The Case of the Shifting Sarcophagus

by Sean McLachlan

  “I didn’t speak with the murderers!”

  Augustus smacked him. The doorknob rattled, but the chair jammed against the door held.

  “Who did you speak with, then?”

  “A man named Claude Paget. I don’t know if that’s his real name. He told me he wasn’t an Apache and didn’t know them, that he was only a messenger. When I offered him money to tell me more he refused, saying he didn’t know anything more.”

  Someone banged on the door. Several excited voices started talking on the other side of it. Augustus paid no attention.

  “Why would they do this, and why deposit Monsieur Legrand in my house?” Augustus demanded.

  “Claude said they wanted to thumb their nose at authority, and show how they had gotten revenge. I don’t know why they picked you. They said something about you being an executioner, but I don’t know what that means. Let me go!”

  Augustus smacked him. “Keep your voice down. Where can I find this Claude?”

  “He’s the doorman at number two Sherif Basha Street.”

  Augustus let him go. The door vibrated with a sharp bang, but the chair continued to hold. Augustus kicked it out of position and opened the door just as the man on the other side rammed at it with his shoulder a second time. Instead of hitting the door, he flew through the open doorway, through a curtain of prints hanging from a line, and smacked into the wall beyond.

  “Thank God you’ve come!” Augustus cried. “Your photographer assaulted me. Call the police!”

  He waved his cane in the air as if in panic, thereby clearing a path through the little crowd of journalists clustered around the door. His sudden appearance and outburst caused enough confusion for him to get through. Some of the newsmen asked what happened, others accused him of attacking the photographer, while still others asked if he might be telling the truth.

  Within half a minute he made it out of the office. A couple of the more persistent members of the press followed him, demanding an explanation, but once they got to the street he rounded on them and shouted he would go to the police station to have them all up on charges. This stopped them in their tracks, and he was able to get away.

  Once free, he strolled down the street whistling a contented air. He doubted the photographer would lodge a complaint, not with what Augustus had cornered him into confessing.

  Now he had to pay a certain French doorman a call.

  Unfortunately, he had a far more onerous task to perform first. He had to deal with those relations of Sir Thomas Russell’s.

  He felt a rising sense of dread that could not be accounted for by the mere obligation of wasting an afternoon with a drunken spinster and a wide-eyed young woman in search of a husband. Something about the photographer’s words bothered him.

  The Apaches called me an executioner. Why? Of all the cases I’ve solved I don’t think I ever sent one of their gang to the guillotine.

  A volley fired in the distance, its thunderous boom echoing through the years. Augustus staggered and the sidewalk faded for a moment, replaced with a grassy field.

  He shook his head so violently his mask slipped, and he hurried to replace it.

  “No,” he said out loud. “That’s not it. That can’t be the answer.”

  Augustus hurried on his way, shouldering through the crowd and trying not to think.

  8

  Moustafa stifled a yawn as he and Herr Schäfer drove to meet Suleiman and Zehra Hanzade. He had stayed up most of the previous night working by candlelight on his paper. The monographs Herr Schäfer had lent him had proven very useful, and he had spent many enjoyable hours reading them by candlelight and adjusting the text of his paper.

  “You’re going to be sleepwalking all day if you keep this up,” his wife Nur had told him from bed as he sat at the tiny desk in the corner of their one-room house on the edge of town.

  She was right, of course, but what could he do? His boss wouldn’t rest until this murder was solved, and the shop wouldn’t be able to do business. If he wanted to get this paper finished, he had to sacrifice sleep. Usually the muezzin woke him up, but this morning at dawn his call to prayer had signaled the end of Moustafa’s work for the night.

  It had all been worth it. Those borrowed monographs told him of fascinating new discoveries from the Soudan and the southern areas of Egypt around Aswan. The pieces of the puzzle had come together, and Moustafa’s paper now clearly traced how Nubian artistic styles influenced Egyptian art well before the XXV Dynasty moved north out of Nubia around 700 BC to take over Egypt and establish their capital at Thebes. It would be a groundbreaking study.

