The Eye of the Serpent

by Philip Caveney

  ‘Mr Hinton, I—’ Llewellyn broke off in alarm as he was suddenly surrounded by a clutch of shouting Arabs, all trying to sell him their wares. Each of them held a small stone statue. As far as Llewellyn could see, the statues were all identical.

  ‘This very old, effendi,’ one of them insisted. ‘From tomb of Tutankhamun! You buy, only twelve piastres!’

  ‘No, you buy mine, eleven piastres!’

  ‘Get away from me!’ Llewellyn pushed impatiently past them, only to see that Tom had turned on his heel and was hurrying away as though he had no intention of speaking to anyone.

  ‘Mr Hinton! Wait!’ Llewellyn struggled to the far side of the road and went after Tom. He pushed his prodigious bulk through the people milling around the stall, the exertion bringing beads of sweat to his brow. He could see Tom’s head and shoulders some twenty yards ahead of him, his slim frame moving with ease through the crowd, but Llewellyn was determined not to let him get away. He hadn’t come all this way to be outrun by some jumped-up Englishman who felt like being secretive.

  He hurried past more stalls, ignoring the cries of the vendors. A donkey cart laden with fruit came trotting towards him and he had to press back to one side to allow it to go by. When he resumed the chase, he saw that Tom had gained a few yards on him and he quickened his pace in an attempt to make up the lost ground.

  ‘Mr Hinton!’ he shouted, abandoning all thought of decorum. ‘Please wait. I don’t mean you any harm. I just want to ask a few questions!’

  But Tom did not glance back, nor did he slow his pace. He seemed intent on escape.

  A couple of ragged children, alerted by Llewellyn’s shouts, came trotting along in his wake, pulling at the hem of his jacket, each of them holding out a hand to beg for baksheesh. They were grinning up at him like tiny demons.

  ‘Get lost, you little pests!’ snarled Llewellyn but they took no notice of his entreaties and in the end he had to put a hand into his pocket and throw a couple of piastres onto the ground beside them. Instantly there was a commotion as the children scrambled to pick up the coins and he was able to leave them in his wake. However, the exertion was taking its toll on him. He was gasping for breath and his shirt was sodden with sweat. It occurred to him that he was in danger of suffering a heart attack, right here in the midst of this crowd, and there would be nobody to help him.

  ‘Mr Hinton!’ he cried again. ‘Please stop!’

  Now he saw that Tom was turning left along a narrow alley. Llewellyn followed, straining to see his way in the darkness. It smelled like something had died in there and the sight of several barrels of rotting fish heads confirmed exactly what that something was. The smell was overlaid with the combined stench of stagnant water and urine. A mangy cat was exploring the fish heads, trying to find something that was still edible. Good luck to him, thought Llewellyn as he hurried on by; and he thought once again of the Winter Palace. Even the name seemed cool and reassuring. Why wasn’t he there enjoying a glass of chilled champagne? Why was he wasting his time chasing after a man who clearly didn’t want to be found?

  Up at the top of the alley he saw the dull glow of an oil lamp hanging over a weathered wooden doorway. Tom opened the door and ducked inside, closing it after him.

  Right, thought Llewellyn, and his resolve stiffened. If he thinks he’s escaped me, he’s got another think coming. He marched quickly up to the door and reached for the handle. He had expected it to be locked but it turned with a sharp click and swung open beneath his hand. He felt a brief sense of surprise, almost of disappointment. He had expected to have to throw his considerable weight against the door in order to force it open.

  He stepped inside and found himself in a small, windowless room made of sun-dried clay brick, the interior lit only by the smoky glow of a hurricane lamp on a rickety wooden table. Tom Hinton was standing in one corner of the room, as though waiting for Llewellyn. His face was expressionless.

  ‘Close the door,’ he said quietly.

  Llewellyn did as Tom asked. Then he turned back. ‘Why did you run away?’ he asked, taking out a handkerchief and mopping at his sweat-soaked forehead.

  ‘I didn’t know who you were,’ said Tom. ‘I panicked.’ He motioned to a couple of chairs. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘sit down. I see I’ve caused you some discomfort.’

