The Egyptologist

by Arthur Phillips

  But why would the killer deny it to the very end, even when a lengthy prison term was facing him? Well, the history of Egyptology, I learnt from a fellow in a club back in Cairo, is filled with stories like this: the modern Egyptian, with no real interest in the historical aspect of this underground gold, only cares about it as money. Native families often clandestinely dug up and slowly sold (sometimes over generations) these archaeological treasures, which they viewed (considering what they saw as the Western mania for them) as underground bank accounts to be disbursed as necessary. Trilipush’s killer willingly went to prison to protect friends and family planning to support themselves over years by slowly dribbling out through trusted fences the vast funereal treasures of King Atum-hadu.

  And, on the train from Cairo to Alexandria, my assistant Macy and I discussed another question: just who should have had the treasure of Atum-hadu? Did it belong to Trilipush, who killed Paul Caldwell and Hugo Marlowe for it? Or Chester Crawford Finneran, who paid for Trilipush’s discovery? Or Julius Padraig O’Toole, who had loaned Finneran that money? Or the next of kin of Paul Davies-Caldwell and Hugo Marlowe? Hector Marlowe and Emma Hoyt? I suppose the heirs of this Egyptian killer had as much claim to it as anyone else in this dirty business, and I wasn’t much interested in spurring the authorities to pursue them, trying to shake the tree until the confederates fell to the ground. Yet again, mere money had driven men mad, as it always does, and in the end, the cost was four dead bodies, one abandoned young woman, a man in prison, and heartbreak stretching from Sydney to Luxor to London to Boston. Money’s an accelerating motivator, Macy, and when it begins to drive men, it tends to drive them right over a cliff.

  I collected my fees and expenses, of course, from my clients—the Davies Estate, Tommy Caldwell, Ronald Barry, Emma Hoyt, the Marlowes, O’Toole—reported to them as much as I could of what they needed to know, and I was back home in Sydney by late July 1923, a little more than a year after I’d left. There wasn’t, in the end, much coverage of the case, just the Luxor Times. I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed at this curious indifference of the World Press.

  Justice was served, though, the truth was laid bare, those who’d sinned were punished. For me, of course, it’d been the adventure of a lifetime, one of the most remarkable cases of my career, the fruit of all my powers of deduction and detection at their prime. I’d travelled the globe, entered the homes of the wealthy and powerful, seen men and women in all walks of life motivated by those universal impulses that guide every last one of us, and I was never, when I reflected on what I saw, truly surprised, not truly. When you understand them, people can’t surprise you, you see. Their motives are sometimes hidden, but they’re not numerous. People are open books, once you’ve learnt how to read. That’s both a curse and a delight, but it’s an unavoidable result of being a dedicated student of human nature, which every good detective most certainly is.

  I hope I’ve filled in the outlines and logic of the case with enough justice to complete your “family history” and also to let you expand it for our readers.

  I look back now on this, though, and I’m a little troubled by the amount of time I’ve spent telling you this story. You see, I’ve already selected our next case from my files, my friend, and were I equipped with a recorder and microphone, I could simply dictate the tale. I shouldn’t think the expense would be too prohibitive. It would, of course, be figured into our partnership agreement, if you can spare the sum in advance. I look forward to your thoughts on this matter. I await your word. I’m ready to begin as soon as I hear from you. Our readers await. Time is of the essence.

  Yours in limbo,

  Ferrell

  Miss Margaret Finneran

  2 Commonwealth Avenue

  Boston

  January 25, 1923

  My dear Miss Finneran,

  As Mr. Trilipush’s employment with Harvard concluded at the end of the autumn term, I am taking the liberty of forwarding you the post that has accumulated in his office during his continued wanderings in Egypt, to wit: six journals of Egyptology and archaeology; a personal package from England; two letters from museums; and a few notes from students (not sealed). If you would be good enough to forward these to Mr. Trilipush when he returns from Egypt, that would save us all a good deal of trouble and embarrassment.

