The Khamsin Curse Page 16

  They stepped into a pool of sunlight and Dr Watson sneezed, not once but three times.

  “Have you picked up a cold?”

  “No, I sneeze every now and again for no reason. It must be an allergy to sand or dust.”

  “I knew a chap who sneezed every time he stepped into bright sunlight or looked directly at a bright light.”

  “Really?”

  Gideon paused to suck back a lungful of fresh air by the twin lion statues guarding the massive propylon delineating the Inner and Outer courts while his eyes measured the length of the stupendous colonnade. “Yes, it was quite odd. An automatic nerve response to bright light. I can search this area on my own. You head back to the Sekhmet and bring back some crew members to help transport the dead bodies back to the ship. It’s going to get hotter as the sun rises. We don’t want to leave the bodies too long. A couple of deck chairs will serve as trolleys. Keep your gun handy.”

  They quickly parted ways.

  Dr Watson was soon in the dead heart of the island. Ahead of him unfolded the girdle wall. Something queer seemed to be crawling slowly along the base of the stones, moving awkwardly, dragging itself along.

  Sweating heavily, he extracted his service revolver and moved warily toward it. An encounter with a crocodile was not something he fancied, not after last night, but he couldn’t ignore it either.

  The queer shadow seemed strange, misshapen, bent. It reminded him of the disturbing shadows from last night, distorted by the flaming torches, a writhing sea of reptiles darting and flashing, snarling and snapping, and grown men leaping onto divans like lunatics terrified out of their wits. He was terrified too. He wasn’t afraid to admit it.

  Egypt was a Land of Shadows. He noticed that when they first went to the souk and then again at the Citadel. There were more shadows in Egypt than London. More shadows than anywhere he’d ever been. Maybe it was the sun. The sunlight was stronger. The shadows were larger, darker, more menacing.

  And everywhere you looked there were all those strange drawings. Men with animal heads – jackals and falcons and crocodiles. He gave a shudder. And it wasn’t restricted just to men. The women were depicted weirdly too - cats and cows and scorpions. And all those giant statues. The enigmatic Sphinx. And not just one but a whole avenue of sphinxes with the heads of rams. No wonder he felt unnerved. No wonder he kept looking over his shoulder.

  And now a double murder. It was the last thing they needed.

  He mustered courage, inched closer, and felt a cold wave of disbelief wash over him. It was Herr Graf.

  13

  Moran

  Sebastian Moran was still thinking about Lorna Baxter. It had been a while since he’d been with a woman as keen to please as the American widow. As he trudged about fifty yards ahead of the Acting High Commissioner, leaving the useless prick further and further behind to eat his dust, his thoughts drifted for the first time in his life to settling down.

  He never thought much about America. But the American prairie was a place that would suit him nicely. Wide open spaces, wide blue skies and lots of game to kill. Coyote, cougar, rattle snake, bald eagle, bison. He pictured a cabin in the hills and Lorna on the front porch.

  He could probably do better than a cabin. He could buy an entire ranch. Maybe he would have Jefferson Lee as his neighbour. How would the Texas cattle king fancy that prospect!

  The mere thought forced a rare, wry chuckle from his parched throat. He always was a contrary Irish bastard!

  He had managed to stash quite a bit away following the death of the Professor. A stash he never really intended to touch. He didn’t need much money. Drawing-rooms in big fancy houses never really suited him. His father never understood that. He never understood that he joined the army to shoot things, not to get promoted. It was all about the kill. And men were the ultimate prey.

  When the Professor died sudden-like at Reichenbach Falls he hurried back to London and helped himself to the secret stash under the floorboards before anyone heard the news. The Professor owed him wages anyway. He hadn’t been paid for five months. It was more than he expected but he’d earned it one way or another. He didn’t touch the really valuable stuff in the safe. The Professor never trusted him with the combination anyway and he didn’t want to make a mess of the office with sticks of dynamite.