  Llewellyn nodded and moved to the nearest chair, which creaked in protest under the detective’s considerable weight, but happily did not collapse. Tom took the seat opposite and sat looking at Llewellyn with what seemed like considerable interest. The detective noticed some kind of charm around his neck on a leather thong, a big chunky blue stone with an eye painted on it. It seemed an odd thing to be wearing, the kind of adornment you might expect to see around the neck of an ancient warrior, not a middle-class British archaeologist.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Tom.

  ‘My name is Wilfred Llewellyn. I’m a private detective. Your parents contacted me when you went missing and begged me to come out to Egypt to search for you.’

  Tom’s mouth curved into a sardonic smile. ‘Missing?’ he said. ‘I’m not missing.’

  Llewellyn allowed himself a sympathetic nod. ‘No, I can see that. But you did walk away from the excavation without a word to anybody, the same night that Sir William was taken ill, and none of your friends or relatives have heard from you since. Surely you can see, Mr Hinton, that this would be a cause for concern?’

  Tom gave Llewellyn an odd look. ‘That’s not my name,’ he said. ‘Hinton.’

  Llewellyn was baffled. ‘But of course it is!’ he protested.

  Tom shook his head. ‘I was Tom Hinton, for a time,’ he said. ‘Now I answer to a different name. Oh, I still have everything I took from him. I have his voice, his mind, his intellect. Even his bones.’

  Llewellyn began to get a bad feeling about this. Clearly Tom had suffered some kind of nervous breakdown, just like Sir William. Whatever had happened on that fateful night, had Tom witnessed it too?

  ‘Come along, sir,’ said Llewellyn. ‘Of course you are Tom Hinton.’ He took the photograph from his pocket and set it down on the tabletop. ‘And here is the proof.’

  Tom picked it up and gazed at it, a curious expression on his face, as though he had forgotten that he looked as he did. ‘It’s an understandable mistake,’ he said calmly. He stared up at Llewellyn with renewed interest. ‘So tell me, Mr Llewellyn. You are known to the people at the dig? They . . . have accepted you?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t they?’

  Tom shrugged his shoulders. ‘I only ask the question because it has occurred to me that the form I now occupy is awkward for me. People are looking for Tom Hinton and it could cause me problems. But of course, nobody is looking for you, are they, Mr Llewellyn? Nobody looks for the one who is looking. You can come and go as you please.’

  Llewellyn snorted. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re on about,’ he confessed. ‘But whatever name you answer to these days, I have found my man and I am duty bound to report my discovery to the appropriate authorities.’

  ‘You need not worry about that,’ said Tom flatly. ‘Very soon now, the form you look upon will be gone for ever and you will no longer be concerned with such trivial matters. I have a favour to ask of you, Mr Llewellyn.’

  ‘A favour?’ asked Llewellyn irritably. ‘What favour?’

  Tom leaned across the table as though to confide something; and Llewellyn became aware of a peculiar smell emanating from him – a sharp sulphuric tang that seemed to catch at the back of his throat.

  ‘Would you mind awfully if I borrowed your body?’ whispered Tom.

  ‘Borrowed my . . .?’ Llewellyn stared at Tom in disbelief and then gave an incredulous laugh. ‘What are you talking about?’ he cried. ‘Borrow my body? Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I’m deadly serious.’

  Llewellyn stared at him. He didn’t understand any of this. Tom was just smil
ing at him in a horribly smug way, as though he knew something that Llewellyn could never even guess at. Llewellyn was about to say something else, but just at that moment something strange and rather frightening happened.

  Tom’s left eyebrow suddenly raised itself up from his face. It thickened, rounded and fell onto the table, where it became smooth and shiny. Llewellyn stared down in disgust as it transformed itself into a large, dark-brown beetle. It scuttled quickly across the table and shot straight up the sleeve of Llewellyn’s jacket. An instant later he felt a sharp sting in the fleshy part of his forearm. He let out an oath and tried to move away from the table, but the rickety old chair finally gave up the struggle to hold his weight and collapsed beneath him. He crashed to the floor and lay there, winded, for a moment, staring up at Tom Hinton, who was still sitting at the table.