  Moustafa dozed a little in the motorcar as Herr Schäfer wove around donkey carts and camels. He had vivid, fleeting dreams of fame and prestige in the Egyptological community.

  The mansion of Marcus Simaika stood in the crowded old streets of the Coptic district of south Cairo. Moustafa had never been to this neighborhood before, and noted with interest that other than there being churches instead of mosques, and notably fewer beards among the men on the street, it looked just like any other neighborhood in the city.

  Simaika lived in a European-style mansion enclosed by a high wall. The two doormen both had pistols in holsters on their belts. Zehra had telephoned ahead and they were immediately ushered into a fine sitting room decorated with medieval Coptic textiles and wood carvings.

  Simaika was a portly man in his middle years whose most distinguishing features were his thick white moustache and his steady, piercing gaze. He dressed in a European suit that looked like it had been imported from London and spoke French with a refined accent. This was out of courtesy to Herr Schäfer, who being an educated man of course spoke excellent French. Moustafa felt flattered that the Copt assumed he spoke French as well.

  After the usual introductions and pleasantries, plus the required offer of tea and a heaping plate of pastries, Simaika was quick to get down to business. To Moustafa’s surprise, Simaika addressed Moustafa directly.

  “I heard where that sarcophagus I sold ended up. No doubt that is why you are here.”

  “Yes,” Moustafa said, somewhat taken aback. “How did you know I work for Mr. Wall?”

  “How did I know that the city’s newest antiquities dealer has an assistant fluent in hieroglyphics? You underestimate yourself, Moustafa Ghani El Souwaim. You are quite well known in our little circle of dealers and suppliers.”

  “I see,” Moustafa replied, unsure whether to be flattered or worried. With the amount of trouble his boss regularly landed him in, it would perhaps be better to remain anonymous.

  “You have a rare ability for languages, from what I hear,” Simaika said, switching to Arabic. Then he switched to English. “A man like you could be quite useful to me.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Simaika, but I am already employed,” he replied, saying the first half of the sentence in Arabic and finishing with English. He felt tempted to throw in some ancient Greek he’d picked up but decided that would be rude. On the other hand, Mr. Simaika might reply in kind and Moustafa wasn’t sure he could keep up his end of the conversation.

  “A pity,” the Copt said, keeping that steady gaze on him for a moment before turning to the others. “Now on to the matter at hand. You are no doubt here to ask after the men who bought that Old Kingdom sarcophagus. Let me tell you all I know. Firstly, as I am sure you are aware, I spend much time rummaging through Coptic monasteries, churches, and old houses looking for antiquities for the Coptic Museum. Pope Cyril has been most gracious in allowing me access to all religious buildings. In the course of my searching I often find or am offered various pagan artifacts. If I can get a good deal, I buy them and sell them on at a profit. It helps fund my work. Well, a few months ago when in the Delta I was offered that sarcophagus at a good price.”

  “Who sold it to you?” Zehra Hanzade asked.

  The Copt shrugged. “No one of importance. A local village headman who claimed that some of his peasants discovered it. A simple man who was glad t
o get paid more than he earned in six months for some stone that otherwise would have been used as a water trough for bullocks.”

  Zehra laughed, eliciting smiles from every man in the room. “Six month’s wages for a village headman is considerably less than what that sarcophagus is worth. I commend you on your skill. Perhaps my husband and I should spend more time in the villages during our antiquities hunting expeditions.”

  Moustafa noted that she glanced his way when she said this, a signal that Marcus Simaika didn’t know the antiquities they sold were fakes. Moustafa was the only one who had discovered their secret, and only because they had created a duplicate of a statuette that he had seen come out of the ground with his own eyes. Pure luck on his part, and it appeared that otherwise luck had always been on the Hanzades’ side.

  “Indeed,” Simaika said. “It is time consuming but every now and then one finds a bargain. I put the sarcophagus up for sale, along with a few other objects collected in my last expedition. Only the pagan objects, mind you. I never sell my Coptic heritage. I placed a small advertisement in the Egyptian Gazette two weeks ago, and got a quick response.”