  The Professor had always been fond of his little baby brother, Jim. And he had always liked the boy too. A smart lad; sharp as a tack. Another contrary Irishman. He knew how to shoot straight too. Son of a gun! That’s what Americans said. Son of a gun! Anyway, the boy could have been the son he never had. He’d made a will last year and left it all to Jim. When the boy turned up yesterday out of the blue it made his old ticker stand still.

  “Hello, you old Irish bastard,” Jim said, smiling. “Fancy meeting you here!”

  Jim was leading a regiment of Irish Guards. He was so proud of the boy. He’d made good despite being raised by a drunken old man who was worse than useless. A tear came to his eye. He had to pretend he got some dust in it. They walked around the island together, talking the way men do about nothing in particular, smoking a cigarette every now and then. There was no one around. He sensed the boy liked it that way, same as he did.

  Jim was taking care to chart everything in his head. He knew the boy was up to something but he had no idea what. Well, dammit! If it didn’t turn out to be a woman! That rich countess! Now, there was a surprise!

  Ha! If it wasn’t Jim who saved the day last night! Jim couldn’t have planned it better if he had sent those crocodiles in himself. He thought about it later. It was the sort of thing the Professor would do. But, no, the look on Jim’s face gave it away. The boy was gobsmacked. It worked to his advantage though. He got the girl! He just took her by the hand. And he must have helped himself to her charms all night. She still wasn’t back on the ship this morning.

  Well, if the boy needed something to live for while popping Boers in the Transvaal she would be it!

  He reached the farthest point of the island on the south-east side. One thousand two hundred and fifty feet give or take a few feet. He sat down under the shade of a palm tree, had a drink of water from his canteen and waited for Hayter to catch up. No sign of the missing men. No sign of the rich countess either. Jim probably led her into the big place with the huge walls. That’s the direction he’d seen him heading last night. That’s when he got the idea to lead Lorna to the Temple of Augustus. She was immensely grateful and not shy about expressing her gratitude either.

  It was odd that Mallisham and Lee didn’t make it back to the ship. The fat German was another matter. He was the sort who’d get lost in the British Museum. The blonde niece was a pretty little thing. There was a time he would have had her easy as pie. The prim types liked a bit of rough. But he was past it now. Lorna was good. Hell! She was good!

  Hayter was red in the face and sweating like a pig. It always amazed him how the British managed to rule half the world when they appointed useless pricks like Rex Bootham and Gerald Hayter to oversee the colonies.

  Hayter fell to his knees in a pocket of shade the size of a handkerchief. His water bottle was already empty. He hadn’t left a drop for the trek back to the ship and the temperature was climbing fast now the haze had cleared. If the prick expected him to share his canteen of water he was in for some thirsty disappointment.

  “Wait here,” he directed curtly. “I’m going to scout the southern side of the island as far as that stand of palms. Don’t go down to the water. There are some hippopotamuses basking on the bank. They don’t take kindly to being disturbed. And there may be some big angry crocs in the reeds looking for their babies. Sit tight.”

  Dr Watson offered Herr Graf a drink from his canteen. The German was badly dehydrated and there was a bloody gash on the side of his head where he must have fallen against the stones in the dark. He was mumbling incoherently, not making much sense. He couldn’t recall what happened after they all set off from the Kiosk. The wind was feroc
ious. It knocked him about. He let go of Ursula’s hand to wipe some spittle from his lips and that’s the last he saw of her. Miss Clooney let go his other hand and he never saw her again either. He stumbled around, calling out their names. The wind was deafening. His pince-nez was smeared with dust and sweat. He probably went round and round in circles. He hit his head on something and collapsed. He remembered searing pain and then he must have blanked out. When he opened his eyes it was day, not night, and the sun was burning hot. He didn’t have the energy to stand; his head was throbbing and there was a lump the size of a quail’s egg. He was crawling on all fours; looking through smeared lenses for scorpions and death adders…He took another long welcome drink of water and allowed the doctor to lead him to the ship.