  With every good wish for your approaching nuptials to the great man,

  C. ter Breuggen

  Chair, Egyptology

  PERSONAL for Professor R. M. Trilipush

  In care of the Department of Egyptian Studies

  University of Harvard

  Cambridge, The United States of America

  29 September, 1922

  My dearest Ralph,

  I have just spent a positively dreary afternoon (and this on one of the rare sunny days our moody, not to say bitchy, Heavenly Father has granted us of late). I was forced to pass a rather exhausting hour or two with this little Australian fellow, all spotty and orange-coloured, with a head of the most ludicrous fur. The very moment he left I set pen to paper to you, as he was kind enough to give me your address at dear, lovely Harvard. Harvard! How very grand! Of course, for old Balliol men like you and me, perhaps just a bit provincial, no? Don’t I recall Marlowe calling it some rather amusing names? “The last refuge of the unemployable”?

  Well, I see I’ve told a fib: no, I did not set pen to paper the very moment he left, dear. I waited until he was well and truly out the building and on his way, and then I had a bit of a sob first. I am no longer prone to dramatics, Ralph, not for a very long time, but wretched little Mr. Ferrell, a detective of the dullest variety, delivered me the confirmation of some very bad news. Nothing I hadn’t suspected for years now, but it’s one thing to know something and quite another to know it, if you see my meaning. When I saw your dear book autographed for Hugo’s parents, well then I knew what you of course have known for years already, what I daily feared but tried vainly not to believe.

  Calm down, ducks, I can imagine you running about in a frenzy. I have my grief and my grievance, but no real complaint to make to you, considering the events with fairness. Rending my garments whilst blithering to the constabulary and Hugo’s dreary family certainly holds no appeal. You are free, as far as I am concerned. As long as I never actually meet you, I can imagine his face on you and tell myself he lives on in you, but there are some things you should know, before you make any more fatal errors. I should hate to see Hugo’s creation meet his divine maker too soon. To begin with, Hugo’s unbearable parents are called Hector and Regina, our Hugo’s persistent claims to the contrary notwithstanding. Sit down, my angel, the story grows rather more surprising.

  I rather overdid it for Ferrell just now, but he was quite asking for it. Normally I offer my more conservative visitors a mild and harmless atmosphere, but this one, this vile little Aussie farmer, wasted hardly a moment before loosing his Wilde references and sneering intolerably and asserting his taste in ladies. If I hadn’t been curious to hear what he knew about our Hugo and you, I would have thrashed him unconscious, dressed him in skirts, and left him in the street. As it was, I did perform rather dramatically for him. The little man’s face when I—preparing to ring a velvet cord which led to nothing but a curtain—asked him if he wouldn’t “savour an Arab boy to go with his coffee” was all the entertainment I’ve had in weeks.

  Also, I’m a wee bit triste because I have held on to the enclosed pages for years now, despite enquiries from Hugo’s family and our vulgar antipodal sleuth. But what good are they to me now? You were led out of Egypt, not he.

  I have become an impossible bore, these last years. I should be a hero to the youth of London, and all I do is sit in my rooms, getting daily older. I had a visit the other day from a Balliol chum, and he quite rightly chided me for becoming an old woman, something out of Balzac. Have you read Balzac? Hugo described you as quite maniacal for your field, but not much for other things. There is more to life than— Oh, listen to me, as if I hav
e any right to urge you to expand your horizons, when mine have shrunk to a handful of letters from a dead soldier-boy.

  I am enclosing five. They explain everything you need to know, except, I suppose, where it all began. Originally, at Oxford, he was a bit of a joke, you see, just some easy camouflage, a mutually corroborated name, a fellow we could all use when corresponding with the maters and the paters. It had become dogma, you see, in our circles, that we were incurable, though there were still some glum fellows amongst us who tried to resist, or curse our natures, or do as the aged parents demanded of us and speak to some horrid specialist down in London, in Harley Street, who was prescribing psycho-analysis, showers, travel, boxing. (“What about wrestling, love?” I asked him.) How all the parents seemed to know of the same quack is beyond me. At any rate, the boldest of us—Hugo, of course—simply said one day as the little club was dining in our apartments, “What’s wrong with you girls? You submit to this? I refuse treatment. Why don’t they seek treatment?” Delicious: the thought of our uncomfortable fathers seeking out a cure for their persistent gynophilia from some delicate doctor of our choosing. We all loved Hugo, you know. I could never have him all to myself, even then. But he was so very much what I longed to be. Women never looked at him, of course; he was not built for them, and the beasts could sniff that out from miles away, while my appearance always confounded them and had them dropping their Jane Austen novels near me with significant looks in their eyes.