  As Llewellyn gazed at him, Tom’s face began to fall apart. Smooth round pieces of flesh raised themselves up, turned dark and shiny and fell onto the tabletop with a plop. At first it was just a few pieces, but then, as if at a signal, his whole face was moving and raining down fat brown beetles, which came swarming down the table legs towards Llewellyn. The mocking face that stared down at him was rapidly turning into a hideous skull from which the distinctive blue eyes glittered with feral malignance.

  ‘First my friends consume the old flesh,’ announced the thing that had been Tom Hinton. ‘And then the new flesh takes over . . .’

  For a second Llewellyn was transfixed, too horrified to make a move, as scores of scarabs skittered beneath the layers of his clothing. Then he felt the terrible pain of hundreds of tiny jaws going to work on his flesh and the agony galvanized him into action. He scrambled to his feet, flinging off his jacket and throwing it aside. He began to tear at his sodden white shirt, aware as he did so that pools of crimson were blossoming on it like flowers of evil. Buttons popped off as he pulled the shirt open and stared down at his chest, gasping in fear. Even as he looked, a glistening dark brown tide of insects was swarming over it.

  Pain consumed his body like molten fire and he tried tearing at the creatures with his fingers, but they were locked into his flesh and the tide was rising higher, up around his neck, his chins. He looked down at his feet and saw that the advancing swarm was unstoppable: more and more of the creatures were moving in beneath the hem of his trousers. At the table, a talking skeleton dressed in khaki clothes was speaking to him in a flat, tinny-sounding voice.

  ‘Don’t fight it, Mr Llewellyn. Embrace the new flesh. The pain is soon over and then you will begin a new life; a life free from pain and remorse.’

  ‘Stop it!’ screamed Llewellyn. ‘Please, stop!’

  The tide was moving up around his mouth now and he clamped it shut, not wanting to allow the scarabs in. He turned and began to stumble towards the door, but his half-eaten leg muscles no longer had the strength to hold him upright and he fell heavily to the floor, writhing in agony. Scarabs were pushing their way into his nostrils now, preventing him from drawing breath, and then dark shapes were moving to cover his eyes. He rolled onto his back and looked at the table, just in time to see the skeleton collapse and crash to the floor, breaking into pieces on impact. Then darkness descended and there was just pain.

  Mohammed sat in his Ford and wondered how much longer the private detective was going to be. It was all very well working as Mr Llewellyn’s personal chauffeur – the money was good – but Mohammed had other work to be getting on with and he couldn’t even hope to start on that until he’d delivered Llewellyn to the Winter Palace.

  It was funny about Mr Hinton though. Mohammed hadn’t got a good look at the man’s face, but it had appeared to be him – the same tall physique and straight blond hair; but if it was him, why did he rush away as though he had something to hide? Of course, Mr Llewellyn had handled it all wrong. Why had he shouted to the man like that, warning him that he was there? If Mohammed had been on the case, he’d have crept quietly up to Mr Hinton and tapped him on the shoulder, not giving him the opportunity to run away. Mohammed was beginning to wonder just how good a detective Mr Llewellyn was.

  As if in answer to the thought, Mohammed saw the Welshman walking back along the crowded street but something about him seemed wrong. He was clasping his white jacket tightly around him as though it was cold; and as he stepped out of the crowd, Mohammed saw that the detective’s trousers were covered with dark stains as though he had spilled a glass of wine down the front of them and as he moved closer, Mohammed saw that the collar of his white shirt was also stained.

  A couple of children came running after him, hands held out to beg for coins. Llewellyn turned and glared at them and said something under his breath, causing the children to run away, terrified.

  Llewellyn turned back towards the car, and now Mohammed was baffled because – and this was really odd – the detective’s bloated body didn’t seem quite as bulky as it had a short while ago. Oh, he was still a big man but his white jacket hung loosely on his frame, as though he had somehow managed to lose some weight in that short run along the street. Impossible, of course, and yet . . . As Llewellyn approached the Ford, Mohammed, his amateur detective instincts fully aroused, noticed one last puzzling detail. Mr Llewellyn was no longer sweating – indeed, he seemed perfectly cool and relaxed.

  ‘Are you quite all right, sir?’ asked Mohammed, puzzled by the apparent changes in his client.