  Gut instinct told Gideon to search the left-hand side of the colonnade first. A temple with a roof was situated there. The open doorway faced west. It was in total shadow. According to the map drawn by Moran, the temple chamber was deeper than the priestly chambers attached to the Inner Courtyard where he had found the bodies of Lee and Mallisham. No sunlight penetrated beyond the high rectangular doorway. Armed with the Smith & Wesson, he stepped cautiously into the darkness.

  “Unless you’re planning to shoot yourself in the foot, you can re-house that gun.”

  Gideon recognized the cocky Irish accent in an instant. “Congratulations, you finally found a black hole to crawl into. Where’s the Countess?”

  “I’m here,” she said.

  His heart did something pleasantly weird. His muscles managed to unknot themselves. He drew breath and strained to see where the voices were coming from. Everything was the colour of charcoal. Shadow was piled on shadow, dark on dark. An amorphous shape moved but he couldn’t make it out. He re-housed his weapon and struck a lucifer.

  She was sitting against the wall, her knees drawn up. Jim’s red military jacket was around her shoulders and so was his arm. For a brief moment, just before she stood up, he imagined her hand was cupping Jim’s vitals. The match barbecued his fingers and he dropped it.

  They followed him out into the light.

  The first thing his eyes hit on was the insignia on the jacket: Quis Separabit – Who Shall Separate Us. Heroically it glittered like a bright star. He swallowed hard, hoping it wasn’t a sign from the gods. He was never one to let his imagination run away from him. Even as a boy, he preferred games like chess and draughts to make-believe with toy soldiers. He preferred non-fiction to fiction. When everyone was reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, he was reading Prometheus Unbound by Percy Shelley.

  But his imagination had been running away from him ever since he paid a visit to her room in the middle of the night and she rambled on about Anubis and Sekhmet, fear and courage, sacred terror and irrational thought. Egypt did that to you. It was a strange land, peopled with anthropomorphic beings who moved effortlessly between the living and the dead, between the real world and the Underworld.

  Last night didn’t help! He’d never been so shit scared in his life as when he fell backwards and two snapping jaws rushed straight for his face! He wondered if Jim kicked that croc his way deliberately. His aim was uncanny.

  She was still wearing the clingy, red, assuit tunic of Sekhmet, though the green lioness headdress was gone, probably whipped off by the Khamsin. Fleetingly, he wondered if she was wearing anything underneath. Slumberous tresses tumbled over bare shoulders as she handed Jim back his jacket.

  Sheened with sand and sweat, Jim was naked from the waist up. He didn’t bother to do up the gold buttons. The smart red and black Guards uniform would be replaced by clothes more suited to desert warfare, probably after the regiment made Khartoum, but Jim had wanted to show-off last night. It rankled that he arrived in time to play the hero.

  “There’s something you should both see,” Gideon said vaguely as they drank thirstily from his canteen, draining every drop. He steeled himself and started walking toward the Inner Courtyard.

  “If you’re going sightseeing,” essayed Jim sardonically, “I’ll say goodbye. I’ve got more important things to see to. I left my boat in the other direction. Good luck with whatever game you’re playing. I’ve got a war to win.” He caught the Countess by the hand.

  “Stop being such a fucking Irishman,” barked Gideon, guessing that Jim was about to deliver one last cocky kiss to the lips of the woman they both wanted to marry. “The game we’re playing relates to your bloody war. Someone is passing information to the enemy. The Boers will be waiting for you with open arms. The word ambush springs to mind. Good luck with that.”

  The Countess sensed an unwinnable stand-off but she also sensed this wasn’t just about male rivalry. Gideon had something important to show her. His tone was serious at the best of times, but this time it came with an ominous edge. She and Jim had talked most of the night and she hadn’t fallen asleep until almost daybreak. That’s probably why Jim let her sleep so late. When Gideon showed up she was still dreaming about being devoured by crocodiles.