  “What did the advertisement say about the sarcophagus?” Heinrich Schäfer asked.

  “The exact words were ‘Old Kingdom sarcophagus with lion skin decoration.’”

  Moustafa smiled. Did no one recognize a panther when they saw one? It didn’t matter. If Sir Thomas Russell’s assumption was correct, the mistake had roped in the Apache gang. Marcus Simaika went on.

  “A few days later I had a visit from three Frenchmen. Their appearance took me aback. Obviously working class and obviously ignorant of antiquities. They spoke such a low French that I could barely understand them. I almost threw them out, thinking they were thieves taking a look at my stock with plans for some nighttime burglary, but they showed great enthusiasm about the sarcophagus and flashed quite a lot of cash, so who was I to say no?”

  “Did they have any Egyptians with them?” Moustafa asked, thinking of the two Egyptians Karim the watchman had noticed.

  “No, but when they came to pick up the sarcophagus they brought two more Frenchmen. These were equally low class, although one was a clever fellow who set up quite a network of pulleys on the back of a truck to move the sarcophagus. I wish I could have better understood his method. He moved it with such ease it was as if it was made of wood rather than stone.”

  “Could you describe them?”

  “Rough characters, all in their twenties or early thirties. One has several thin scars, as if from a razor, along the back one one hand and forearm. Two had tanned skins and had obviously lived in our part of the world for some time, while the others were sunburnt, obviously more recent arrivals. The clever one was a recent arrival. He wasn’t the leader, though. All took instructions from the toughest of the lot. He was the one with the scars, and a tan, and looked the oldest.”

  “Did you get their names or addresses?”

  “None were mentioned. I’m afraid that’s all I know. Oh, two other things—they paid in French francs and my guards disarmed them when they came in. My men are quite good at spotting hidden arms.”

  “What did they carry?” Moustafa asked.

  “Pistols and knives, each and every one of them. Except for the leader. He didn’t carry anything at all.”

  Suleiman took another pastry from the plate on the tea table and asked, “I don’t want to give offence, but I must say I’m amazed that you let such people into your house.”

  Marcus Simaika laughed. “After the independence demonstrations, all the foreigners go armed. The knives seemed a bit odd, of course, since most are content with pistols, but they gave up their weapons readily enough and as I said they paid the asking price. That was enough to buy several fine Coptic textiles to adorn a new room in the museum. After all these foreigners have taken from us, I was only too happy to receive something back. Oh, no offense intended, Herr Schäfer. Foreign scholars who respect our ways are always welcome in our country.”

  “None taken, good sir,” the German said, puffing on his pipe.

  The Coptic leader raised his hands to the air. “I’m afraid there’s nothing else I can tell you. I haven’t heard from them since. I’ll be sure to get in touch if I learn more. And please, don’t bring my name into the investigation.”

  “Of course not,” Zehra said. “We understand the delicate position you are in.”

  They got up to leave. As they passed through the front hall, Moustafa stopped to admire some bas-reliefs mounted on the wall. One showed a pair of Christian crosses flanking an ankh, the ancient Egyptian symbol of life.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” Simaika said. “This is quite early, perhaps 5th century. The first Christians in our country adopted the use of the ankh to symbolize the eternal life offered by God. Later they switched to a crucifix like the rest of the Christian world. This is a transitional piece. I have others like it, including one long frieze of alternating ankhs and crosses. I hang this here to remind myself that the dividing lines between the various religions aren’t as clear as we tend to think. We are all, are we not, seeking the divine?”

  “I saw a demonstration during the first days of the big rallies where both Copts and Muslims had linked arms to block the police from moving down the street,” Moustafa said.

  Simaika’s face lit up. “That’s what we need more of in this country—unity. It’s the only way we’ll be able to kick the British out.”

  Moustafa glanced at the others, but they had already moved down the hall to admire some intricately carved wood paneling.