  ‘Of course I’m all right,’ snapped Llewellyn. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ He climbed into the back seat and the car filled with a disconcerting smell – not the odour of sweat and lavender water that Mohammed was used to; more as though somebody had just struck a dozen matches at once. Mohammed studied Llewellyn in the mirror. His eyes seemed to have a cold, vacant look in them, and when he spoke, even his voice was different, harder, more abrasive.

  ‘What the hell are you staring at, man?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I was merely concerned. Did you manage to catch up with Mr Hinton?’

  ‘It wasn’t him,’ Llewellyn assured him. ‘They had a similar build but when I got a good look at his face, I could see it was somebody completely different. Felt rather foolish pursuing him down the street like that.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ murmured Mohammed. ‘I could have sworn—’

  ‘It wasn’t him, I told you! Now, for goodness’ sake, are you going to sit around yakking all night or are you going to take me to my hotel?’

  ‘Er . . . of course, sir. Right away, sir.’

  Mohammed started up the car and drove slowly off through the throngs of people, sounding his horn whenever somebody got in his way.

  ‘You will collect me from the hotel at sundown tomorrow and take me back to the bazaar,’ said Llewellyn. It was not a request but an order.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Mr Llewellyn,’ reasoned Mohammed. ‘All this driving – it takes up so much of my time. I have other businesses to run. Perhaps I can send one of my cousins instead.’

  ‘You will come yourself,’ snarled Llewellyn. ‘How much do you earn in one year?’

  ‘I . . . I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘I want to know how much money you earn in a year. I will pay you that amount to be my personal driver for one week. How does that sound?’

  ‘Er . . . very generous, I’m sure but . . . I would need to sit down and work out how much this would be.’

  Llewellyn made a gesture of dismissal. ‘It’s immaterial. You name a price and that’s what I shall give you when my business is concluded.’

  ‘But . . . with respect, Mr Llewellyn, you do not know how long that will take.’

  ‘It will not be long,’ said Llewellyn; and he turned to gaze dreamily out of the window as they drove away from the bazaar.

  Mohammed kept glancing at his passenger in the rear-view mirror. He was convinced now that something was terribly wrong. How could a man change in so many ways in such a short space of time? And why was he lying about finding Tom Hinton?

  Mohammed wasn’t sure what
Wilfred Llewellyn was up to, but he resolved to keep a close eye on him until the truth revealed itself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Early Risers

  THE SUN WAS just peeping over the horizon when Alec took his place at the communal table with the rest of the team. He was used to these early starts from the previous digs, knowing that it was a good idea to get as much as possible done before the heat of the day set in. He’d passed a fitful night, his sleep interrupted by howls echoing around the hills; howls that seemed to descend into maniacal laughter, demonstrating only too well why the creatures making the noise were sometimes referred to as ‘laughing’ hyenas.

  Consequently, this morning he was heavy-eyed and not all that alert. As he took his seat at the table, Archie dutifully placed a bowl in front of him and he stared at the lumpy grey sludge that filled it. He looked hopefully at Coates, who was sitting beside him.

  ‘I’m not sure what it is either,’ said the valet. ‘Mr McCloud claims it’s porridge but it’s not like any I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘As long as there’s no bat in it, I’ll eat it,’ said Alec.

  ‘The very idea!’ growled Archie. ‘That’s just good wholesome porridge oats with a dash of milk and, of course, my own special ingredient.’

  ‘Demerara sugar?’ suggested Doc Hopper hopefully.

  ‘Honey?’ suggested Mickey.

  ‘Golden syrup,’ offered Alec. He raised a spoonful to his mouth and his expression turned to one of total disgust. ‘Salt,’ he croaked. ‘Lots and lots of salt.’

  ‘That is correct,’ said Archie brightly. ‘An absolute necessity in this climate. It’ll replace all that good honest sweat you’re losin’.’

  ‘Mr McCloud,’ said Coates. ‘About that bat curry you threatened to make for tonight’s dinner . . .’

  Archie shook his head. ‘It’s off the menu,’ he said with genuine regret. ‘The ones in the sack smelled rotten from the word go and it got worse during the night. It was so bad, I had to get up and bury them.’