  Going by the position of the sun, it was nearing midday and a lot might have happened in the meantime. She needed to catch up with whatever had transpired since the party ended so cruelly. Gideon’s ominous tone filled her with fresh terror. What had happened to the other guests after she left with Jim? Where was Dr Watson?

  Fear had her hand snapping free. Her voice was level. “Congratulations on your commission, Colonel Moriarty. I wish you well in your endeavour. May you and your regiment return safely to England in the not too distant future. My thoughts and hopes go with you.”

  “Colonel Moriarty is it now?” The Irishman ignored the flowery words that frilled the edges of her polite goodbye, catching hold of both her hands this time, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Last night it was Jim.”

  “Last night was last night. It was a night like no other. I hope I never have to live through anything like that again, and by that you know what I mean. I thank you for leading me to safety and comforting me during the storm. But I’ve got a job to do too, same as you. Don’t make it difficult for everyone.”

  “Difficult!”

  She jerked free and looked at Major Nash. “Lead on.”

  Jim tramped off in the opposite direction, muttering obscenities and kicking up sand. Most it flew back into his face. Dammit! He was attracted her to her because she was unlike any woman he had ever met. That, plus her wealth! He could speak to her without mincing words. She could give as good as she got without resorting to tears. But right now he wished she was the helpless type who needed a man to give her life meaning. Right now he wished she was the type to bawl into her handkerchief as he tramped off to war.

  Endeavour! Comforting! You know what I mean!

  Yes, he knew exactly what she meant!

  And he wished that she knew it too!

  He paused in his tracks to relieve himself against the wall of the temple then swung round and caught up to the other two in the Inner Courtyard. If Nash meant what he said about someone passing secrets to the enemy he’d be a fool to ignore it. And if it was only himself he needed to worry about, he would have kept right on tramping, but he now had a regiment to think about and the thought of leading his men straight into an ambush was not something he cared to contemplate.

  “This had better be important,” he growled as he followed them into a small, dark, windowless chamber that reeked of cat piss. Bloody hell!

  After a sharp intake of breath and an abrupt halt, she rushed forward, fearing the worst, fearing that the lifeless man tied to the stones might be her dear Dr Watson.

  Colonel Sebastian Moran spotted Azrafel and Ali Pasha emerging from the Vestibule of Nectanebos. He picked up his step and caught up to them. They had not seen any signs of anything out of the ordinary and were going to check the last couple of buildings on their map before heading back to the ship. Moran told them he hadn’t spotted anything either. He was about to return and collect Hayter when another idea occurred to him. He offered to check the last few temp
les for them if they would collect Hayter and walk him back to the ship. They agreed and set off at once…

  “It’s Mallisham!” She tried not to gag. “What…What’s that smell?”

  “Urine,” said Gideon before moving on quickly. “Dr Watson and I found the body a short while ago. It must have happened last night. Mallisham never made it back to the ship. Neither did Jefferson Lee. He’s in another chamber. Same sort of set up. Herr Graf is missing too but he’s not here. There’s a search party out scouting the island: Moran and Hayter, Azrael and Ali Pasha. Dr Watson has returned to the ship. He’s coming back with some crew members to collect the bodies. Follow me. We can look at the American.”

  “How did the men actually die?” she asked, trailing after him.

  “Poison,” said Gideon. “If you look closely you can see a small stick propping their mouths open so that something could be tipped down their throats.”

  “It smells foul,” she said, wrinkling up her nose, and checking for the stick.

  “That’s cat piss,” said Moriarty, checking the chamber for feral felines. “What’s your idea on this?” he directed at Gideon, studying the way the bodies were secured at the wrists and ankles and tied to four large blocks of stone. “Why kill Mallisham and the American? And why do it in this manner?”

  Gideon shook his head; coming straight after the crocodile incident he was totally flummoxed. “No idea at all. If you’ve got any theories I’m willing to hear them out.”

  Moriarty shrugged. “This is really the territory of the Acting High Commissioner. What’s his name? Colonel Hayter? Isn’t he an ex-army chum of Dr Watson? Let him take care of it.”