  “Well, I refuse,” said our Hugo. But some of the younger men were not as brave, so Hugo suggested that we all tell our families that we were already cured, much better, thanks, and thinking seriously of proposing to a young woman of good family we’d met recently at a party. What was her name meant to be? Odd, now I cannot produce more than Gwendolyn, but that isn’t it. And, best of all, Mother and Father, we have met the most marvellous fellow, greatest friend, just the fellow one goes up to Oxford hoping to meet, he will probably be my second should I muster the nerve to tell this lovely girl just how superlative I think she is, and he, well, he was flexible, that was his charm; he was whatever you thought your parents wished to hear. If they or that leech in Harley Street had had the audacity to discourage you from your current circle of friends, just reassure them that you were now spending your free moments in the company of a grand fellow, a tremendously trustworthy chap of good breeding who was rowing like Odysseus that season, who was running like Hermes, who was certain to take a first in Egyptology (on this, Hugo insisted for uniformity), who was engaged to Lady Mumblemumble, who was going to return to Kent and refurbish the family Hall to its previous condition, and take his estates in hand, show the local yeomen what a twentieth-century gentleman farmer looked like, and on and on, to one’s taste, or one’s parents’ taste, to be accurate. I am sure you have heard it all, dear boy. Hugo provided an extensive biography for those fellows who weren’t terribly creative, even arranged for a few of the boys to have their photograph done in sporting garb with a local man who fit the bill. We would even go to Hugo for suggestions: “Mother wants to meet him next month. What shall I do?” Hugo handled everything, calmed our nerves, scripted whatever tales we needed, and our parents breathed easy. Our troublesome flaw acquired at school had quite vanished at University.

  I still cannot precisely make out what happened that November day in the desert. I know what Hugo meant to do, dear Ralph. I do hope you have forgiven him that, old man. Can you really blame him? No, no more than I can blame you for the result. (Or blame myself: Hugo quite misconstrued my counsel.) But might you write me and reminisce over the events? I think you owe me that filament of peace.

  Did you love him, a little? I have to think you did. How could it have been otherwise? How could he not inspire love? Especially in one whose heart is open a bit, you who dare not speak your name. You knew him last. You could write me about Hugo at War, describe his days.

  Now then, with a packet of letters, you are all at once educated. But do not stop being yourself! That would be, without question, the wrong moral of this tale! No, I don’t mean to discourage you, Ralph, any more than I mean to hunt you, or ask the police to muck about in our lives. I am simply giving you the knowledge you need to carry on, because, after all, you are our love’s labour, dear boy, and you mustn’t be lost—your continued success does us honour. You are the walking expression of Hugo, his Adam outliving him, but still performing just as he built you. Oh, by all means, carry on, old Ralph, your Creator was proud of you, even if in a moment of weakness he did try to destroy you. Gods can be like that. And when I hear of your triumphs (such as this very droll little book of smut, which Hugo would have heartily admired), I shall sing to myself that in you Hugo walks the earth still, as alive as when last I embraced him.

  He crafted you out of bits of cloth and horsehair stuffing, just to make me laugh, you know. Whatever you were to him, whatever he neglected to tell me, it is as nothing compared to what we were and what a gift he made to me of you, his Gui-gnol, whose stage is everywhere and whose strings stretch all the way up to some tastefully louche paradise. I can certainly imagine you today, nameless boy, talking as much like Hugo as you can. Do you trim and stretch “good morning” into “g’d mmmmorrrrning”? Do you call people Sven when you can’t recall their names? Do you bait the gynophiles and call them ducks? Of course you do, ducks.

