she leaned into him as if divulging an intimate secret, “but the man in the green fez standing by the marble column looks familiar. I think it might Ali Pasha. When I drop my handkerchief you can pick it up and give him the once-over.”

  Drop, dip, spin…

  “I didn’t really get a good look,” he fretted. “Unlike Sherlock I wasn’t blessed with a photographic memory and a couple of porters carting travel trunks crossed my line of vision. I need to re-check those photographs Mycroft dispatched before we left Venice.”

  “Stop by my room before you come down to dinner. We can both take another look to refresh our memories. Let’s check in. I’m desperate for an ibis bath.”

  He placed a halting arm on her elbow. “Look! It’s that German chap who stole our calash. He’s just marched up to the reception desk and commandeered attention. He hogged three deck chairs on the paddle-steamer – one for himself, one for his books and one for his hat. When I asked him if the chairs were occupied he gave me the rudest reply. Let’s hang back here and pretend to admire this Egyptian frieze before I say something I might regret.”

  Easy to admire, the hunting frieze was rich in colour and bursting with birdlife, the sort of thing that adorned many a burial tomb to signal abundance and prosperity in the afterlife.

  “A young lady has just joined our German friend,” observed the Countess, angling for a discrete look. “
I don’t think it’s his wife. She’s much too young.”

  Dr Watson couldn’t help himself; he whirled round quicker than a dervish. “She wasn’t on board the Queen of Cairo. I’d remember that sungold hair. She’s not only too young but too pretty for the likes of him. The concierge is giving them two keys. They’re not sharing a room. Thank goodness!” He watched them head toward the stairs; the older male striding ahead of the young lady. “We can check in now.” He took one step and stopped dead. “My God! That’s…I cannot believe it…It looks like…Yes, it’s definitely him!”

  “Who?” she prompted, feeling suddenly alarmed at the choking syllables.

  Ali Pasha had disappeared…so it wasn’t him to whom the doctor was referring. He had sauntered into the lounge-cum-bar. It was that time of day when the tourists returned from their excursions to the Sphinx and the Pyramids. Men repaired to the bar for a quenching gin and tonic while ladies went upstairs to commence their toilette in anticipation of a glamorous evening rubbing shoulders with the aristocracy of the old world and the wealthy titans of the new. Being a trader in antiquities, it was natural for Ali Pasha to mingle with tourists keen to bag a souvenir after having had their artistic appetites thoroughly whetted by the splendours of ancient Egypt.

  Dr Watson was still babbling incoherently. “He’s older now. I almost didn’t recognize him. He’d be sixty now. No, no, not yet. Born in 1840, yes, but fifty-nine for another few months. Yes, fifty-nine years of age and still ramrod straight.”

  “Who are you babbling about?” she repeated testily, more alarmed than ever.

  His gaze seemed to be directed at two rough-looking men. They were standing in profile, chatting by the entrance where the luggage tended to be dropped off. One was wearing a wide-brimmed hat similar to a fedora or an Australian akubra. She recalled his image from the photographs Mycroft had posted out to them before they even agreed to this venture.