  “I’m not sure we’re ready for independence,” Moustafa said. “Most of our people are ignorant and apathetic.”

  “If not now, when? The very act of struggling for our freedom will prepare us for it. Wouldn’t you rather work for an Egyptian?”

  Moustafa blinked at the sudden change of subject.

  “I am quite happy with my current job,” he blurted out.

  Simaika raised a calming hand. “From all I have heard, Sir Augustus Wall is one of the good ones, and I am sure working for him is most stimulating, perhaps too stimulating. But I can offer you an interesting position. There’s more to our history than pharaohs and pyramids. I could teach you Coptic, and teach you all about our art. You could come on my collection trips. Wouldn’t you like to explore the storage rooms of monasteries that date back a thousand years, uncovering old manuscripts that haven’t been read in centuries? And I’ll match what he’s paying you.”

  Moustafa froze for a second, his body at odds with his racing heart. At last he said, “Mr. Wall has been good to me. Thank you, but I think I’ll remain where I am.”

  Simaika inclined his head and smiled as if he had expected this response. He produced a business card and handed it to Moustafa. “If you ever change your mind, call me any time. I’m going to the Sinai next month. Have you ever seen St. Catherine’s? It’s one of our nation’s great religious monuments. Once we have our freedom we will need trained men like you to manage our heritage. There could be a place for you in the new order.”

  Moustafa didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. Taking the card with a bow, he went to rejoin the others. He spent the car ride back in silence, deep in thought.

  Moustafa managed to grab a quick nap before Mr. Wall returned. To his surprise, he did not come alone. He brought a murderer along—Sir Thomas Russell Pasha. How many innocent protestors had that man ordered shot in the streets a couple of months ago? No one knew for sure. The government claimed only one, the Wafd Party claimed two hundred, and the truth lay probably somewhere in between. Moustafa himself had seen several die. And then there were the hundreds injured, and hundreds more still languishing in tiny cells in the Citadel.

  Moustafa struggled to control his anger. He couldn’t touch that man and live. Oddly, the police commandant came accompanied by a woman whose resemblance and easy manner with him made Moustafa guess that she was his sister.


  “Things all right at the store here today, Moustafa?” Mr. Wall asked.

  Moustafa understood the message. They would reveal nothing to Russell Pasha. Moustafa suspected his boss liked showing up the police commandant. Moustafa liked it too.

  “Nothing of note except a few business matters we can discuss after we’ve entertained our guests, boss. Would the police commandant like some tea?”

  “No thank you,” Russell Pasha said.

  Pity, Moustafa thought. I would have enjoyed spitting in it.

  He turned to the woman. “Madam?”

  “No thank you,” she answered, not looking at him but at Mr. Wall. “Will you show me around?”

  “Very well,” Mr. Wall said. Moustafa could tell by the curt reply that he was impatient.

  The woman seemed to pick this up as well, but instead of taking the hint she smiled at Mr. Wall, took his arm, and led him over to a shelf of statuettes.

  “These are the sorts of things Aunt Pearl likes to have on her mantelpiece. She has quite the collection of Indian gods and goddesses.”

  “Then one or two animal-headed deities would fit well with all the multi-limbed Asians,” Mr. Wall said. “Perhaps Aunt Pearl should pick them herself?”

  “She did want to come,” Russell Pasha said, “but she felt a bit tired after her, ah, afternoon constitutional.”

  “If it was anything like her noon constitutional, an elephant would feel tired,” Mr. Wall murmured.

  “Steady!” Russell Pasha said, but his sister only laughed.

  “You’re wicked!” she said.

  “Madam, you have no idea,” Mr. Wall replied.

  Moustafa busied himself with dusting and setting out some new displays sent by the Hanzades while his boss tried and failed to alienate the woman through mild rudeness and a noticeable lack of attention. For some reason, that only made her friendlier. Moustafa decided not to try and unravel that particular mystery. Egyptian women were hard enough to understand; European women were inscrutable.