  Only, as a favour to this acolyte, give a thought, from time to time, to what you let die in a faraway desert. I do hope you were not cruel about it.

  Your admirer,

  B. Quint

  16 January, 1918

  Dearest Bevvy,

  If you long for something cheering to enliven your dreary days in grey old England, then I have a tale to amuse you without fail: I am being—oh, oh! Mightn’t there be a censor or two peering over your shoulder? Well, never mind. I am an officer, and I shall slip this through to you clean somehow. I know a wounded fellow heading home who can carry an envelope. Trust your Go-go.

  So out with it then: I am being blackmailed and it is delicious, I must tell you. It has brightened my dull, dusty existence here no end. I thought I should go mad if I had to interrogate one more of these old native women suspected of some or another contact with the ferocious Enemy, as if the Egyptians aren’t one and all simply delighted to be our Allies and top chums, from every little brown newborn to every old wrinkled labourer. Not to complain overly, though. Thanks to the work, my Arabic has grown quite good, if rather peculiar, for when I am the only interrogator in the room I am free to try out my more recherché phrases on the freshest quivering, treasonous youths.

  But my tale.

  You have no reason to know this, but here in our little home away from hygiene we are but forty miles from a suburb called Tel el Kebir, an antipodal colony, a festival of jolly waltzing matildas and swagmen, those remnants who weren’t sent off to splash their insides all over the Bosporus for what, I haven’t the slightest doubt, were unmistakably brilliant strategic considerations. For the most part one avoids them, of course, though some of their officers are not absolute ovinophiles and one is required to consult with them now and again whilst in the thunderous councils of war, devising devilishly clever coups to dazzle the fezzy heads of our wicked Enemy. I was even forced to spend a week billeted amongst these odd marsupials, liaising, as we say, though we say it in the least amusing sense of that word the Army could devise. The point: one of these dear young upside-down fellows found me in circumstances that merit illustration.

  Some weeks after my return from the diggers’ camp, I had quite put them out of my mind. Then, one evening—one of those nights that make this whole fancy-dress ball worth the trouble, almost make you thank the King for taking the time out of his schedule to engage in this dust-up with his cousin—I left the base for a rendez-vous I had arranged amongst my beloved pyramids at Gizeh, which is a longish trip from here but a pleasant one on a motorcycle late at night.

  Setting please, Bev: the apex of Cheops’s pyramid pene
trated the silver disk of moon, rather charmingly like a head on a pike. The attenuated black shadows of the three pyramids fell behind their yellow-white selves, making a backgammon board of the desert, and I cut the ’cycle’s engine. I walked towards the pyramids, sultry on this silver-black night as if they were absolutely luring me into a tryst. But for my expected guest, I was, I thought, the only man in the ancient desert, and these three proud beauties, along with their noseless pimp, called me onto the sand, where we could all be alone together. Soon thereafter, my appointment arrived, a native son I had interrogated that day, a quite innocent fellow hauled in for reasons known only to some Emma Pip or other. As I was the only Arabic speaker in the interrogation, I took the opportunity of telling him that the best way to avoid future trouble with his masterful English overlords was to meet me for a tour of the pyramids after midnight. “His Excellency does me too much honour,” replied the coquette. “What’s he saying, then?” asked the sergeant. “He says he is a submissive subject.” “A likely story, the little black bastard,” grumbles old sarge, and I assured him I would keep the boy’s name on file and have my legendary network of spies watch him constantly.

  Well, we’d placed ourselves in the shadow of the great pyramid, my interrogatee and I, making a great pyramid of our own, when I heard another motorcycle engine, but it seemed to be heading off in the other direction (damned echoes). A few minutes later I looked down and noticed I was no longer standing in shadow (damned mobile moon) but rather on moon-blanched sand, and only a moment later I heard a throat clear, and out of the dark steps this little private (whilst one’s own little private remained well-concealed).